Download International Federation of Communication Association

From an article written for Spectra, NCA's newsletter distributed to its members
History
The International Federation of Communication Associations (IF) came into being after extensive
discussions among various national communication associations, all of whom had their own agendas
within the larger discourse of communication. These discussions started during meetings at the
International Communication Association (ICA). ICA had created its own problem by defining
"international" as "multi-national in membership" and then not being able to live up to its name. Rather
than buying into the competition for the few scholars who can travel abroad, as the International
Association of Mass Communication Research (IAMCR) and ICA do, or joining one large association,
the National Communication Association (NCA) of the U.S., for example, the founding members of the
International Federation sought for ways to strengthen local communities of communication scholars in
acknowledgement of their own approaches to theory and research.
The Federation idea that did emerge in these discussions became a loose family of communication
associations, supporting communication scholarship worldwide and each other as needed. It adopted
another meaning of "international," cooperation among diverse national associations and communication
across national and cultural boundaries. About half of its current members were early supporters of this
idea, offering organizational assistance.
Members
The Federation has organizations as its members, not individuals. It does not compete with associations
whose individual members discuss their scholarship at regular meetings, publish their results, and ready
their students for academic positions. It merely provides an international web to their proceedings.
Federation members must be democratically organized, non-discriminatory on the familiar dimensions,
and committed to the study of human communication. Membership is free and decided by vote. Only
active participation is expected. The current members are:
 Australian & New Zealand Communication Association
 ALAIC -- Latin American Communication Research Association
 The Association for Chinese Communication Studies
 Canadian Communication Association
 Center for the Study of Communication and Culture
 Chinese Communication Association
 Croatian Communication Association
 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kommunikationsforschung
 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft
 Finnish Society for Communication Research
 Institute of Development Communication
 INTERCOM -- Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares de Communicacao
 International Communication Association
 Israel Communication Association
 Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies
 National Communication Association (of the US)
Through these associations alone, the vast majority of communication scholars in the world are
represented in the Federation.
Projects
A continuous project of the Federation is to facilitate the self-organization of communities of
communication scholars. By providing know-how and international recognition, the Federation was
instrumental in the founding of at least two new national communication associations. Currently there are
numerous small and barely recognizable scholarly communities in search for their identity. The
Federation encourages such efforts.
Another project is to make the often excellent but largely unknown publications of national
communication associations accessible to each other. For a few years, the Federation assembled the
content pages of these publications in their original language, distributed hardcopies of them for local
reproduction, and enabled libraries from all over the world to subscribe. This service has given way to
our web site, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~ifcaweb, which provides access to most of these journals. One
should mention that in developing countries the Internet is not as easily available as in the US and going
electronic was a mixed blessing.
The Federation publishes a bi-annual IFnewsletter, which is electronically distributed to Federation
members and interested others who reproduce it locally, forward it electronically to their individual
members, or feature it on their web sites.
The sharing of scarce resources is of foremost concern for the Federation. The Canadian Journal of
Communication (CJoC) and the Australian Journal of Communication (AJoC), for instance, have offered
to make their back issues available without charge to fledgling institutions. CJoC worked with a
Bulgarian university, although it ran into a snag when state authorities did not want the journals to pass.
AJoC is in contact with a Chinese university. Some thirty years of the Journal of Communication,
Human Communication Research, and Communication Research have gone to the University of Jena in
former East Germany, which is trying to build its media collection in conjunction with a new department
on communication. This is an easy way for publishers and individual communication scholars who no
longer need their collections to help others to scholarly literature. Now NCA's Publications Committee
wants to facilitate such efforts, making resources from their association available.
Taking advantage of the economy of scale of publishing, publishers of communication journals in the US
could easily expand their readership outside North America by printing additional copies and sending
them in bulk and near cost to communication associations abroad. The converse can have great benefits
as well. If the big associations, NCA and ICA, would distribute non-US communication journals to their
members, this would certainly add new perspectives to communication scholarship. I understand that
NCA is considering this possibility.
Appreciating each other is a prerequisite for cooperation. Professional associations too often are
concerned with themselves and know little of what happens outside. Although lack of mutual knowledge
did not divide IAMCR and ICA, for example, the Federation was please to participated in the planning for
an international conference on the "Digital Divide," November 16-17, 2001, at the University of Texas,
Austin, cosponsored by ICA, IAMCR, and IF. This is one example worthy of duplication elsewhere.
Working in North America, we may not appreciate the immense scholarly resources we have available for
travel, publications, and research, until we visit our colleagues abroad. Sharing some of these resources
with those less fortunate is a small effort compared with the benefit that a world of communication has in
store for all of us.