Prof. Mehita Iqani (September 2023-September 2025)
I took the baton from Prof Tanja Bosch at the September 2023 conference.
At one of our SACOMM Executive Committee meetings, it was decided to start a new “tradition”, where outgoing presidents would offer a short report to association members about their term as President. In this spirit, I would like to share a few notes as I prepare to hand over the leadership of SACOMM to our colleague, Prof Sisanda Nkoala.
The past two years at SACOMM have seen the research field of media and communication research and pedagogy thriving. I am constantly encouraged by the wonderful new PhDs being minted and seeing the thought-provoking and critical work coming out of our field.
Our 2023 conference took place in Johannesburg, at AFDA, and our 2024 conference took place in Stellenbosch. Both were wonderful gatherings and hosted productive and enjoyable exchanges of current research in our field. We are looking forward to the 2025 conference at NMU in Gqeberha and we thank the LOC (led by Dr Janelle Vermaak-Griesel) for all their work in organising it.
As an ExCo our focus in the past two years has been to establish new opportunities for exchange and community building outside of the annual conference (which remains a firm fixture on all of our annual calendars). We have done so by encouraging members of the ExCo to arrange webinars relevant to their interest groups, and we are proud to share that over the past two years several interesting webinars were organised and attended. We hope that these will remain a fixture of future ExCo activities, and we have archived the list of our initiatives on the SACOMM website.
During my tenure as president, I’m pleased to report that the Association voted to adopt a statement of values, which explicitly sets out SACOMM’s values of ethical integrity, a commitment to human rights, non-discrimination, collaboration and respect, and continuous learning. In a world of growing violence and intolerance, it is more important than ever that associations such as our make our values crystal clear.
Another achievement of the ExCo during this period has been to debate and present a policy for making public statements. This policy was drawn up by Dr Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam (to whom I’m very grateful for leadership on this matter), and it will be voted on at the 2025 AGM for formal adoption by the association.
SACOMM was formally accepted as a member association of the International Communications Association in late 2024. This represents a wonderful opportunity to continue to introduce the wealth of research and theory emanating from our part of the world to the global communication studies community. We also have informal and formal affiliations with SANEF, the US National Communications Association, and the IAMCR.
SACOMM has also reached out to our “sister” association in East Africa, the EACA, and initiated conversations about collaboration and support between our two parts of the continent. We hope that this can be built on in future participation in one another’s conferences, as well as collaborations between our members.
I would like to thank SACOMM members for their trust in me to serve as President during the past two years, and I would also like to thank the wonderful colleagues who have served with me on the ExCO during this time: Prof Sisanda Nkoala, Prof Alette Schoon, Dr Andre Gouws, Dr Meli Ncube, Dr Nonhlanhla Ndlovu, Dr Bimbo Fafowora, Dr Jane-Ane Raath and Dr Chikezie Uzuegbunam and Dr Marenet Jordaan.
Wishing all the best to the next elected ExCo.