Thinking about the Section's Future

What happened when nine former chairs of the APSA Political Communication Section put their heads together to ponder the future of the section? The answer, from what we jokingly called the Former Chairs Brain Trust, is food for thought for the entire membership. At the start of her term, Section Chair Ann Crigler asked the former chairs to consider four linked and interrelated questions.

The first three questions are obviously linked because making the section more useful for all members will also make it more attractive to junior scholars. In most instances, it will require raising and spending money.

The answers to these questions fall into two categories: recommendations to continue what we are already doing, but do it on a larger scale and better, and recommendations to tackle new tasks never before attempted. In the latter category membership recruitment is the biggest item and may require adding a membership chair, possibly assisted by a small committee, to the roster of section officers.

Recruitment Initiatives

The membership chair would organize membership drives, developing the necessary hand-outs, mailings and mailing lists. The chair would also increase the visibility of political communication as a field through various publicity strategies including getting press attention for research reports and workshops.

Young scholars who are working on political communication topics, in particular, need to be made aware that this is an organized field with which they should affiliate themselves formally. The membership chair could contact junior scholars in person or via surrogates, inviting them to attend meetings and join the section. Individual section members could mentor their attendance and introduce them to colleagues in the field. Junior members could be encouraged and assisted in arranging social events for young faculty and graduate students. The Brain Trust has already identified a list of potential junior members who could be targeted. But much room remains to mine the lists of related organizations such as AAPOR and ISPP.

Another way to increase membership and broaden the network of political communication scholars involves establishing ties to colleagues at smaller colleges. For example, colleagues at large institutions could be paired with isolated colleagues elsewhere who could provide important research support for ongoing projects. The section could also distribute bought or donated journals and books to small political science and communications departments whose libraries cannot support adequate political communication literature.

Wooing new members is not enough. To cement current members' ties to the section and to our sub-discipline, we should make sure that excellent contributions receive the professional attention and praise that they deserve. Increasing the number and kinds of awards offered by the section is one way. It is especially important to create awards for junior scholars, such as a Graduate Student Best Paper Award.

Research Activities

The Brain Trust thought that more frequent, more informal meetings would allow more scholars to participate in the section's activities. There could be more workshops, short courses, and roundtables at national and regional meetings, encouraging participation without the need to prepare formal papers. There could also be informal small meetings in scenic settings where one could combine outdoor life with lengthy discussions of substantive and methodological issues. Such shared experiences foster the development of intellectual communities. The section could facilitate them by subsidizing the meeting or individual participants. Travel to national, international, and regional meetings could also be subsidized for graduate students and junior faculty. Of course, subsidy programs will require setting up ground rules and an administrative mechanism.

The political communication subfield will thrive only if major research projects demonstrate its theoretical and practical importance. To enhance scholarly growth, the section could sponsor pilot projects that have the potential to attract research funding. It could also encourage research planning sessions and the sharing of large data sets for content analyses and other inquiries. To help junior scholars, section funds could be used for seed grants for promising research at the dissertation stage and beyond.

Information Sharing

Currently, our section has three ways to publicize our research and other activities. The most recent one, and the one with the best chance for expansion, is our Web site. The Brain Trust argued strongly for making our Web site a superior intellectual smørgasboard. It should establish links to other national and international political Web sites. It even might create opportunities for electronic publication of research.

Syllabi and teaching tips are especially useful to young faculty members, and the Web site or Political Communication Report, might feature them more, possibly in a separate section.

Both media could also publicize funding opportunities. In fact, it might be useful to appoint a corresponding editor charged with scouting out these opportunities.

Finally, the Brain Trust recommended efforts to increase the visibility and circulation of Political Communication. Specifically, the journal could encourage more reprints from its articles, especially by foreign publications and expand the number of listings on various indexes. Journal subscriptions and section memberships for junior colleagues and graduate students could be subsidized during the earliest states of their careers.

Research Priorities

Recommendations regarding the priorities for the political communication research agenda ranged from the most general to the specific:

Specific suggestions included the following:

Obviously, there is no consensus now on that score, and none seems to be in the offing for the future. However, there was consensus that planning for the future of the section is an important, ongoing task. That leads to the final recommendation. To keep abreast of ongoing developments in the sub-discipline and the interests of section members, it would be wise to make planning an ongoing section activity. An ad hoc committee of section officials, whose deliberations would be reported at each annual business meeting, would be an ideal body to be entrusted with that task.

–Doris Graber, Chair
Former Section Chairs Committee