Howard Giles, University of California, Santa Barbara, received the 2012 UCSB Academic Senate Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award for excellence in recruiting students, fostering intellectual growth, and providing career support.
 
Rene Weber, University of California, Santa Barbara received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the UCSB Institute for Collaborative Biotechnology (ICB) for research on “Automated Analysis and Modeling of Motivationally Relevant Narratives from Online Communication Sources.”
 
Debra Lieberman, University of California, Santa Barbara, has been sited for her research on health gaming and social media in the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, Inside Healthcare IT, and others media venues.

New Books
Ronald E. Rice, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Charles Atkin, Michigan State University, Public Communication Campaigns, 4th edition, Sage Publication, 978-1-4129-8770-7
 
Rene Weber and Ryan Fuller, University of California, Santa Barbara, Statistical Methods for Communication Researchers and Professionals, Kendall Hunt, 978-0-7575-9715-2.
 
Bruce Bimber, Andrew J. Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl, University of California, Santa Barbara , Collective Action in Organizations: Interaction and Engagement in an Era of Technological Change, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-5211-9172-2.
 
W. James Potter, University of California, Santa Barbara, Media Effects, Sage Publications, 978-1-4129-6469-2.
 
W. James Potter, University of California, Santa Barbara , Media Literacy, 6th edition, Sage Publications, 978-1452206257.

Platform: Journal of Media and Communication is pleased to announce that our latest issue has just been published on our website: http://journals.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform. Platform is a fully refereed, open access online  journal which publishes work by graduate students and early career researchers in media and communications and related disciplines. It is edited by graduate students at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Volume 4, Issue 1 of the journal consists of a general section of the journal edited by Luke van Ryn (University of Melbourne), and a special issue section consisting of articles from the Australia and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) 2011 conference guest edited by Shujie (Phoebe) Guo.

The table of contents are as follows:

1. Editorial
By Luke van Ryn, The University of Melbourne, Australia; and Shujie Phoebe Guo, The Waikato Management School, New Zealand

*** General Section ***

2. The barriers for proliferation of Interactive Television (iTV) in Australia in the period 1999-2007
By Maria J. Bora, The University of Melbourne, Australia

3. Indian international student safety in Melbourne and the Victoria police – the development of a crisis and the perceptions that propelled it
By Maria Fleming, University of Canberra, Australia

4. Critical media studies in times of communicative capitalism: An Interview with Jodi Dean
By Sebastian Kubitschko, Goldsmiths, University of London

*** ANZCA Section ***

5. Inertia and turbulence: television and innovation in New Zealand’s documentary production ecology
By Anna Jackson, University of Auckland, New Zealand and The University of Melbourne, Australia

6. Beyond the blog: The networked self of travel bloggers on Twitter
By Deepti Ruth Azariah, Curtin University, Australia

7. Dancing around the subject with robots: ethical communication as a “triple audiovisual reality”
By Eleanor Sandry, The University of Western Australia

8. Shifting online: An exploratory study into PR consultants’ attitude towards new media
By Katharina Wolf, Curtin University, Australia; and Catherine Archer, Curtin University, Australia

You can view the full issue online at http://journals.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform. For more information about ANZCA, please visit http://www.anzca.net/

********* Contribute to Platform *********

Platform is currently seeking contributions for its upcoming special Vol 4, Issue 1 on 'Automating Conduct: Autonomy in Control'. To visit the full call for papers, please visit http://journals.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform/call_papers.html. We also welcome submission of general articles between 6,000 - 8,000 words at any time relating to the field of media and communications or related disciplines. To submit or for more information, please contact our editors-in-chief for this issue, Suneel Jethani and Luke Heemsbergen, at platformjmc@gmail.com.

We are also looking for people to contribute as editors and guest editors of special themed issues of the journal relating to their research. We welcome expressions of interest from postgraduate (Masters or PhD) level researchers, either doing work in media studies or with an interest in issues around media and communications or academic publishing. Please contact us via platformjmc@gmail.com for details and to apply.