Speakers for the major plenary panels and sessions for the upcoming conference in San Francisco have all been invited and have accepted. I'm delighted with the line-up of great speakers and discussion topics, as these really bring to life the conference theme of Creating Communication: Content, Control, and Critique. In this column, I'd like to publicise the plenaries, update everyone on conference preparations, and end with some heartfelt thanks to all who’ve contributed to planning the conference.

 

 

Opening Plenary

Communication and Critique: Reflections On The Critical Role of Communication Scholarship

Thursday, May 24th, 6pm - 7:15 pm

 

This opening plenary panel will explore stimulating and diverse perspectives on the possibilities for critique in communication scholarship. An invited panel of speakers will ask, what constitutes critique in today's intellectual and political context? Are we all critical scholars, in one way or another, or is critique itself fading from our field? As societies become more complex, commercialised and globalised, and as traditional political divisions and familiar ethical values are uprooted or challenged, what critical standpoints, if any, would the panel make their priority for future research?

 

Chaired by Susan Douglas, expert on issues of culture, gender, and broadcasting history at the U of Michigan, speakers include Angela McRobbie (Goldsmiths College, U of London and author most recently of The Uses of Cultural Studies and currently writing Gender Culture and Social Change), Robin Mansell (London School of Economics, currently editing the Oxford Handbook on ICTs and recent author of Trust and Crime in Information Societies), Bella Mody (U of Colorado, Boulder, author of International and Development Communication: A 21st Century Perspective), and Ellen Seiter (U of Southern California, author of The Internet Playground: Children's Access, Entertainment and Mis-education).

 

This plenary will be followed by the Welcome Reception in the Hilton, to which all delegates are warmly invited. Come and meet your colleagues and friends in a convivial atmosphere with some food and drink provided.

 

 

Plenary

What's So Significant About Social Networking? Web 2.0 and its Critical Potential

Friday, May 25th, 12 - 1:15pm

 

Web 2.0 is high on the public agenda right now. Indeed, from MySpace and YouTube to collective journalism and open-source software production, online social networks are transforming our lives. This panel will take a critical look at the changes under way and their implications for communication researchers, chaired by Fred Turner (author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture at Stanford U).

 

Speakers are leading researchers Howard Rheingold (author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs, participatory media activist and Instructor at the U of California, Berkeley), Beth Noveck (pioneer of The Do Tank and the State of Play Academy at New York Law School), Henry Jenkins (author of Convergence Culture and Textual Poachers, among other books, at MIT), and Tiziana Terranova (author of Network Culture and Bodies in the Net, U of Essex). Together, they will map the social and technological forces driving the rise of these networks, as well as the debates surrounding them. The aim is to assess how digital social networks interact with offline cultural and political institutions and to identify the roles that scholars might play in shaping that relationship.

 

 

Half-Plenary

The Politics of Publishing: The Future Of Academic (Book) Publishing

Friday, May 25th, 4:30pm - 5:45pm

 

Many of us publish academic books, but what do we know of the politics of publishing? This panel focuses on the changing structures of the book publishing industry - its structures, institutions and powers. Its starting point is the irony that one of the only media industries in which academics have any direct involvement as active players is the publishing industry, and yet this is the one media industry about which academics know almost nothing.

 

Chaired by Michael Schudson, expert in the sociology of news at U of California, San Diego, the keynote presentation at this plenary will be given by John B. Thompson (author of Books in the Digital Age and Professor of Sociology at Cambridge U). His arguments will be complemented by the reactions of two respondents who are each active leaders in current developments in book and journal publishing: John Willinsky (U of British Columbia’s Public Knowledge Project, and author of The Access Principle) and Steve Smith (Vice President and Editorial Director of Academic Books at Blackwell Publishing).

 

 

Later on Friday, from 7pm - 9 pm, we’ve arranged a Special Reception at the Asian Art Museum. I look forward to meeting many of you there. You can buy tickets for this when you register for the conference.

 

 

Plenary

Presidential Address: "Unusual Routines: Organizational NonSensemaking"

Saturday, May 26th, 4:30pm – 6pm

 

ICA President Ron Rice (Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication and Co-Director, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media) will make his address to the conference. Giving us an advance insight into the argument from his new book, and with topical examples promised from the world of academia, Rice will argue that unusual routines involve contradictory and frustrating subprocesses that inherently generate negative outcomes for some organizations, system users, organizational representatives, and their customers and clients, while generating completely sensible and even effective outcomes for others. 

 

The presidential address is traditionally combined with the Annual Members' Meeting and Awards Presentation, making for an action-packed session. I would like to urge all ICA members to attend this meeting, not only because these meetings have sometimes been poorly attended but, more importantly, because this is an opportunity to hear about the latest developments and plans within the Association, and to offer comments and suggestions. So, do put this in your conference diary.

 

 

Plenary Interactive Paper Session

Sunday, May 27th, 12 – 1:15pm

 

Papers from all the Divisions and Interest Groups will be displayed in this main plenary event, so everyone should find something relevant to their work here. Presenters will be standing by their papers, ready to discuss their research with interested participants.

 

The Top 10 Plenary Papers will receive a certificate, and the Top 3 will receive cash prizes of $500, $250 and $100, to be awarded during the event itself. Coffee and water will also be provided, and sandwiches, rolls and fruit will be on sale, so this is another good opportunity to mingle and meet like-minded researchers.

 

 

Half-Plenary

News, Journalism And The Democratic Potential of Blogging: From
Antagonism To Synergy?

Sunday, May 27th, 4:30pm – 5:45pm

 

There’s a lot of popular speculation about blogging and its potential challenge to established journalism, but what’s really going on? Chaired by Nico Carpentier (editor of Reclaiming the media: Communication rights and democratic media roles), Vrije U Brussel & Catholic U of Brussels), four leading scholars will debate whether and how blogging, or citizen journalism, can develop into new informational and representational practices that advance our democracies. They’ll inquire into the democratic potential of the transformations of journalism(s) through a cross-fertilization of journalism with blogging. But the panel will also critically address the limitations and restrictions, the struggles and counter-strategies, which these democratic innovations face in taking on the more hegemonic articulations of journalist identities and the resulting practices.

 

The speakers will be Jay Rosen (leading figure in the public journalism reform movement, and author of What are Journalists For?, at New York U), Geert Lovink (U of Amsterdam and Hogeschool van Amsterdam, author of Dark Fiber - essays on Internet culture, and Uncanny Networks), Fausto Colombo (Author of Digitising TV at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore), and Gaye Tuchman (U of Connecticut, author of Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality).

 

 

That's the plenaries! Any more, and there wouldn't be time for regular sessions.

 

 

Registration

Registration for the conference is now open, and lots of information is already available on the ICA website – for example, the conference programme, application form for travel grants, etc., and we’ll be adding more information in the coming months. You’ll also see information on the pre-conferences and the theme events, so make your choices early. Register online at http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2007/confregistration.asp.

 

Everyone who submitted a paper should have heard by now whether their submission has been accepted. Congratulations to those who've received good news. As I wrote in the last issue of the Newsletter, submissions were up by 30% this year, so it has been tough for programme planners and reviewers in making the selections, and tough also on those who didn’t get selected – still, I hope that everyone who can come, will, if at all possible.

 

 

Thanks

Every year, the conference chair learns this process from scratch! So let me end with some heartfelt thanks to everyone who has worked so hard in preparing the conference programme. First, I’m hugely grateful to Michael Haley and his great team at the ICA office – Sam Luna, Deandra Tolson, Tina Zeigler, and Mike West.

 

I’d also like to thank all the unit planners, who've worked so hard, often over weekends, getting everything reviewed, planned, and fitted into the sessions allocated. So, many thanks to Paul Bolls, Pam Kalbfleish, Robin Nabi, Cynthia Stohl, Min-Sun Kim, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Kevin Barnhurst, Amy Nathanson, Dave Buller, Ingrid Volkmer, Jan Van Dijk, Lynn Clark, Betteke Van Ruler, Vicki Mayer, Sharon Strover, Steve McDowell, Mark Aakhus, Marion Mueller, James Neuliep, John Newhagen, David Phillips, Bernadette Watson, Kumarini Silva, John Sherry and Nico Carpentier.

 

It’s been great working with Nico Carpentier as Theme Chair, who with Benjamin De Cleen has put together the theme events listed above as well as arranging the theme sessions. (Visit the theme session website at http://www.vub.ac.be/icatheme07/.) I’m grateful also to Fred Turner for organising the 'social networking' plenary, to Heather Hudson of the local host committee and to Seeta Peña Gangadharan for local student support. Thanks, last, to Ron Rice, for handing on lots of helpful information about conference planning, and to the Executive Committee for guiding me when needed.

 

 

Next month: Theme Sessions, Theme Events, and Exhibitions!

 

ICA Journal Citations

 

ICA continues to improve on many fronts, due to involved members, a professional and innovative staff managed by Michael Haley, an active Board of Directors, and an experienced Executive Committee. I'd like to highlight just one of those areas this month: the ICA journals. 

 

With the 2006 contractual relationship with Blackwell Publishing, all three of the ICA print journals have considerably increased institutional subscriptions, and impact ratings greater than 1.0 (something like the number of citations to a journal in a 2-year period, divided by the total number of articles published by those journals in the prior 2 years):

 

Communication Theory, now at volume 17, impact rating of 1.51

Journal of Communication, now at volume 57, impact rating of 1.13

Human Communication Research, now at volume 33, impact rating of 1.08

 

And three years ago the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication - originally begun by Peggy McLaughlin and Sheizaf Rafaeli and hosted by the Annenberg School of Communication at USC - became an ICA journal, now at volume 12. Although JCMC is now listed on the Web of Science, it is not yet included in annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

 

Beginning in 2008, ICA will add an additional print journal, Communication, Culture and Critique. 

 

As part of its emphasis on increased internationalization, beginning with the January 2007 issues, ICA will provide translations of each journal’s article abstracts in the six UN languages. (Translations are available through the ICA website.) This is fairly costly but was widely supported by the Internationalization Committee and the Board of Directors.

 

The underlying citations of and from journals, as reported in JCR, are the basis for computing the impact factor. They are also the basis for identifying clusters of shared interests, journals, and authors – one widely used form of bibliometrics, or citation analysis.

 

It might be interesting to see just how the three ICA print journals are located in their local citation environments.  Leydesdorff developed a reasonable way to extract what he calls “journal-citation environments” from the otherwise unwieldy matrix of possible citation relations (1710x1710 for social-science journals, and 5907x5907 for science journals). These matrices are also largely empty, as most journals generally cite each other in dense clusters even within their own discipline, and not very frequently across disciplines, although there is a low-level "fuzzy" amount of citations across a wide diversity of other journals. So, rather than try to analyze the entire matrix and identify the clusters and relations within that large but very clumpy set, Leydesdorff instead developed a procedure whereby one can choose any particular journal of interest; the program computes the distribution of citations to and from, and selects only those journals that involve at least one percent of the total citations (from or to). Frequently, it turns out that 10 to 20 or so journals represent most of all citations, so all remaining journals are ignored.

 

Leydesdorff also uses the cosine between the two vectors as the measure of similarity between each pair of resulting journals. He prefers this to the more commonly used correlation, as it does not normalize for the mean and doesn't produce negative values. So his program begins with a specific journal and produces two files: one for all the journals whose citations to the given journal each represent at least 1% of the total citations of the given journal, and one for all the journals whose citations by the given journal each represent at least 1% of the total citations from the given journal. Each file contains the list of journal names, a matrix of cosines between each pair of journals, and a value indicating the proportion of the total journal-citation environment that each journal represents (controlling for within-journal citations). He provides this set of files for each of the social-science and science journals for 2003, 2004, and 2005. The data come from the Journal Citation Reports 2005 from the Social Science Citation Index (1712 journals total) provided at http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/jcr04; for related programs, data, and publications, see http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/.  Amazing!

 

So I downloaded the 2005 cited and citing data for the three ICA journals (JCMC was not yet included in ISI). Of course, one can also do this for each of any set of "communication" journals. These may include the Journal Citation Report's "core" communication journals, the Iowa Guide’s communication journals, or any other set one might want to compare (as long as they are included in the Social Science Citation Index).

 

Using UCINET and Netdraw, I produced the accompanying figures. These apply multidimensional scaling to the cosine matrices, arraying the journals according to their similarity in two-dimensional space. The area of the journal nodes is proportional to the extent to which each journal provides citations (in the "citing" figures) or receives citations (in the "cited" figures) within that set of journals, controlling for within-journal (self-) citations. The "cited" value represents the local impact in terms of citation volume, while the "citing" value represents "how the relevant journal environment is perceived by the collective authors of a given journal" (p. 25). One can also indicate the strength of citation links between the journals through proportionally thicker lines, but it becomes difficult to read. Additional network analyses are possible, as well, such as computing individual betweenness centrality of each journal. However, my purpose here is primarily impressionistic.

 

Communication Theory is cited primarily by Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and Communication Monographs.  It also has small (but greater than 1%) citations from Health Communication, Media Psychology, and Journal of Health Communication. However, nearly all of its citations go to Communication Monographs, with just a few in its local citation environment to Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Thus, given the criterion for the local citation environment, Communication Theory's "audience" - those journals citing it - is much more diverse than its authors' perceptions of its primary environment.

 

Human Communication Research is embedded in a dense and diverse network of citing journals, including Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journalism and Mass Communication, Political Communication, and, less frequently, Critical Studies in Mediated Communication, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, European Journal of Communication, Media/Culture/Society, New Media & Society, and Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics. Its citing environment (at least 1%) is far less dense, involving Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Journal of Communication, Journal of Social & Personal Relations, European Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychology Bulletin, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

 

The Journal of Communication is similar to Human Communication Research in being embedded in a dense and diverse journal citation environment.  Most frequent citers of Journal of Communication articles include Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Common Monographs, Journalism and Mass Communication, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Political Communication.  Other direct but less frequent citers in the environment include Journal of Public Opinion Research, Media Psychology, Harvard Journal of Press and Politics, New Media & Society, Media/Culture/Society, and European Journal of Communication. Also like HCR, JOC cites a few primary journals, including Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Political Communication, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journalism and Mass Communication, Human Communication Research, and Public Opinion Quarterly.

 

These very brief summaries of only the 2005 data help to identify the local citation environments of the three print ICA journals - both the primary set of journals that authors in these ICA journals cite, and the (usually much fewer) primary set of journals whose authors cite articles from these ICA journals. Note that these analyses do not include the complete network of communication journals; they show only the local citing and cited environment from the perspective of each separate journal. Nor do they show the diffusion of citations infrequently received and given by the remaining  journals (those each with less than 1% of the total citations relating to the given journal).

 

This kind of analysis might be useful to editors, authors, and reviewers, for understanding better who their "audiences" are, in terms of scientific communication through citations. These may, of course, be quite different from the more usually understood concept of "audience" - those of us in ICA and elsewhere who read these articles.

 

Here is some literature on the reasons (normative, proposed, and empirically identified) for citing: 

 

Borgman, C.L. (Ed.) (1990). Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Broadus, R. (1983). An investigation of the validity of bibliographic citations.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 34(2), 132-135.

Brooks, T. (1985). Private acts and public objects: An investigation of citer motivations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 36, 223-229.

Cano, V. (1989).  Citation behavior: Classification, utility, and location.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(4), 294-290.

Chubin, D. & Moitra, S. (1975). Content analysis of references: Adjunct of alternative to citation counting? Social Studies of Science, 5, 423-441.

Cronin, B. (1984).  The citation process.  London: Taylor Graham.

Funkhouser, E. (1996).  The evaluative use of citation analysis for communication journals.  Human Communication Research, 22(4), 563-574.

Garfield, E. (1972).  Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation.  Science, 178, 471-479.

Garfield, E. (1996).  When to cite.  Library Quarterly, 66, 449-458.

Gilbert, G.N. (1977). Referencing as persuasion.  Social Studies of Science, 7, 113-122.

Kaplan, N. (1965). The norms of citation behavior: Prolegomena to the footnote.  American Documentation, 16(3), 179-184.

Leydesdorff, L. (1998).  Theories of citation? Scientometrics, 43(1), 5-25.

Leydesdorff, L. (2007). Visualization of the citation impact environments of scientific journals: An online mapping exercise. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(1), 25-38.

Maricic, S., Spakventi, J., Pavicic, L, & Pifat-Mrzljak, G. (1998).  Citation context versus the frequency counts of citation histories.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49, 387-399.

Oppenheim, C. & Renn, S. (1978).  Highly cited old papers and the reasons why they continue to be cited.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 29(5), 225-231.

Shadish, W., Tolliver, D. Gray, M. & Gupta, S. (1995).  Author judgments about works they cite: Three studies from psychology journals.  Social Studies of Science, 25, 477-497.

Small, H. (1978). Cited documents as concept symbols. Social Studies of Science, 8, 327-340.

Zuckerman, H. (1987). Citation analysis and the complex problem of intellectual influence.  Scientometrics, 12, 329-338.

 

And here is some work on communication journal citations.

 

These two use a variety of author citation, survey, vita, and archival data to look at the evolution of two competing research areas over a 10-year period:

 

Perry, C.A. & Rice, R.E. (1999). Network influences on involvement in the hybrid problem area of developmental dyslexia. Science Communication, 21(1), 64-100.

Perry, C. & Rice, R.E. (1997). Scholarly communication and network influences in the hybrid problem area of developmental dyslexia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(2), 151-168.

 

These use a variety of citation data and analysis methods to assess author, concept, article, and journal networks:

 

Borgman, C. & Rice, R.E.  (1992). The convergence of information science and communication: A bibliometric analysis.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 43(6), 397-411. 

Rice, R.E., Chapin, J., Pressman, R., Park, S., & Funkhouser, E. (1996). What's in a name?  Bibliometric analysis of 40 years of the Journal of Broadcasting (and Electronic Media).  Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 40, 511-539.

Rice, R.E., Borgman, C. & Reeves, B.  (1988). Citation networks of communication journals, 1977-1985: Cliques and positions, citations made and citations received.  Human Communication Research, 15(2), 256-283.

Reeves, B. & Borgman, C. (1983).  A bibliographic evaluation of core journals in communication research. Human Communication Research, 10, 119-136.

So, C.Y. (1988). Citation patterns of core communication journals.  Human Communication Research, 15, 236-255.

 

This one applies content analysis to assess what are the primary purposes, based on the context of the citing article, for citations (i.e., methods, empirical review, theory), and what role the citations play in the citing paper.

 

Rice, R.E. & Crawford, G. (1992).  Context and content of citations between communication and library & information science articles.  In J. Schement & B. Ruben (Eds.) Information and behavior, vol. 4.  (pp. 189-217.)  New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

This one specifically looks at the validity and reliability of the citation data found in the Institute for Scientific Information's Journal Citation Report.

Rice, R.E., Borgman, C., Bednarski, D. & Hart, P.  (1989). Journal-to-journal citation data: Issues of reliability and validity.  Scientometrics, 15(3-4),257-282.

 

Communication Theory, Cited, 2004.

 

 

Communication Theory, Citing, 2004.

 

 

Human Communication Research, Cited, 2004.

 

 

Human Communication Research, Citing, 2004.

 

 

Journal of Communication, Cited, 2004.

 

 

Journal of Communication, Citing, 2004.

Participants from developing/transitional countries and students from U.S. ethnic minority groups, who have been accepted to present papers, can apply for travel grants to the ICA Conference in San Francisco between January 15 and March 1, 2007. The travel-grant application is available online at http://www.icahdq.org/cgi-shl/TWServer.exe?Run:MEMONLY:/membersonly/confgrantappl/fundrequest.asp.

 

Developing/transitional countries are identified annually by the United Nations. Potential applicants should check the country tier chart on the ICA website (http://www.icahdq.org/membership/Countrytierchart.asp) to determine whether they are eligible to receive a travel grant. Countries that appear in Tiers B and C qualify as developing/transitional countries. Note that ICA determines eligibility based on country of residence, not of origin.

 

You must be an ICA member to apply.

 

Potential applicants should also contact their Division or Interest Group Chair for possible funding from the divisional Annenberg travel grant. Of the $20,000 allocated by ICA for student travel grants, $6000 will be held aside for Divisions/Interest Groups. Up to $300 for each Division/Interest Group will be available from the $6000 to match travel allocations to their student members.

 

Conference program chair Sonia Livingstone and executive director Michael Haley will review the applications provided through the online application form. From the remaining $14,000, they will use their discretion (considering the general distance of travel to the conference, etc.) in providing up to $500 for qualifying applicants (up to $9,000 for students, and up to $5,000 for faculty from developing/transitional countries). The conference planner and executive director will allocate these funds and notify applicants by April 1.  Recipients must pick up their checks at the conference by showing identification at the registration desk.

 

Any unused funds will be added to the amount available for 2008.

 

While the amount of the grants depends on actual travel costs, the overall availability of funds is limited. A $2 surcharge on each conference registration and other available funds finance these grants. Additionally, each division and special interest group may award travel grants to students selected for top paper or other honors.

 

Applicants will receive notification of the results by April 1, 2007. ICA travel grants will be available at the conference registration desk on Sunday, May 27, 2007. Divisional paper awards and Annenberg travel grant awards will be delivered in the awarding Division or Interest Group business meeting.

Media and communication studies are in the process of transformation: Transnational communication infrastructures, satellites and the Internet in particular, deliver new content "flows" that challenge conventional concepts of "the media." Increasingly fragmented supra- and subnational audiences require a reorientation of communication research that - while retaining what was useful about older vocabularies of mass audience, gate-keeping, agenda-setting, and power and communication - seeks to both accommodate and go beyond these in dealing with significant changes in the global communications environment. Transnational media, for example, are arguably becoming complex platforms of "softpower" of "public diplomacy," mediating political conflicts and shaping worldviews in a globalized political sphere.

 

Within this framework of transformation, transnational media research is needed which helps to detect new phenomena, reflect worldwide "flows" in view of different cultural and societal parameters, and define new structures of "power," of participation and democratic discourse.

 

This preconference will provide a broad platform for the discussion of new emerging paradigms, approaches, and parameters relevant to today's globalized research terrains. The preconference provides a platform for discussing methodological frameworks and the meaning of 'comparison,' but also for sharing research experience in a transnational setting.

 

In addition to introductory papers, which set the agenda of the conference, five panels such as "Journalism and Political Communication," "Comparative Research and New Media Cultures," and "Difference in Comparative Research" will debate the role of comparative research.

 

But the preconference is not only a platform for academic debate. Research funding in our discipline is a key aspect for successfully building a new transnational research environment. The preconference will also discuss the funding policies of major research foundations. Among invited speakers are representatives of the Markle Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. In addition, industry representatives will present their approaches to international media research.

 

The preconference is cosponsored by the Philosophy of Communication Division; the Intercultural, International, and Development Communication Division; and the Public Relations Division. The conference is also sponsored by The Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, U of Pennsylvania.

 

For the organizing team:

 

Ingrid Volkmer, Vice-Chair

Philosophy of Communication Division

This special issue will be coedited by Brian G. Southwell and Marco C. Yzer, both of the U of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

 

Half a century ago, Katz and Lazarsfeld presaged the trajectory of late-20th-century mass communication research and its move away from an assumption that media exposure dictates people's behavior directly. They noted that information often does not flow from media outlets directly to atomized individuals but instead travels via intermediary processes that are conversational in nature. Despite recent interest in interpersonal networks, however, the roles of conversational networks in media effects have lain surprisingly underappreciated in theoretical work in the past 50 years. Communication Theory will dedicate a special issue on "Conversation and Campaigns" to restart the relatively dormant discussion in this area.

 

Discussions of a wide range of dimensions relevant to this topic are invited, with a special emphasis on explicitly theoretical work that discerns the various roles that interpersonal conversation can play with regard to mass-media campaigns relevant to politics, health, or any other domain, or clarifies the conditions under which we can expect those roles. For example, we need to know more about various possible roles for talk, for example as mediator or moderator, and about important caveats, such as the importance of group composition and conversation content. We actively encourage submissions from a range of subareas, as scholars studying interpersonal communication, language and social interaction researchers, and those who primarily investigate mass communication, for example, have much to learn from one another. This special issue offers a way to connect different groups of researchers in a way that is long overdue.

 

Manuscripts can be submitted electronically via Communication Theory's web site on Manuscript Central at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/comth. If you are a new user, you may create an account by clicking on "Create Account" in the top right-hand corner of the screen and following the step-by-step instructions. Returning users may log in by clicking on "Log In" in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Manuscripts are submitted through the Author Center. Manuscripts will be considered for this issue if they are received no later than September 1, 2007. Manuscripts should not exceed 30 pages, including text, references, notes, tables, and figures, and must conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition). The cover letter should indicate that the manuscript is for consideration for the "Conversation and Campaigns" special issue.

Bing Han and Irina Gendelman are student affairs committee members who proposed writing a column about how advisors and professors identify important factors that predict graduate students' success in academia. For this purpose, Bing and Irina designed a survey and sent it to 52 graduate programs in communication. They received 54 faculty members' responses. Based on the received data, Bing and Irina extracted the dominant themes that the faculty members used to predict graduate students' success in their academic careers. In this column, we present Bing and Irina's research findings. If you have further questions or comments, please feel free to email Qi Wang or Rebecca Hains, or the original authors. We welcome diverse responses from our readers.    

 

 

How to Become a Professor: Faculty Perceptions of Communication Ph.D. Student Characteristics Needed to Succeed in Academia

By Bing Han and Irina Gendelman

 

During the course of a Ph.D. program, a student is gradually socialized into the culture of the academy. At this stage, however, a question remains as to whether the student will have a successful academic career in the future. Advisors oftentimes have an intuitive knowledge of which students will be more successful than others in academia. What are the implicit indicators that professors rely on in their judgment? How do they predict the future success of a graduate student?

 

Identifying these implicit expectations could help graduate students understand early in their training what is expected of them as they adjust to life in graduate school. These criteria could act as a powerful guide for graduate students to get the best out of their graduate study, set appropriate goals, assess their dedication to the academy, and lay a solid foundation for their future success in academia. Making these expectations explicit could also assist faculty in advising students and aid departments in designing graduate-student professional development programs that actively cultivate the valued characteristics.

 

This article is a brief report of a study that asked faculty in Communication departments to indicate how they judge graduate students. This study aims to inform graduate students of what is important in their early development as young scholars, and also to facilitate faculty in developing a consistent policy in advising graduate students. Due to limited space, this article will only report some of the questions included in the study. A full research article can be obtained by contacting the authors.

 

Research Questions

In this article, four research questions from the study will be presented. These questions seek to understand what communication faculty members perceive to be necessary characteristics that graduate students need in order to succeed in academia.

 

RQ1: What are the typical characteristics that lead to the success or failure of communication graduate students in academia?

This question seeks to find out the typical characteristics (e.g., behaviors, personality, character, etc.) of four categories of communication graduate students: outstanding, very good, ordinary, and ill-suited.

 

RQ2: How important is time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree in assessing a graduate student’s potential as a successful scholar?

This question examines the importance of time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree as an indicator of graduate students' success, and asks faculty members how long they took to complete their own degrees and what they think is a reasonable range of time in getting a Ph.D. in communication.

 

RQ3: What is the best research/publication model a graduate student should use (solo, collaboration, or both)?

This question explores faculty members' suggestions as to how graduate students should go about doing research and publishing based on their own experience and their observation of outstanding graduate students.

 

RQ4: How critical are some of the characteristics in contributing to a communication graduate student's success or failure in comparison with each other?

 

 

Method

 

Participants

Participants in the study were faculty in communication departments across the U.S. These departments were chosen from the ranking schools based on an NCA (National Communication Association) 2004 Doctoral Reputational Study of the doctoral programs in communication. An online survey was sent to 52 communication departments in the U.S. and in total, 54 faculty members responded to the survey. The average age of the participants was 47.55 (SD = 9.46 years). The range of age was from 30 years to 62 years. Males composed 53.7% of the sample. Most identified as Caucasian (83.3%) and a few identified as Asian-American/Asian (3.7%), African-American (1.9%), and other (9.3%). Together, the 54 faculty members had 912 years of experience, had advised approximately 1367 graduate students, and had sat on about 2461 dissertation committees. The average participant had been a professor for 17 years, advised about 25 dissertations, and served on about 46 committees.

 

Procedure

The chairs of targeted communication departments were asked to relay an online survey solicitation email to faculty members in their departments. The survey included five open-ended and two closed-ended questions. The open-ended questions asked the participants to characterize four categories of graduate students: outstanding, very good, ordinary, and ill-suited. Participants were asked to discuss what specific strengths a graduate student should bring to a collaboration with faculty members, whether time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree is a good indicator of the success of a graduate student, and what the best research/publication model is for a graduate student to use. They were also asked what characteristics had helped them succeed as a graduate student. Finally, the two closed-ended questions asked participants to rate listed characteristics in terms of how critical they were in contributing to a student’s success or failure.

 

 

Results

 

RQ1: What are the typical characteristics that lead to the success or failure of communication graduate students in academia?

When asked to give "a typical description of an outstanding Communication graduate student," university professors agreed on a number of measures. Naturally, there was no unanimous formula for an outstanding graduate student, but the responses were consistent enough that it was possible to organize them into the following overlapping themes -- initiative, engagement, work ethic, intelligence, creativity, and flexibility.

 

These themes are conceptualized in a way that seemed most useful for aligning the expectations between graduate students, professors, and departments. The themes, however, vary from tangible to abstract. For example, writing or time management are concrete skills that a graduate student can tangibly develop over time, while intelligence or creativity are more abstract qualities that may be more difficult or time-consuming to build up, if indeed they can be acquired at all. An attempt is made to unpack the abstract qualities into some tangible attributes described by participants.

 

Initiative. Most consistently, an outstanding student was sketched as a student who is "independent," "motivated," "self-directed," and overall shows "initiative." Repeatedly, university professors painted a picture of a student who is not only motivated to get through graduate school, but who readily takes initiative or has enough motivation to take action without much prompting. As one professor wrote, students who require "little hand-holding" stand out from their peers. Others wrote that an excellent student "does not need his or her hand held" but also "knows how to seek advice and guidance," emphasizing that initiative can be demonstrated over time and refers not only to initiating projects or seeking out collaboration, but also to asking for help and getting feedback.

 

Engagement. Faculty described students who take the opportunity to engage in their immediate as well as in the broader community. They wrote, for example, that "he or she also tends to be excited by others' work and encourages them to do well" or that outstanding students tend to engage with the larger academic network by participating in conferences, writing papers for publication, collaborating with others, engaging with existing theory, integrating teaching with research, asking for feedback, asking questions, and generally engaging with other scholars. Respondents placed an emphasis not only on engagement with others, but also on engagement with the practice of scholarship, stating that a promising academic should actually have a passion and curiosity or enjoy and love research and teaching. For example, answers included statements like "they should have an interest in the topic and discipline," or possess "hunger for knowledge" and be "eager to learn," and that an outstanding student is someone who is "genuinely interested in communication (high curiosity)." Overall, respondents articulated engagement as a drive to search for answers, discuss ideas and view research as a tool to higher understanding, or a knowledge that might be extended beyond the academy, to "change the world" or "to advance the human condition."

 

Work ethic. Work ethic was most often articulated as "hard work," which was then qualified by language such as focus, energy, discipline, professionalism, commitment, and persistence. Another less repeated, but noticeably recurring theme was productivity—such as (in order of most frequently mentioned) conference presentations, writing for publication, and publication and grants. Finally, organization and time-management skills also figured prominently in the responses.

 

Some of the responses were conceptually very broad. For example, simple descriptions of students as "intelligent" or "smart" risk reducing intelligence to binaries (intelligence vs. ignorance). Explaining what action demonstrates intelligence, however, allows students with initiative to take action. Therefore, it is useful to unpack complex concepts such as intelligence, creativity, and flexibility, and to conceptualize them as achievable goals or merit rather than as an innate quality. Much conversation already exists about the meaning of these concepts and could easily fill another volume, but for the sake of this article, our focus falls on unpacking the broad concepts through an analysis of answers obtained within the survey.

 

Intelligence. Several faculty wrote that being "smart" or "intelligent" is key to academic success. To interpret this, we consider a number of skills that were discussed as possible indicators of intelligence. A high majority of the respondents agreed that writing is a key measure of a graduate student’s excellence, stating that a graduate student should be a very good writer, require little or no editing, be eager for suggestions, and be responsive to feedback. Second to writing, respondents emphasized reading breadth and comprehension, i.e. retaining information, synthesizing material from a body of literature, and quickly grasping new concepts. The focus here was not on writing or reading skills only, but on the ability to absorb and produce information. Professors wrote that outstanding students are motivated to read more than just the bare minimum for a class, and, as one person summarized, these students contextualize their research "in the prevailing secondary-source literature, and digest it in a manner that advances cross-disciplinary understanding of the topic under study. All writing produced intensively, on every page, does the above."

 

Creativity. In addition to simply mentioning creativity as an important characteristic, faculty also identified such elements of creativity as students' ability to "conduct cutting-edge primary-source-based research," being "creative and finding a niche for themselves where they can contribute to the field of study and to theory building," having the aptitude to "make a cogent and creative argument in an engaging and informed way," as well as being "creative and able to visualize what literature/research is missing and perhaps even a way to fill that gap." Faculty linked creativity with an ability to produce cutting edge research, find a niche in the discipline, advance the field, and demonstrate resourcefulness in research and problem solving.

 

Flexibility. Flexibility was another common characteristic that respondents valued in praising open-mindedness and playfulness in contrast to a resistance or defensive reaction when faced with new or opposing ideas. Respondents wrote that it is important for the student to have the ability to discuss ideas with peers in a collegial manner, to challenge and disagree while also having the ability to listen. Another type of flexibility mentioned was a willingness to use a variety of methods and undertake a variety of projects, demonstrating interests beyond the primary focus of study.

 

RQ2: How important is time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree in assessing a graduate student’s potential as a successful scholar? 

Faculty members' responses differed greatly as to whether time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree is a good indicator of a graduate student’s future success in academia (i.e., whether it is "the sooner the better" in getting a Ph.D. degree in communication). Three major opinions emerge from the data analysis supporting a fast approach, a steady approach, or a middle approach to completing a Ph.D. degree.

 

A fast approach. Seventeen out of 54 participants believed that time taken to complete a Ph.D. degree is a good indicator of the success of a graduate student. The most cited explanation is motivational factors. Students who work at a faster pace are "highly motivated" and "internally driven" to accomplish. They bring "dedication," "enthusiasm," and "excitement" to what they are doing. "Timely finishers are probably more focused and disciplined than their slower counterparts," and "nothing matters more in finishing a degree or having a successful career than discipline." Moreover, finishing fast "demonstrates organization and structure," and "indicates good follow-through" to "get the work done."

 

In addition to motivation, the second most cited reason is professional requirement. One professor stated the importance of finishing fast for functioning professionally:

 

Fast finishers demonstrate motivation and the ability to work independently and quickly. These skills are essential to assistant professors. While it is possible to extend the time required to complete a Ph.D. a great deal, no such timeframe is available for assistant professors on the tenure-track who must publish to keep their jobs.

 

A steady approach. Among the 54 participants, 22 faculty members believed that speed is not a good predictor of a graduate student’s future success. These professors argued that "extra time" is not necessarily a bad thing—it all depends on what the "extra time" is used for. One participant wrote that there is
"minimal correlation of speed and accomplishment or talent." "Frankly," a professor said, "I think we would produce better Ph.D. teachers and researchers if they took about the same time as a literature or history Ph.D. student, five to seven years."

 

Another professor suggested that "a holistic approach is the most important and not just the time taken to complete," because "students often mature whilst studying and grow into their studies," and "they obtain a lot of insights and need time to also reflect on what they have learnt and to incorporate their experience." "The experience of becoming a scholar is about internalizing the values and tools of scholarship." These professors suggested that graduate school is a place for "intellectual pursuits" and for taking time to "think about the issues and contemplate seriously the subject matter." Therefore, "students who take their time wandering through the program are the most intellectually wide ranging," and "racing through to the end is a sign that someone is not taking the intellectual commitment seriously." One participant claimed: "We have a false sense of deadlines in the academy. Was Einstein a failure?" It seems that if the "extra time" is used for further intellectual development, it is worth the time.

 

Some professors noted that time to complete a Ph.D. degree is highly variable across students due to varying personal circumstances. They acknowledged that life interferes with studying and students often need to deal with factors beyond their control (e.g., family, illness). Therefore, "continual progress is perhaps more important than rapid progress," and "the issue isn’t how long it takes, but the amount of honest and consistent effort that the student demonstrates." In other words, if the "extra time" is spent in making honest and continual progress, it is worth the time.

 

The most frequently suggested undertaking worthy of "extra time" is the dissertation. It is worth all the extra time to improve the quality of the dissertation so that it can be published someday, to make the dissertation "a masterpiece" rather than "a stepping stone," and to choose a dissertation that serves as "a first step in an exciting research agenda." Oftentimes, however, "too little time is spent on the dissertation" or "many dissertation topics are slight in the contribution they make to knowledge in the field." In this case, "fast may very well mean sloppy, and often does."

 

In addition to spending the "extra time" on the quality of the dissertation, time is also worth spending in "receiving sufficient training that allows the student to be a quality researcher and teacher," in "pursuing concurrent MAs or certificates in related programs to strengthen their communication degree," and in "developing a publication and teaching record to enhance resume/CV."

 

A middle approach. Twelve participants agreed that "there is a middle ground" between going too fast and taking forever. They did not focus on the strong motivations that may lie behind a fast approach, nor did they emphasize the tangible and intangible benefits behind a steady approach. Instead, they tend to point out the problems with the two extreme situations, suggesting that completion within "a reasonable amount of time" or a "moderate" and "acceptable" range is important. On the one hand, going too fast could result in poor work, in failing to "smell the flowers of diverse other courses that are related," or in short-circuiting either the breadth or the depth aspects of pursuing different ideas, approaches, and methodologies. On the other hand, taking forever could show that the student is "not cut out for the field," "unable to focus," or "ambiguous about whether or not the degree is worth pursuing for him/her." "In other words, don’t rush through at the cost of getting the education that is needed to pursue a lifetime of research but don’t drag through the program either."

 

One participant even concluded:

 

[The relationship between time taken to complete the Ph.D. and future success] is curvilinear: I've seen that those that finish very quickly usually don't get the training that they need, whereas those that finish very slowly usually don't make the degree a high enough priority, and they tend to submit poor work. Those in the middle tend to be the best trained and do the best work.

 

To Be Continued in Next Issue.

Christopher E. Beaudoin, Tulane U School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, was recently awarded the Usdin Family Professor of Community Health Sciences endowed professorship. Beaudoin joined the Tulane faculty on July 1, 2005. His program of research is on health communication, social determinants of public health, and health information disparities.

Beaudoin also recently received funding for two research studies related to the mass media, social capital, and public health. The grants were for $500,000 from the Gates Foundation and $186,408 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

 

 

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (December 13, 2006 edition) featured research by Lynn Schofield Clark, U of Denver and Chair of ICA’s Popular Communication Division. The article highlighted a special forum on “Popular Music, Religion, and Globalization” Clark guest edited, as well as an essay she wrote, for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Her most recent book, an edited collection titled, Religion, Media, and the Marketplace, was published by Rutgers University Press in 2007.

 

 

Three student chapters of the Public Relations Student Society of America, (PRSSA) and their faculty advisers received the first Ethics Advocacy Program awards at the November 2006 Conference of PRSSA. The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at The University of Alabama sponsored the program and awards. The winning PRSSA chapters and advisers are:

• First Place – Illinois State University Chapter ($1,000) and adviser, Tomasz Feduick ($250).
• Second Place – Belmont University Chapter ($750) and adviser, Dr. Bonnie Riechert, APR ($150).
• Third Place – University of Nebraska/Omaha Chapter ($500) and adviser, Karen Weber ($100).

 

 

Angela Schorr & Stefan Seltmann (Eds.) announce the November 2006 publication of their new book, Changing Media Markets in Europe and Abroad. New Ways of Handling Information and Entertainment Content (Pabst Science Publishers). It is the first volume Series on International Media Research.

International & Development Communication
Members of Division 5 (Intercultural and Development Communication) voted in the fall of 2006 in favor of a proposal that the Division be split into two, one for Intercultural Communication, and the other (provisional title) for International and Development Communication. 

I was voted vice-chair of Division 5 starting in 2005, and - had the division continued as a single division - would have succeeded to the chair in 2007. At the business meeting of our new division in San Francisco this year (2007), I shall propose the following:

 

            *I take on the chair of the new division for the period 2007-2009;

*A call for nominations for vice-chair should be issued as soon as the Association has a list of declared members of the new division, and that we then proceed to a vote as soon as possible;

*Likewise, we proceed to the choice of a division secretary as soon as possible;

*At our meeting, we should discuss a formal title for the new division (in the meantime I would welcome any thoughts that members or potential members may have on this matter). A new title must reflect our commitment as scholars of international and development communication, but members may want something that is more inclusive or that better reflects what we, as a community, actually research.

*At our meeting we should talk about what we want to do as a division, whether we want to keep to the same cycle of events as in the past, or do things differently.

 

Since the vote to split Division 5, my time for ICA has primarily been taken up with arrangements for the main conference in San Francisco, as well as with the pre-conference on Methodologies of Comparative Media Research in a Global Sphere: Paradigms - Critique – Methods which we are co-sponsoring with Philosophy, and Public Relations and which I believe is a commendable sequel to the pre-conference that we organized in New York 2005 on Articulating the Media/Globalization Nexus, in collaboration with Philosophy and with Sage Publications.

There are a great many things to do in the process of establishing ourselves as a new division, and I will be very appreciative, I know, for the assistance of the ever-helpful and ever-patient ICA executive in guiding me through the process. I am hopeful that as much of the work that can be done before we meet in San Francisco will be done. There may be some activities that can only be restored after discussion in San Francisco.

 

In the last year or so there appears to have been a decline in the regularity of communications within the division. The prospect of setting up a new division provides an excellent opportunity for repairing this. I also intend to look at the updating or re-establishment of a division web-site.

 

In the meantime, if you wish to contact me with your ideas, suggestions or questions please do not hesitate: my email address is oboydb@bgsu.edu.

 

Those of you who are familiar with San Francisco, especially with the zone of our conference hotel, may like to recommend a suitable restaurant for our division dinner.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those of you who have generously given of your time as paper reviewers for San Francisco, and who have volunteered their services as session chairs and respondents. Later this year I will be sure to provide a full listing of all of you, for inclusion in the newsletter.  We had many more papers to consider this year, and I am confident of an excellent conference in May.  I look forward to seeing many old friends and many new ones!

 

Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Chair
oboydb@bgsu.edu

 

 

 

Interpersonal Communication

Greetings to All Members of the Interpersonal Communication Division:

Thank you to each of you who submitted papers to our division.  Your papers have been reviewed by our paper readers who include Susanne Allen, Jennifer Becker, Norah Dunbar, Rozell Duncan, Nichole Egbert, Bob Fennis, Thomas Friemel, Vija Giri, Jeffrey Hall, Steven Hoekstra, Susanne Jones, Hak-Soo Kim, Ascan Koerner, Carmen Lee, Ryan Lingweiler, Rachel Mails, Matthew Martin, Nathan Miczo, Roberta Mitchell, Nicholas Palomares, Malcolm Parks, Oscar Peters, Randall Rogan, Christina Sabee, Jennifer Samp, Sachiyo Shearman, Karyn Stapleton, Godfrey Steele, and Dennis Wignall. Thanks again to our reviewers for their dedication to the discipline and our division in particular. 

By the time you read this, you should have been notified regarding the disposition of your papers.  Congratulations go to our top four paper panel authors who include Meina Liu and Steven Wilson; Jessica Parker-Raley, Gary Beck, Catherine Surra, and Anita Vangelisti; Alesia Hanzal and Chris Segrin; and Katie Dunleavy and Melanie Booth-Butterfield.

It is also time once again to submit dissertations or theses for the interpersonal dissertation and thesis awards.  Please submit 4 copies of a 25-page abstracted version of your thesis or dissertation along with 4 copies of your accompanying nomination by your thesis or dissertation advisor to:

 

Pamela J. Kalbfleisch, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
School of Communication

O’Kelly Hall, Room 202

221 Centennial Drive Stop 7169
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND 58202-7169

 

Abstracted theses and dissertations and accompanying documentation should be received by March 15, 2007. 

 

Respectfully Submitted by your Chair,

Beth A. Le Poire

bmolineu@clunet.edu

 

 

 

Language & Social Interaction

Dear LSI members,

 

The upcoming conference in San Francisco is coming together very well. We will have excellent program of panels and an outstanding pre-conference this year. We are also working on co-sponsorship of panels with the Political Communication Division.

 

This year LSI researchers contributed 64 papers to our division and 26 were accepted (41% acceptation rate). In addition, five panels were submitted and two were accepted. At least two reviewers evaluated each contribution based on quality and relevance.

 

I want to thank all the reviewers for their excellent work:

 

Galina Bolden, Rutgers University

Yanrong Chang, University of Texas-Pan American

Kathleen Haspel, Fairleigh Dickinson

Laura Lopez Calvo, University of Barcelona

Jenny Mandelbaum, Rutgers University

Jeffrey Robinson, Rutgeres University

Michelle Scollo, Rutgers University

Karyn Stapleton, University of Ulster

Iolanda Tortajada, University of Lleida

John Wilson, University of Ulster

Saskia Wittenborn, Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

The conference program has not yet been finalized so we are not able to announce the LSI portion of the program but be assured we have an exceptional line-up of papers programmed among nine sessions including the top paper session and the business meeting.

 

The top three papers in Language and Social Interaction are:

 

Cultural Ideals in Chinese Malaysians' Discourse of Dissatisfaction
Ee Lin Lee, Western Washington University

Bradford Hall, Utah State University

 

The Diffusion of Quotative Like: Grammaticalization, and Social Usefulness
Jessica Robles, University of San Francisco

 

Drawing on the Words of Others at Public Hearings: Zoning, Wal-Mart, and the Aquifer
Richard Buttny, Syracuse U

Jodi Cohen, Ithaca College

 

On behalf of our division, congratulations to all of them!

 

This year's preconference, organized by Michelle Scollo from Rutgers University, will be "Directions in Mediated Communication, New Technologies, and Language and Social Interaction Research." Thanks to Michelle for putting this excellent event together.

 

If you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact either of us.

 

See you in San Francisco!

 

Best,

 

Francois Cooren, Chair

f.cooren@umontreal.ca

 

Mark Aakhus, Vice-Chair
aakhus@scils.rutgers.edu

 

 

 

Popular Communication

The journal Popular Communication is changing hands.  We welcome Cornel Sandvoss, Jonathan Gray, and Lee Harrington as co-editors who will serve the journal for the next five years.  A heartfelt thanks to Sharon Mazzarella and Norma Pecora, the inaugural editors of the journal, for their five years of service.

 

If you read the ICA President’s column in December, you may be wondering why the Popular Communication Division has lost members in recent years.  There are several possible reasons for this.  It may be that the rise of new divisions has drawn former members into more specialized divisions that popular communication wholeheartedly welcomes (such as the ERIC, GLBT, and Game Studies interest groups).  It could be that as the division with the highest number of ICA members who have membership in another division, ours was the one to lose out when budget cuts came around in individual departments.  Or it could be that we’ve just lost our pizzazz (if you think that then clearly you didn’t attend the Pop Comm/ERIC wine & cheese reception in Dresden!). 

 

I want to remind you that there are several advantages to renewing your Pop Comm membership when it comes around again.  First, we are now host to the journal Popular Communication, meaning you receive a copy of this journal as a member of this division.  Second, as a student member, you qualify for travel grants and for a top student paper cash award, and as a faculty member, you qualify for a top faculty paper cash award.  You also receive our division’s newsletter, published twice a year, which makes you aware of new research, syllabi, calls for papers, and networking opportunities.

 

Even if you’re not a member, please come to the joint reception we’ll be hosting in San Francisco along with ERIC, GLBT, and FSD.  It going to be fun - and we won’t ask to see your membership card at the entrance, we promise!

 

Lynn Schofield Clark, Chair

Lynn.Clark@du.edu

 

 

Journal of Intercultural Communication Research. James W. Neuliep, Editor-elect, JICR, Department of Communication, St. Norbert College, 100 Grant St., De Pere, WI 54114. Email: jicr@snc.edu.

 

 

Feminist Media Studies. Authors in North America, Latin America, and the Caribben: submit to Lisa McLaughlin, Editor; e-mail: mclauglm@muohio.edu. Authors in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia: submit to Cynthia Carter, Editor; e-mail: cartercl@cardiff.ac.uk.

 

 

Education Review of Business Communication. Mss. info: http://www.senatehall.com/business_communication/index.html.

 

 

Journal of Communication Studies, National Council of Development Communication. Soliciting research papers, abstracts. E-mail: Shveta Sharma, communication@jcs@yahoo.com.

 

 

Hampton Book Series: Communication, Globalization, and Cultural Identity. Jan Servaes, Hampton Book Series Editor, c/o School of Journalism and Communication, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia. Phone: +61 (7) 3365 6115 or 3088. Fax: +61 (7) 3365 1377. Email: j.servaes@uq.edu.au.

 

 

Manuscripts. Subject Matters: A Journal of Communications and the Self. E-mail: subjectmatters@londonmet.ac.uk.

 

 

Submissions. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (JMEWS). Info: Marcia C. Inhorn, Director of the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, U of Michigan, and Mary N. Layoun, Chair of Comparative Literature, U of Wisconsin, Editors. Web: http://iupjournals.org/jmews/.

 

 

Communication Review.The Communication Review solicits papers in the interdisciplinary field of media studies. We are interested in papers discussing any aspect of media: media history, globalization of media, media institutions, media analysis, media criticism, media policy, media economics. We also invite essays about the nature of media studies as an emergent, interdisciplinary field.
Please direct papers to Andrea L. Press and Bruce A. Williams, Editors, Media Studies Program, Unviersity of Virginia. Email: alp5n@virginia.edu, baw5n@b.mail.virginia.edu. For more information about the journal and submission guidelines, please see the journal's webiste at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10714421.asp.

 

 

Call for Manuscripts - The Journal of Native Aging & Health publishes articels that address Native aging, health, and related issues. All theoretical and methodological approaches are welcome. Original research and studies should apply existing theory and research to Native Americans, Alaskan, Hawaiian, Islanders and First Nations Peoples, or should illuminate how knowledge informs and reforms exiting theories and research on Native populations, aging, and health. No material identifying the author(s) should appear in the body of the paper. The paper must not have appeared in any other published form. Each submission should include a separate cover page with the name of the author(s); present academic title or other current position; academic department and university (if appropriate); and complete address, telephone number, and e-mail address (if available). The submission also must include a single-paragraph abstract of no more than 120 words on a separate page. Manuscripts, abstracts, references, figures, and tables must conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001, Fifth Edition) guidelines. Contributors are encouraged to be familiar with the Manual's guidelines for avoiding bias in language used to express ideas int he manuscript. By submitting to JNAH, authors warrant that they will not submit their manuscript to any other publication without first withdrawing the manuscript from consideration by JNAH, that the work is original, and that appropriate credit has been given to other contributors in the project. Reports of the original research and papers may not exceed 25 pages (including references, tables, figures, and appendixes). Copies of submissions will not be returned to the author(s). Send four paper copies of complete papers to Pamela J. Kalbfleish, Editor, Journal of Native Aging & Health, School of Communication, University of North Dakota, 202A O'Kelly Hall, Grand Forks, ND 58202. Along with your paper copies, include a disk with your submission in Word document format or attach an electronic copy of your manuscript to an e-mail sent to the editorial office. Questions may be directed to the editorial office via email at yearbook@und.nodak.edu, telephone 701-777-2673, or fax 701-777-3955. Ordering Information: To order a copy of the Journal, contact: Dr. Pamela J. Kalbfleisch, Editor, Journal of Native Aging & Health, School of Communication, University of North Dakota, Box 7169, 202A O'Kelly Hall, Grand Forks, ND 58202. $25.00 a copy / $40.00 year subscription.

 

 

Journal of Marketing and Communication Management. The Managing Editors, JMCM, Department of Marketing and Communication Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. Info: http://www.jmcm.co.za. Email: Professor C H van Heerden, nheerden@hakuna.up.ac.za, or Professor Anske Grobler, anske@postino.up.ac.za.

 

 

Submissions. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception. Info: http://www.participations.org/.

 

 

Essays. Bad Subjects: Iraq War Culture Review Essays. Email: Joe Lockard, Joe.Lockard@asu.edu. Info: http://bad.eserver.org.

 

 

Proposals. Alternatives Within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatre in Britain. Info: Dimple Godiwala-McGowan, Senior Lecturer, York St. John College (U of Leeds). E-mail: DimpleGodiwala@aol.com.

 

 

Deadline extended. Papers. Journal of Middle East Media (JMEM), Center for International Media Education (CIME) at Georgia State U and the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators (AUSACE). Mohammed el-Naway, Senior Editor, Department of Communication, One Park Place South, 10th Floor, Georgia State U, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, USA. E-mail: jouman@langate.gsu.edu.

 

 

New Journal - Communication for Development and Social Change. A new journal, Communication for Development and Social Change, is seeking papers that will present empirical research, theory, and practice-oriented approaches on subjects relevant to development communication and social change. Authors may submit inquiries and manuscripts electronically to Jan Servaes, Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, at j.servaes@uq.edu.au.

 

 

Paper proposals invited. Abstracts are invited for an international conference on MEDIA EVENTS, GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE to be held on Friday 6th - Saturday 7th July 2007 at the University of Bremen, Germany. Contributions on any academic aspect of media events are welcome. For more information about the detailed conference themes, visit the conference website www.media-events-bremen07.org. Please send abstracts (maximum 300 words) by email no later than Saturday 31 March 2007 to one of the conference organizers: Andreas Hepp (Andreas.Hepp@uni-bremen.de), Friedrich Krotz (Friedrick.Krotz@uni-erfurt.de) or Nick Couldry (N.couldry@gold.ac.uk).

 

 

Journal of Children and Media. Special Issue: "Children, Media, and Conflict" Vol. 2, No. 3 (September 2008), Guest editors: Cynthia Carter and Stephanie Hemelryk Donald. Direct experiences of war and conflict are part of everyday life for millions of children around the world. In Iraq, for instance, children are often caught in the middle of striggles between military forces and insurgents. Indigenous children in Australia are disadvantaged by unresolved wars that still play out in the discursive voice of the popular press. In Northern Ireland, the "troubles" are only (just) (perhaps) over. For many other children, war and conflict are primarily experienced through news and current affairs media. This special issue seeks research papers investigating various aspects of the relationship between children, media, and conflict - for example: the news media's use of images of chidren; children and young people's active participation as media producers of alternative news content; the changing nature of the relationship between child news audiences and news and current affairs organisations; the media channels thorugh which children and young people are expressing their opinions and demanding to have them heard and taken seriously; the possible range of effects (fear reactions, learning information, political socialisation, etc.) as a result of children and young people's exposure to news about war and conflict.

Contributions to this special issue are welcomed from a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches, regarding children and young people. We are particularly keen to receive proposals from a broad range of cultural zones and regional perspectives. In the first instance, expressions of interest accompanied by a 300-word abstract should be submitted to BOTH guest editors no later than 1 May 2007. Authors of accepted abstracts will then be invited to submit a full paper to the guest editors of no more than 8,000 words including notes and references by no later than 1 October 2007. All papers will be subject to anonymous peer review. Please email abstracts to: Cynthia Carter: cartercl@cardiff.ac.uk AND Stephanie Hemelryk Donald: Stephanie.Donald@uts.edu.au. Journal of Children and Media website address: http://wwwtandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17482798.asp.

 

 

March 30, 2007. Call for Papers Center for Spanish Language Media Inaugural Research Conference, "Assessing the State of Spanish Language Media." The Center for Spanish Language Media at the University of North Texas invites scholarly papers from academics, students, and professionals for presentation at its Inaugural Research Conference to be held in Denton, Texas, USA, November 8-10, 2007. Papers are welcome using any appropriate theoretical foundation and methodology as long as the topic relates to Spanish Language Media. Of particular interest are papers dealing with current trends in Spanish Laungage media, case studies, economic analysis, advertising, audience analysis, or other topics. Papers can discuss these topics in the context of the United States or any other Spanish-speaking nation. Submission Requirements: a) Length: not to exceed 30 double-spaced pages, including references and tables using 8 1/2 X 11" paper. b) Style: APA 5th edition is required. c) Abstract: Abstract of no more than 250 words needed with each submission. d) Authorship: author's name, author's biography, institution address, phone number, and e-mail to appear on the title page only. e) Deadline: Papers must be received electronically by Friday, March 30, 2007. Please send papers as an attachment to spanishmedia@unt.edu. f) Review: All papers will be reviewed by a peer-review scholarly committee using a blind review system. g) Language: All submission must be in English. Conference Details: Information on the conference schedule, housing options, and travel will be available on the Center's website at http://www.spanishmedia.unt.edu. For more information, please send inquiries to spanishmedia@unt.edu.

 

 

April 30, 2007. Media Psychology Call for Manuscripts. A special issue of Media Psychology is scheduled to be published in December 2007, focusing on the role of emotion in media effects processes. Empirical pieces, extensions of existing theories, and development of new theoretical perspectives are sought. Emotion, rather than arousal or physiological response, should be the focus of all submissions. Specific topics might include, but are not limited to: (1) emotion(s) as explanatory mechanisms within established media effects theory; (2) how audience emotion(s) influence media message selection; (3) how audience emotion(s) impact the processing of various media messages; (4) emotional experiences as the outcomes of interactions with the media; (5) the interplay between emotion and cognition in media contexts; (6) the structure and/or content of media messages and emotional response. Manuscripts must be submitted by April 30, 2007 via the Media Psychology submission website: http://www.editorialmanager.com/mep/. In their cover letter, authors should indicate the submission is intended for special issue consideration. Inquiries may be directed to either co-editor of the special issue: Robin Nabi, UC-Santa Barbara, nabi@comm.ucsb.edu, or Werner Wirth, University of Zurich, w.wirth@ipmz.unizh.ch.

 

 

 

 

March 2-3, 2007. Sooner Communication Conference Call for Papers. The Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma invites graduate and undergraduate submissions for its annual conference to be held March 2-3, 2007 on the Norman Campus. "Bridging the Gap: Uniting the Scholarship of Theory and Application" is this year's conference theme. Submissions may include competitive research papers (including theory and position papers), case studies, panel proposals, round table proposals, or abstracts for works in progress. Scholarship on any topic relevant to human communication within various areas of the discipline is welcome. Top paper awards will be presented in the graduate and undergraduate divisions. Only completed competitive papers will be considered for awards. All submissions should be received by December 23, 2006. All work must meet the specifications of the APA manual (5th ed). Submissions of completed competitive research papers and case studies should include: A title page with the author's or authors' institutional affiliation, complete with contact information, and student status (graduate or undergraduate); a 200-word abstract on the second page; and the completed manuscript. Submissions of panel and round table proposals should include: A thematic title for the program; names, institutional affiliations, complete contact information, and student status (graduate or undergraduate) of all participants; names of chair and respondent (if any); and titles and 200-word abstracts for each presentation. Submissions for works currently in progress should include: The author's institutional affiliation, complete contact information, and student status (graduate or undergraduate); and a two-age proposal. Please send all submissions and direct all correspondence to Liz Craig at soonercomconf@ou.edu. Submissions should be a Microsoft Word attachment with a document (.doc) or rich text format (.rtf) file ending. Scholarship submitted within the body of an e-mail will not be considered. Additional conference information is available at http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/sooner.

 

 

Sept. 6-7, 2007. Members of the Popular Communication Division of ICA are invited to participate in the conference, "Transforming Audiences: Identity/Creativity/Everyday Life" to take place Sept. 6-7, 2007 at the University of Westminster, UK. Send paper proposals to Eric Spindler (e.spindler@wmin.ac.uk) prior to April 20, 2007. See the announcement in the Call for Papers of this newsletter for further information. The Popular Communication division is serving as a sponsor of this event.

 

 

 

 

2007 Biennial Conference of the International Academy for Intercultural Research, July 9-12, 2007. University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands. Conference Theme: "Globalization and Diversity: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives." The Academy is an interdisciplinary group founded in 1997 to foster high-level research and scholarship on intercultural issues. To submit paper and panel proposals, use the online absgtract form available at the Academy website: http://www.interculturalacademy.org/groningen_2007.html.

 

 

Journal of Children and Media is an interdisciplinary and multimethod peer-reviewed publication that provides a space for discusion by scholars and professionals from around the world and across theoretical and empirical traditions who are engaged in the study of media in the lives of children. Manuscripts (APA style, 8,000 words maximum) for the "Review and Commentary" section (up to 2,000 words) should be e-mail-delivered to Charlotte Cole, Review and Commentary Editor, charlotte.cole@sesameworkshop.org.

 

 

The Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC) is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal committed to publishing outstanding scholarship in communications, media and cultural studies, journalism, and information studies. CJC is looking for theoretically innovative and methodologically challenging original manuscripts, in English or French, for immediate peer-review. To submit an article for peer-review go to the CJC website http://www.cjc-online.ca and click on the "submit" button. Articles for peer-review should be approximately 6,000 to 8,000 words in length. In addition to the traditional peer-reviewed article the CJC will develop innovative forms and formats for discussions of current practices including: media reviews, research overviews of current projects, and polemical commentaries. These submissions are shorter in length and may be either more descriptive or experimental in tone. Please direct ideas and inquiries to editor@cjconline.ca. For information on book reviews please contact our book review editor, Leslie Regan Shade, at review_editor@cjc-online.ca. Info on CJC: Kim Sawchuk, Editor, CJC, editor@cjc-online.ca.

 

 

Visiting Master's program. The Central European Unviersity (CEU) invites applications from graduate students and young professionals to spend the Fall 2006 semester or the academic year 2006 - 2007 in Budapest, Hungary. The program is sponsored by the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at CEU. Duration: For the semester program: September 2006 through July 2007. For application information please contact the project manager, Ms. Nanne Priebs, at vispriebs@ceu.hu.

 

 

Visiting doctoral fellowships. The Media Management and Transformation Center (MMTC) at Jonkoping International Business School, Jonkoping University, Sweden, in the field of media business and media economics for advanced doctoral students. Dr. Cinzia dal Zotto, Research Manager, Media Management and Transformation Center, Jonkoping International Business School, P.O. Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jonkoping, SWEDEN. Info: http://www.jibs.se/mmtc. Email for more information: cinzia.dalzotto@ihh.hj.se.

 

 

Fellowship opportunity. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is accepting applications for its Academic Fellows antiterrorism training program. This program provides university professors with a detailed understanding of the teror threat that faces our nation and sister democracies. Centered on a 10-day course taught in conjunction with Tel Aviv U, the program takes place entirely in Israel and runs May 27-June 7 (travel inclusive). Participants interact with academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey, and the United States. They also visit military bases, border zones, and other security installations to learn the practical side of deterring terrorist attacks. All expenses are paid by FDD. For more information please visit: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/programs/programs_list.htm?attrib_id=7403 or call Audra Ozols at 202-207-0190.

 

 

Visiting Research Fellows Program, 2007-2008. The Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at Fordham University invites applicants for its new Visiting Research Fellows Program. Applicants are invited to apply for either a one-semester or two-semester appointment as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center. The appointment carries no stipend; however, Fellows enjoy the benefits of a research affiliation with the McGannon Center, including office space at the Center on Fordham's Bronx campus; computer, telephone, and Internet access; and access to all Fordham University library and electronic resources. Fellows also have access to the McGannon Center's administrative support, as well as to the resources of New York City, one of the media capitals of the world. Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in McGannon Center events (such as conferences and seminars), with the Center covering travel expenses related to such participation, as well as the opportunity to take part in the activities of the university as a whole, including the activities of related enterprises such as the Fordham Law School's Information Law and Policy Research Center and the Fordham Business School's Center for Communication. The Center seeks candidates with research interests that overlap with the Center's areas of interest in order to maximize collaborative opportunities during the Fellowship period. Information about the Center's activities can be found at www.fordham.edu/mcgannon. The ideal dandidate will be researching public interest-related regulation and policy issues pertaining to new media. The Center also seeks candidates with an interest in international policy issues.

Fellows will be expected to offer one lecture in their area of specialization during the Fellowship period and to contribute one research paper to the Center's Working Paper series. The Fellowship program is open to university faculty, post-docs, and ABD graduate students from any disciplinary background. International applicants are particularly welcome. Candidates wishing to apply for Fellow status for the 2007-2008 academic year should submit the following: 1. A letter of application and intent to be ni residence in the New York City area for the duration of the requested Fellowship period (Fall 2007, Spring 2008, or both). 2. A two- to three-page description of current research activities and of how residency at the McGannon Center could assist in the completion of these activities. 3. A current curriculum vitae. 4. For graduate student applicants, names and contact information for three faculty references. Completed applications can be submitted electronically to: Visiting Fellows Program, Donald McGannon Communication Research Center, at mcgctr@fordham.edu or in hard copy to:

 

Visiting Fellows Program

Donald McGannon Communication Research Center

Fordham University

441 E. Fordham Rd.,

Bronx, NY 10458

 

The application deadline for the 2007-2008 academic year is March 1, 2007. Applicants will receive notification by May 1, 2007. Note: The McGannon Center can only accommodate 1-2 Research Fellows per academic year. Questions or requests for additional information can be directed to Philip M. Napoli, McGannon Center Director, at pnapoli@fordham.edu or at 718-817-4196.

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
Center for Health Marketing and Communication
Postdoctoral Fellow

The University of Connecticut's Center for Health Communication and Marketing (CHCM) is seeking a Ph.D. level postdoctoral fellow for collaboration on core research projects funded through the Center for Disease Control.  The mission of the Center is to conduct cutting-edge research to inform the design and dissemination of health communication and marketing interventions and practices by focusing on relationships between at-risk populations and their contexts, communication strategies, messages, and behavior change.  Projects include meta-analyses of health communication issues, analysis of the impact of advertising of health-related products, and research on current health communication practices and dissemination of successful interventions. 

Successful candidates for the postdoctoral fellow will hold a Ph.D. degree, with advanced training in health communication and a specialization in communication, psychology, medical anthropology, other relevant social science or health disciplines. Experience with research design and data analysis (including SEM, multilevel modeling, meta-analysis) is desirable. Responsibilities of the postdoctoral fellow include assisting with research and reviews of research in or outside the United States, data analysis, supervising graduate assistants, and writing of journal articles and additional grant proposals. There is also an opportunity to apply for internal funding on original health communication research projects.

The Center (CHCM) is within the Center for Health and HIV Intervention and Prevention (CHIP), a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment with a large grant portfolio.  There are many opportunities to interact with other researchers, graduate students, and faculty.  Postdoctoral training consists of participation in seminars and individual mentoring.

This is an end date position subject to annual renewal.   Review of applicants will begin imme­di­ately and continue until the position is filled.

A writing sample or a copy of a recent publication would be highly desirable.   Please send with a cover letter and curriculum vita to:  Carol Valone, The University of Connecticut, Department of Psychology, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs CT 06269-1020 or electronically to:  carol.valone@uconn.edu.

 

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UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
Communication Sciences Department, 
Communication Section, Storrs Campus

 Rank: Assistant Professor                          
Salary: Open, depending upon qualifications and experience

Dates         Duties begin: 8/23/07

                  Consideration of applications begins 12/12/06

                   Search closes when suitable candidates are identified

Description of Duties

Conduct research and teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Interpersonal Communication.  The candidate should have an additional expertise in a specialty area of interpersonal communication such as organizational or small group communication, or new communication technologies.  The job also includes service to the department and university, including advising in the undergraduate, M.A., and Ph.D. programs.

Qualifications:  Ph.D. completed; expertise in quantitative research methods; and relevant teaching experience. The candidate should be able to teach a graduate seminar in organizational communication.

Program and Campus Information: The Communication Processes Section of the Department of Communication Sciences serves approximately 350 undergraduate majors, 15 M.A. and 25 Ph.D. students. There are 10 full-time faculty positions at the Storrs (main) Campus.  The department is well equipped with laboratory space and modern computing and research equipment including a facility designed for human computer interaction research. 

The Storrs campus is located in rural Connecticut, 40 minutes from Hartford and 60 minutes from Providence, RI, between Boston (90 minutes away) and New York City (3 hours away).  For more information see www.coms.uconn.edu or www.uconn.edu.

Application Procedure

Send letter of application, with a curriculum vita, three letters of reference, and copies of relevant publications or papers as email attachments to:

Mark Hamilton, Search Committee Chair

COMM-I/O Search Committee

Mark.hamilton@uconn.edu

University of Connecticut

Department of Communication Sciences

850 Bolton Road Unit 1085

Storrs, CT  06269-1085

 

The University of Connecticut encourages minorities, women, and people with disabilities to apply for this position.

 

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PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY - HARRISBURG

Assistant Professor, Speech Communication

Assistant Professor Speech Communication, Penn State Harrisburg, 2007-8.  One year, renewable, twelve credits/semester.   Ph.D. in Speech Communication preferred; master's required.
Send letter, three letters of reference, evidence of teaching effectiveness, and c.v. to PO Box SPCOM, c/o Ms. Dorothy Guy, Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA  17057-4898; review begins immediately.  Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity and diversity of its workforce.

 

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Health/Science Communications

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina seeks a faculty member in Health/Science Communications (open rank). For complete description see http://www.jour.sc.edu/opps/jobs/facultysearch.html. Send letter, vitae, and three letters of recommendation to Chair, Search Committee; School of Journalism and Mass Communications; College of Mass Communications and Information Studies; University of South Carolina; Columbia, SC 29208. USC is an equal opportunity employer and specifically invites and encourages applications from women and minorities.

 

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DENISON UNIVERSITY

Two two-year positions in Communication

 

 

(1)

Assistant Professor of Communication, Intercultural/Interpersonal

Two-Year Appointment

 

The Communication Department of Denison University invites individuals with active teaching and research experience in the area of intercultural/interpersonal communication to apply for a two-year, full time appointment at the Assistant Professor level. Candidates should have a Ph.D. or be ABD in Communication.

 

The successful candidate will teach a 3/3 load that includes basic courses in interpersonal and intercultural communication that also fulfill the college’s oral communication requirement. Housed in a liberal arts college, the Denison Communication Department has a broad curriculum that emphasizes the constitutive dimensions of communication across a range of theoretical approaches including intercultural, interpersonal, media, and rhetorical studies.

 

 (2)

Assistant Professor of Communication, Media Studies

Two-Year Appointment

 

The Communication Department of Denison University invites individuals with active teaching and research experience in the area of critical media studies to apply for a two-year, full time appointment at the Assistant Professor level. Candidates should have a Ph.D. or be ABD in Communication.

 

The successful candidate will teach a 3/3 load of basic courses covering areas such as radio and television history, gender and media, media literacy, and global media.  Housed in a liberal arts college, the Denison Communication Department has a broad curriculum that emphasizes the constitutive dimensions of communication across a range of theoretical approaches including intercultural, interpersonal, media, and rhetorical studies.

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Candidates should submit a curriculum vita, a brief letter of application, teaching evaluations, and three letters of recommendation to Dr. Lisbeth Lipari, Communication Department, Denison University, Granville, OH 43023.  Complete applications will be accepted until February 8, 2007.

 

Denison University is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. In a continuing effort to diversify our Campus Community, Women and People of Color are strongly encouraged to apply.

 

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