ECREA 2018

Credits: Social Media Team ECREA2018

The 7th edition of the European Communication Conference (ECC), organized biennially by ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association - took place in Lugano from 31 October to 3 November 2018. The topic addressed was: Centres and Peripheries: Communication, Research, Translation.

This edition was attended by the largest number of participants ever: 1342 among professors, researchers and scholars from different European countries, together with representatives from other continents.

A huge organizational work, both from a scientific and a technical-logistical point of view, allowed almost 1000 speakers to present their researches, taking turns in 25 parallel thematic rooms distributed throughout our Congress Center and the Cantonal High School.
The scientific contribution brought by the local Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society was fundamental, in particular by the co-chairs of the Local Organizing Committee, Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni, Prof. Gabriele Balbi and Prof. Katharina Lobinger. A special thank goes to Dr. Petra Mazzoni who, among the various tasks, coordinated the numerous students of the Faculty engaged as volunteers during the Conference.

Credits: Social Media Team ECREA2018

For its thematic breadth as well as the number of participants, ECREA2018 has been the most important European event of its kind. Hosting ECREA2018 in Lugano was, for our Faculty - I would also say, for our whole University - an honour and a responsibility.

Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni
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USI – Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society

In addition to its numerous thematic areas, ranging from journalism to history, from new media to politics, intercultural communication and so forth, the presence of internationally-known keynotes contributed to develop the main topic of the conference.

Nevertheless, "Centre" and "Periphery" were not the only topics of the conference: discussions actually started from the dichotomy of this region - geographically located in the centre of Europe but on the outskirts of Switzerland and went deep into diverse thematic fields such as Communication and Democracy, Digital Communication and Culture, etc.

The plenary session introduced a new format called "ECREA Critical Interventions" in which an initial thematic speech was followed by a long period of questions and personal contributions from the participants. This year, the invited speaker, Thomas Allmer, talked about the dilemmas, challenges and pitfalls of academic life, discussing in depth on the precarious conditions of academics in a neoliberal society and receiving particular appreciation from the audience.

A heartfelt thanks to the organizers, presenters, participants and all the people who contributed to making ECC2018 a great ECREA conference.