Casey and Jo at the ICA

Casey Brienza and Jo Littler are just back from participating in the International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. ICA ‘is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. ICA began more than 50 years ago as a small association of U.S. researchers and is now a truly international association with more than 4,500 members in 80 countries. Since 2003, ICA has been officially associated with the United Nations as a non-governmental association (NGO).’

Casey gave a paper during the main conference for the ICA’s Communication Law and Policy division titled, ‘Publishing between Profit and Public Value: Academic Books and Open Access Policies.’ This paper explores the ways in which the open access movement in the United Kingdom is affecting academic book publishing. She argues that policy changes risk the unintended consequence of further concentrating control of publishing within a few powerful institutions, such as well-endowed elite universities and those businesses whose profits rely upon managing, manipulating, and repackaging the information freely available in the digital age. An extended version will be published in the 2015 issue of Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook.

Jo gave an invited talk at the Stuart Hall and the Future of Media and Cultural Studies preconference day event, sponsored by the Popular Communication division, in a session on ‘Ideology and Culture.’ Participants in this session discussed the legacies of Stuart Hall’s work and how they activate it. Jo has also reviewed papers in the Philosophy, Theory & Critique division for a number of years.