Vol. 33, No. 2 March 2005 At the 2005 ICA Conference in New York City Public Relations Chair’s Panel report on their efforts to date. The When Journalism, Culture, panel will open with 10-minute pre- and the Popular Intersect Friday, May 27, 12:45–2:00 p.m. sentations, after which the chair will Sheraton New York, invite questions from the floor. The Journalism Studies Lenox Ballroom session will be interactive. Popular Communication Sherry Devereaux Ferguson, U of Ottawa, Canada (Chair) Taskforce Committee Chairs: Saturday, May 28, 2:15–3:30 p.m. Craig Carroll, U of Southern Sheraton New York, In the spirit of the conference California—Annenberg, USA Empire Ballroom West theme, the Chair’s Panel will ad- (Chair) Barbie Zelizer, U of Pennsylvania dress ways to approach collabora- Betteke van Ruler, U of Amster- (Chair) tive research projects of global im- dam, The Netherlands (Vice- portance. The panel draws together Chair) What do notions of culture and the a group of international scholars popular offer the study of journal- who have been successful in propos- Taskforce Members and Panelists: ism? These papers deliberate on the ing, funding, collaborating, and con- Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, Nan- advantages and downsides that arise cluding international research proj- yang Technological U, Singapore when studying journalism through ects. Members of the Taskforce on Judy Motion, Waikato Manage- notions of culture and the popular. Cross-National Research (Public Re- ment School, New Zealand James Carey offersoffers anan analysisanalysis ooff lations Division), which was charged Sabine Einwiller, U of St. Gal- early connections between journal- with identifying, consolidating, and lens, Switzerland ism and the vernacular; John Hartley promoting opportunities for interna- Shannon Bowen, U of Houston, tional public relations research, will USA (continued on page 3) COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATION POLICY: An Update What’s Inside on the Media Ownership Issue by Philip M. Napoli (FCC) media ownership regulations Director, Donald McGannon provides a particularly useful case in 8 Student Column Communication Research Center point. Associate Professor, Graduate 9 News of Interest School of Business, Fordham U As many of you may be aware, in June 2003 the FCC (2003) voted 10 Divisions & Interest Recent goings on in the communica- to relax a wide array of media own- Groups tion policy arena have created some ership regulations. Included in this points of entry for communication re- decision was a newly crafted Diver- 14 Calls for Papers searchers today that perhaps did not sity Index, which modified the well- 21 Positions exist to the same degree in the past. known Herfindahl-Hirschman Index The ongoing saga of the U. S. Fed- eral Communications Commission’s (continued on page 3) P R E S I D E N T ‘ S International Communication Association 2004–2005 Board of Directors Executive Committee Ronald Rice (ex-officio), President-elect Select, U of Message Wolfgang Donsbach, California, Santa Barbara President, Dresden U Jennings Bryant, Past Robert T. Craig, Immediate President, U of Alabama 15 Minutes For ICA’s Future Past President, U of Cindy Gallois (ex-officio), Colorado Finance Chair, U of Queensland by Wolfgang Donsbach, ICA President Jon Nussbaum, President- Michael L. Haley (ex-officio), elect, Pennsylvania State U U of Dresden, Germany Executive Director Members-at-Large James Taylor, U of Montreal Ted Zorn, U of Waikato hen ICA members Joseph Man Chan, Chinese receive this issue of U of Hong Kong Student Members the Newsletter they Dafna Lemish, Tel Aviv U J. Alison Bryant, Indiana U W Karen Ross, Coventry U Tema Milstein, U of Washington will already have an email from the president in their in- Division Chairs & ICA Vice Presidents box, asking to participate in a Jennifer L. Monahan, Information Systems, U of Georgia survey on ICA’s future. Hope- Sandi Smith, Interpersonal Communication, Michigan State U fully, most of you have already Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Mass Communication, U of Southern California clicked on the link and filled Steven Corman, Organizational Communication, Arizona State U out the questionnaire. ICA is Karin Gwinn Wilkins, Intercultural & Development grateful to all those who have Communication, U of Texas done it and hopeful that all Gianpetro Mazzoleni, Political Communication, U of Milan Lynda McCroskey, Instructional & Developmental others will soon. Communication, California State U-Long Beach Rajiv Rimal, Health Communication, Johns Hopkins U The plan for an ICA members survey was created sev- John Nguyet Erni, Philosophy of Communication, City U of eral years ago by the Strategic Planning Committee un- Hong Kong Joseph Walther, Communication & Technology, Cornell U der the presidency of Jennings Bryant. Health problems Debra Merskin, Popular Communication, U of Oregon kept Jennings and his committee from implementing Sherry Lynn Ferguson, Public Relations, U of Ottawa what he had already planned so well. I have now taken Cynthia Carter, Feminist Scholarship, Cardiff U over this endeavor, convinced that it one of the most im- Matt Jackson, Communication Law & Policy, Pennsylvania State U portant projects of ICA in the past years. Why? François Cooren, Language & Social Interaction, U de Montréal Michael Griffin, Visual Communication, Macalester College ICA is undergoing rapid changes in many dimensions. We are growing; we are offering more and more services Special Interest Group Chairs and benefits; we are becoming more international; and David Gleason, MTV Networks, & Katherine Sender, U of Pennsylvania, Cochairs, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & we are representing a field that is highly diverse, hetero- Transgender Studies geneous, and evolving (far more than any other academ- Scott Reid, Intergroup Communication, U of California, ic discipline). In such a dynamic environment, we need Santa Barbara more information about what you think of the associa- Thomas Hanitzsch, Journalism Studies, Technische U Ilmenau Isabel Molina & Kumarini Silva, Ethnicity and Race in tion: what services you expect and what changes you Communication, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggest in order to improve benefits from your member- ship. We also want to learn more about who we are and Editorial & Advertising Howard Giles, U of California, Santa Barbara, what is the academic field that we represent. Chair, ICA Newsletter Committee Barbara C. Stooksberry, Managing Editor, ICA The results of the survey will serve as the basis for the Matthew D. Katz, Associate Editor, ICA development of a new ICA strategic plan—and the foun- ICA Newsletter (ISSN0018876X)(ISSN0018876X) isis publishedpublished 1010 timestimes annuallyannually dation of my Presidential Address at the 2005 confer- (combining January-February and June-July issues) by the ence in New York City. (You are warmly invited to at- International Communication Association, 1730 Rhode Island NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036 USA; phone: 202-530-9855; fax: tend the address, and the subsequent business meeting, 202-530-9851; email: [email protected]; website: www.icahdq. on Saturday, May 27, at 5:30 p.m.) org. ICA dues include $30 for a subscription to the ICA Newsletter for one year. The Newsletter isis availableavailable toto nonmembersnonmembers forfor $30$30 perper ICA 2005 March Newsletter This survey is not an especially short and quick one. You year. Direct requests for ad rates and other inquiries to Matthew Katz, Editor, at the address listed above. News and advertising deadlines are can imagine that several ICA committees and officers Dec.10 for the January-February issue; Feb. 10 for March; Mar. 10 for April; Apr. 10 for May; May 10 for June–June; July 10 for August; Aug. 10 for September; (continued on page 4) Sept. 10 for October; Oct. 10 for November; Nov. 10 for December. 2 ICA 2005 NYC Features The Roots of Journalism in the Popular James W. Carey, Columbia U, USA continued from page 1 considers the implications of people readily producing Journalism as a Human Right in an Era of and consuming journalism for both journalism scholar- “Read–Write” Media ship and journalism education; Michael Schudson ad- John Hartley, Queensland U of Technology, dresses the impact of event-centered reporting and its Australia linkage with journalistic storytelling; and Barbie Zelizer suggests the advantages in thinking about the Iraq war The Anarchy of Events and the Anxiety of Story-Telling coverage through the lens of culture. Taken together, Michael Schudson, U of California-San Diego these papers consider how notions of culture and the popular offer a fruitful way to consider journalism in its The Culture of Journalism in the War on Iraq contemporary forms. Barbie Zelizer, U of Pennsylvania Policy Matters At the time of its introduction, the Diversity Index was subject to tremendous criticism from scholars, public continued from page 1 interest representatives, and industry, from both a theo- retical and methodological standpoint. There is insuf- (HHI) used by economists in competition analysis to as- ficient space to discuss the details of these criticisms sess the level of viewpoint diversity in individual media here. Suffice it to say that, in 2004, the U.S. Court of markets. Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia echoed many of these criticisms, remanding the bulk of the At its most basic level, the FCC’s Diversity Index modi- FCC’s media ownership decision and directing particu- fies the traditional HHI by including a weighting factor lar criticism at the Commission’s Diversity Index (see based on the extent to which citizens rely on different Prometheus Radio Project v. Federal Communications communication technologies for news and current af- Commission, 2004). The court did not object to the fairs. Thus, ownership of commonly-used information idea of such an index or its basic conceptual underpin- sources (e.g., broadcast television stations and newspa- nings. Rather, the main problems were the research un- pers) counts more heavily in the Diversity Index calcu- derlying its creation and the specific ways in which the lations than ownership of information sources that citi- Index was calculated and applied.