UWI Telecommunications and Media academic, Dr Hopeton Dunn has been named to act as Secretary General of the prestigious global academic organization - the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He will carry out the additional responsibilities of this office from his academic base at the Mona School of Business, UWI.

Dr Dunn will act in that capacity following the passing of the former Secretary General Professor Ole Prehn of the Aalborg University of Denmark. He is the first scholar from the Caribbean or Global South to serve in this role in the Association’s 50-year history.  The IAMCR is the leading worldwide academic organization in the field of Media, Communication and ICT research, encompassing some 1,800 individual researchers and over 100 institutional members and universities globally. 
 
The Association, based in London, enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. It aims to promote critical academic discourse, joint publications as well as research interchanges among global scholars in the field. The IAMCR also serves as a think tank to address global development and technology challenges such as the Digital Divide. It seeks to encourage and strengthen the participation of new scholars, women and researchers from economically disadvantaged regions around the world.
 
Dr Dunn has been an active member of IAMCR for several years and recently served as the Co-Chair of the Association’s Policy and Technology Section and as joint Chairman of its Special Task Force on Global Media Policy.

The University of the West Indies is a long-standing institutional member of the IAMCR, with Association members based at both CARIMAC and the Mona School of Business (MSB). The IAMCR’s next major international conference will be held in Mexico City in July this year, under the theme Communication and Human Rights.