In each Newsletter leading up to the conference, we will highlight a few of the exciting preconferences that have been planned for Phoenix. This month, learn more about Occupy ICA, Organizational Communication Junior Scholar Workshop, and Communication and the Ethics of Consumption.

Occupy ICA

Time: 8:30am - 5:00pm, 24 May 2012

Location: Arizona State U, Room TBA

Limit: 50 Participants

Cost: $50 USD/person

Come join Occupy ICA! Build a wider scholarly community! Confront a host of contemporary issues! The now global Occupy Movement which began in Wall Street, New York on 17 September 2011, represents a major effort to give voice to critical concerns about economic inequality, concentrated corporate power, permanent militarization, and the erosion of democracy. This loose yet powerful network and associated set of actions command attention from a wide array of communication sub-disciplines, theories, and methods.

Co-sponsored by the Organizational Communication, Mass Communication, Environmental Communication, amd Global Comunication and Social Change divisions within ICA, this preconference scheduled for 24 May 2012 will be dynamically structured around short papers from scholars and activists, discussion groups, and a few integrative and forward-looking presentations. Brief 1,250-2,500-word position papers should be sent as Word attachments to Majia Holmer Nadesan at Arizona State U - West, majia@asu.edu by 1 March 2012, who will distribute the papers to the other organizers and sponsors by interest/topic area. Papers will be distributed to readers based on topical emphasis. Papers will be posted on a common website by April, and all participants will be encouraged to read others' commentaries and proposals in advance of the conference.

Papers may focus on a cluster of themes such as organizing, governance, and leadership; social media, conventional media, and networks; power, resistance, and social change; and social movement and frame analysis. Argumentative essays, research proposals, reflections on personal experiences with the movement, analyses of empirical data are all welcome. Scholars, activists, and other interested analysts are encouraged to explore connections between local and global issues--notably, the resurgence of place - and to the ways the economy has been and can be treated from the standpoint of communication.

The cost of registration is $50.00 per person. Location: exact room on the ASU campus to be announced. Some arrangement for lunch will be made to facilitate participants spending the entire day together.

8:30-9:00 am: Coffee and mingle time

9:00-9:30 am: Welcome, quick go-around, and orientation to the day's activities

9:30-10:45 am: Break-out session #1, for 5-6 groups, by subtopic, including those parricipants with accepted papers and others

10:45-11:30 am: General, facilitated discussion

11:30 am-1:00 pm: Lunch together

1:15 (or 1:30, if lunch requires going to a nearby location) - 2:00 pm: Keynote #1

2:00-2:15 pm: Q&A 2:15-2:45 pm: Keynote #2

2:45-3:00 pm: Q&A

3:00-4:15 Break-out session #2

4:15-5:00 pm: Agenda-setting general discussion

Organizational Communication's Junior Scholar Workshop

Time: Thursday, 24 May 9:00 - 16:00

Location: Arizona State University, Downtown Phoenix Campus (walking distance to conference hotels)

Limit: 25 Junior Scholars

Cost: $65.00 USD (Includes morning and afternoon refreshments; Lunch on your own). Note that the special ICA rate is available at the conference hotels for the night of May 23.

This workshop is open to all junior members of the Division who have completed the requirements for the Ph.D. This includes, for example, pretenure (and its equivalent), clinical, and adjunct faculty in academic institutions; postdoctoral researchers; and researchers working in industry, government, and nonprofit sectors while in the early stages of their careers. The purpose of the workshop is twofold. First, the workshop will provide opportunities for networking and community building among the early-career scholars in the discipline from around the world. The future of our discipline is the cohort of junior scholars who will assume leadership positions in the field in the years to come. Our field benefits from a set of scholars who are connected intellectually and socially and who feel attachment to a vibrant community. Second, the workshop will offer an interactive forum in which colleagues who are midcareer and senior scholars can interact with and provide advice to early-career scholars regarding professional opportunities and challenges. Part of what makes Organizational Communication such a cohesive discipline is that connections are constantly being forged among scholars at various careers stages. We all have much to learn from each other.

Topics:

A preliminary list of topics has been developed based on input from midcareer and junior scholars. Registrants for the preconference will also have the opportunity to suggest other topics that would be valuable to junior scholars. For each topic, discussion facilitators will include both senior and midcareer scholars, and sessions are designed to be highly interactive.

• Strategies to recruit organizations to participate in organizational communication research projects.
• Selecting journals for submissions and managing revisions.
• Effective strategies for mentoring and being mentored, and managing reviews (3-year, tenure)
• Securing external funding for research
• Balancing the demands of professional (research, teaching, service) and family lives

One additional session will be devoted to other topics suggested by registrants for the preconference.

Workshop Faculty:

Workshop Co-Organizers:
Janet Fulk, U of Southern California
Karen Myers, U of California at Santa Barbara

Mid-career and Senior Scholar Facilitators:
Boris Brummans, U de Montreal
Noshir Contractor, Northwestern U
Laurie Lewis, Rutgers U M.
Scott Poole, U of Illinois
David Seibold, U of California at Santa Barbara
Michelle Shumate, U of Illinois
Sarah Tracy, Arizona State U

Communication and the Ethics of Consumption

Time: Thursday, 24 May 8:30 - 17:30

Location: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State U located at 555 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix AZ 85004, less than one block from the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel (CRONK 444

Limit: 50 persons

Cost: $100.00 USD (Includes morning and afternoon refreshments, and lunch)

This inaugural event for the Environmental Communication Interest Group brings scholars, grad students, community activists, journalists, and other environmental communicators together to engage in a meaningful dialogue about what lies at the crux of our environmental crisis: excessive consumption. Participants will address the ethics of consumption from a communication and media perspective through engaging discussions and activities. Consumption is defined broadly, including both the use of exhaustible material products (for example, media hardware) and the use of inexhaustible and immaterial products and services (such as TV programming, music, movies, games, and web services). As user-generated media and DIY cultures increasingly merge consumption into the process of production, we also call for new ways to define the ethics of consumption. Through this pre-conference, we hope to highlight the links between environmental communication, cultural studies, political communication, health communication, science communication, and popular communication

General Program

8:00-8:30
Registration at ICA Registration Booth. Walk to the site. Coffee & pastries (courtesy of IECA.)

8:30-8:45
Greetings & Announcements: Richard Doherty, Chair, EC IG; Merav Katz-Kimchi, Pre-conference organizer; IECA Representatives (TBA)

8:45-9:50
Guest speakers:
John D. Peters, U of Iowa, Topic TBD
Kim Humphery, RMIT U,  The Ethics of Address: Communicating Anti-Consumerism
Sandra Braman, UW-Milwaukee, Anthropophagy, and Other Metabolisms of the Representational Economy

9:50-10:00
Coffee Break

10:00-11:30
Session 1: Marketing Environmentally Friendly Products, Services, and Corporate Images

Merav Katz-Kimchi, UC Berkeley & Lee Ahern, Penn State
Xinghua Li, Babson College
Omneya Nour roxEddin Khalifa, Ain Shams U, Cairo
Lucy Atkinson, U of Texas, Austin & Yoojung Kim, City U of Hong Kong
Mark Pedelty, U of Minnesota
Chair: TBD

11:30 -12:30
Session 2: Institutional Discourse on Ethical Consumption: From State to Church

Joshua Trey Barnett, U of Georgia (Virtual Presentation)
Sheree Martin, Samford U
Carrie Packwood Freeman & Oana Leventi-Perez, Georgia State
Chair: Sandra Braman, UW-Milwaukee

12:30-1:15
Vegetarian and Vegan Lunch break on-site.

1:15-2:30
Session 3: Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Justice

Sophie Esmann Andersen & Anne Ellerup Nielsen, Aarhus U, Denmark
Miranda J. Brady, Carleton U, Ottowa & Salma Monani, Gettysburg College
Patrick D. Murphy, Temple U
Garrett Broad, U of Southern California
Chair: Chad Raphael, Santa Clara U

2:30-3:30
Session 4: Mediating 'Ethical Consumption': Material and Immaterial Consequences

Mikkel Eskjaer, Aalborg U, Copenhagen
P. Sol Hart & Lauren Feldman, American U
Nicholas John, The Hebrew U of Jerusalem
Chair: Xinghua Li, Babson College

3:30-3:45
Coffee Break

3:45-4:30
Session 5: Roundtable on Edutainment

Susan Ward, Southern Cross U, Australia
Ross Singer, Southern Illinois U
Seth Ashley, Boise State U
Chair: Richard Doherty, U of Illinois

4:30-5:15
Session 6: Teaching Ethical Consumption. Not your ordinary session. Highly interactive and engaging.

Chad Raphael, Santa Clara U
Alison Henderson, U of Waikato, New Zealand
David Benin, Saint Mary's College of California

5:15-5:25
Conclusion and Goodbye! : Xinghua Li

We also wish to acknowledge the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State U, and Dean Christopher Callahan for their generous support in hosting our preconference.