As I am writing my first presidential column, I realize that a month is already (and sadly) separating us from our five terrific conference days in Singapore. This event was certainly a success with 1,466 preregistrations and 225 on-site registrations, for a total of 1,691 participants, making this conference the second biggest in a non-North American location, just after the one we organized in Dresden, Germany, 4 years ago.

When we chose this destination some 5 years ago, we knew that our association was taking a risk, financially speaking. Singapore indeed constituted a very remote location for a majority of our members (not all, obviously!), not to mention the controversial aspect that this destination could represent to some of us, making it a candidate for potential boycotting. At the same time, it seemed to be the right thing to do (for the board at least), given our commitment to becoming more and more international and less U.S.-centric.

If we compare the Singapore results with the ones from Seoul, South Korea, where our ICA conference took place some 8 years ago, we can see all the progress we made in terms of attendance, especially at the international level. While Seoul attracted a little less than 1,000 participants in 2002, Singapore, with close to 1,700 participants, is marking a big step forward with regards to our East Asian destinations. Indeed, close to 60 countries were represented, a majority coming from the USA (669 participants), Singapore (104), Germany (87), Australia (71), The Netherlands (65), Hong Kong (50), United Kingdom (45), South Korea (42), China (35), Canada (34), and Japan (30).

The good news also is that Singapore was apparently able to attract several scholars and students who, in the past, had traditionally not been able to attend our conferences. I am thinking of students and scholars from India (18 of them attended the Singapore conference), Philippines (16), Malaysia (12), Indonesia (11), Thailand (5), and Sri Lanka (3). In many respects, the presence of these persons and the excellent attendance level of participants coming from Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan show us how important it is for ICA to regularly choose an East Asian location for its conferences, something we will, of course, keep on doing in the future.

But if we had such a rewarding and enjoyable experience in Singapore, it is especially thanks to the high quality of the papers, panels, theme sessions, plenary sessions, and exhibitions programmed during this event. I cannot but mention the great talk that Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Stanford U) gave us for the opening plenary session, with his keynote, titled "Infinite availability: About Hyper-Communication [and Old Age]." As several ICA members told me during the opening reception, which immediately followed his keynote, his talk managed to be both intriguing and inspirational, creating the ideal conditions for four consecutive days of reflections, discussions and debates.

The second plenary presentation, cosponsored by the Asian Media Information and Communication Center (AMIC, located in Singapore) and ICA, was given the next day by Ien Ang (U of Western Sydney, Australia), who also gave a wonderful speech on "The Transnational Communication of 'Racism.'" Offering a very detailed analysis of how media, migration, and international relations shape each other over accusations of racism against Indian students in Australia, Dr. Ang's talk triggered a lot of questions and discussions in the audience, showing why matters of communication can indeed matter so much in today's societies.

Matters of communication were also the topic of our third keynote speaker, Barbie Zelizer (U of Pennsylvania, USA), who presented her ICA presidential address on "Journalism in the Service of Communication," a very nice and thought provoking presentation where she demonstrated the historical role journalism played in the constitution of our field, pleading for a continuation of this role in the years to come. As for our closing plenary, titled "New Media and Its Impact on Censorship," which involved three keynote speakers - Peng Hwa Ang (Nanyang Technological U, Singapore), Joseph Chan (Chinese U of Hong Kong) and Josephine Ho (National Central U, Taiwan) - it, I think, constituted an interesting opportunity to address a burning topic that, at various levels, concerns not only dictatorships (whether soft or harsh), but also so called "advanced democracies."

Other interesting opportunities to address burning topics were two mini-plenaries scheduled on Thursday. The first, titled "Queer in Asia: Issues, Identities, and Communication," was sponsored by the GLBT interest group and chaired by Mark Cenite (Nanyang Technological U, Singapore). It featured Alex Au (Yawning Bread, Singapore), a very vocal gay activist figure from Singapore, as well as Audrey Yue (The U of Melbourne, Australia), John Erni (Lingnan U, Hong Kong) and our president-elect, Larry Gross (U of Southern California, USA).

The second miniplenary, titled "Im/material Principles, Material Practices: The Women's Movement and its Media in Asia," was sponsored by the Feminist Scholarship Division and chaired by Radhika Gajjala (Bowling Green State U, USA). It also featured a very important local activist, Dana Lam, from AWARE, a Singaporean group fighting for women's rights, as well as Lisa Brooten (Southern Illinois U - Carbondale, USA), Sylvia Estrada-Claudio (U of Philippines), Hongmei Li (U of Georgia, USA), Sunitha Chitrapu (Sophia Polytechnic U, Mumbai), and Radhika Parameswaran (Indiana U, USA). Beyond the great quality of these two events, the organization of these miniplenaries nicely illustrated how ICA can try to make a difference by engaging local and global debates and discussions between academics and activists over controversial topics.

This conference also gave us the opportunity to recognize scholars whose contribution to the communication field was rewarded during our award ceremony. Let me list them here:

• New ICA fellows: Wolfgang Donsbach (U of Dresden, Germany), Gail Fairhurst (U of Cincinnati, USA), Robert Hornik (U of Pennsylvania, USA), Dafna Lemish (Tel Aviv U, Israel), Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Michael D. Slater (Ohio State U, USA), and Joseph Turow (U of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Fellows' Book Award: Daniel Dayan (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France) and Elihu Katz (U of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award: Jon F. Nussbaum (Penn State U, USA)
• Outstanding Book Award: Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik P. Bucy (Indiana U, USA)
• Applied/Public Policy Research Award: Jon F. Nussbaum (Penn State U, USA)
• Young Scholar Award: Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern U, USA)
• James Carey Urban Communication Award: Stephen Ostertag (Tulane U, USA)
• Communication Research as Agent of Change: Patricia Aufderheide (American U, USA)
• Communication Research as Collaborative Practice: James Gerard (Gerry) Power (BBC World Service Trust, UK)
• Communication Research as Open Field: Richard Ling (IT U of Copenhagen, Denmark)

I would like to end this first column by thanking some key persons who made this whole Singapore experience a great success. I am extremely grateful to Ang Peng Hwa, of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication at Nanyang Technological U, and the local organizing committee for helping us organize this event. Although I cannot acknowledge everyone, I want to mention in particular May O. Lwin, Cherian George, Andrew Duffy, Phung Meei Lin, Fernando Paragas, Yeoh Kok Cheow, Augustine Pang, Tim Clark, and Yvonne Lim. A special "Thank you" to Benjamin Detenber, the chair of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, for his big help in making all this event possible in Singapore. My deepest gratitude also goes to the members of the ICA executive board, Patrice Buzzanell, Sonia Livingstone, Barbie Zelizer, and Larry Gross, as well as Ron Rice, who just left the board after 5 years of service to the association. Finally, we all know that ICA could not be the strong and lively association we know without the hard work and dedication of its wonderful executive director, Michael Haley, and his great team members, Emily Karsnak, Sam Luna, Amanda Pike, and Mike West. Congratulations to all!