As I mentioned last month, one of the three objectives I would like to focus on during my 1-year term is the reinforcement of the international character of our association. In this column, I would like to explore with you some ideas and issues that might make a difference regarding our attractiveness to new scholars, especially in terms of paper submissions to our annual conference. While the submission process might seem transparent to most of us, many newcomers to ICA complain about the difficulty they have in identifying the right division for their papers. As an Australian colleague recently pointed out, if you are not a graduate of a U.S. university, the divisions themselves tend to be completely opaque. Why, for instance, do certain types of researchers gravitate to the Philosophy of Communication Division while others gravitate to Mass Communication?
Similarly, for someone who does not know anything about ICA, is it a priori easy to distinguish the Interpersonal Communication Division from the Language and Social Interaction Division? One could retort that this potential submitter could take the time reading the respective descriptions of these two Divisions, but even doing that does not solve the problem (I invite you to read them and you will see that there is absolutely no way to know that one Division - interpersonal communication - tends to favor quantitative studies while the other - Language and Social Interaction - favors qualitative studies). One could also imagine that the best solution for this person would be to attend an ICA conference in order to get familiar with the various Divisions that might be of interest to him or her, but the problem with this so-called "solution" is that most scholars who would like to attend an ICA conference will not be funded unless they do have a paper accepted.
As another colleague who works in China recently told me, it takes time (dues payments notwithstanding) to become a member of an association like ICA: having access to the informal and invisible part of its culture can't be done overnight. So how can we break this vicious circle, this catch-22 that tends to prevent new potential members from getting a chance to attend our conferences and know our association better? Would an ICA for Dummies be a solution (although I am not sure I would use that title…)? Shouldn't we work to make ICA more transparent, especially at the Division/Interest Group level? I think these definitely are avenues to be explored, as potential members deserve to have as much access as possible to the standards and biases that each Division has naturally produced and developed over the years (and for sure, this should not be read as a critique on my part, as I think this kind of development is inevitable).
Another possible solution could be to post on our ICA website a sample of papers that would reflect the kind of work that tend to be typically encouraged and accepted by the respective Divisions and Interest Groups. This sampling could have many advantages, as it would provide potential members with information about not only the content, but also the form of the papers. If one of the best ways to be successful in publishing a paper in a given academic journal is to read articles that are typically published in this outlet, I think we should provide similar opportunities to scholars and students who would like to get a paper accepted in our conferences.
As I am writing this column, the ICA Membership and Internationalization Committee, chaired by Boris Brummans, is working on other propositions that might make ICA even more international, so I would encourage anyone who has ideas about this issue not to hesitate to contact me (f.cooren@umontreal.ca) or Boris (boris.brummans@umontreal.ca) so that we can benefit from your insights. Thank you in advance!
