USC Annenberg was well represented at the 2009 National Communication Association Convention from Nov. 12-15, with dozens of faculty members and doctoral and graduate students making the trip to Chicago to chair discussions, present papers and serve as respondents.

"This was a successful conference at which Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism faculty and students were a notable presence," School of Communication director Larry Gross said. "Our joint party with the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania was, as usual, the social highlight of the conference."

The 95th annual NCA Convention, themed "Discourses of Stability and Change," drew 5,871 attendees. USC Annenberg faculty who participated include: 

Communication professor Sandra Ball-Rokeach co-authored a paper titled “Effects of Integrated Connection to a Neighborhood Storytelling Network (ICSN) and Education on Chronic Disease Knowledge Gaps among African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles" that was presented in the session “Racism, identity and health." The paper presented a current study that attempted “to explain the relationships among education, access to community based communication resources (ICSN) and chronic diseases knowledge. With random samples of blacks and Latinos, we found that ICSN plays a mediating role in the cases of breast cancer and diabetes, but not in the cases of hypertension and prostate cancer. ICSN does not moderate the relationship between education and CDK in any of the chronic disease cases tested in this study.”

Communication professor Janet Fulk participated in three different sessions at the NCA Annual Convention: “Cyberinfrastructure, Virtual Organizations, and the Next-Generation Internet in Action: A Multidisciplinary Dialogue among Computer Scientists and Communication Researchers," "Networks and Communities: The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Action," and “Tech-Savy or Tech-Sorry Organizations."  She presented a paper titled “A Technology Acceptance Model of Online Community Participation," which outlined a study that identified driving factors of online community participation that is based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) on Nov. 12 that communication professor Margaret McLaughlin co-authored with doctoral students Helen Wang (first author) and Jae Eun Chung and Ph.D. alumna Namkee Park, now at University of Oklahoma. Fulk and communication professor Peter Monge also contributed to a paper titled “Emergence of Social Networking Sites as a Legitimate Organizational Form, which was authored by Ph.D. student Matthew Weber and presented during a Nov. 13 session called “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organization."

Communication professor G. Thomas Goodnight presented his papers, “David Ricardo and the Aesthetics of Wealth Production”,  “Imagining a Green Public Culture in China”, and “Police and Politics: Ranciere, Agamben, and Baidou, Migrating against the Public Sphere” throughout the convention” during the convention. He also served as respondent for two sessions titled, “Locative media and urban spaces: New discourses on politics, community construction, journalism, and individualization” and “Re-imagining Rhetorical Theory Through Music."

Director of the School of Communication, Larry Gross held a roundtable discussion on Nov. 14 titled, “Spotlight Panel on the History (and Future) of the Caucus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Concerns”, which served as a forum of discussion of the future of LGBT studies within communications.

Communication professor Randall Lake served as a respondent for a session titled “Revisiting the Rhetoric of Red Power on the 40th Anniversary of the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969-1971)” on Nov. 13.

A paper co-authored by communication professor Margaret McLaughlin titled “A Technology Acceptance Model of Online Community Participation” was presented by doctoral student and author Helen Wang during the Nov. 12 session “Networks and Communities: The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Action.” Other co-authors for the paper were communication professor Janet Fulk, doctoral student Jae Eun Chung and Ph.D. alumna Namkee Park, now a professor at the University of Oklahoma. 

Communication professor Peter Monge co-authored “Emergence of Social Networking Sites as a Legitimate Organizational Form," which was presented during a Nov. 13 session called “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organizations." The paper, co-authored by communication professor Janet Fulk, outlined a study that addressed “the emergence of social networking sites as an organizational form, grounded in theories of organizational ecology. The ecological perspective on organizational forms provides a foundation for understanding how forms emerge as a result of interactions within the surrounding environment. This is applied through a framework for examining the emergence of online communities as a legitimate organizational form, and is then applied to a case study of the growth of social networking sites.” Monge participated in the “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organizations” session. He also presented a paper with Annenberg doctoral alumnus Seungyoon Lee (now an assistant professor at Purdue University) titled "Interorganizational Networks and Knowledge Sharing: Towards Sustainable Development Projects." The findings indicate that organizational networks increase the potential of development projects to create synergies with existing projects through which successful technologies and applications can be replicated or scaled up.

Communication professor Stephen O’Leary presented his paper titled “Locke’s 'Letter Concerning Toleration': The Ground Rules for Religious Rhetoric in the Marketplace of Ideas” on Nov. 14 during the session, “Religion, Politics, and Tolerance in the Public Square: Diverse Approaches to a Critical Issue”. His paper offered a “self-contradictory argument for religious tolerance, justifying anti-Catholic bigotry while preparing ground for that bigotry to be overcome,” according to the provided abstract.

Communication professor Patricia Riley served as a presenter during the session, “ALTA- 2009 Conference on Argumentation Planning Meeting: The Functions of Argument and Social Context” as well as the chair session organizer for “Organizing Virtual Organizational Communication—Living the Dialectic of Bursting Boundaries and Rebuilding Community," which both took place on Nov. 14. 

Communication professor Stacy Smith presented a paper titled “Marginalized and sexualized: A content analysis of black characters in top-grossing films from 1990 to 2006” during the Nov. 13 session called “Top Papers of the African American Communication and Culture Division”. Her paper assessed “the demography and hypersexualization of black characters in 400 top-grossing theatrically released films in the United States and Canada between 1990 and 2006."

Communication professor Gordon Stables presented during two sessions on Nov. 13 titled, “CEDA Business Meeting” and “Council of Forensic Organizations Business Meeting." He also chaired several sessions at the NCA session for the Cross-Examination Debate Association. Additionally, Stables is the president of the Cross-Examination Debate Association this year.

Other graduate and doctoral students representing USC Annenberg at the Convention include:

Shoko Hayashi Barnes, Susana Smith Bautista, Beth Boser, Nien Tsu Chen, Jae Eun Chung, Fan Dong, Ryan Gillespie, Jinghui Hou, Charlotte Lapansky, Jingfang Liu, Meghan Bridgid Moran, Michael Park, Joe Phua, Nicole Usher, George Allen, Onas Villanueva, Don Waisanen, Hua Wang, Matthew Weber, Diana Winkelman.

National Communication Association Convention