I am excited to step into my role as content editor of the ICA Newsletter! As content editor, I will invite and edit intellectual and communication-related content in the Newsletter, paying particular attention to the emerging issues that are at the frontiers of the field. I will be filling the content pages of the Newsletter starting from the September 2008 issue and would like to invite individual submissions, short reports, as well as ideas for topics to be covered in future issues.
It is my hope that this particular space in the Newsletter will offer a platform for scholarly discussions and debates that offer new directions for communication scholarship and tap into the pulse of the discipline. It is also my hope that this section of the Newsletter generates intellectual debate that would provide insights about how we conceptualize communication and the ways in which we come to study it in an increasingly global context. Also, I hope that this platform would provide a space for discussions of communication-related policies and the ways in which such policies influence, constrain, facilitate and reify certain strands of intellectual content within our discipline. In the discussion of content-related issues, I hope that we can listen to those voices among our membership that have difficulty finding access to our mainstream platforms. In addition to individual submissions, I would like to invite debates that articulate the diverse viewpoints around an issue, topic, or policy.
In addition, the Newsletter will carry short reports such as reports of international conferences around the world, reports of research carried out in international contexts that are otherwise absent in our mainstream communication journals, reports of international meetings and activities etc. Once again, the emphasis here will be on offering snippets from a diverse global audience that constitutes the current membership of ICA. Also, short responses to individual pieces published in the Newsletter would open up the space for further debate.
I would like to encourage submissions from our international readership with the hope that we get to hear voices from a diverse array of contexts, with a commitment to the internationalization agenda that has been at the forefront of recent ICA discussions. Please do send your submissions and suggestions to mdutta@purdue.edu. I am looking forward to seeing some lively discussions in these pages.