Welcome to BEA2021!  BEA is the premiere international academic media organization driving insights, excellence in media production and career advancement for educators, students and professionals.  BEA’s annual convention – BEA2021 – produces over 250 sessions on media pedagogy, collaborative networking events, hands-on technology workshops, research and creative scholarship and the Festival of Media Arts. 

 Convention Dates: April 12-16, 2021 We are please to announce the convention dates for our virtual convention in 2021!  While the convention takes place Monday – Friday please take note that we’ll try to focus on heavier programming  towards the end of the week when class loads tend to be lighter – Wednesday – Friday.  Each day the convention will run from 11:00 am/noon ET to 4:00 pm/5:00 pm 5 ET to be sensitive to west coast and international participants.

Registration: Thanks to the support of our partners Taylor & Francis and FirstCom Music – registration is complimentary to all individual and student BEA members.  Note that BEA student membership is free for all BEA institutional (college and university) members.  Please make sure your membership is up to date (with a December 31, 2021 expiration date).  Click here to renew.

Interest Division Business Meetings: This year we will host an Interest Division Week from April 5-9, 2021.  These hour long Interest Division Business Meetings will be scheduled throughout the week during the hours of noon – 4 pm ET.

Session Times: In an effort to be respectful of “Zoom fatigue” and time constraints, we will offer panel organizers shorter session times – session organizers will be invited to choose from 30, 45 or 60 minutes. We will send an email to all the session organizers/moderators asking for their preference

Live & Pre-recorded Sessions: As with the 2020 virtual convention, we’ll invite panels to produce live or pre-recorded sessions. For pre-recorded sessions we will incorporate some live Q&A – or maybe even live discussion groups to follow up the pre-recorded content. 

Special Events: Stay tuned for more information on the live Festival announcements, themed coffee breaks and happy hours and more interactive poster sessions with Q&A time.

The BEA2021 Convention Spotlight is….. Facing the Future — This year’s convention spotlight begins a three-year exploration of a theme, including Facing the Future (2021), Embracing the Future (2022), and Retracing the Future (2023). These spotlight topics can engage recursively with each other, invoking the past, present, and future. Facing the Future in BEA 2021 acknowledges the ever-increasing pace of change in the media industry. It also acknowledges the societal upheavals brought about by the combination of the coronavirus pandemic and increased awareness of social injustice. Before we turn our (hopefully optimistic) gaze next year to Embracing the Future, we must first assess where we are now, how we got here, and where our threats and opportunities lie. We must begin by Facing the Future.
 
NAB Convention:  BEA conferences are traditionally co-located with the NAB Show each April.  NAB will not meet in April 2021, but has announced a Las Vegas convention in October 2021. We’re looking into possible partnership opportunities, but it’s too early to say what that might be. Stay tuned….and meanwhile, let’s plan for a great (virtual) BEA 2021.