Some of us EMHIS members came together in wonderful Lugano on 31 October to 3 November for the 7th European Communication Conference (ECC). The conference had the overall theme “Centres and Peripheries: Communication, Research, Translation” and some 1 500 scholars attended.
The Communication History section had a number of fine sessions. EMHIS members Sune Bechmann Pedersen, Marie Cronqvist, Hans-Ulrich Wagner and Philipp Seuferling were among the presenters. On Thursday, Sune presented his and Marie’s paper entitled “Foreign correspondents in the Cold War: Politics and everyday life of East German journalists abroad” in a journalism history panel chaired by Nelson Ribeiro. That same day, Hans-Ulrich also presented his paper “What happens with refugees’ stories and memories when they come to European immigration countries?” in a session panel on media and memory construction. On Friday, Marie presented her work on East German radio with the paper “Conflicting scripts and shortwave listeners: Radio Berlin International (RBI) and its Swedish audience in the autumn of 1989”. And on Saturday, Philipp joined a panel on Mobile Socialities under the Audience and Reception Studies section. His paper was “Media practices among historical refugees”.
In the Business meeting on Thursday, EMHIS member Nelson Ribeiro stepped down from his post as section chair for Communication History section and his successor Gabriele Balbi and his team entered stage. Gabriele was also the main host for the whole ECREA conference, and he and his associates along with other staff and students did a great job arranging the whole thing.
Even though it was raining, at times even heavily, the conference was indeed a success and we had a very good time socializing with other media historians as well as our colleagues in other areas of media and communication research. And even through the clouds, lake Lugano was stunningly beautiful.
Marie