NCA Inside & Out

ECA 2020 Convention Offering Innovative Workshop Programming

With the theme of “Harboring Innovation,” the Eastern Communication Association’s 2020 convention (April 1-5) will feature new kinds of social and professional development opportunities. Notable among this programming are half-day workshops with top research scholars.

Dr. Andrew Hayes (The Ohio State University) and his colleagues will offer two half-day interactive workshops on his innovative techniques in assessing mediation and moderation, and applying the PROCESS modeling macro for SPSS and SAS.

Dr. Heather Stuckey (Penn State University Hershey College of Medicine) will bring her dynamic teaching style and expertise in qualitative research to deliver a half-day workshop about innovative and state-of-the-art techniques in qualitative and mixed-method research.

ECA is pleased to offer special nominal pricing to secure your seat(s) for these events. Please visit ecacomm.org for more information and registration.

CSCA's 89th Annual Conference: Call for Submissions

The leadership of the Central States Communication Association (CSCA) invites competitive papers, panel discussions, and performance sessions for the 89th Annual Convention in Chicago O’Hare, IL. Members are urged to reflect on the theme of “Borders & Breakthroughs.” A border is a demarcation—geographic, political, conceptual, linguistic, etc. For example, a definition is a border in the sense that it demarcates one thing from something else. Borders can be arbitrary or sensible. Borders divide, but they also call attention to interrelations and border-crossers. Breakthroughs transcend borders and create new possibilities for inquiring, teaching and learning, relating, and serving.

We encourage you to both interrogate and think beyond the borders that often limit our interactions at conferences. When you are planning your panels and papers for 2020, consider ways that borders operate in our activities. Which borders (e.g., subject areas, research agendas and methods, ranks and hierarchies) make sense, and which borders need to be challenged? What breakthroughs (e.g., key works, innovative concepts, inspiring teaching perspectives) should we celebrate and extend?

Faculty, students, independent scholars, and community members are all encouraged to submit and attend the convention. Institutional and community partnerships are particularly welcome. Submissions inclusive of all methodological perspectives in the Communication discipline are expected and embraced.

Look for specific calls and submission information from each of the 20+ CSCA Interest Groups, Caucuses, and Sections.

For questions about the general call or the 2020 annual conference, please contact Alberto González, 2020 primary program planner, at agonzal@bgsu.edu.

Deadline for Submissions: 11:59 p.m., October 11, 2019

SSCA Updates

SSCA is seeking nominations for Editor of The Southern Communication Journal
The Southern States Communication Association (SSCA) seeks an Editor for The Southern Communication Journal (SCJ), published by Taylor & Francis. Candidates must be a current member in good standing of SSCA and will assume the role of Editor‐elect at the National Communication Association convention in Baltimore, Maryland (November 14-17). The SCJ editor appoints members to the SCJ editorial board, works with Taylor & Francis, provides bi‐annual reports to SSCA, and will oversee SCJ's content for three years, three volumes (2021‐2023). Interested parties should submit a letter of application, a statement of institutional support, and a current vita. The SSCA Publications Committee (Beth Goodier, Stephanie Kelly, and Brigitta Brunner) will begin to review applications immediately, but to receive full consideration materials should be sent via email by November 1, 2019 to Bethany Goodier, Department of Communication at the College of Charleston, at goodierb@cofc.edu.

Submissions are being accepted for SSCA’s 90th Annual Convention: “Disruptive Communication: A Discipline without Constraints”
Submissions are being accepted for the 90th Annual Southern States Communication Association conference, to be held April 1-5, 2020, in Frisco, Texas. The conference theme, “Disruptive Communication: A Discipline without Constraints,” embodies the unexpected and predictable circumstances that are changing the contours of our everyday communication. From the disruptive “fake news” narrative, to the recent upheaval in our discipline concerning issues of diversity, inclusion, access, and equity, we are truly living in an era of constant disruption. To capture this moment and to be “real-time” in our efforts to understand these disruptive events, a number of Vice-President’s Spotlight panels will focus on these disruptive opportunities (e.g., pedagogy, sport, health/death, organizations, diversity, etc.).

We welcome your paper and panel submissions to our new online submission portal at www.ssca.net. The online submission portal is on the home page and should be available through this link https://www.xcdsystem.com/ssca/abstract/index.cfm?ID=PugAYz3. The submission deadline is September 6, 2019. Please contact Shawn D. Long, SSCA Vice-President and Program Planner, at slong70@kennesaw.edu if you have any questions.

The University of North Texas Department of Communication Studies to serve as local host for SSCA conference in Frisco
SSCA will reintroduce the concept of having a local host for its 90th Convention in Frisco, Texas, in April 2020. The University of North Texas will serve as SSCA’s local host and will help if someone is in need of a local practitioner or educator who can serve as a panelist; identify some UNT students to help with UHC registration; and share information about the conference with Communication faculty and students in the local area.

Dr. Brian Richardson, Chair of the UNT Department of Communication Studies, is the contact for the local host program.

SSCA forming ad hoc committees
SSCA leadership is working to organize two ad hoc committees to look into important issues facing the organization and its membership. One committee will focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; the second committee will work on refining SSCA’s ethics statement.

SSCA Research Profile: The Virtual Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project

The Virtul Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project serves to expand scholars’, students’, and public audiences’ understanding of 1) specific aspects of civil rights history in North Carolina, 2) the nature of civic and political engagement, both in the 1950s and 1960s and today, 3) the transformative and affective aspects of public address, particularly in relation to issues of racial justice, and 4) the importance of sound in developing immersive experiences. Assessment of the project is informed by audience feedback and survey data in relation to the following: documenting and recovering the history and everyday experience of African American/Black life; innovating the use of digital tools to provide audiences with historical and cultural knowledge; providing audiences with sound-centered experiences of civic and political engagement and transformation; and providing pedagogical materials for teachers and students in the areas of civil rights history, social studies, public address, and visual/digital rhetoric.

On February 16, 1960, shortly after the start of the Greensboro sit-ins, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the speech, “A Creative Protest,” at the White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, NC. Despite the historical and rhetorical significance of what became more commonly known as the “Fill Up the Jails” speech, no known recording exists. The vMLK Project began as a partnership between the White Rock Baptist church congregation and scholars at NC State University, led by Dr. Victoria J. Gallagher. The result was a public recreation of King’s speech at the current church sanctuary on June 8, 2014. Featuring voice actor Mr. Marvin Blanks, the recreation event attracted more than 250 people, including individuals who had attended the speech in 1960, area politicians and activists, members of the Durham Ministerial Alliance, congregation members, and members of the NC State community. Based on the sound recordings of the recreation, the vMLK Project utilizes advanced digital and audio technologies to afford scholars, students, and citizens an opportunity to engage this speech through presentation of six components: historic context, individual listening and collective sound experiences, virtual reality and gaming platform experiences, and the “your creative protest” feedback opportunity.

Since its first public exhibition in February 2015, the vMLK Project has been experienced by more than 30,000 people through site-based exhibitions, and by countless others through the project’s website, https://vmlk.chass.ncsu.edu/guide. Each academic year, approximately 1,000 students experience the project through their public speaking curriculum, leading up to their advocacy speech assignment. The vMLK Project was exhibited at the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian in October 2017 and, among other awards and recognitions, received a two-year NEH Digital Projects for the Public Production Grant.

WSCA Looks Forward to 2020

The Western States Communication Association would like to invite everybody to the 2020 WSCA Convention, February 21-24, 2020, in Denver, Colorado. The theme of the convention is “Communication, Agitation, and Justice.”