The SFSIC

The French Society of Information and Communication Sciences (SFSIC) gathers actors of education and research in Information and Communication Sciences. The SFSIC constitutes a significant platform for reflection and exchange on important issues related to the place of information and communication in today’s world.

The successor of the “Comité des SIC”, created in 1974 to launch and support the creation of our university department by establishing an original scope of intervention on an international scale, since 1982 the SFSIC is an association under the French law of 1901. (“loi 1901”)

The SFSIC regroups more than 450 individual members from the scientific community, from associations and companies, along with institutional members representing most of the research teams involved in developing our discipline at the national level. The association supports the development and identification of education in Information and Communication Sciences. The SFSIC develops its activities in collaboration with other foreign or transnational organizations and is today a well-known partner of the international scientific community.

Action principles

Per its status, the SFSIC contributes to the development of research and formations in Information and Communication Sciences based on five principles:

  • Promote the diffusion and sharing of knowledge within the Information and Communication Sciences community
  • Support the development and publication of scientific reflections and contributions in Information and Communication Sciences. Promote research and associated education programs: in higher education, research institutions, and in the fields of application of this work.
  • Represent the Information and Communication Sciences in various scientific, educational, and administrative bodies
  • Watch over the scientific and professional interests of its members based on their reflections and propositions.
  • Strengthen relations between French and foreign researchers in connection with homologous international organizations

Actions and Initiatives

The SFSIC provides a favorable framework for the emergence and recognition of research and education in Information and Communication Sciences. It is committed to serving our scientific community in several ways.

  • The SFSIC coordinates various scientific events (Congresses, Doctoral Days, Assises, Doctoral Training Days, Study Days…), all of which are opportunities to develop and publicize research in Information and Communication Sciences
  • The SFSIC edits publications (Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, Cahiers de la SFSIC, Ouvrages et actes), thus contributing to the circulation of the works and reflections developed within our discipline.
  • The SFSIC supports the initiatives carried out by its members in favor of developing Information and Communication Sciences. It labels and contributes to the promotion of French and international scientific events.
  • The SFSIC contributes to structuring collective projects around emerging themes by proposing Study and Research Groups (GER) labeling.
  • The SFSIC offers scientific project leaders the opportunity to disseminate their calls and announcements to the Information and Communication Sciences community.
  • SFSIC has a presence in international conferences(IAMCR/AIECS/AIERI, ICA, EUPRERA, ECREA, ORBICOM )
  • SFSIC develops partnerships with various research organizations (SSCM, DGPuK, ÖGK, AMSIC…) and professional organizations (COM-ENT, SYNAP, SCRP, Cap’Com, AFCI, Communication publique…)

How SFSIC works

Elected among the members for a four-year term, renewable once, the members of the Board of Directors are volunteers and meet every two months during the academic year to coordinate the implementation of the association’s projects. Half of the Board is renewed every two years during a General Assembly.

The Commissions are the pillars of the SFSIC functioning. They are headed by the vice-presidents, who are in charge of thematic actions. These commissions, open to all SFSIC members, meet every two months and are five in number:

Why and how to join SFSIC

As an association, the SFSIC finances its activities mainly through membership fees. Therefore, memberships, both individual and institutional, are essential to our actions in favor of research and education in Information and Communication Sciences. To act in the interest of Information and Communication Sciences, to establish itself, and to radiate, the SFSIC depends on everyone’s commitment.

By becoming a member of the SFSIC:

  • You participate in the activities of the association and contribute to its development. Your membership grants you the right to a vote at the general assemblies.
  • You distribute your calls for papers, events, or publication announcements to a very targeted audience of researchers in Information and Communication Sciences who have shown an interest in the themes you develop.
  • You can set up your personalized “SFSIC’s Watch” newsletter, based on the themes that matter to you and your desired mailing frequency.
  • You can solicit the labeling of an event you organize and that you wish to promote.
  • You can access the detailed files of the members’ directory and publish your own profile

Board Members (2018-2020)

During the XXIst SFSIC Congress in Paris on June 13, 2018, the members elected their directors (renewal by half).
Here is the updated list of the SFSIC 2018-2020 Council members as well as the list of the members of the board, elected during the meeting of the Council of Directors on June 14, 2018:

Information and Communication Sciences and the SFSIC

During its beginnings and probably until the turn of the century, Information and Communication Sciences, an inter-discipline that progressively became a discipline of its own, and SFSIC’s history were closely intertwined; More accurately, both interacted closely, and the activities of the association, for example, the biannual INFORCOM Congresses, as well as the publication of the Lettre d’Inforcom, were a significant platform for both theoretical exchanges and disciplinary development.
This conjunction, some would say this complicity, goes back to 1972-1975. Indeed, the foundations had already been laid, even before May-June 1968, by a whole series of intellectual productions (semiological, sociological, philosophical, systemic, cybernetic, political, pragmatic, etc.), in which French authors greatly rivaled the American pioneers of media studies. However, the emergence and the first steps of a discipline could not be satisfied with theoretical contributions, however decisive they may be; aspects, debates, and even institutional struggles are just as necessary.

Without neglecting the scientific aspects and the organization of research, the SFSIC, or more precisely the Comité des SIC at the beginning (organized only ten years later in the legal form of an association) devoted itself to that task starting in 1972, at the initiative of Robert Escarpit and Jean Meyriat. This Committee had succeeded in mobilizing prestigious authors, and its strength of conviction can be measured by the result obtained at the end of 1975: the creation, under the Minister of National Education’s signature, of a section, then called 52nd section (which will take the N° 71 only five years later). An undeniable success which was not easily granted, and that many other academic “domains” did not achieve, despite multiple attempts. What was decisive, according to the promoters, was above all the professionalized or professionalizing nature of a significant part of the first educational programs in IUT or the second university cycle (journalism, documentation, books, audiovisual, cultural action) and the fact that the professionals who had been hired to operate them, found themselves with no recognition and promotion prospects, as they were evaluated according to external criteria, those of the classical disciplines.

What followed was not always smooth sailing, especially since the oppositions were not only intellectual and institutional, but also political. The SFSIC is at the direct origin of the 71st section of the French National University Council (CNU), that progressively, had to adapt its activity to the diversification and to the increasing complexity of the exchange platforms in what was becoming a discipline.
This historical reminder is certainly necessary today, especially for our younger colleagues, for whom the development of a discipline is not only a construction based on theoretical foundations, but also encompasses institutional and political dimensions. Above all, these historical considerations clarify some specificities that could be considered odd in other countries, such as:

  • The link between information and communication, the first not limited to media information, but extends to different forms of information, professional, scientific and technical, documentary, and has been computerized since the beginning, already in the perspective of artificial intelligence;
  • The emergence of the organizational communication field, frequently approached as part of management studies.

Finally, while today the perimeter of Information and Communication Sciences (as defined on several occasions by the 71st section of the CNU) overlaps quite precisely with the action programs of the SFSIC, that was not always the case: for a long time, members of the SFSIC kept their attachment to their original department. It should also be noted that, in French-speaking countries, especially in Africa, discipline-based organizations representing the Information and Communication Sciences category are active, some of these associations even operating under the “model” initiated by the SFSIC.