New to the ICA Conference this year is the Extended Session - a conference slot of 2.5 hours that gives each Division and Interest Group the opportunity to go beyond the typical four- or five-paper presentation and respondent format. The goal of the extended session is to enable more dialogue and intellectual debate, more time for creative presentations, greater possibilities for members to exchange ideas and expertise in a less constrained manner, and more opportunities to engage the larger community.

In each Newsletter leading up to the conference, we will highlight several extended sessions. Stay tuned to see what each Division and Interest Group is planning!

Feminist Scholarship

By popular request across the division, the FSD extended session will provide a forum to discuss issues of pressing concern to the Feminist Scholarship division, and central to our feminist work in the academy, as mentors, and in practices of disseminating our work into the community. The session is divided into four discussion areas. Each discussion will be initiated by a range of brief “teasers” from panelists and followed by dialogue among all session members. Each of the following four topics will be discussed in this teaser-dialogue fashion in 45 minute blocks:

• The Future of FSD: Priorities and Strategizing for Our Division for the Next Decade
• Feminist Networking, Dissemination, and Activist Strategies via New Media
• The State of Feminist Methodologies: Taking Stock and New Challenges
• Mentoring Feminist PhD Students for Varied Career Options

Participants:

- The Future of FSD: Priorities and Strategizing for Our Division for the Next Decade

• Vicki Mayer (Tulane U)
• Carolyn Byerly (Howard U)
• Marian Meyers  (Georgia State U)
• Isabel Molina  (U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

- Feminist Networking, Dissemination, and Activist Strategies via New Media

• Carol Stabile  (Center for the Study of Women in Society)
• Mél Hogan  (Concordia U)
• Mari Castaneda  (U of Massachusetts, Amherst)
• Sara Kember  (Goldsmith’s,  U of London)
• Marybeth Haralovich (U of Arizona) 

- The State of Feminist Methodologies: Taking Stock, and New Challenges

• Janice Radway  (Northwestern U)
• Lisa Henderson (U of Massachusetts, Amherst)
• Lynne Webb  (U of Arkansas)
• Patrice Buzzanell (Purdue U)

- Mentoring Feminist PhD Students for Varied Career Options

• Radhika Gajjala (Bowling Green State U)
• Michelle Rodino  (U of Pittsburg)
• Dafna Lemish (Southern Illinois U, Carbondale)
• Angharad Valdivia (U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Game Studies: Research on Problematic Video Game Use and Effects of Violent Games

Game Studies Presents:	Ferguson	Sherry	Ewoldsen

This year, all ICA divisions and interest groups will be debuting special double-length "extended sessions" to allow for new and creative ways to host competitive papers and invited presentations.

Given that research on the negative effects of video games continues to be a prominent and hotly debated topic, the Game Studies Interest Group is hosting the special extended symposium session "Research on Problematic Video Game Use and Effects of Violent Games" from 10:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Friday, 25 May, to showcase competitive research and provide members with the opportunity for personal discussion with prominent scholars in the area. In addition to a series of great competitively-selected papers from ICA members, the session features special featured scholars Christopher Ferguson (Texas A & M International U), John Sherry (Michigan State U), and David Ewoldsen (Ohio State U).

The extended session combines four different features: 1) short presentations of competitively selected papers from Game Studies members related to the session’s focus, 2) an interactive poster session allowing attendees to browse those papers in greater depths and talk to the authors, 3) open small-group/one-on-one "roundtable" discussions with the featured scholars, and 4) a Q&A panel session featuring the featured scholars' general comments about the session’s topic and responses to member-submitted discussion questions.

The session is designed to keep "flowing" through different formats to provide a variety of experiences for attendees while showcasing excellent research papers. ICA conference participants are invited to attend some or all of the session, as attendees are welcome to arrive or leave between segments of the extended session as their schedules require.

The session's schedule is as follows:

10:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Short "high-density" presentations of competitively selected papers (selected via ICA’s regular paper competition).

11:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Open browsing of posters summarizing the same competitively selected papers while featured scholars are available at "roundtables" for small-group/one-on-one discussion.

12:30 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Reconvene audience for Q&A panel session with featured scholars' comments on session topic and responses to member-submitted discussion questions.

We are excited about this chance to share some great research from Game Studies members and host some exciting discussion on an important topic. See you there!

 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies: Coming Together: Online, Offline, and Transmedia Studies of GLBT/Q Politics and Representation

In this extended session, participants will reflect on the state of the field of GLBT/Q research in communication. Instead of traditional panel presentations, the session will feature moderated half-hour discussions, followed by open discussion, on each of these three themes: 1) GLBT/Q Identities and Collectivities Online; 2) GLBT/Q Representation on Television; 3) GLBT/Q Transmedia Engagement and Representation.

Global Communication and Social Change: Revisiting Cultural Imperialism, Interrogating Social Change

The extended session will provide a forum for provocative and lively discussion on the question of whether and to what extent power is shifting globally, particularly in the arena of culture and media. We will also broach the possible implications of such a shift or lack of shift, including implications for social change. Finally, as part of the inquiry we will interrogate the meaning of social change, including its shifting meanings at the current historical juncture and across different locations globally.

After invited participants present their position succinctly, in no more than 8 minutes each, there will be ample opportunity for multidirectional, interactive discussion with the audience. The idea is to put forward innovative and even heretical ideas to move the conversation forward.

Discussion will include a probing examination of the relationships between media and imperialism in the face of changes as significant as the fall of the Soviet Union, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring; a hard look at the role of social media in recent seismic shifts; inquiry into the representation of the rise of China and India and its implications; and an examination of the adequacy of "social change" as a theoretical rubric as opposed to "advocacy communication" and "social justice.

Health Communication: Key Themes, Debates, and Conversations in Health Communication Theory, Research, and Application: Engaging Diverse Worldviews in Dialogue

This extended session in the Health Communication Division serves as a platform for engaging in debate and dialogue about the key paradigm issues in health communication scholarship, both historically as well as in the presentation of contemporary debates in the field. Drawing upon a dialogical-dialectical framework, the session engages scholars with divergent paradigmatic commitments to chart out specific terrains of arguments that are responsive to the diversity of worldviews, research methods, as well as conceptualizations of health communication applications in global contexts. Through the presentations of these key debates, it is hoped that the session will chart out points of dialogue among the different approaches to health communication, working through the differences and convergences.

The session will consist of the following components:(a) an opening overview section; (b) specific minipresentations on topics, (c) broader debates that will build on the minipresentations; and (d) a wrap-up section that summarizes key discussions and suggests future directiobs. In conversation with the broader convention theme of "Community," the session will engage the question: What are the key points of conversation that constitute the foundations of the global community of health communication scholars and practitioners?

Information Systems: Looking Through the Crystal Ball: The Future of Communication Research

The six papers will be presented two at a time, followed by comments from a panel of three journal editors and established scholars. Panelists will offer their thoughts on how approaches used in the papers might or might not influence the future of communication research. The panel discussion will be followed by a lively Q&A before we switch to the next two papers. The papers will be made available in advance to foster online discuss well before the conference.