Temple’s School of Media and Communication’s Assistant Professor Shenid Bhayroo and Interim Dean Thomas Jacobson recently attended this year’s International Association of Media and Communication Research Conference (IAMCRC), which took place in Durban, South Africa from July 15, to July 19.

IAMCR is a global professional organization catered toward media and communication research. It allows an outlet for people interested in international communication research and also international communication practice. As an association, its interests are to advance the professions of communication as well as the scholarship of communication.

This year’s conference theme was “South-North Conversations,” purposely placing South before North in hopes of challenging the more usual convention. The theme both considers communicative empowerment and highlights the positive potential of media development. 

Jacobson and Bhayroo both presented papers during the conference.

Jacobson, who has in the past focused his research on third world countries, presented a paper on communication and democratic legitimacy in the Participatory Communications Research section -- a topic that he co-founded for the IAMCR in the late 1990s.

Bhayroo, who has keen interest in community media, public media, ethnic media and occasionally historical research, spoke under the Journalism Research and Education session and the Professional Journalism, Journalism Cultures and Public Spheres division. His project focused on the newly launched journalism and research study away program for Temple’s SMC students in South Africa.