Great news: ECREA, the European Communication Research and Education Association, now hosts a new temporary working group focussing on media literacies! Our proposal for the new temporary working group (TWG) Media Literacies and Communication Competencies (MLCC) was accepted in September. We are now at the stage of setting up the structures and recruiting members.

Excited to announce that our proposal for a temporary working group at @ECREA_eu was accepted so #ECREA2024 will host a new #TWG, Media Literacies and Communication Competencies (MLCC)! ✨Cfp: https://t.co/QcK7LvdClQ… #medialiteracy #mediaed #commed @CharmaineVoigt @gloriagdiago

— Dr. Maarit Jaakkola (@maaritjii) September 27, 2023

I, as chair of the TWG, will have two engaged vice-chairs, Dr. Charmaine Voigt from Germany and Dr. Gloria Gómez Diago from Spain. The sections and TWGs also have a representative from ECREA’s Young Scholars Network (YECREA), who will be Inge Beekmans from Belgium. Charmaine will also be our communication manager.

The idea for a new TWG came up after the section Journalism and Communication Education (JCE), of which I was a vice-chair, was terminated in 2022. A re-structuration and re-focussing of the section was felt necessary, partly to avoid overlapping with existing sections and partly to live up to the emerging field of media literacies that, together with other competence-based approaches to media, are slowly finding a shape as an articulated scholarly area.

The new TWG is building upon the foundation of the JCE section, collecting scholars with pedagogical approaches to communication, media and journalism, but also – hopefully – attracting researchers who are focusing on competences and competencies more generally. The growing field of media literacy, or media and information literacy, encompasses different forms of literacies such as digital literacies and multiliteracies, and media education, including educational and learning activities ranging from formal education to informal learning. The scope of the new TWG thus addresses learning and teaching, for example, among school children, young adults, seniors, professional practitioners, different communities, minorities, organizations, and citizens in a broad sense.

The next ECREA Conference will be held next year in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The theme of the conference, which will take place on September 24–27, 2024, is Communication & Social (Dis)order, which quite nicely dovetails with many academic endeavours in the media literacy field. The deadline for submissions is January 11, 2024. The submission system can be accessed here.