At 4:53 PM -0500 6/5/01, Bunz, Ulla K wrote:

Second clarification: I would not encouraged joining GOR and AIoR into one organization. They should stay separate. However, I believe a joint conference is exciting. Paper acceptance is more competitive, people who have not (and possibly never will) attend air might show up to a joint conference, etc. Remember, a million years ago, first day of Grad School? You walk into this room with all kinds of strangers, and you smile, trying to be polite. And then they start talking, and you realize, "Hey, I've heard that before, except..." and suddenly, you're all excited, mentally rolling up your shirt sleeves. To me, that's what it feels like when I talk about my research with people from different disciplines and cultures. It's rather addictive.

One of the organizations I've been very actively involved in, and that I watched and helped in its very early stages, is the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. It's had a somewhat rocky history, for a variety of reasons that I won't bore this list with. It has national/regional chapters, and on occasion the U.S. branch and Canadian branch have held joint meetings, and on occcasion the U.S. branch has held joint meetings with other music-related organizations. The problem hasn't been paper acceptance -- each organization essentially ran its own conference, although there were some joint panels and such. What was primarily "joint" about it was sharing the dates and location, and expressions of frustration that were common included one that we're already encountering, namely that with concurrent panels it's difficult to get to a variety of sessions. Most people seemed to end up making choices with which they weren't very happy. Some were members of more than one association that was meeting, and found that they could not attend each association's business meeting, social gatherings, panels, and so on. Unfortunately, most of us don't have the time and resources to simply put conferences "back to back" or to add days to a conference, so this may be something we can't help. Programming a joint meeting is quite difficult if it's done with care, and even with care may end up a hodge podge of compromises.

Finally, my additional comment. I only found out about the German Online Research conference through a posting on this list. So, I can't possibly be the only tie. Plus, I agree with Steve, let's hear more about similar conferences.

I'd like to encourage more comments and maybe more suggestions on this topic.

As would I, since the list isn't saddled with any of the issues I mention above. Conference reports would be an excellent thing to read. In fact, even though I recently attended the conference of the International Communication Association, I didn't make it to very many sessions, so I'd quite like to get a report of that one for myself! I _can_ tell you that there was an excellent pre-conference workshop on policy and communication technology organized by Sandra Braman with very engaging presentations from Hans Klein, Rolf Wigand, Ellen Wartella, and several others. Information about it can be found at http://www.icahdq.org/cgi-shl/TWServer.exe/Run:2001CONF_2:TradeWinds_KEY=961 At 11:01 PM +0000 6/5/01, <marcus.leaning@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Hi Ulla and anyone else who was at the GOR conference in Gottingen. I think thats an excellent suggestion, however I have a minor reservation. The GOR is primarily aimed at German Online research, and while there were a few other presenters at the conference, besides myself, who were international in origin it was primarily a German affair.

The AOIR seems aimed not at one county, would the GOR be willing to loose its primary German focus?? I think it would be unfair to expect it to do so.

I couldn't agree more...it has not been anyone's expectation, so far as I am aware, that AoIR would or should "swallow up" other groups. I like to think of it as much as possible as a member-driven association, with all the advantages and disadvantages that may bring. Maybe I still cling to an obsolete (or nearly obsolete) model of governance based on an earlier "version" of the Internet when it comes to it! Sj