Since 2012, Oscar Luengo and myself, Darren Lilleker, have held the roles of Chair and Vice-Chair of this research committee. Within that time we have participated in eight IPSA main conferences, as well as numerous regional and annual events, and helped bring together scholars from all corners of the world. IPSA is a truly global organisation and it has been our great honour to interact and learn from scholars from so many nations, exchange ideas and conceptual frameworks and so grow our discipline. The last sixteen months have been a time of great upheaval for us, and so we extended our leadership. However, after nine years it is time for us to step down. We thank the leadership and team at IPSA for their support. But mostly our sincere thanks go to the diverse membership who have supported the RC, shared their research and who make the work of the RC stimulating. We thank you for enriching our lives for the last nine years and look forward to supporting the new team taking on our roles. Our very best wishes to your all, Darren and Oscar

A smooth transition of leadership is essential for any organisation, and we are pleased to announce a new board that will oversee the running IPSA RC22 and take it on into the future.

The new board is:

Chair: Norbert Merkovity

Vice Chair: Magdalena Musial-Karg

Secretaries: Andrea Samaniego Sanchez & Marta Rebolledo de la Calle

Board Member: Jeethu Elza Cherian

The biographies of the board members are below:

Norbert Merkovity, PhD habil, is associate professor and head of the department at the Department of Political Science, University of Szeged, Hungary. He serves as chair in ECREA CEE Network (2018–2021). Dr Merkovity authored two books, numerous journal articles and book chapters in the field of political communication. His recent research is about attention-based politics. Dr Merkovity is applying for the chair position. Both applicants were involved in RC22 activities, attended the section conferences of the committee. We are aware of the importance of the work done in the Research Committee. By applying for the positions, we would like to declare our contribution to the research and organisational activities of RC22 and the continuation of the tasks carried out by the committee so far. Besides the well-known activities (sectional conferences, cooperation with other RCs, using for information flow the online platforms of RC22, organising the panels for General Conferences, etc.), we would like to open the floor to global events through online platforms that proved to work during the pandemic, and political science associations widely use it. IPSA Digital can provide a secure and stable platform for such events. We hope to contribute to the success and continuous progress of the community.

Magdalena Musiał-Karg, Prof. AMU Dr. habil. is an associate professor at the Department of Political Systems, Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland and the Vice-Dean for Research and Scientific Cooperation (former Vice-Dean for Research and Development (2016-2020)). She is also the Vice-President of the Polish Political Science Association, a member of the Political Sciences Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2020-2023), and the President of the Center for European Research and Education. Her main research interests focus is the impact of modern technologies on democratic systems. M. Musiał-Karg is the author of numerous publications devoted to electronic participation, alternative voting methods, and political communication. In 2016 she was a member of Local Organizing Committee of IPSA 24th World Congress in Poznań (Poland).

Andrea Samaniego Sanchez is Professor of Communication and Political Science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She specializes in the investigation and analysis of political discourse as an area for understanding social phenomena. Her aim is to promote research across the contemporary world at a time when studies of political communication are so necessary given the relevance of new technologies that affect our reality, an example of this are the "fake news" and its repercussions.

Marta Rebolledo de la Calle is Assistant Professor of Political Communication at the University of Navarra (Spain). I have been involved in many international conferences and in the context of IPSA I participated to the RC22 for more than 10 years. I am a regular participant to the IPSA World Congresses and the local conferences organized by this RC. I have met most members who are involved in this committee. As a matter of fact I organized the RC local conference (‘Political Communication in Uncertain Times: Digital Technologies, Citizen Participation and Open Governance’) hosted by the University of Navarra in 2017. This event was organised in collaboration with the RC 10 (Electronic Democracy). Following this event I prepared a special issue with fellow participants that was later published by the journal Communication & Society. I have also had the chance to be an officer of the RC22 for many years. Based on that experience I strongly believe that I can support the activities of this committee and have a positive impact. My objectives are clear to create a stimulating network. I want to work with the Chair and other members to build stronger connections in our network, promote activities that will foster a continuous ‘conversation’ in the group and make sure that we consider the research interests of our members.

Jeethu Chacko is Defence Research Officer at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi. I intend to support the Chair and provide guidance to the members of the Committee, so that as a team, we work towards the goal of encouraging scientific analysis and discussion of the political aspects of communication within states. I am keen increase diversity among international scholarship who are conducting research on related issues and topics, particularly from the Global South, where political communications as a field of research is just gaining importance in discourse.