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2020 NCA Election Results Are In
Congratulations to the newly elected NCA leadership, led by new Second Vice President Walid Afifi, that will serve our association, and thanks to all the candidates who demonstrated a generous commitment to service by running for office.
5 Questions with Josue David Cisneros
Dr. Josue David Cisneros is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of Latina/Latino Studies, the Center for Writing Studies, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Cisneros researches public rhetoric about race/ethnicity, citizenship,…
5 Questions with Juliet V. Garcia, Ph.D.
In July, the first Mexican-American woman to serve as a college or university president in the United States, was one of 17 distinguished Americans to receive The Presidential Medal of Freedom. U.S. presidents have awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor for nearly six decades, but Garcia’s selection this year may…
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Granting Empowerment: Identity, Research, and the Impact of NCA’s Research Cultivation Grant on Nigerian Women’s Lives
Comfort Tosin Adebayo’s first external grant after receiving her Ph.D. in Communication came in the form of a NCA Research Cultivation Grant. The funding would not only shape and support the trajectory of Adebayo’s future research and career, but directly impact the lives of women living in Nigeria. Adebayo, an…
From the President
Dear NCA Members, I am delighted to share this edition of spectra, which focuses on crucial topics in the Communication discipline. As our field continues to address new and evolving challenges and opportunities, it is essential that we continue to examine the focus of our scholarship, including our research practices,…
From the Executive Director
It’s an exciting time of year for the National Office. Registration for the 110th Annual Convention in New Orleans is open! I want to thank our Director of Convention and Meetings, LaShawn Duckett, for all her hard work ensuring submission notices were sent out and registration opened without a hitch. I also…
National Humanities Alliance Report
A 48-page report released in June by the National Humanities Alliance focuses on recruiting, engaging and supporting students from historically underrepresented groups in humanities programs at both two-year and four-year US higher education institutions. The report, titled, “Expanding Access to Undergraduate Humanities Education: Models and Strategies,” defined “historically underrepresented groups”…
Scholarly peer review: problems and possibilities
“Reviewer 2”-focused memes such as these are commonly seen in online academic communities. Peer review is also, according to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, a skill that “almost no one is teaching.” Perils and Problems The 32-Month Wait: T.J.’s Experiences There’s Always a Person…
Recent White House Report Affirms the Value of Social and Behavioral Science in Federal Evidence-Based Policymaking
The White House released a report in May to aid federal decision-makers to incorporate insights from social and behavioral science for improved policy and program design and delivery. The Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking takes a “whole-of-government” approach, outlining a comprehensive framework for, and…
Reflections on recruiting samples from hard-to-reach populations from a position of privilege
Qualtrics defines sampling as “the process of using a subset of a population to represent a whole population,” a definition closely aligned with goals of generalizability in communication scholarship. While probability/random sampling is widely considered the gold standard for reducing the risk of bias, many social science researchers broadly utilize non-probability…
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Granting Empowerment: Identity, Research, and the Impact of NCA’s Research Cultivation Grant on Nigerian Women’s Lives
Comfort Adebayo’s first grant after receiving her Ph.D. in Communication came in the form of a NCA Research Cultivation Grant. The funding would not only shape and support the trajectory of Adebayo’s future research and career, but directly impact the lives of hundreds of refugee women living in Nigeria. Adebayo,…
Qualitative Research with Undergraduate Research Assistants: Tips from First-Timers
Doing research with undergraduate assistants can feel like both a dream and a challenge for faculty who have never engaged with students as research assistants. An extra pair of hands or ears is useful in communication research, but introducing new people to a project comes with a hefty set of…
NCA 2023-2024 By The Numbers
January 2024: 5,629 members NCA journal growth
Welcome From The Editor
Welcome to the July 2024 edition of spectra magazine. Full disclosure: we’re announcing the release a few days into August, but that’s only because we had a few issues to iron out and we wanted to make sure you read the best possible version of spectra possible. This issue – all about communication research – holds…
African Journal Editor Training
NCA and its journal publisher, Taylor & Francis (T&F), have agreed to begin jointly working to train social science journal reviewers outside the United States and other large primarily English-speaking countries. The aim is to internationalize the pool of potential manuscript reviewers. In February, Taylor & Francis and NCA will…
National Science Foundation workshop explored policies, practices and future of public access to academic research results
Increasing public access to research funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services was the theme of a two-day workshop held in Washington, D.C., Nov. 30-Dec.1, and attended by Dr. Dane S. Claussen, NCA’ s Director of Research, Publications and Professional Advancement, on behalf of the…
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2024 convention
Stay up-to -date on the latest news about our Annual Convention this November in Denver, Colorado.