WACC to honour three leading communicators at Congress 2008
WACC will confer honorary life membership on three highly-respected international communicators at its global communication conference, Congress 2008, scheduled to be held in Cape Town, South Africa in October.
In announcing the 2008 honorees on behalf of the Board of Directors, the General Secretary, Randy Naylor said, "Each of these three individuals has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of communication rights in careers of service to the church, academia, and international institutions. WACC has benefited greatly from their contributions to its mission of advocating for communication that contributes to peace, justice and democracy." Honorary life memberships are awarded by WACC's Board of Directors to communicators who have served WACC, religious communications and the cause of communication rights throughout their careers and whose work is characterised by dedication, integrity, and achievement. Previous honorees include Americans Doris E. Hess and Betty Thompson, Ezekiel Makunike from Zimbabwe and, most recently, the late Michael Traber from Switzerland.
The three recipients of honorary life memberships in 2008 are:
The Rt Rev Horace Etemesi (Kenya) is the Bishop Emeritus of Butere Diocese of the Church of Kenya (Anglican Communion). He trained at St. Paul's United Theological College, Limuru, before becoming manager of Uzima Press, Nairobi (1975-88) and served as chairman of the Kenya Publishers' Association (1978-88) and of the Bible Society of Kenya 1987-89). He was a member of WACC's Central Committee (1979-88) before joining its staff as regional coordinator for Africa and Latin America (1989-94). In 1994 he was appointed diocesan bishop. Now retired, he lives in Shikoti (a village in Western Kenya) on his farm where, with his wife Fran, he has built an interdenominational chapel for a congregation of 60 members. He is the author of The Birth of Christ (Lets talk about).
Margaret Gallagher (Ireland) is a freelance researcher and writer specialising in gender and media. She has carried out research, development and evaluation projects for the United Nations Statistics Division, UNIFEM, UNESCO, the International Labour Office, the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the European Audiovisual Observatory. In 1986 she established the European Commission's Steering Committee for Equal Opportunities in Broadcasting, which she coordinated until 1990. From 1989 to 1999 she worked on the Prix Niki, the European Commission's biennial television prize for innovative portrayal of women and men.
Most recently she has been consultant to a consortium of five European broadcasters for the development of an audiovisual training kit Screening Gender (1997-2000), and to the World Association for Christian Communication for the second Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP, 2000). Her several publications include From Mexico to Beijing - and Beyond: Covering Women in the World's News (2000) and Gender Setting: New Agendas for Media Monitoring and Advocacy (London: WACC and ZED Books, 2001). She is a member of the editorial advisory boards of Gazette: The International Journal of Communication Studies (Sage), Feminist Media Studies (Routledge), and Media Development (WACC).
Cees Hamelink (The Netherlands) is an internationally recognized expert on mass communications and communication rights who has for many years advised WACC on matters of policy. Director of the Communication Research Unit of the Department of Studies of the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva, Switzerland (1971-76), he was responsible for initiating research projects in developing countries, supervising and assessing ongoing projects and organizing scholarly meetings for policy formulation.
In 1977 he became consultant to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and supervised research projects carried out by the Latin American Institute for Transnational Studies (ILET) and was Research Fellow of the Latin American Institute for Transnational Studies, Mexico (1978-1990). He was Associate Professor for International Communication at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands (1980-93), Extraordinary Professor of communication and international relations at the University of Amsterdam (1984-93) and from 1995 Professor of communication science, chair of international communication in the Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Communication Science), University of Amsterdam.
His numerous books include Cultural Autonomy in Global Communications (1983), The Technology Gamble (1988), Trends in World Communication (1994), The Politics of World Communication (1994), Preserving media independence: regulatory frameworks (2000) and The Ethics of Cyberspace (London, 2000).
The 2008 honorary life members will receive their awards at the closing ceremony of Congress 2008, Friday, 10 October 2008 at 17:00 in the Ritz Hotel, Cape Town.