Communities play a vital role in connecting scholars and providing collaboration opportunities and professional development offerings. This page lists major international and national communities of visual communication-focused academics.
International groups
🌎 Visual Communication Studies Division of the International Communication Association (ICA). Founded as an interest group in 1993 and elevated in 2004 to division status. The ICA VCS Division has about 200 members from around the world who convene and present research during the annual ICA conference in June each year. The Division began offering in 2026 a journal article of the year award for visual communication-focused scholarship that peers judged as the most significant contribution of the past year.
🌎 Visual Culture and Multimodal Communication Research working groups of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). The IAMCR Visual Culture Working Group was established in the early 2010s while the Multimodal Communication Research working group was established in 2024. Both groups’ members meet annually during the annual conference in June or July each year.
🌎 International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA). The IVLA was founded in 1968 and is an interdisciplinary organisation of professionals working toward a fuller understanding of the way we derive meaning from what we see and the way we interact with our visual environment. In addition to an annual conference, it publishes The Journal of Visual Literacy and also awards a $4,000 annual research grant.
Regional groups
🇪🇺 Visual Cultures Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). This group was founded permanently in 2019 and meets bi-annually during the ECREA conference in even years. An offshoot of the Section is the Visual Methods Collective that is focused on visual research methods.
National groups
🇺🇸 Visual Communication Division of the National Communication Association (NCA). This group was founded in 2021 and its members meet during NCA’s annual conference in November each year in the USA.
🇩🇪 Visual Communication Division of the German Communication Association (DGPuK). The group was founded in 2000 and its members meet during DGPuK’s annual conference in March in Germany.
🇺🇸 VisComm. An “un-conference conference” without an association, board, dues, or official membership. It is an annual get-together of people passionate about visual communication that has been meeting in USA ski towns since 1987.
Nb: If you have suggestions for the list, please send them to T.J. Thomson.