The Culture of the Conference

Abstract

This paper has arisen out of local research on conferences and an address to a conference of FamilyPlanning Trainers in the Wessex Regional Health Authority. It may provide a starting point for further work.

Conferences are time‐consuming and costly events which have never been systematically researched and rarely even discussed except from an organizer's point of view. They are considered here as a form of collective learning and distinguished in several ways from other academic and professional meetings. A variety of conference formats is referred to and the general aims of conferences discussed in relation to participants’ expectations. Data from a small survey and discussions with respondents provide an empirical base and a general perspective on attitudes to different aspects of conferences. It appears that certain kinds of conferences are consistently selected and participants have distinctive motivations for attendance. In the light of this, a distinction is made between the practical (informative) function of communication and its ‘phatic’ (social) function. An analysis of conference reports reflects this distinction and provides other insights into the conference as an educational medium. Future technological developments in telecommunications are discussed with some scepticism as to their effectiveness in achieving the social and educational functions which conferences currently perform.