Conference Update: A Closer Look at Programming
Happy New Year! It's time to make final plans for Phoenix! Acceptances have been sent to 48% of the more than 2800 submissions received, top papers have been identified, and 455 sessions have been created. Besides the traditional panel formats there will be 15 extended sessions, 15 preconferences, and seven plenary and miniplenary presentations. Thanks to the planners and reviewers for getting all their work done in a timely fashion (particularly critical this year, given that we postponed the submission deadline because of large-scale power outages). Many division planners also devoted a great deal of extra time and energy creating new forms of programming that will make the Phoenix conference especially engaging and intellectually stimulating.
Extended Sessions
The "extended sessions" are an exciting new addition to the conference this year. These sessions enable divisions and interests groups to do things that normally can't fit into the short time frame of one session. Extended sessions will be held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and include: workshops to help new scholars get their submitted manuscripts ready for publication; interactive formats for connecting authors with publication opportunities; collaborative conversations among scholars and practitioners; moderated discussions, debates, and position papers about future directions in an area of research. We also have an extended theme session that includes screening the documentary Precious Knowledge, capturing the efforts of independent, documentary filmmakers as they engage with public policy makers and social actors to bring contentious political issues to a broader public. Testimonies from students at Tucson High School's Mexican American Studies Department are part of this powerful documentary. A conversation amongst scholars, community members, students, the filmmaker, and the audience will follow.
Plenaries & Miniplenaries
We also have plenary and miniplenary sessions that bring together communication scholars, artists, practitioners, and members of the global community to address contemporary communication issues.
Representatives of The Lost Boys of Sudan who have settled in the Phoenix community will be our opening plenary on Thursday, addressing issues of both community disintegration and development at the global/local levels.
In a special plenary on Friday afternoon, Jana Mashonee, the Grammy-nominated, Native American singer-songwriter will perform and discuss the ways her music and her "Jana's Kids" educational program address the challenges of community, communication, cultural pride, identity, motivation, and ambition.
Acoustic musician Glenn Weyant will demonstrate and talk about playing the Nogales Wall with a cello and implements of mass percussion to transform the wall into a symbol capable of promoting unity and communication during a miniplenary.
In another miniplenary, we have Stephan Weitz, the Senior Director of Search at Microsoft and Director of its search engine Bing, who will talk about infusing search with social signals Professor Shawny Anderson will discuss ways of connecting research and theory in programs that take students to communities in stress including locations in Tanzania, Northern Brazil, the Amazon, Dominica, Haiti, and New Orleans.
Our closing plenary will feature renowned scholars debating the ways in which emerging media are changing the fundamental questions, methods, and theories of the communication discipline.
Preconferences
Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of our scholarship, our organization, and our conference theme, several of the preconferences are sponsored by multiple divisions, interest groups, and foundations; these preconferences are designed to give participants the opportunity to interact with scholars, practitioners, and community members. I want to particularly acknowledge The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Dean Christopher Callahan at Arizona State U for their generous support in hosting many of our preconferences. To learn more about these preconferences, consult our conference website or the "featured preconferences" section of the Newsletter leading up to conference. Registration is open and slots are filling quickly.
Some preconferences tie in closely to the conference theme, "Communication and Community":
Several preconferences address the challenges of studying and understanding global communities and emerging media:
There are also special opportunities for graduate students and junior faculty in the preconference schedule. Political Communication and Communication and Technology are offering doctoral workshops and consortia, Organizational Communication is offering a workshop for junior scholars who have completed their PhDs.
Other preconferences are addressing contemporary issues in Communication research. These include "Communication and the Ethics of Consumption," "Historiography as Intervention Communicating Across Geographies, Communities, and Divide," and "Health Communication Interventions Addressing Health Disparities." As I hope you can see, there are so many people, across Divisions and Interest Groups who are contributing to making our Phoenix conference one of the most exciting and vibrant ICA conferences ever. In the next Newsletter, I will detail our newly created extended sessions and the virtual conference. It is a quite amazing what the planners have put together. I look forward to sharing these experiences with you and seeing everyone in Phoenix.
Pictured Above: The Lost Boys of Sudan. Learn more about the Lost Boy's journey at: http://www.azlostboyscenter.org/