Besides the newsletter, European Sociologist, the ESA also has an e-mail discussion list supported by the JISCmail service from the United Kingdom.
If you wish to join the discussion list of the European Sociological Association,
join european-sociologist [firstname] [lastname]
More details and an archive of all messages sent to the list can be found here.
It has come to the ESA's notice that many of its members are not familiar with e-mail and are not clear what a discussion list is or how it can be of use to them. (Since you have found this page on the WorldWideWeb, that may not apply to you!) This sheet, adapted from a Mailbase handout, is intended to explain a bit about e-mail discussion lists generally and the ESA discussion list in particular.
Cooperation and discussion have always been vital to successful academic life. E-mail discussion lists allow this to happen in a new way, not just for "traditional" computer users, but for academics from all disciplines. Many academics find they are working in a specialised area and that there are few colleagues with whom they can discuss their work in depth. With an e-mail discussion list they can collaborate on projects and publications, announce conferences, arrange meetings and share news and views etc.
A discussion list works by maintaining a central list of the e-mail addresses of all its members at some central location (in the ESA's case, under Mailbase at Newcastle University). Any message sent to the list is redistributed automatically to all members within minutes. As a member of a discussion list, you can either send a message to all members or reply directly just to the person who put a message on the list. You can make reports, minutes of meetings and other types of documents available for list members to retrieve by electronic mail. It is free at the point of use to those in the higher education community.
At present, the ESA maintains a list, called european-sociologist. It can be thought of as an electronic "bulletin board", where any message "posted" on the bulleting board will reach hundreds of sociologists scattered across Europe and further afield. As research networks and groups are set up under the aegis of the ESA, we plan to create "sub-lists" that will be directed at smaller groups of ESA members who share a common, specialized interest. These sub-lists would be smaller and more focussed; it is within them that true discussion could take place.
As one can see the advantages of discussion lists are their immediacy (material put on the list circulates without delay) and, paradoxically, its permanence (the material is text, so it can be saved or printed and read at one's leisure). Communication that is not constrained by limits of geography, time or cost is possible.