Roundtable on the Identity and Boundaries of Communication and Media Studies

We would like to invite you to a roundtable titled 'Hybrid Frontiers of the Media and Communication Studies', taking place on 15 September 2025, from 13:00 to 14:30, in room H215, Hollar Building.

This roundtable opens up questions about the identity of the field of Communication and Media Studies (CMS). What does it mean to do CMS research? Is CMS a field, a discipline or both? Is CMS, as Silvio Waisbord writes, a post-discipline? Is CMS truly as interdisciplinary as it claims to be? And as identities are relational, what are the (constitutive) outsides of CMS? When does CMS stop being CMS? What are the frontiers that demarcate our field, in relation to theories, methods, objects of study, and communicative repertoires? 

This roundtable offers a moment of reflection on the identity politics of the field of CMS, and its future (non-)trajectories.

As a discussion, it is directly relevant to early-stage scholars and senior scholars, and to PhD students and supervisors, as it directly affects what kind of (PhD) research can be done within CMS institutes and departments (including the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at Charles University).

The roundtable starts with four interventions, but will then open up to a discussion with all present. We hope to have a large number of attendees, as this is a key discussion about the future of CMS, and the (PhD) research at the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism.

Roundtable participants:

• doc. Nico Carpentier, Ph.D. – Charles University; Tallinn University
• Mgr. Karolína Šimková – Charles University
• Dr. Ilija Tomanić-Trivundža – Associate Professor University of Ljubljana
• Mgr. Mazlum Kemal Dağdelen – Charles University

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to the CDS email (cds.iksz@fsv.cuni.cz).