MeCCSA: Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association

School of Cultural Studies, UWE, Bristol
Venue: Watershed Media Centre
Friday 23 January 2004

31 October 2003 at The Council Chamber, Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3AT

The first meeting of the new Women’s Media Studies Network co-ordinating committee was held in April in the erudite surroundings of the British Museum. The committee was pleased to secure another year’s support funding from their parent body MeCCSA, and agreed to meet the Executive Committee’s request that the Network attempt to secure some self-funding to help with costs. Consequently, it was agreed that the Network would make a small charge for future seminar events. One of the key aims of the Network is to provide a space through email contact and events for female academics to communicate their research and academic skills to their colleagues. Therefore, the committee was united in stressing that it wanted its events to be accessible to a range of women including postgraduates and those on part-time contracts and therefore fees would be kept to a reasonable charge.

The committee discussed the forthcoming conference to be held at Sussex University on 19 – 21 December. Keynote speakers include Professor Eliizabeth Grosz, Rutgers University, USA; Dr Jostein Gripsrud, University of Bergen, Norway and Ian Diamond, Chief Executive, ESRC, UK. It was agreed that the Network should maintain its participation at the conference particularly through the Showcasing Women stall which aims to promote recent publications and upcoming conferences or workshops by Network members. Margaret Montgomerie has continued her responsibility for this and is hoping to also show female media practitioners’ work at the event – so if anyone is interested in showcasing their work contact her through the Network Administrator Ann Butler as soon as possible. WMSN would also like to convene a panel on the theme of ‘Gender and media futures’.

The most recent Network seminar was organised by committee members Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi and held in June at University of Surrey, Roehampton. The event aimed to attract interest from colleagues in the Network and to attract women in areas such as politics, sociology and communications who may not have heard of MeCCSA. To this end it was successful as we had numerous queries from women about the event and about the Network and MeCCSA and have expanded our mailing list.