Background

One of the goals of IGALA is to establish a visible political role and a public voice on issues pertaining to language, gender and sexuality, outside the borders of the organisation.

Achieving this goal is likely to:

increase public interest in both the language and gender field and the organisation
allow the organisation to contribute to public debates on these issues (outside IGALA web-lists and conferences)
increase the 'internationalisation' of IGALA and allow members who cannot attend IGALA conferences play an active role in the organisation, but from within their own geographical/linguistic/sociocultural contexts

Our policy

A. IGALA members(i) are invited to:

(1) write to their local/national or international press on issues pertaining to language, gender and sexuality, and to sign themselves 'Member of International Gender and Language Association (IGALA)'
or
(2) direct their letters on such issues via the representatives for Media Communications (see below), if they so prefer

Caveat:
copies of such letters (hard or electronic) should first be
a) approved by the IGALA President and the IGALA Secretary
b) seen by the IGALA Executive/Advisory Committee, including at least one of the representatives for Media Communications

Following the above
a) the IGALA webweaver will include such letters on the IGALA website
b) the Secretary will report on these communications, and any related responses or outcomes, at each Executive/Advisory committee meeting

(3) be alert to debates surrounding language, gender and sexuality to which we could provide a considered submission, for which views of the entire membership would be solicited, and which would need to be approved by the Executive/Advisory committee (by vote if necessary)

(4) make use of the designated IGALA webspace/ blog for members to debate controversial and topical issues surrounding language, gender and sexuality, in order for communications with the press or broadcast media to be written in a way which would genuinely represent the IGALA membership, and would also provide a useful resource ('argument bank')

B. IGALA Executive/Advisory committee members are encouraged to:

(1) write to the national/international press on issues pertaining to language, gender and sexuality, signing themselves as directly representing IGALA
or
(2) direct their letters on such issues via the representatives for Media Communications (see below), if they so prefer

Caveat:
copies of such letters (hard or electronic) should first be
a) approved by the IGALA Executive/Advisory Committee, including at least one of the representatives for Media Communications

(3) and (4) as above

C. Members in the Media

IGALA members are also encouraged to send to IGALA any links to media articles/ radio interviews/ podcasts or any other media where their research is discussed. Members should send these directly to Maryam Paknahad

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IGALA's current Advisory Board members with a responsibility for facilitating the Media Communications process are:

Dr Lia Litosseliti
(City University, London, UK)
http://www.city.ac.uk/lcs/biographies/llitosseliti.html
and
Dr Ann Weatherall
(Victoria University of Wellington, NZ)
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/psyc/staff/ann-weatherall/index.aspx
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(i) 'Members' means people who are fully paid-up members of IGALA