Dear CCA members,
As our association’s annual activity cycle winds down and we move on to summer break, the CCA Executive would like to share a Roundup of this year’s conference happenings and express some gratitude.
- The CCA’s annual conference showcased 232 papers, 61 panels, and 14 panels-341 presenters in total! Thanks to everyone for participating in #ccacc21 and bringing so much new energy CCA! Welcome to new CCA members who joined us this year (and a warm hello to our 300+ new Twitter followers!).
- A huge thank you to CCA vice president Ghislain Thibault, the key organizer of our first ever fully online conference, and to Gordon Gow, the conference’s Local Arrangements Coordinator at the University of Alberta. Thanks also to the CCA executive and our wonderful Board (https://acc-cca.ca/) for their hard work, insight, and guidance.
- A warm welcome to newly elected Board members-at-large Benjamin Woo and Anne MacLennan and the new student representative, Mariane Bourcheix Laporte. And a thank you to outgoing board members Ian Reilly, Matthew Flisfeder and Christopher Cwynar. Thank you also to outgoing student representative Monica Jean Hendersen, for so many positive contributions.
- Kudos to all #ccacc21 panel organizers, especially Faiza Hirji, Yasmin Jiwani and Kirsten Emiko McAllister, for the phenomenal #CommunicationSoWhite panel series. Thanks also to Christiana Abraham, Alexandra Boutros, Boulou Ebanda deB’béri, Faiza Hirji, Adel Iskandar, Yasmin Jiwani, Judith Nicholson, Kirsten Emiko McAllister, Ravindra Mohabeer, Nathan Rambukkana, Cheryl Thompson, and Nimalan Yoganathan, for important presentations and interventions.
- Thank you to Charlton McIlwain for a fabulous keynote and galvanizing call for designing anti-racist technology: “Anti-racist technologies not only diminish the scourge of racism and white supremacy, but are imagined, developed and used to affirm the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness among people and communities of colour.” You can watch the keynote here.
- Thank you to all #ccacc21 participants for their terrific presentations! #ccacc21’s top ten topic clusters were: 1) representation, identity and culture; 2) communication and media theory; 3) race, ethnicity and media-culture; 4) empire, colonialism and communication; 5) health communication; 6) journalism and news; 7) sexuality, gender and media; 8) media activism and social movements; 9) media, cultural and ICT policy, law and regulation; 10) media materialities and infrastructure studies.
- At #ccacc21, we shared research, learned from one another, reflected upon the past and present of the field, discussed how to re-define the inter-discipline, and set new agendas and frames for the future of our field.
- Presentations at #ccacc21 engaged with how communication, media and technology link with settler colonialism, whiteness, capitalism, neoliberalism, environmental crisis, COVID-19, the far Right, identity, race and racism, gender, sexuality and sexism, work and class, new and emerging media, disinformation and psy-ops, law and policy, cultures, democracy, as well as the algorithms and artificial intelligence and media infrastructure and so much more!
- Thank you to the CCA 21 annual prize winners for their outstanding work.
- Crystal Choskshi: winner of the Outstanding Student Essay Prize – Congratulations! https://acc-cca.ca/index.php/prizes-prix/student-essay-essai-etudiant/
- Saffiya Hosein: winner of the Mahmoud Eid Graduate Prize – Congratulations! https://acc-cca.ca/index.php/prizes-prix/mahmoud-eid-graduate-prize-prix-mahmoud-eid-detudes-superieures/
- Katy Anderson and Kennedy French-Toller: winners of the CCA-CRTC Prizes. Congratulations! https://acc-cca.ca/index.php/prizes-prix/prix-crtc-prize/ Take the time to read their winning essays on the CRTC website here: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/acrtc/acrtc3.htm
- Cait McKinney: winner of the CCA Gertrude J. Robinson “Best Book of the Year” Prize. Congratulations! https://acc-cca.ca/index.php/prizes-prix/le-prix-gertrude-j-robinson/
- Congrats all to all the authors of the nominated books, and we encourage CCA members to check out these works. Watch a video celebration of the books here.
- Congress 21 hosted 6000 attendees, featured 1750 ZOOM panel sessions and platformed 185 open events that reached many people.
- Thank you to Congress AC-EDID Committee members Malinda Smith, Noreen Golfman, Marie Battiste, Wesley Crichlow, Jay Dolmage, Florence Glanfield, Claudia Malacrid and Anne-José Villeneuve for the “Igniting Change: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Decolonization” report and the EDID Charter, which CCA members voted to sign on to. Read the Charter here.
- We hope to see you next year for #ccacc22. We will share #ccacc22 information in our CFP next Fall.
- In the meantime, the CCA Executive and Board wish you safe and happy summer! See you next year!
–Tanner Mirrlees, CCA president