An important part of the Research Design is participating at and arrange conferences throughout the research period.

Conferences provide a great opportunity for researchers to meet, share and discuss results from ongoing projects with other researchers and stakeholders and connect to networks on specific research themes.
Conferences usually lasts for more than one day, but differ in size and duration. The research community is often given information about a conference through a call for papers, to which interested researchers must submit an abstract with a breif summary of what they intend to present. The organising committy will then select participants on the bases of the abstracts submitted (applications) and set up the conference program.

Most conferences have a mixture of plenary sessions – where invited acknowledged researchers give lectures to a wide audience - and group sessions of specific themes where researchers with similar research interests present to a smaller audience. All presentations are usually mentored by a Chair who presents speakers, keeps track of timetable and organises the discussions. Round table discussions and poster sessions are also common. Conferences are an ideal place also for informal exchange of ideas in the small time-pockets between sessions, at lunch and dinner.  In order to encourage speakers to present their latest results and ideas, which may not yet be fully explored and ripe for publication, written papers are usually not requested on beforehand. Presenters of selected papers are however sometimes invited to publish in proceedings after the Conference.

The "New Media in a changing Africa" research team plan to participate and arrange panels in international conferences, such as AAA, ECAS, AEGIS, IAMCR, ICA.