The 2004 IMMAA Conference took place in Chicago, USA

May 17th-20th, 2004

Welcome to the first International Media Management Academic Forum!

It all starts with an email by John Lavine:

 “I am writing you with good news.  On May 17th to May 20th, the first International Media Management Academic Forum will take place in Evanston, IL.

The responses to our email last month indicated a genuine interest across the globe for such a forum. In addition to professors in the United States, we also had responses from professors in China, Germany, South Korea, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. They all expressed their intent to attend this forum.

So, with this announcement we are happy to host this international conference where we can all exchange ideas. When we suggested the forum, it was our hope that it would become yours – a forum for academics from around the world who explore this exciting field. We also hoped it would emphasize media management teaching and research, media strategy and other important management trends that challenge the media and those who lead it. We also do not see it as an American meeting or ours. It is yours. The goal is to serve you and to provide a valuable compliment to the other media conferences, such as the European Media Management Education Association (April 23rd to 25th in Mainz), and the 6th World Media Economics Conference (May 12th to 15th in Montreal).”

The idea of IMMAF was NOT to want anyone to write or present a paper. There are other forums for that. The purpose of this gathering was to exchange ideas about the teaching of media management — what topics need development, what resources exist that one or another of us may not know about, what have we learned about some of the key media industry issues, such as:

• Media strategy
• New understandings about media marketing
• New work on media brands as experiences
• New insights about media content
• Using media economics in media decision making
• Audience and media fragmentation
• Technology advances (TiVo etc.) and convergence
• Others based on your suggestion as you answer the questions below

We might also discuss professional topics such as:

• What are the best media cases?
• Who supports media research?
• What are the topics of most value to top, middle and entry level media professionals, and what are the particular needs of students who study media management?
• What are the best approaches to adapting work done on strategy, marketing, and economics to courses on media?

Others topics from the input of the attendees