Minutes

Political Communication Division
Acapulco, Mexico, May 2000

Incoming division chair Steve Reese conducted the meeting. A total of 85 papers were submitted to the division for this conference (compared to 120 submitted for the San Francisco meeting), and 42 were accepted. Only a few panels were submitted this year, of which one was accepted.

Political Communication editor David Swanson reported that the journal is financially healthy, largely on the basis of library subscriptions. He also announced that the upcoming special issue (No. 4) will be devoted to communication and civic engagement, and that next year's special issue will be on the role of historical scholarship in political communication research.

Wolfgang Donsbach solicited nominations for five new prizes given by ICA to scholars in the communication discipline for best article, best student paper, life achievement, best book, and best applied research. He also announced that ICA is seeking to broaden its international presence by exploring its joint interests with the International Association for Media and Communication Research. A joint ICA/IAMCR conference is being planned for 2001 in Austin, Texas.

Jill Edy announced that Nick Valentino was awarded the division's best article award for "Priming of Racial Attitudes," which examined the effects of racial stereotypes in local crime coverage. The article appeared in the Fall 1999 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly. Edy thanked fellow committee members Regina Lawrence and Marilyn Roberts for their diligent efforts.

It was proposed that in future conferences, papers which have been accepted but which lack a common theme should be placed in an "innovative papers" or "new directions" panel instead of an interactive poster session. A discussion also ensued about the potential for awarding monetary prizes to the division's paper award winners. Although there seemed to be broad support for the idea, no consensus was reached about the allocation or amount of such awards. There was general agreement that the traditional post-meeting dinner should be revived for next year's meeting at Washington DC, and a call was made for suggestions of extracurricular activities that might be interesting to division members, such as a visit to Congress.

Wolfgang Donsbach suggested that the division construct a low-volume listserv system for communicating items of interest to division members. Several people expressed support for this idea, and it was suggested that the division contribute a small amount of start-up money to implement it.

ICA Conference Program Chair-Elect Cindy Gallois made a brief presentation on next year's conference at Washington, DC. She stressed that as a native of Australia, she will be relying heavily on division input for speakers and community outreach activities. She asks that anyone with ideas about these issues please contact her.

David Swanson requested input on the question of what ICA should devote itself to doing in the future. As he has been nominated for the presidency of ICA, Swanson is interested in soliciting input from association members on the question of what ICA could do in terms of assisting members in their professional responsibilities.