One of The Collective’s primary purposes is to connect visual communication scholars across borders, both disciplinary and geographically. The primary mechanism for this is a Google Group that was created in mid-2026 with invitations sent to the top 100 visual communication scholars by Google Scholar citation counts.
If you’re a visual communication researcher and would like to request to join the group, you can do so here. Members of the group can also adjust their communication preferences on this page (such as by electing to receive a notification every time a message is sent to the group, a summary digest, or no notification at all).
Communication guidelines
When using the Collective’s mailing list, please consider the following:
- Benefit. Share information that you think would be of genuine benefit to others. For example, information about visual research methods workshops, summer schools, networking meet-ups, or collaboration opportunities. Promoting individual studies is likely not of sufficient benefit for posting; however, we welcome announcements about new visual communication-focused books or major reports.
- Relevance. Feel free to share information that is related to the scholarly study of visual communication. Visual communication-specific calls for papers, opportunities for collaboration, professional development workshops, and meet-ups are very welcome.
- Respect. We support academic independence and intellectual pluralism; however, be polite in your communication and avoid inflammatory, discriminatory, and abusive language or imagery.
Nb: This website and the Google Group is managed by T.J. Thomson in a voluntary capacity so please be patient with response times.