Bylaws

Prepared by: Dana Plank, Kendra Leonard, Jessica Getman
Date Approved: 12/20/17

Amended by: Daniel Bishop, Lisa Scoggin, Jordan Stokes
Passed by vote: 11/16/24

Article I. Name

The group shall be known as the Music and Media Study Group of the American Musicological Society.

Article II. Purpose

The Music and Media Study Group (hereafter, MMSG) seeks to foster the development of scholarship on the interactions of music and media within contexts of history, culture, aesthetics, and identity. The group promotes the scholarly consideration of music and media from all geographies, eras, and traditions, advocating for the recognition and integration of this line of inquiry into academic and public musicological discourse. The MMSG will also seek to:

• Offer professional and scholarly mentorship opportunities, networking, and collaboration.
• Provide a forum to further develop our ideas and open intellectual and social dialogue.
• Share resources, ideas, and avenues for sharing, presenting, publicizing, or publishing our work.
• Activities of the MMSG include a business meeting and scholarly panel at annual AMS meetings, along with an array of other functions advancing the group’s goals.

Article III. Membership

Membership in the MMSG will be open to any current member of the American Musicological Society who requests it. Membership shall not be restricted according to employment or student status. All members may vote at annual meetings and hold office within the MMSG. In addition to in-person voting at meetings and other membership functions, voting among members can vote by a viable electronic proxy. In all cases, voting confidentiality will either be maintained by the process or, in certain cases, will be made available upon request.

AMS requires Study Groups to keep records of attendees at sessions and meetings. The number of attendees at Study Group meetings will be recorded annually, and the number of users of any of the Study Group’s online resources will also be recorded each year by the Co-Chairs. Any contact information gathered will remain confidential.

Article IV. Officers

The offices of the MMSG shall consist of three Co-Chairs. Officers must be current members of the AMS and of the MMSG at the time of their election and must remain members throughout their term as officers.

The Co-Chairs shall collectively act as the executive officers of the MMSG, presiding over all meetings of the members and having general management of the affairs of the Study Group, including the power to enforce all orders and resolutions passed by the members. Co-Chairs may occasionally delegate these responsibilities to standing or ad hoc committees. Co-Chairs may also volunteer to serve on any standing or ad-hoc committees. Two of the three co-chairs will be voting members on any Calls for Papers, along with any additional Members at Large appointed for this purpose, while the third co-chair, by collective agreement, will not serve as a voting member and will be responsible for anonymizing the process of abstract submission and voting. An alternate possibility would be for a Member at Large to be appointed as Program Committee Facilitator, in which case all three co-chairs will vote.

For MMSG co-chair elections, the co-chair responsible for anonymizing nominations, self-nominations, and tallying ballots should not be in the last year of their term or otherwise running for re-election.

Co-Chairs will serve a three-year term, at which point they may choose to leave the position, or to run for election again. When possible, best practice is to maintain a rotational series of three-year terms. All co-chairs may also serve on any standing MMSG ad hoc committee. Elections for open positions will be held each year at the MMSG business meeting during the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society. Nominations can be made beginning eight weeks prior to the Annual Meeting. The co-chairs are responsible for membership-facing communications relevant to elections. In the event of an uncontested election, no ballots will be necessary, and a voice vote will be used instead.

In general, the longest-serving chair will take a lead role on official communication with AMS, including sending reports following meetings, providing required information for inclusion on AMS meetings, scheduling study group events, and attending meetings directly relevant to the management of the AMS study groups. As the potentially outgoing chair, they will also work to mentor incoming chairs and ensure smooth transitions between roles.

Other chair duties will be shared equitably between all three chairs upon collective agreement. These duties include: 

• secretarial duties relevant to the business meetings, such as sharing and distributing minutes within two weeks after the end of the annual meeting
• managing social media as an extension of the MMSG’s public and membership-facing profile
• maintaining communication with members
• liaisons with other AMS study groups (or comparable groups within other scholarly organizations) with whom we are partnering for a particular event.

Members At-Large may be elected or appointed by the co-chairs, serve for a maximum of one year, and may, upon arrangement, serve as voting members on any committees.

Article V. Elections

Officers shall be elected by a plurality of votes of the total membership; a quorum (defined as 4 members, per Article VI, below) is necessary for a valid vote. (In the absence of a quorum, an electronic ballot, in the form of a run-off election, will render a vote valid). Nominations, self-nominations, and ballots will be anonymized by a co-chair not running for election. In the event of a tie vote, a run-off election will be held electronically and completed no later than four (4) weeks after the Annual Meeting. Election results will be announced by six (6) weeks after the Annual Meeting via the MMSG website and social media accounts. In the case of an election in which a candidate runs unopposed, a voice vote at the business meeting may be utilized to confirm election of the candidate.

Article VI. Committees

Standing and ad-hoc committees of the MMSG may be created by a majority vote. Committees shall consist of no fewer than three members, and the terms of all committee members shall be specified at the time of appointment. All committee terms shall begin and end at an annual business meeting. The Co-Chairs of the MMSG may appoint either just the committee chair (who will then solicit members) or both the committee chair and committee members. The Co-Chairs of the MMSG or another MMSG Officer shall serve as ex officio members of all committees.

Program Committee: The Program Committee will organize panels, sessions, and activities at each Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society that serve and promote the interests of both the MMSG and the American Musicological Society membership at large. The Program Committee shall consist of the MMSG Co-Chairs and Members At-Large. One of the co-chairs shall serve as the non-voting Chair of the Program Committee, and will be responsible for collecting responses to CFPs, removing identifying data, sending out proposals to the Program Committee, collecting and aggregating scores, and making the scores available to the Committee so that they may come to a vote on the final program.

Ad-Hoc Committees: Other committees may be organized to address specific needs of the MMSG, either in response to requests by the membership or by Co-Chair proposal. Ad-hoc committees shall dissolve after completing their mandate or shall become standing committees through an amendment to these bylaws.

Article VII. Activities

Business Meeting: The Co-Chairs of the MMSG will schedule a business meeting during the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society. At least four (4) members must be present at the meeting to constitute a quorum. At the business meeting, the Co-Chairs will update membership on the recent activities of the group and propose any initiatives for the upcoming year, and all officers and standing and ad-hoc committees may present brief reports.

Business meetings shall be planned in advance with an agenda circulated to members at least one (1) week before the start of the AMS annual meeting. Any agenda items proposed during the meeting must be germane either to the rules of order governing the meeting or to the substance of the agenda; all other new business shall be considered only after the completion of the scheduled business meeting.

Program: The Officers of the MMSG will organize at least one program of interest at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society. The program may take the form of a paper session, panel, workshop, open demo, or any other format at the discretion of the Program Committee. If the program consists of papers or alternate format presentations, they shall be solicited with a general Call for Papers/Presentations, publicized through official and unofficial channels (e.g., the website, email lists, AMS-announce, and shared via social media), and evaluated anonymously by the Program Committee.

Article VIII: Amendments

Amendments to these By-Laws may be proposed to the Chair by any member, not later than two (2) weeks before the beginning of the Annual Meeting of the Society. Proposed amendments shall be made known to the Study Group membership at least one (1) week before the business meeting of the MMSG; they shall be placed on the agenda of that meeting for discussion, possible revision, and a vote. For an amendment to be approved, it must receive two-thirds of the ballots cast by members attending the MMSG business meeting during the Annual Meeting of the Society.