Now that the program for Chicago has been released, I'd like to draw your attention to the scheduled plenaries and mini-plenaries. I'm very excited with what has come together as a terrific line-up of speakers and topics, and I hope you'll find issues of relevance among them. Many of the sessions I'm outlining here build on the conference theme of Keywords in Communication, further elucidating how our terms help shape what we value as a field.

A couple of comments, first. With the plenaries, we are introducing a new feature at this year's conference - a closing plenary - which, together with the opening plenary, will serve as bookends to our 5-day meet ing. In between, eight mini-plenaries will feature both sessions addressing keywords in the field, a new emphasis on professional issues particularly for more junior scholars (a programming dimension requested in this year's survey by ICA members), and ICA fellows sessions, following the tradition of targeting the work of newly inaugurated fellows. I'm outlining the programming twice over, listing the plenaries and mini-plenaries first by title and participant and then in more complete detail.

Opening Plenary (Thursday, May 21, 6.00-7.30 pm)
Keywords in Regulation, Or How the FCC and Others See Regulation in the Digital Age

Robert W. McChesney (Chair)
Michael Copps
Robin Mansell
Joseph Torres
Georgette Wang

Closing Plenary (Monday, May 25, 10.30-11.45 am)
Communication and Shock Resistance: The Role of Narrative in Meeting the Current Crises

Naomi Klein

Friday Mini-Plenaries (Friday, May 22, 12.00-1.15 pm):

The Message

Paul Kelvin Jones (Chair)
W. Lance Bennett
Daniel Dayan
John Hartley
Annie Lang

The Public Sphere, Public Culture, and Reasoned Public Choice

Nick Couldry (Chair)
Lauren Berlant
Michael Delli Carpini
Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar
Shanto Iyengar and James Curran
Michael Schudson

Funding for Research

Marshall Scott Poole (Chair)
Peng Hwa Ang
Peter Golding
Francois Heinderyckx
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Jacqueline ("Jack") R. Meszaros
Douglas Storey
Stefaan G. Verhulst

Projections of the Future From Reflections on the Past: Interpersonal Issues
(Fellows Session)

Cindy Gallois (Chair)
Brant R. Burleson
Jesse G. Delia
Jon F. Nussbaum
Charles R. Berger (Respondent)

Saturday Miniplenaries (May 23, 12.00-1.15 pm):

On Communication

Paddy Scannell (Chair)
Milly Buonanno
James Curran
Cindy Gallois
Tamar Katriel
Winston Mano

The City

Myria Georgiou (Chair)
William Ayers
Don Mitchell
Saskia Sassen

Alternative Modes of Academic Work

Larry Gross (Chair)
J. Alison Bryant
David Gleason
Rich Ling
Shih-Hung Lo
Gerry Power
Nicole Stremlau

Projections of the Future From Reflections on the Past: Media Issues
(Fellows Session)

Alan M. Rubin (Chair)
Sandra Ball-Rokeach
Patti Valkenburg
Barbara J. Wilson
Joanne Cantor (Respondent)

Opening Plenary
Keywords in Regulation, Or How the FCC and Others See Regulation in the Digital Age (Thursday, May 21, 6.00-7.30 pm). Our opening plenary offers a discussion of how regulation does, could and should look in an era characterized by digital communication. Chaired by Robert W. McChesney (The Gutgsell Endowed Professor at the U of Illinois, USA, author of numerous books on media history and policy, and co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press), the session begins with an address by U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner and Acting Chairman Michael Copps. Copps will share his thoughts about the new Commission, with particular emphasis on the challenge to ensure public interest protections in the digital age. Before coming to the FCC in 2001, Copps held positions as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Basic Industries, and Professor of U.S. History at Loyola U of the South. The panel continues with comments on digital regulation by a team of international experts: Robin Mansell (Professor of New Media and the Internet at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and Past-President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research [IAMCR], who works on governance and the sources of regulatory effectiveness and failure and the impact of convergence in the information and communication technology industries), Joseph Torres (Government Relations Manager at Free Press and former deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists,USA), and Georgette Wang (Chair Professor at the College of Communication, National Chengchi U, Taiwan, who has published on media globalization and new media policies in Asia and third world countries).

Closing Plenary
Communication and Shock Resistance: The Role of Narrative in Meeting the Current Crises (Monday, May 25, 10.30-11.45 am). Our closing plenary features award-winning Canadian author and journalist Naomi Klein. Klein, who writes regularly for The Nation and The Guardian, is syndicated internationally by the New York Times, and whose reporting from Iraq for Harper's Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, will discuss how public moments of shock are exploited by politicians to further strategic initiatives. Drawing from her recent book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which was recently shortlisted for the 2009 Warwick Prize for Writing, Klein will share her provocative thesis that in times of disaster, economic crisis and war, politicians and leaders - many of them aligned with the Chicago School of Economics -- have pushed through policies that would have generated more debate in less harried times. Called by one reviewer the "secret history of the free market," Klein's expose shows how free market economics have been used to exploit moments of shock so as to implement policies in the United States, Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Russia and Iraq. Please take note: this closing plenary will take place on Monday, May 25, so make sure to plan on staying with the program till then.

Miniplenaries

Friday Mini-Plenaries (May 22, 12.00-1.15 pm)
1) The Message: Though much communication theory draws from an implicit or explicit notion of "the message," different intellectual vantage points emphasize multiple aspects of this keyword. Scholars from political communication, cognitive science, mass communication, popular communication, journalism studies and visual studies share their thoughts. Chaired by Paul Kelvin Jones (Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Sociology at the U of New South Wales, Australia, and author of Raymond Williams's Sociology of Culture: A Critical Reconstruction), the panel features W. Lance Bennett (The Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science at the U of Washington, USA, founder and director of its Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, and recent coauthor of When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina), Daniel Dayan (Directeur de Recherches at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, a fellow of the Marcel Mauss Institute [Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris], a Visiting Professor at the New School for Social Research, and author most recently of La terreur spectacle: Terrorisme et télévision), John Hartley (Research Director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation, Queensland U of Technology, Australia, and editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies, whose recent work on popular culture, media and journalism includes Television Truths, The Uses of Digital Literacy, and Story Circle: Digital Storytelling Around the World); and Annie Lang (Professor of Telecommunications and Cognitive Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana U, USA, whose work focuses on understanding communication as a contextually constrained dynamic interaction between messages and the human brain conceptualizing and measuring the interactions between the message, the brain and its associated body in contexts over time).

2) The Public Sphere, Public Culture and Reasoned Public Choice: Chaired by Nick Couldry (Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, U of London, UK and co-author most recently of Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the Presumption of Attention), this panel attempts to move the assessment of the deliberative and decision-making capacity of the public sphere from stiff dichotomies to conceptual gradualism. Speakers include Lauren Berlant (The George M. Pullman Professor of English at the U of Chicago, USA, whose trilogy on national sentimentality--The Anatomy of National Fantasy, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, and The Female Complaint-is now morphing into a quartet on affective democracy, with her forthcoming book, Cruel Optimism), James Curran (Professor of Communication and Director of the Leverhulme Media Research Centre, at Goldsmiths, U of London, UK, and author or editor of 18 books about the media including Media and Power and Power Without Responsibility), Michael Delli Carpini (Dean of the U of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and formerly Director of the Public Policy Program of the Pew Charitable Trusts, USA, whose research explores the role of the citizen in American politics, as reflected in his recent book A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen), Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern U, USA, Director of its Center for Global Culture and Communication, and Codirector of the Chicago-based international Center for Transcultural Studies), Shanto Iyengar (Professor at Stanford U, USA, who works in the area of media effects on public opinion and whose current research examines cross-national differences in citizens' awareness of current issues in relation to parallel differences in the delivery of hard news), and Michael Schudson (Professor of Communication and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the U of California - San Diego and Professor of Communication at Columbia U's Graduate School of Journalism, USA, where he has worked on the news media, popular culture, advertising, and cultural memory).

3) Funding for Research: How does one go about securing funding for research, particularly when starting out as a junior scholar? This panel brings together scholars and funders in a conversation about how to enhance the funding experience. Chaired by Marshall Scott Poole (Professor of Communication at U of Illinois, USA, whose work on people's interactions with and through communication and information technologies has been the recipient of multiple funding awards), the panel includes Peng Hwa Ang (Professor at Nanyang Technological U, Singapore, Director of the Singapore Internet Research Center and currently on sabbatical as Visiting Dean of the Mudra Institute of Communications Research, India, whose research interests are in internet governance and media law and policy), Peter Golding (Professor of Sociology and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at Loughborough U, UK, a member of the 'Expert Advisory Group' for the future 'Research Excellence Framework,' Honorary Secretary of the national subject association for the field in UK universities (MeCCSA) and Honorary President of the Media Research Network of the European Sociological Association, with research interests in the political economy of the media, media and social policy, and social inequality), Francois Heinderyckx (Professeur ordinaire in the Department of Information and Communication Sciences at the U Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and President of the European Communication Research and Education Association [ECREA]), Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Professor at the U of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and head of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, USA, who has served as the PI or co-PI on grants from the Ford, MacArthur, Irvine, Fora, Packard and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts and Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Annenberg Foundation), Jacqueline ("Jack") R. Meszaros (Program Director for Innovation and Organizational Sciences and for Decision, Risk and Management Sciences at the National Science Foundation [NSF], USA, and former faculty member at the U of Washington, Bothell, and Temple U, where her research has focused on individual and organizational decision-making related to low-probability, high-consequence risks), Douglas Storey (Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Communication Science and Research, The Health Communication Partnership, at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA, who has 30 years of experience in applied health communication research and health education and since 1993 he has provided research support to global USAID, World Bank, and UN-funded health and environmental communication programs in 25 countries); and Stefaan G. Verhulst (Chief of Research at the Markle Foundation, USA, who has formerly served as founder and director of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy [PCMLP] at Oxford U, senior research fellow at the Centre for Socio Legal Studies and the Unesco Chairholder in Communication Law and Policy for the UK, and consultant to various international and national organizations including the Council of Europe, European Commission, Unesco, UNDP, USAID and DFID).

4) Projections of the Future from Reflections on the Past: Interpersonal Issues: This Fellows Session, chaired by Cindy Gallois (Professor of Psychology and Communication and Executive Dean of Social and Behavioural Sciences, at The U of Queensland, Australia), presents research by newly inaugurated fellows in the area of interpersonal communication: Brant R. Burleson (Professor of Communication and an Affiliate Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue U, USA) will talk about "Understanding the Outcomes of Supportive Communication: A Dual-Process Approach"; Jesse G. Delia (Professor and Associate Chancellor at the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA) will discuss "An Eye on the Future Through a 40-Year Glance Back on Constructivism and Communication and the Evolution of Communication Research"; and Jon F. Nussbaum (Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, USA) will present "Communication and Quality of Life Across the Life Span.." Charles R. Berger (Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of California - Davis, USA) will respond.

Saturday Mini-Plenaries (May 23, 12.00-1.15 pm)
1) On Communication: This miniplenary, chaired by Paddy Scannell (Professor of Communication at U of Michigan, founding coeditor of Media, Culture, and Society, and author most recently of the first volume of his forthcoming trilogy Media and Communication), addresses the idea of communication as an originary term for the field of study by the same name. What do we mean by "communication"? Scholars from across the world and across the field of communication offer their perspectives, including Milly Buonanno (Professor of Television Studies in the Department of Sociology and Communication of the U of Rome "La Sapienza" [Italy], whose work, seen in her latest book The Age of Television, focuses on television and journalism from a humanistic and holistic perspective), James Curran (Professor of Communication and Director of the Leverhulme Media Research Centre, at Goldsmiths, U of London, UK, and author or editor of 18 books about the media, including Media and Power and Power Without Responsibility), Cindy Gallois (Professor of Psychology and Communication and Executive Dean of Social and Behavioural Sciences, at The U of Queensland, Australia, whose research on intergroup communication in health, organizational, and intercultural settings emphasizes interpersonal accommodation across group boundaries and its consequences), Tamar Katriel (Professor in the Department of Communication, U of Haifa, Israel, where she specializes in the ethnography of communication, intercultural communication, and discourse studies), and Winston Mano (Senior Lecturer in the U of Westminster's Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, UK, a member of its Communication and Media Research Institute [CAMRI], and Principal Editor of the Journal of African Media Studies, whose work focuses on radio, music, Zimbabwean journalism and African media studies).

2) The City: Chaired by Myria Georgiou (Senior Lecturer in International Communications at the Institute of Communications Studies at the U of Leeds, UK, where her research focuses on diaspora, transnational networks and the city), this miniplenary addresses the city's possibilities and limits as a setting for collective action and understanding, while considering on whose terms they have been set in place. The panel's focus ranges across the multiple sources for the city's growing significance, the battles raised by the homeless over rights to the city, and the parameters available for activism in the urban environment. Speakers include William Ayers (Distinguished Professor and Senior University Scholar in the College of Education at the U of Illinois at Chicago, where he has written extensively about urban schools, youth in trouble with the law, and the challenges of schooling in a modern democracy, and author of the recently republished Fugitive Days: A Memoir), Don Mitchell (Distinguished Chair and Professor of Geography at Syracuse U, whose work on labor and landscape, struggles over urban public space, and spatial theories of culture is reflected in his most recent coauthored book The People's Property? Power, Politics, and the Public), and Saskia Sassen (The Lynd Professor of Sociology and Member of The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia U, USA, and author most recently of Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages and A Sociology of Globalization as well as media columns in Newsweek, HuffingtonPost.com, and OpenDemocracy.net).

3) Alternative Modes of Academic Work: This panel considers modes of academic work that take shape beyond the ivory tower, where alternative career trajectories exist in NGOs, industry, journalism and elsewhere. Chaired by Larry Gross (Professor and Director of the School of Communication at the U of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Coeditor of the International Journal of Communication, whose scholarship on media and culture has been paralleled with non-academic work on the same topics), the panel brings together a number of scholars who have ventured outside of the university with Ph.D. in hand. They include J. Alison Bryant (Senior Research Director of Brand and Consumer Insights and Digital Analytics for the Nickelodeon/MTV Networks Kids & Family Group, USA, where she leads Nick's efforts to understand the digital lives of kids and families, conducting research on a variety of digital platforms [online, console and handheld gaming, interactive television, mobile]), David Gleason (SVP, Strategy Director at Publicis, USA, and former executive at Ogilvy & Mather and MTV Networks, with an expertise in brand strategy, marketing and consumer insight), Rich Ling (Senior Researcher at Telenor Research and Development and Professor at the IT U of Copenhagen, whose latest book New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication is Reshaping Mobile Cohesion reflects his research on the social consequences of mobile communication), Shih-Hung Lo (Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Communication at National Chung Cheng U, Taiwan, cofounder of the Campaign for Media Reform [CMR], a member of the board of directors of Media Watch Foundation, and cofounder of two websites to help move Taiwan's media reform activism to Web 2.0), Gerry Power (Director of Research and Knowledge Management at the BBC World Service Trust -- where his global team conducts research in 14 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on the role of media in development issues, including governance, human rights, health, livelihoods and climate change -- and a former policy researcher for the United States Information Agency, the National Council for Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Irish Industrial Development Authority), and Nicole Stremlau (Coordinator of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy and Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, U of Oxford, UK and former Director of the Africa Media Program of the Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy and Research, UK, whose expertise in media and conflict, particularly in Eastern Africa, involved her in directing research and training projects for DFID (the Department for International Development) and the British Foreign Office).

4) Projections of the Future from Reflections on the Past: Media Issues: This Fellows Session, chaired by Alan M. Rubin (Professor and Director Emeritus of the School of Communication Studies at Kent State U, USA), includes presentations by three newly inaugurated ICA fellows in the area of mediated communication: Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach (Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the U of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication), will discuss "The Questions that Mattered"; Patti M. Valkenburg (Professor of Communication at the U of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) will talk about "Adolescents and the Internet: An Empirical Assessment of the Risks and Opportunities"; and Barbara J. Wilson (Professor it the Department of Communication at the U of Illinois, USA) will present "Children and the Media: Why a Developmental Perspective Matters." Joanne Cantor (Professor Emeritus at the U of Wisconsin at Madison, USA) will respond to all three presentations.

Thanks
Putting Chicago's program together has been a major learning experience, and I am humbled by the generosity of the many people who helped make it a more manageable and ultimately enjoyable process. Thanks go first of all to Michael Haley and his terrific team at ICA headquarters - Sam Luna, Deandra Tolson, Mike West, and Tina Zeigler-Jones.

I am grateful to all the unit planners, who worked seamlessly to review, plan and fit their submissions into sessions. Thanks to Walid Afifi, Patricia Aufderheide, Moniek Buijzen, Dave Buller, Richard Buttny, Craig Carroll, Ling Chen, Lynn Comella, Nick Couldry, Frank Esser, Myria Georgiou, Betsi Grabe, Kristen Harrison, Robert Huesca, Katherine Isbister, Steve McDowell, Dennis Mumby, Dave Park, Luc Pauwels, Maggie Pitts, Rob Potter, Diana Rios, David Roskos-Ewoldson, Cornel Sandvoss, Shyam Sundar, and Yariv Tsfati. A special thanks to Stuart Allan for organizing the theme sessions. Thanks too to the many ICA members who agreed to play along and experiment with the cross-unit sessions and other keyword initiatives, making the theme submissions into a real exercise in cross divisional and interest group conversation.

A special thanks goes to Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt, whose assiduous eye caught many errors and complications that would have otherwise gone unnoticed; to Larry Gross, Steve Jones, and Bob McChesney, who were always on hand to offer and discuss new ways of tweaking the program; and to my colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, who endured multiple and frequent queries in my attempt to make the program as inclusive as possible.

Thanks to the local organizing committee -Kevin Barnhurst, Pablo Boczkowski, Jim Ettema, Eszter Hargittai, Steve Jones, John Nerone, Dave Park, and Andy Rojecki - for working so hard to bring the local arrangements to fruition, and for the extra efforts involved in organizing the neighborhood tours. Thanks, finally, to the Executive Committee - Patrice Buzzanell, Sonia Livingstone, Jon Nussbaum, and Ron Rice - for sharing helpful information as the need for it arose.