The Canadian Communication Association was founded in 1980 by an interdisciplinary group of Canadian scholars that shared an interest in matters of communication and culture. During this period, the still nascent field of Communication Studies had few formal institutional homes. Yet enthusiasm around this area of scholarship, teaching, policy, and community engagement — among students and faculty alike — was already strong and growing. It was therefore felt that the founding of a scholarly association would help to catalyze and build on this energy.
This was achieved with the CCA’s first meeting, at Université du Québec à Montréal, also in 1980. The meeting was held as part of Canada’s annual Learned Societies Conference (now called the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities). The CCA has maintained this affiliation and held its conference at Congress every year since, with one notable exception — 2020’s conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CCA has played a vital role in facilitating scholarly and public interest in questions of communication, culture, media, technology, and policy through its conference and other activities for over forty years. Most of these activities elude web archiving, but the Board of Directors continues to gather documents, photographs, stories and other information to deposit here, and in its informal archives.
If you have questions about the history of the CCA, or archival material pertinent to the organization, please write to acc.cca.ca@gmail.com
— Summary written by Liam Cole Young, CCA Secretary, June 2024