Communication and Technology

Dear CAT members,

I'm happy to report that the paper competition for the Montreal ICA conference is now complete. Our division had an outstanding response once again, attracting 233 paper submissions, next only to Mass Comm which received 257. We were able to accept 113 papers (and 6 of the 14 panel submissions) for programming at the conference.

I owe a big THANK YOU to the nearly 200 reviewers who reviewed for us this year. We could not have done it without your timely help and support. Thanks also to all those who agreed to chair paper sessions in Montreal. As in the last couple of years, each CAT session will feature a single coordinator who will moderate the paper presentations, provide comments to authors, and conduct the Q and A with audience members after the paper presentations.

For those of you wanting to nominate an outstanding comm tech thesis for an award, the deadline for this year's CAT dissertation contest (Herbert Dordick award) is fast approaching. Those who attended the business meeting in San Francisco will know that we decided to change this from a biannual to an annual event. Dissertations completed between Sept. 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007 are eligible for consideration this time. The deadline is Feb 15, 2008. Please go to http://www.icahdq.org/sections/secdetinfo.asp?SecCode=DIV10 for submission information. Or go to the ICA site (www.icahdq.org), click on Sections, choose Communication and Technology, and you'll find contest information on the main page.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Spring. Please look for the Montreal program on the ICA site around mid-March and make plans to attend the CAT business meeting, to be followed by a reception.

Cheers,

S. Shyam Sundar, Vice-Chair
sss12@psu.edu

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Global Communication and Social Change

Of relatively modest size in terms of membership (in its first year) the division was amongst the top in terms of the number of papers and panel proposals that were submitted for its review. We have had to be fairly selective, therefore, but can look forward to an exceptionally interesting conference.

In the wake of the fall election results, the division welcomes Dr. Robert Huesca (Trinity University) as its first vice-chair, and Dr. Veena Raman (UC Berkeley) as its first secretary. Formally, they take up their duties from the end of the conference in Montreal. Dr. Huesca has kindly agreed to organize the divisional dinner in Montreal.

Without a full complement of divisional officers this first year, there has been slow progress towards drafting a permanent set of bye-laws. With the aid of the sub-committee established for this purpose last year in San Francisco, I intend to progress the drafting of bye-laws so that a draft will be available for review at the divisional meeting in Montreal. Pending the determination of a final set of bye-laws, I have postponed for one further year a number of issues, including that of divisional annual awards. This will allow more time for the division’s funds to increase to a level where it can afford to a range of awards and activities at least comparable to those offered when the division was a sub-division of Division 5.

On behalf of the entire division, I wish to extend my gratitude for the hard work undertaken this year by our reviewers, whose commitments of time and energy are vital to the whole enterprise. They are: Giorgia Aiello, Ece Algan, Jim Baumann, Che Baysinger, Sandhya Bhattacharya, Herbert Blankson, Michael Breen, C. Burrowes, Henrik Bocker, Rungrat Chaisamrej, Pi-Chun Chang, Jianxun Chu, Jae Eun Chung, Kathleen Clark, Michael Cody, Alexa Dare, Audra Diers, Paul Duong Tran, Spring-Serenity Duvall, Lyombe Eko, Deniz Firat, Elfriede Fursich, Radhika Gajjala, Mahmoud Galander, Lynn Gregory, Michael Hazen, Lucie Hribal, Kuo Huang, Jim Hunt, Suda Ishida, Christopher Karadjov, Andrew Kennis, Tabassum Khan, Gholam Khiabany, Jeong-Nam Kim, Hun Shik-Kim, Joung-Im-Kim, Mohamed Kirat, Kris Kodrich, Liangwen Kuo, Doreen Kutufam, Janet Kwami, Fei Loi Lai, Seung-Hyun Lee, Hun Yui Lee, Micky Lee, Lara Lengel, R. Lentz, Luzhou Li, Yon Soo Lim, Chen Liu, Mim McCann, Srinivas Melkote, Claudia Mellado, Bella Mody, Siho Nam, Sorin Nastasia, Diana Nastasia, Jenny Nelson, Kekeli Nuviadenu, Tokumbo Ojo, Charles Okigbo, Mariusz Ozminkowski, Po-Lin Pan, Robert Peaslee, Diana Peck, Dobrinka Peicheva, Roz Pierson, Viviana Rojas, Pamela Rutledge, Mehdi Semati, Yu Shi, Peter Shields, Ewart Skinner, Amber Smallwood, Leticia Solaun, Colin Sparks, Ian Steinberg, Russell Stockard, Joseph Straubhaar, Saman Talib, Daya Thussu, Dexin Tian, Nancy Turkoglu, Charu Uppal, Deborah Vance, Lucila Vargas, Richard Vincent, Gloria Walker, Niranjala Weerakkody, Norbert Wildermuth, Karin Wilkins, Kallia Wright, Shuang Xie, Wenjing Xie, Xin Xin, Bu Zhong.

Please also note that in partnership with Philosophy of Communication and Political Communication, Global Communication and Social Change is co-sponsoring a pre-conference at Montreal: Mediating Global Citizenship, May 21-22nd. More details are available at the ICA website.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Montreal!

Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Chair
oboydb@bgsu.edu

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Health Communication

Health Communication Division Members: The planning for the 2008 conference is moving along. Based on your hard work, we will have another exciting slate of health communication papers and sessions in Montreal. Please check the preliminary conference program that is now available at the ICA website.

For those of you who submitted papers and panel proposals, reviews and comments by Division readers are now available on the 2008 conference paper website, which is available through the ICA homepage. Please note that while readers were invited to provide written comments, not all papers received them given the very short time window during which papers were reviewed.

All accepted paper/panel submitters will be able to upload revised versions of your work from April 1 to April 30. Please take advantage of this period to insure that attendees have access to your most up-to-date work at the conference.

Thanks for your continued support of the Division.

Dave Buller, vice-chair
dbuller@kleinbuendel.com

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Information Systems

With heartfelt thanks to the large group of reviewers—ALL of whom got their reviews done on time—the Information Systems’ program is now set for ICA 2008 in Montreal.  Following division tradition, if two of the three reviewers recommended a piece be programmed, we did our very best to do so.  The result is a total of 85 pieces of research being presented across 7 High Density Sessions, 4 Regular Sessions, a Best of Information Systems Panel and 5 papers representing Info Systems in the Scholar-to-Scholar Session.  We also agreed to co-sponsor two panels at the request of the Mass Communication and Journalism Studies divisions.

If you have been programmed into a High Density Session and are unfamiliar with this format, be looking for an email from me as the conference approaches describing what you will need to prepare.  Or, if you can’t wait, feel free to email me before then.

Don’t forget that reviews of papers and extended abstracts are now accessible via the ICA website (http://www.icahdq.org/cfp/).  Also, be preparing final revised papers for uploading to the website prior to it being locked down for posterity.  Watch for emails from ICA HQ with details about that.

I’m looking forward to seeing you in Montreal!

Rob Potter, Vice-Chair
rfpotter@indiana.edu

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Mass Communication

The Mass Communication Division received 257 papers and 13 panel proposals for the Montreal meeting this May, making for a very competitive selection process this year. We'd like to thank all those who submitted their fine work, and especially the 161 (yes - that's right - 161!) reviewers who gave generously of their time and energy to allow the review process to proceed smoothly and efficiently.

We were delighted with the quality of the papers and are proud to announce the top 4 papers:

"Enjoyment of Daytime Soap Operas: A Longitudinal Test of Affective Disposition Theory": Rene Weber (U of California - Santa Barbara), Ron Tamborini (Michigan State U), Hye Eun Lee (U of Hawaii - Manoa), Horst Stipp (NBC Universal)

"What Influences Media Coverage of North Korea?: A Study of Journalists and News Reports on the Six-Nation Nuclear Talks": Hyunjin Seo, Syracuse U

"The Effects of Incongruity, Production, and Pacing on TV Advertisement": Hyo Jin Pak, *Michael A. Shapiro, Cornell U

"Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Notions of Women as Sex Objects: Assessing Causality and Underlying Processes": Jochen Peter (U of Amsterdam), Patti M. Valkenburg (U of Amsterdam)

The top student papers are:

"Differential Effects Model of Agenda Setting in Local Contexts": Kideuk Hyun (U of Texas - Austin), Soo Jung Moon (U of Texas - Austin)

"Of Ghosts and Gangsters: Capitalist Cultural Production and the Hong Kong Film Industry": Sylvia Janet Martin (U of California - Irvine)

"The Role of Issue Capacity in Agenda Setting": Kideuk Hyun (U of Texas - Austin), Ja-Yeon Lee (University of Texas at Austin)

"Issue Importance as a Moderator of Framing Effects": Sophie Katharina Lecheler (U of Amsterdam), Rune Slothuus (University of Aarhus)

Our congratulations to these authors! We have a great diversity of panels scheduled for the Montreal meeting, and we look forward to a stimulating exchange of ideas this May. We would like to encourage all members of the Mass Communication Division to attend the Business Meeting which will take place immediately after a special Spotlight Panel on the Future of Media Effects Theory, which will include some of the most distinguished media effects scholars in our field: Jennings Bryant (U. Alabama), Joseph Cappella (Annenberg, U. Penn), W. James Potter (UC-Santa Barbara), and Ellen Wartella (UC-Riverside).

As we will be holding elections this year, we would also like to encourage you to think about nominations for both vice-chair and secretary for our Division (duties to begin at the 2009 conference).

Again, my thanks to all of you who participated in this review process, and my congratulations to those of you who have had your work accepted for presentation this year.

Robin Nabi, Chair
nabi@comm.ucsb.edu