June 6, 2003

Dear OURMedia members,

After such a successful conference in Barranquilla, it's time to make
some decisions about the next conference so that we can get moving early
enough to make it happen.  The first decision to be made is where the
conference should be.

At the moment, there is a proposal to attach ourselves to IAMCR, the
International Association for Media and Communication Research, which will
hold its conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil beginning on July 24 and
running until July 28 (I think).  If we choose to go this route, the IAMCR
conference organizers have already said they would be willing to work
together.

There are some advantages to our collaborating with IAMCR--the biggest
being organizational--we could minimize the search for venues for holding
our sessions, and perhaps for the hotel, etc.  The language barrier would be
minimized (somewhat) for those of us who speak Spanish, and for the South
and Central American members, the cost of travel may be more reasonable.
For the academics in the group, there are advantages to being attached to a
recognized academic conference as many universities will pay for them to
travel to an academic conference and some will want to attend IAMCR anyway.

On the other hand, we need to be aware that IAMCR, as any other major
academic conference, will probably chose very expensive hotels and venues
for its annual event. We could also organize OURMedia IV right before or
after IAMCR but at a different venue. For example, we could find a
monastery, or one of those religious/educational places for retreats. Any
ideas?

The idea would be to schedule our meeting either four days before or
after the IAMCR rather than simultaneously (2 days for field trips, 2 for
the conference itself).

There was a discussion of our trying to attach ourselves to the World
Social Forum, but that will be held this January which would be too early to
secure funding from the foundations.  If we waited until the next
January--2005--it would mean more than a year and a half between our
meetings.  The 2005 World Social Forum would be in Brazil.

Janice has done a little research to see what other venues might be
possibilities but hasn't found anything that seems immediately compelling.
Perhaps other members of the network have some ideas?  We have agreed that
we will hold meetings in the global south, which, among other advantages,
will keep the meetings more accessible to everyone.

If you have ideas or opinions about this, please share them by the end
of June so we can discuss the best ideas and move ahead.

                                Janice Windborne and Clemencia Rodriguez