Approaching ICA 2014 in Seattle
By the time this newsletter is released, the submission deadline for our next annual conference in Seattle will be just 2 months away, on November 4th---and it will be only a day or two until the website for paper submissions opens on September 3rd. This seems like an excellent time to say a bit more about our 2014 conference theme, along with two other topics to which I'd like to devote some of the plenary sessions.
The Seattle conference theme is "Communication and the Good Life." The theme chair, Helen Wang (U at Buffalo, the State U of New York), and I would like to focus on new media, social connectivity, and well-being. New media present us with new opportunities and new challenges. As we embrace and celebrate changes in our environment and our communicative practices, we also need to reflect on how such changes affect our individual interests, goals, and sense of well-being, as well as the communities, organizations, and societies to which we belong. The philosophical question of what "the good life" truly means has long been a topic of curiosity, discovery, and discussion. Our conference theme this year invites reflection on this and a number of related questions. For example, what might a "good life" look like in a contemporary, digital, network society? How might we strike an appropriate balance and attain such a life? The Seattle conference invites all members of ICA to join this discussion, share diverse perspectives, and weave together different threads of communication scholarship to help us better understand this critical moment in human history.
I am also hoping to coordinate several plenary discussions in Seattle in order to address two additional issues that are important to me. One is our status as an international organization. We have been tackling this issue for a long time, and ICA's leadership over the past few years in particular have put a lot of effort into further internationalizing ICA. But we are certainly not done yet. I often speak to colleagues from around the globe who feel that their particular backgrounds, cultures, and traditions are not adequately acknowledged in our community. If this issue is also important to you and you feel that you'd like to contribute to this ongoing discussion, please contact me at pvatica@gmail.com, and we will work towards organizing a plenary on this topic.
Similarly, I would like to invite conversation on the issue of making our research matter (more): How can we as communication scholars utilize our knowledge and expertise to help solve social, political, and international (or, put more simply, communication-related) problems that are particularly relevant in the context of globalization? Again, this could be a rich topic for a plenary session, so if you'd like to contribute, please send your ideas to pvatica@gmail.com.