Previous Conferences

Conference Themes and Locations (Under Construction)

  • 2025 - June 19 - 21: University of Washington Tacoma.

    Resistance and Resolve

  • 2023 - October 12 - 14: UPenn Annenberg and the Media, Inequality, and Change Center

    Left Undone

  • 2021 - June 23 - 25: (Virtual Conference - Covid-19)

    Masking the Crisis: Social Movements, Street Politics, and the Political Process

  • 2019 - California State University, East Bay

    • Call for Papers

    • Conference Program

  • 2018 - Loyola University, Chicago

  • 2016 - Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

    Troubled Waters: Structural Inequalities, Structural Responses

  • 2015: May 1 - 3: Hosted by the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology; University of Toronto: Toronto, ON

    Circuits of Struggle

  • 2013: November 1 - 3 - A joint conference of UDC and Project Censored Hosted by the Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

    The Point is to Change It: Media Democracy and Democratic Media in Action

  • 2012: May 10 - 12 - Hosted by the School of Communication, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
    Climates of Change: Democracy Movements, Media, and Global Environments

  • 2010: October 14 - 16 - Hosted by the College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
    Democratic Communications, Equal Rights & Global Justice

  • 2009: May 28 - 31 - Co-Presented by the Buffalo State Communication and Niagara University Communications Studies Buffalo, New York
    Aftermath and Renewal: Reclaiming the Critical Ideal

  • 2007:  October 25 - 28 - Hosted by The School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia
    Enclosure, Emancipatory Communication and the Global City

  • 2006:  May 18 - 21  - Hosted by the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida
    Against the Neoliberal Tide: Media and Democracy in the 21st Century

  • 2004:  April 22 - 25  - Hosted by the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois
    The Axis of Empire: An International Conference of the Union for Democratic Communications

  • 2002: October 10 - 13 - The Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania
    Democratic Communications and Global Justice

  • 2001: May 17-19 - Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
    Democratic Communications in a Branded World

  • 1999: October 14 - 16 - University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
    Communication, Culture and Environments

  • 1998: June 11 - 14 - University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California
    Media, Democracy, and the Public Sphere

  • 1996: October 10 - 13 - Loyola University Lakeshore Campus, Chicago, IL
    What‘s Left? Critical Communications in the Belly of the Corporate Beast

  • 1995: March 30 - April 2 - University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas.
    Revisiting Social Responsibility in a Multicultural Society

  • 1993: December 2 - 6 - International School of Film & Video, San Antonio, Cuba
    Media, Culture and Popular Hegemony; A Pan American Dialogue

  • 1992: May - Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario
    Feminism(s) and Cultural Resistance in the Americas

  • 1990: October 11 - 14 - The University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California
    World Information Order: Initiatives for Cultural Autonomy

  • 1989: October 26 - 29 - Hunter and Marymount Colleges, New York, NY
    Grassroots Communications

  • 1988: April 28 - May 1 - Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
    Communications, Culture, Socialism

  • 1987: February 27 - March 1 - California State University, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
    Third Biennial Union for Democratic Communications National Conference

  • 1984: October 19 - 21 - Chevy Chase, Maryland
    Communications and Empowerment

  • 1981: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    First National Conference and Meeting of the Union for Democratic Communications