Monday, June 27, 2011

Job Posting

THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM
Department of Communication and Journalism
Tenure-Track Research and Teaching Position

The Noah Mozes Department of Communication and Journalism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem invites outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure-track position starting Fall, 2012. Applicants should hold a Ph.D., or expect to be awarded a doctoral degree by September 2012. Post-doctoral experience is desirable.

We particularly encourage applicants with strong research records in the fields of new media, film studies and political communication, although excellent candidates in all areas of communications are invited to apply.

The language of instruction is Hebrew, although English is acceptable for an initial period.


Applications should include:
• Curriculum vitae
• An academic biography (2 pages) outlining research interests and plans
• Details of at least two persons who have been asked to send letters of
recommendation
• Copies of selected recent publications
• Brief description of potential courses
• Teaching evaluations (if such exist)

Applicants will compete with candidates of other departments in the Faculty of Social Sciences for academic positions.

Application materials and/or inquiries should be directed to:
Prof. Menahem Blondheim, Chair (mblond@huji.ac.il). Department of Communication and Journalism The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.
Letters of recommendation should be sent directly to the above address, or to mblond@huji.ac.il. Deadline for applications: September 15th 2011.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Letter Regarding Political Communication Journal

May 31, 2011
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Re: Political Communication

As Chair of the Political Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), I am writing on behalf of our membership to express the division’s strong dissatisfaction with the current terms of our contract with Routledge Taylor & Francis for the journal Political Communication. This is a journal that we sponsor alongside the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Our division's annual business meeting was held in Boston on May 27,2011, and was very well-attended by 149 of our 756 members. Prof. Patricia Moy, Chair of the ICA- APSA Joint Publications Committee, reported to the membership on the current terms of our contract for the journal and the numerous conversations she had with Taylor & Francis last year. This started a very heated discussion regarding whether or not the division should renew this contract which we see as grossly unfair.

I am not sure you realize the amount of hard work, dedication and intellectual skill that our members devote to the journal. It takes years of tremendously hard work to write an academic research paper in the field of political communication. Reviewing these papers takes an enormous amount of time as well. Our editor, Prof. Shanto Iyengar, volunteers almost half of his time to running the journal. This involves many hours of reading manuscripts, locating reviewers, soliciting their assessments and then evaluating the quality of the submissions. Our Joint Publications Committee relentlessly works on developing the journal and selecting prominent academics to serve as editorial board members. We are very proud that the hard work invested in the journal has raised its reputation and that it is now very highly ranked both in political science and communication.

We recognize that sponsoring a leading journal is important for the division, but the level of dissatisfaction among members led to a very lengthy discussion regarding actions to pursue. Several members advocated that the division end its contract with T&F. Some harsher measures – like calling for our editor and editorial board members to resign from the journal while at the same time initiating a new open-access online title – also were proposed.

We are eager to continue working with Routledge T&F on building an even stronger, more highly ranked journal. But for the long term, this is not possible unless a contract that demonstrates that the publisher appreciates our hard work and intellectual skill is negotiated. Given the overlap in membership between ICA and APSA's political communication divisions, APSA's Political Communication Division undoubtedly will champion a similar if not harsher resolution in its forthcoming meeting.

If I may add, my personal impression (based on conversation with dozens of members at the meeting) is that this discussion is already hurting the reputation of Routledge T&F as a fair publisher among communication scholars in general. There is a significant overlap between our membership and that of related professional organizations on whose RFPs you recently have bid or tried to renegotiate the terms of existing contracts.

We are looking forward to receiving an offer that not only increases our royalties, but also considerably raises your support for the hiring of an editorial assistant for the journal. Please forward your response to me as well as to Joint Publications Committee Chair Prof. Patricia Moy.

At the same time, the division has asked me to let you know that we have decided at the meeting to cancel our online subscription for the journal, given the relatively high costs combined with the fairly low use. We see your online subscription rates for our member as part of a larger financial plan for the journal that does not advantage us.

Sincerely,
Dr. Yariv Tsfati, Chair Political Communication Division, International Communication Association Department of Communication, University of Haifa, ISRAEL http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/~comm/en/staff/show_details.php?UserID=645

Vice Chair & Secretary Call for Nominations

The Political Communication Division will choose a new vice-chair and secretary during ICA elections this fall. Please send nominations and self-nominations to the nominations committee (Chair: Hernando Rojas, U of Madison, Wisconsin USA; Erik Albæk, U of Southern Denmark, DENMARK; Lilach Nir, Hebrew U, ISRAEL; Marko Skoric, Nanyang Technical U, SINGAPORE) by Friday, July 8.

To nominate yourself or another person, please send the name (with affiliation and contact information), a statement of support (limit 250 words), and the nominee's email confirmation of willingness to stand for election to the nominations committee email address: pcnominate@gmail.com

The committee will then contact each candidate, who must provide a goal statement and a short bio (limit 250 words) by Monday, July 25. The election takes place online in September and October, and ICA normally releases the results by the end of October.

*Vice chair. The new vice-chair will begin a two-year term of office at the conclusion of the conference in Phoenix next year. After receiving training and the materials from past program planners, the vice-chair will be program planner for the following conventions: London, UK, 15-19 June 2013, Seattle, WA, 22-26 May, 2014.

Election as vice-chair is a four-year commitment. After two years as program planner, during the term of office of Claes de Vreese as division chair, the vice-chair becomes division chair for the next two years (in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2015; location TBA for the 2016 conference, but it will take place in Japan or Australia).

*Secretary. The secretary takes minutes at the annual meeting and helps generate material for the division announcement in the monthly ICA newsletter. The new secretary will begin a two-year term of office at the Phoenix conference next year and will continue for the following convention in London UK, 15-19 June 2013.

Please consider taking up this important opportunity and call for service to the division, by nominating either a colleague or yourself to become a candidate for vice-chair or secretary.

APSA Short Course: Dynamic Process Tracing: A Decision Making Research Tool

Political Psychology Organized Section
2011 APSA Short Course

The APSA Organized Section on Political Psychology is sponsoring a short course on "Dynamic Process Tracing: A Decision Making Research Tool" led by David Redlawsk. This is a follow-on to the course held last year. This year's course will provide an overview of the system and present the significant updates made over the past year that allow easy development of a wide range of experiments in decision making. The system is already in use by researchers in Europe as well as the United States.

The course will be Wednesday afternoon, and registration will be open soon at the APSA website

This year's course will provide an overview of the Lau and Redlawsk Dynamic Process Tracing Environment (DPTE) used for studying individual decision making. Funded in part by the NSF, the system is now available at http://dpte.polisci.uiowa.edu to any researcher interested in making use of it. However, those interested in using DPTE in their research should consider first attending this course in order to learn the system design details and functionality.

Dynamic process tracing is a research technique used to study information search and decision making in an ever-changing information environment. Developed by Lau and Redlawsk to study voter decision making during political campaigns, the technique can be profitably employed to study learning, decision making, and a variety of related processes in nearly any dynamic situation. However, until now, prohibitive programming costs made this technique very difficult for other researchers to use.

Those who attend will learn how to begin their own experiments using the system. The system will be divided into two parts. The first 90 minutes will provide an overview of the system. The second part will examine how to run studies and provide information about the many new features added to the system since last year's class. If you attended last year, you may still want to attend again, perhaps joining us after the 90 minute introductory period, though of course all are welcome for the whole session.

For more information contact Dave Redlawsk at redlawsk@rutgers.edu

International Conference: Identity and Intercultural Communication

Bucharest, Romania, September 26-27, 2011

Center for Research in Communication Institut de la Communication
Cox International Center SNSPA
Université Lyon2
University of Georgia
*In collaboration with Romanian-U.S. Fulbright Commission*

This conference aims to address issues such as the role of media in creating and enhancing local, regional, national, or transnational identities based on cultural, ethnic, and racial relationships, and the impact of the new communication technologies on the identity and strategies of professional organizations. Based on this perspective of intercultural communication, we are interested in what are the entities that are involved in the dialog, the dynamics of multicultural environment and the social discourses, and the changes in the construction of self-identity in the relationship with the Other.

Sections
Identity Meeting Otherness; The New Technologies and the Communication of Professionals’ Identities; The Role of the European Public Sphere in the Configuration of a Transnational Identity (more information at: http://centrucomunicare.ro/conferencetopics2011.html)

Keynote speaker
Hans-Jörg Trenz – ARENA Center for European Studies, Norway Scientific Committee
Alina Bârgăoanu – National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania Claudine Carluer – Université Stendhal Grenoble, France Dominique Desjeux – Université Paris Descartes, France Dorina Guţu – Romanian-U.S. Fulbright Commission, Romania
Jisu Huh – University of Minnesota, USA Adrian Lesenciuc – "Henri Coanda" Air Force Academy, Romania Mira Moshe – Ariel University Center of Samaria, Israel Remus Pricopie – National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania Klaus Schönbach – University of Vienna Andrea Semprini – Univ. Lyon 2, France Jean-Claude Soulages – Univ. Lyon 2, France Claes De Vreese – University of Amsterdam, Nederland David Weaver – Indiana University, USA

Important Deadlines
June 25, 2011: abstract submission; July 10, 2011: abstract acceptance (notification of authors); August 15, 2011: full paper submission;

Abstracts
The abstracts (max. 500 words followed by 3-5 keywords) will be submitted for review in electronic MS Word format. Please provide the full names, affiliations, mailing addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses of all authors, indicating the contact author. There will be accepted only one paper for each participant as a first author. Abstracts will be submitted online to the following e-mail address: iic-conference-2011@univ-lyon2.fr (or Ingrid-Dana.Popescu@univ-lyon2.fr). The official languages of the conference are English and French.
The authors will receive confirmation via email.

Selected papers will be published, after the conference, in the conference volume. To this end, full papers will be re-submitted to peer-review process.

Guidelines
All manuscripts submitted must follow the most recent version of the APA style guide (American Psychological Association Publication Manual).

Conference fee
Conference fee is 100 euro / participant. For PhD and MA candidates the conference fee is 50 euro / participant.

Information and contacts
Further information and updates regarding conference venue, registration, conference program, and accommodation details will be avilable in due time on the conference website: http://centrucomunicare.ro/conference2011.html

Organizing Committee
Lee B. Becker, University of Georgia Nicoleta Corbu, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Mihai Moroiu, Romanian-U.S. Fulbright Commission Dana Popescu Jourdy, Université Lyon2 Elizabeth Vercher, Université Lyon 2 Tudor Vlad, University of Georgia

Contact
Conference email: iic-conference-2011@univ-lyon2.fr (or Ingrid-Dana.Popescu@univ-lyon2.fr)