BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. The association's publications, annual convention, web-based programs, and regional district activities provide opportunities for juried production competition and presentation of current scholarly research related to aspects of the electronic media. These areas include media audiences, economics, law and policy, regulation, news, management, aesthetics, social effects, history, and criticism, among others. 

BEA is concerned with electronic media curricula, placing an emphasis on interactions among the purposes, developments, and practices of the industry and imparting this information to future professionals.  BEA serves as a forum for exposition, analysis and debate of issues of social importance to develop members' awareness and sensitivity to these issues and to their ramifications, which will ultimately help students develop as more thoughtful practitioners.

For 60 years the BEA has worked with the National Association of Broadcasters in creating the next generation of media professionals. BEA's annual convention has been a major part of this endeavor. Co-located next door in the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, BEA brings in over 1,000 educators each year and they descend upon the NAB Show floor to see first-hand the latest and greatest tools and technology needed to teach students. Each year, schools direct BEA members to come to Vegas, either to spend the remainder of that years money or find the products to help teach the current technologies and techniques that they will buy in the fall with new funds. Most of our member schools have technology fees that students pay each year that can only be spent on technology and products for that department. BEA's annual convention attracts 1,200 educators and students with 200 sessions, events and an exhibit hall, making us the NAB Show's largest conference partner.

The BEA Festival of Media Arts is an international juried creative competition open to faculty and students. Top winners in each competition receive a $1,000 cash award , in addition to recognition and exhibition of their work during the Best of Festival Awards Ceremony at BEA's annual convention in Las Vegas. For over 10 years the Festival has been "The Showcase" for over 1,100 annual entries from over 125 different institutions. Separate competitions for faculty and students cover the range from dramatic narratives, through non-fiction documentary and news to the frontiers of interactive multimedia.

Now in its 8th year, BEA's Research Symposium has become a focal point of BEA's research community and is held in conjunction with BEA's annual convention each April. Past symposium chairs have included the most distinguished researchers in their field and have covered cutting-edge topics in the areas of media & the social self, sports, economics, media & morality, "TechnoPolitics" and entertainment. The success of the Symposium launched a book series in 2010, published by Routledge. In addition to a paper competition, the day-long symposium has a series of presentations and panels led by senior scholars.