Department News

5/21/2009

Two conferences hosted by the Department of Communication.

• On Wednesday, May 20th, 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Hull House on the east campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the UIC Department of Communication presents: THE NETWORKED SELF: Identity Community Culture on Social Network Sites. See the flyer in .pdf.
• On Thursday May 21st, 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Student Center East on the east campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the UIC Department of Communication hosts: The Future is Prologue: New Media, New Histories? See the schedule in .pdf. Scroll to the end of the second page.

4/21/2009

Spring 2009 Faculty and Student News and Accomplishments

• Gonca Noyan's paper, titled `Framing Globalization: A Case Study of `Global Voices,` will be presented at the 7th Development Dialogue organized by Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague, Netherlands, 2-3 June 2009.
• Colleague Hui-Ching Chang, recently received funding from the Faculty Scholarship Support Program to collect data in Taiwan for this summer.
• James Danowski and recent BA graduate Noah Cepela have two conference papers accepted:

  Cepela, N. and Danowski, J. (2009). Automatic Mapping of Social Networks of Actors from Large Collections of News Stories. The 2009 International Conference on Social Networks Analysis and Mining, July 20-22, 2009, Athens, Greece.

  Danowski, J. and Cepela, N. (2009). Automatic Mapping of Social Networks of Actors From Text Corpora: Time Series Analyses. The 2009 International Conference on Social Networks Analysis and Mining, July 20-22, Athens, Greece.

• Kelly Quinn's paper "Online activity and individual social capital: Critical practices, critical resources" has been accepted to AoIR Milwaukee, 2009
• Ginnifer Mastarone's paper, Politeness on e-health blogs: A semantic network analysis was accepted for presentation to AoiR's Health Communication Division.
• Gonca Noyan's paper `Winning hearts and minds through Facework: Al Hurra as a case study` has been accepted to the Second International Global Studies Conference in Dubai.
• Antara Das's paper on "Media coverage of terrorism in target locations that are central and marginal nodes: a network analysis" has been accepted at the Second International Global Studies Conference to be held in Dubai in May 2009.
• Colleagues Kevin Barnhurst and Richard Doherty, received $3600 in CETL funding for the project "Digital Audio Technology for Teaching Interviewing (DATTI).
• Our colleague Kevin Barnhurst is Visiting Professor at U of Copenhagen this semester, who is presently completing his next book on the New Long Journalism.
• Steve Jones, UIC professor of communication, is quoted in an Associated Press article about online photo sharing providers changing the terms of service with customers. The article was picked up by over 100 print and broadcast outlets such as USA Today and Daily Herald.
• Anders Koed Madsen will be presenting "Norms, technology and information: Pondering the choices of European 'e-participation,'" at the "Citizen Politics: Are the New Media Reshaping Political Engagement?" Conference, Barcelona, May 2009.
• Andrew Rojecki, "The Arc of Resonance: Hurricane Katrina and its Metaphoric Aftermath," accepted for presentation at APSA/ Toronto, Sep. 09.
• Colleague Jack Jones, recently received a CETL grant for his project, "Promoting Active Learning Through Higher Level Questions," in the amount of $3,520.
• NCA 2009 Paper Acceptances:

  Dayna Chatman will be presenting a research paper, titled "The gendered workplace: An analysis of gender practices in the fictional work world of Grey's Anatomy."

  Jim Danowski's research paper, titled "Automatic Time-Series Mapping of Social Networks of Political Actors," has been accepted for presentation to the Political Communication Division.

  Sharon Meraz, "Testing Agenda Setting and Social Influence Theories in Traditional Media and Political Blog Networks, " accepted in NCA Political Communication Division.

  Maggie Griffith, "Branding charity: Turning shopping into a funding solution," accepted in NCA Visual Communication Division.

  Diem-My Bui, organized/chairing panel for the Feminist and Women's Studies Division, titled "Enacting Neoliberal Discourse Globally through Women," accepted for NCA 2009.

  Zach Benjamin, presenter on panel "Organizational Rhetoric: Where are we?" accepted by the Organizational Communication Division.

  Hui-Ching Chang, "Ideology of differences: A critique and an alternative approach," accepted in NCA International and Intercultural Communication Division.

  Jim Danowski, "Convergence and Divergence of Semantic Networks and Social Networks: An Orgo-Mechanical Screwing Model," accepted by the Communication and Social Cognition (CSC) Division, 2nd paper acceptance for Danowski.

  Richard Doherty, on "Nature Conservation or Human Protection: Messages of Italian and American Park Signage," Scholar to scholar session.

  Ryan Henke, "Challenging the Social Construction of Evangelicals: The Case of the Iraq War," accepted for presentation.

  Jack Jones, organized and submitted panel on *Professional Speechwriting by Ghosts and Nonghosts: Cooperatively Create Discourse that Moves Audiences from Stability to Transformational Change*, accepted by NCA's Training and Development Division.

  Camille Johnson-Yale, organized and proposed panel titled "Discourses of Stability and Change among Media(ted) Labor, " accepted by the Critical and Cultural Studies Division, NCA.

  A panel featuring several of our folks, accepted to NCA: Virtual Worlds and Virtual Words: The Roles of Rhetoric and Metaphor in New Media. List of presenters and affiliations: Gordon Carlson, UIC; Sabryna Cornish, NIU; David Gunkel, NIU; Steve Jones, UIC; James J. Sosnoski, UIC; Kelly Quinn, UIC

3/2/2009

Late Winter 2009 Faculty and Student News and Accomplishments

• Internet scholar and UIC professor of communication Steve Jones was a guest today on Chicago Public Radio's "Eight Forty-Eight" program. Jones will discuss the role of technology in open governement. "Eight Forty-Eight" airs on WBEZ-FM (91.5) at 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Listen to the story on-line.
• A chapter on "Herd models of diffusion in new media environments," authored by our colleague Jim Danowski and based on NSF-funded research in the auto industry has been accepted for a book, Recent Advances in the study of the diffusion of innovations, published by Hampton Press. The editors G. Barnett and A. Vishwanath noted that the respective ICA paper was one of the stimuli behind the book project.
• Steve Jones, Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, is Co-PI on a $1,693,044 five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) titled "Preparedness and Emergency Response Using Simulated Environments (PERUSE)." The grant seeks to improve emergency-response training that incorporates experiential exercises, computer-based simulations, and virtual environments.
• Steve Jones, UIC professor of communication, is quoted in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story on the increased use of texting as a communication tool.
• Andrew Rojecki, UIC associate professor of communication, was interviewed by Fox Chicago News (WFLD-TV) about the New York Post editorial cartoon that associates a chimpanzee with President Obama's economic stimulus package. The segment was scheduled to air during the 9 p.m. newscast Feb. 19, 2009.
• Andrew Rojecki, UIC associate professor of communication, was interviewed by The New York Times about a New York Post editorial cartoon that linked a chimpanzee with President Obama's economic stimulus package. Rojecki's comments appear in an article posted on the nytimes.com City Room blog.
• Jim Danowski's paper on "Automated Network Analysis of Interdepartmental Organizational Communication Networks: Associations with Self-Report Data" was accepted this past week for the upcoming meetings of the International Network for Social Network Analysts in San Diego in March.
• The program committee for the conference in Ejsberg, Denmark, Euro 2008: Intelligence and Security Informatics, where our colleague Jim Danowski presented work on automated optimal anti-terrorism semantic network messages from news stories in December, has invited him to join the editorial board for the 2009 Special Issue of Annals of Information Science on Data Mining for Social Network Data.
• Sharon Meraz just got an article accepted for publication in Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism. Here is the full citation:

  "The Fight for 'How to Think': Traditional Media, Social Networks, and Issue Interpretation". Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism (forthcoming).

• James Danowski and NSF grant colleagues Julia Gluesing and Ken Riopelle of Wayne State University are presenting a paper at a conference this week that will become a book chapter in Mixed Methods in Social Network Research:

  Mixing Ethnography and Information Technology Data Mining to Visualize Innovation Networks in Global Networked Organizations. Paper presented to the International Conference on Mixing Methods in Social Network Research, European Academy Berlin, January 30th - 31st 2009.

• Andrew Rojecki, UIC associate professor of communication, is interviewed in a CNN.com story about whether President Obama will be held to different standard because he is the first African-American president.
• Congratulations to Nan Ke and Hui-Ching Chang - Their paper, based on Nan's thesis, received a Top-3 ranking from the reviewers and will be included in the Intercultural Communication Division's top-paper session for presentation at the International Communication Association this May.

  Ke, N., & Chang, H.-c. (2009). Cultural adaptation and ethnic online communities: A study of Chinese sojourners in the U. S. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association.

1/12/2009

Winter 2009 Faculty and Student Accomplishments

• Kevin Barnhurst is on sabbatical leave during Spring 2009 semester. He will be a visiting scholar at the University of Copenhagen and at the University of Perugia, Italy, and will give lectures in Paris and other European campuses.
• Andrew Rojecki, whose article, titled Media Discourse on Globalization, published in Political Communication, has been selected for inclusion in the upcoming volume Globalization and Culture, edited by Paul James (Director of the Globalism Institute at RMIT in Australia, an editor of Arena Journal, and on the Council of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies). The work will be published as four reprinted volumes by Sage, June 2009.
• Steve Jones, UIC professor of communication, is quoted in a MediaPost.com article about a new study reporting that wireless devices will be the primary means of connecting to the Internet for most people worldwide in 2020. See it here.
• Jim Danowski has a report of his research method published in:
  
  Danowski, J.A. (2008). Evaluative word locations in semantic networks from news stories about Al Qaeda and implications for optimal communication messages in anti-terrorism campaigns. In D. Ortiz-Arroyo, H.L. Larsen, D. D. Zemg, D. Hicks, & G. Wagner (Eds.). Intelligence and Security Inforrmatics. (pps. 271-274). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5376. Berlin: Springer.
• Jim Danowski in collaboration with undergraduate Communication student Noah Cepela have been invited to submit a chapter:
  
  Danowski, J.A. and Cepela, N. (2009). Automatic Mapping of Social Networks of Actors From Large Collections of News Stories and Web Documents. In N. Memon, J.J.Xu, D. L. Hicks, H. Chen (eds.). Annals of Information Systems, Special Issue on Data Mining for Social Network Data. New York: Springer.
• Sharon Meraz has two forthcoming articles. Both manuscripts address the role of blogging and/or other social media as information networks.
  
  Sharon Meraz (forthcoming). Is there an Elite Hold? Traditional Media to Social Media Influence in Blog Networks. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.
  
  Sharon Meraz (forthcoming, 2009). The 'Many-Faced' You of Social Media. Book Chapter in Journalism and Citizenship: New Agendas [Taylor and Francis].
• Hui-Ching Chang's article on the New Taiwanese is currently in press, in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication.
  
  Chang, H.-c., & Holt, R. (2009). "The New Taiwanese": Symbolic language and the construction of Taiwanese identity. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 19(2).
• Kevin Barnhurst and John Nerone's chapter on Journalism History is featured in the upcoming Handbook of Journalism Studies (Karin Wahl-Jorgensen & Thomas Hanitzsch, Eds), out on LEA.
  
  Kevin G. Barnhurst & John Nerone. "Journalism History." In Handbook of Journalism Studies, pp. 17-28. Ed. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen & Thomas Hanitzsch. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2008
• Jim Danowski's submitted chapter has been accepted for inclusion in the edited volume titled Interpersonal Relations and Social Patterns in Communication Technologies, forthcoming in 2009, to be published by IGI Global.
• Jack Jones' paper, "Aristotle's Rhetorical Theory of Memory: New Perspectives," was accepted for presentation at the upcoming CSCA 2009 convention.

12/4/2008

The Department of Communication is having an Open House.

• When? On Friday, February 13, 2009 from noon until 3:00 p.m.
• Who? For prospective Graduate Students.
• What? Students will get a chance to meet faculty, staff, and present graduate students.
• What else? Lunch will be provided as well as an opportunity to tour the campus.
• Where? In the Behavioral Sciences Building, room 1169.
• How to find out more? Call the Department at 312-996-3187 to reserve a seat. For a map of the building, see Campus & Local Information and scroll down to Maps.

11/24/2008

Fall 2008 Faculty and Student Accomplishments

• Department celebrates Dace Kezber's 15 years with the University.
• Steve Jones, UIC professor of communication, is quoted in a Northwest Herald article on the impulsive use of cell phones and e-mail.
• Jack Jones was elected secretary of the Rhetorical Criticism and Theory Division of CSCA at the 2008 convention.
• Andy Rojecki's manuscript, titled "Political Culture and Disaster Response: The Great Floods of 1927 and 2005" has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of Media, Culture & Society .
• Jim Danowski and Jordan Stalker, collaborated with colleagues on a study analyzing the centrality of all 103 doctoral degree granting Communication programs. The article has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Communication.
  
  Barnett, G., Danowski, J., Feeley, T., & Stalker, J. (forthcoming) Measuring Quality in Communication Doctoral Education Using Network Analysis of Faculty Hiring Patterns. Journal of Communication.
• James Danowski won the 2008 election in the International Communication Association (ICA) as Secretary of the large and growing ICA division, Communication and Technology (CAT). Thirty years ago in 1978 he was its Founding Chair.
• John "Jack" Jones discussed the public speaking skills of President-elect Obama in comparison to President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during an interview Nov. 4, 2008 with Times Now, a 24-hour English language television news channel based in India.

08/17/2008

Welcome new Head and Faculty

The Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago welcomes our new Head, Zizi Papacharissi, new Faculty member Elaine Yuan, and Visiting Faculty Diem-My Bui, Camille Yale, and Debra Melican.

See the Faculty page for more information.

3/07/2008

Search for Visiting Assistant Professors

The Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago invites applicants for 2 Visiting Assitant Professor positions.

Located in the heart of Chicago, UIC is a Carnegie Research/Extensive University with 16,000 undergraduates, 6,500 graduate students, and 3,000 professional students. The Department of Communication has 11 full-time faculty, approximately 100 undergraduate majors, 25 M.A. students, and 6 Ph.D. students in a doctoral program focused on the relationship between technology and communication.

See the Faculty Search page for more information.

2/11/08

5th annual University of Illinois Communication Collaboration Conference

When? 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 11, 2008
Where? Chicago at UIC
What else? See the 2008 UICC web site for the initial call for papers.

11/15/2007

Zachary Benjamin's Paper Wins Award

First year PhD student Zachary Benjamin presented his paper "Storming the Gates at the House of Confucius: Academic Pressure, Social Mobility, and the Preservation of an Empire" on November 15 at the Indiana University-Northwest Arts and Sciences Conference in Gary, IN. The paper won the conference's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Student Research.

9/25/2007

Andrew Rojecki testimony to House Sub-committee

At the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Hearing: From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images, for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Professor Rojecki spoke about Hip-Hop and Unconscious Racism. Download Professor Rojecki's statement to the Sub-committee.

8/29/2007

APSA Pre-conference

On Wednesday, Aug. 29, the Department co-hosted a one-day event, "Machine Politics/Politics of the Machine: New Technology in Political Communication Research and Teaching," at UIC. The event, an official pre-conference short course of the American Political Science Association convention, included guided tours of the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (which developed the Virtual Reality Cave) and the brain imaging facilities at the UIC Medical Center. Sixty-seven participants joined in small, interactive sessions on topics such as digital content analysis, psycho-physiological testing, games and wiki technology, and web graphing led by technologically hip scholars of all ages. A closing reception served famous Chicago food and beverages. Andrew Rojecki and Kevin Barnhurst, Department of Communication, and Doris Graber, Department of Political Science, were the event organizers.

6/8/2007

New Department of Communication Web Site

Richard Doherty, the Academic Technology Resource Coordinator mounted the new Department of Communication web site, today! The site retains the feel of the old site but is comprehensive, accessible and streamlined. Feedback is welcome. Contact Richard.

5/14/2007

John Cruickshank

of the Sun-Times finished up a successful semester (Sp07) co-teaching a course as a volunteer Returning Community Scholar. John worked tirelessly leading discussions, brainstorming activities, and grading assignments for the joy of working with 12 undergraduate majors and 4 M.A. students. The students appreciated the chance to get John's insights into the fate of the news media, as well as access to resources not generally available to UIC students. He invited every one of them to sit in on one of the daily editorial meetings of the Sun-Times. They've also done field work in community, alternative, ethnic, and activist media outlets, quite a contrast to the mainstream Sun-Times. The LAS Community Scholar initiative is an excellent way to build bridges to the wider community. John agreed to sit on the executive committee of our departmental advisory board, a group we're forming to support the new Ph.D. in Communication. The experience of working with John has enriched the environment of the Communication Department.

4/14/2007

Dr. Volodymyr Manakin

of Ukraine, will be hosted by the Department as a Fulbright Scholar next year, October 2007 - June 2008. Hui-Ching Chang will act as the academic host.

Kevin G. Barnhurst

was named to the editorial board of the new ICA journal, Communication, Culture & Critique.

Barnhurst is also co-PI on a NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) proposal, "Renewable Fuels: Technical, Political, Economic, Environmental, and Communication Aspects," (with K. Brezinsky and S. K. Aggarwal, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, H. BassiriRad, Biological Sciences, and J. Linn, Economics), to provide up to $3.2 million for Ph.D. student education over 5 years, supporting about 5 new Ph.D. students each year each for a period of two years at $30,000, one of them in the Communication Department each year.

3/14/2007

Ming Zhang

2006 M.A. graduate, working at Monroe Mendelsohn Research, New York City, as a marketing and media research project director for clients such as Bayer and Dove.

Patricia Harkin

will receive an inaugural Graduate Mentoring Award for 2007 at the Graduate Faculty Annual Meeting, April 25, 1 p.m., 613 SCE. The citation calls her "an outstanding and dedicated mentor to masters students in Communication, assuring their successful transition to advanced study."

Jim Sosnoski

Was invited as a group organizer to Second Life virtual reality, Linden Lab.

Kevin Barnhurst

was nominated for the C. Peter Magrath Engagement Award, from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. His 2005 HUD-funded project with the North Lawndale Community News could win up to about $30,000 for use in expanding outreach in the qualitative methods course.

Jim Danowski

Participation Stipend, 2007 Online Conference for Teaching and Learning, Illinois Online Network (ION), February 14-16, 2007. Completed Master Online Teacher Certification, Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality (MVCR) Program, ION. Filed a Report of Research Discovery, "Software tools for word co-occurrence network analysis of large textual corpora" (Tech. ID No. DA070), with the UIC Office of Technology Management on January 25, 2007. Co-PI (with Julia Gluesing, Katherine W. McCain, and Kenneth R. Riopelle) on a $750,000 NSF proposal submitted on Feb. 21, on "Mapping Perceptual, Semantic, and Citation Networks Associated with Generation of Scientific Innovations in NanoTechnology, Microbiology, and Biotechnology." Extensive excerpt of his 1993 book chapter, "Network Analysis of Message Content," forthcoming in a Content Analysis anthology by Klaus Krippendorff of the U. of Pennsylvania.

Steve Jones

co-PI (with Jason Leigh, Andrew E. Johnson, Luc Renambot, Thomas A. DeFanti), won a NSF grant of $497,372 over 3 years to fund the project, "Collaborative Research: Towards Life-like Computer Interfaces that Learn" (Award No. CNS-0703916). He appeared on WLUP (97.9 FM) Jonathan Brandmeier Show, Feb. 28, to discuss technology, popular culture, privacy and the Internet.

1/3/2007

Steve Jones

UIC professor of communication, was interviewed about online friendships and interaction for a NBC news segment that was recently broadcast during the newscasts of over 40 NBC stations across the country. Video and text of the segment are available online here.

---

Department of Communication · College of Liberal Arts & Sciences · University of Illinois at Chicago

1007 W Harrison Street, Behavioral Sciences Building 1140, MC132 Chicago IL 60607 | Phone: 312-996-3187 | Fax: 312-413-2125

Contact the Department for general information. Contact the Webmaster for this site with suggestions, problems, corrections, or praise.