The International Communication Association presented seven prestigious research awards to eight communication scholars at its annual business meeting in Singapore on Friday, 25 June. Claes de Vreese (U of Amsterdam) chaired the ICA Research Awards Committee, which selected the winners.

The 2010 honorees included:

• Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik P. Bucy, Outstanding Book Award 
• Jon F. Nussbaum, Applied/Public Policy Research Award 
• Eszter Hargittai, Young Scholar Award 
• Stephen Ostertag, James Carey Urban Communication Award
• Patricia Aufderheide, Communication as Agent of Change Award 
• James Gerard “Gerry” Power, Communication Research as Collaborative Practice Award
• Richard Ling, Communication as Open Field Award

The 2010 Outstanding Book Award-for a book published in the past 2 years and distinguished by its importance to the disciplines represented in ICA for the problem it addresses, and for its quality of writing and argument, and quality of evidence-went to Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik P. Bucy, both Professors in the Department of Telecommunication at Indiana U, for their publication Image Bite Politics (Oxford University Press, 2009). “The book is intellectually substantial and methodologically innovative and rigorous,” said the Outstanding Book Award Subcommittee of the ICA Research Awards Committee. “Grabe and Bucy offer interesting and useful insights into the power of nonverbal messages in communication events above and beyond political campaigns via mass media. They enable us to complicate our analysis of sound bites, the rise of interpretive reporting, bias, and the place of affect in political reporting. The book represents a significant conceptual and empirical contribution which is likely to have a major impact across several subfields within the discipline.”

The Applied/Public Policy Research Award, which recognizes a scholar or group of researchers who have produced a systematic body of research in communication studying a particular applied or policy problem for the betterment of society during the previous 2 years, went to Jon F. Nussbaum, Professor of Communication at Penn State U. “An exceptional example of a first-rate researcher who has had enormous impact on the scholarly literature and on practice,” said the Outstanding Applied/Public Policy Award Subcommittee. “His many books have helped practitioners and academics, and he generously presents his findings to civic groups, senior centers, and health-care practitioner organizations on the well-being of aging populations. He consults and lends expertise to organizations that attempt to improve health policies directed toward older adults, including the Alzheimer’s Association, National Institutes of Health, and Veterans Administration. Nussbaum has shown our discipline how to make ‘application’ a priority, and the trajectory of his research and service serves as a model that others could well follow.”

For the Young Scholar Award, given for a body of work following receipt of the Ph.D. that contributes to the field of communication and shows promise for continued development, based on the work's conceptual foundations and argumentative clarity, its rigor, and the recipient's productivity, the Awards Committee selected Eszter Hargittai, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern U. Hargittai “is an impressive scholar who has already made a significant contribution to a growing area,” wrote the Young Scholar Award Subcommittee. “Her research is current, insightful, and innovative, and her work has had the strongest impact so far, which shows unanimously in citations in the databases Google Scholar, Harzing’s Publish and Perish, and Web of Science.”

The James Carey Urban Communication Award, which recognizes communication research that enhances urban social interaction and civic engagement in an age of global communication, this year was awarded to Stephen Ostertag, Professor of Practice at the Department of Sociology at Tulane U. “Stephen Ostertag has proposed a relevant and timely study of how people use new media technologies to access and create news and information,” said the Carey Award subcommittee. “The study will take place in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, where the  community-wide crisis engendered by Hurricane Katrina and the current controversial rebuilding of the city provide a unique laboratory for understanding connections across citizenship, communication, and knowledge in an urban context. The committee was pleased to select a project that reflects the spirit of the award and that promises to add significantly to our understanding of urban communication environments.”

The winner of the "Communication Research as an Agent of Change" (CRAC) Award, recognizing research that has a demonstrable impact on practice outside the academy, with clear benefits to the community, was Patricia Aufderheide, director of the Center for Social Media at American U. "Patricia Aufderheide’s application was extremely strong, and there is strong evidence of impact combined with the positive impression made by the perceived quality of her academic work: both the effect she has had on a broad swath of the academic world and  the impact her work has had beyond the academia,” said the CRAC subcommittee. “Research on fair use and freedom of expression leads to policies with direct and immediate impact on the creative industry practice, which is tangible and demonstrable in nature. Thus this is exactly the kind of research the specific award should recognize and reward.”

James Gerard “Gerry” Power, Director of the Research and Learning Group (R&L) at the BBC World Service Trust, was selected as the winner of the 2010 "Communication Research as Collaborative Practice" (CRCP) Award, which recognizes research that has a demonstrable impact on practice outside the academy, with clear benefits to the community. “Gerry Power's record shows a truly amazing collaboration with scholars and practitioners in  so many different countries in the world,” said the CRCP subcommittee in selecting Power. “His collaboration with academic, governmental, and other stakeholders extends in multiple directions, and the scope of the work in terms of  topics, cultures and regions is very impressive. He also collaborates with graduate students and faculty, allowing them access to the BBC World Service Trust's existing data and permitting them  to test their hypotheses on upcoming Trust surveys. Gerry Power exemplifies one of the best meldings of Communication Theory and Collaborative Practice that these committee members have seen."

Richard Ling, Professor of Sociology at the IT University of Copenhagen and sociologist at the Telenor Research Institute, was selected to receive the 2010 "Communication As Open Field" award, which recognizes researchers who have made important contributions to the field of communication from outside the discipline. "Richard Ling has provided an innovative interpretation of the ways in which the mobile phone is incorporated into daily practice,” said the CROF subcommittee of the ICA Research Awards Committee. “he developed the vocabulary required for articulating how mobile telephony both continues from and radically transforms previous modes of communication. Ling's pioneering work on the mobile phone stands out as precisely that: a dialogue in every sense of the word….Ling has made a unique, invaluable contribution to the study of communication –and to shaping it as an open, interdisciplinary endeavor."

ICA solicits nominations for these awards through the Newsletter each spring and makes the presentations at the annual conference. The awards competition, now in its eleventh year, draws numerous nominations in all categories each year.

In addition, two awards – the Outstanding Article Award and the Stephen H. Chaffee Career Productivity Award – were not given this year due to lack of nominations.

Some of ICA's 2010 Award winners. Left to right: Erik Bucy; Maria Elizabeth Grabe; Richard Ling; Gerry Power; Daniel Dayan.