Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast

NCA past President Judy Pearson pledges $1 million to St. Cloud State University’s Communication Department. In this special episode of Communication Matters, Judy and Jeff Ringer, department chair, reflect on how Judy’s time in the program shaped her career, and explore the opportunities this gift will create for the department and its future students.

What are the possibilities for reforming graduate education, including preparing Ph.D. students for job opportunities outside of the academy and the implications of career diversity or alt-ac careers for graduate education? This episode features a conversation on alt-ac careers with Communication Scholar Shantel Martinez, Professor Sarah J. Tracy, and Graduate Student Marco Dehnert.

Communication Professor Karrin Vasby Anderson joins the podcast to answer common questions related to successfully preparing and submitting manuscripts. The conversation will touch on how to write and edit your manuscript to meet the highest standards, how to choose an appropriate journal for your work, and how to handle feedback during the peer review process.

This episode addresses two new special issues of NCA’s Review of Communication that focus on the Communication discipline’s lack of attention to scholarship by African scholars, from African perspectives, and about Africa. Special issue editors and Communication professors Godfried A. Asante and Jenna N. Hanchey join the podcast.

In this episode, NCA Executive Director Shari Miles-Cohen speaks with University of Maryland, Baltimore’s first Chief Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer and Vice President Diane Forbes Berthoud on the connections between Communication and Psychology.

When students complete a program of study in Communication, what should they know, understand, and be able to do? Today’s episode addresses NCA's Learning Outcomes in Communication (LOC) project, which sought to answer this question.

Hear from scholars José Castro-Sotomayor, Edward Maibach, and Bridie McGreavy as they delve into environmental communication.

This special episode of Communication Matters is the second in the two-part “Communication & Resilience: COVID in Contexts” series presented by NCA. In this episode, the guests will explore interpersonal relationships and social support in the context of COVID-19, both in and outside the classroom.

This year’s convention will represent a return to our traditional face-to-face format after last year’s virtual convention. In this episode, NCA First Vice President and Primary Program Planner Roseann Mandziuk discusses the upcoming gathering.

This episode focuses on the NCA Center for Communication, Community Collaboration, and Change, or CCCC, which is currently hosted by the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Hear from Communication scholars Jim Cherney, Janell Johnson, Nathan Stewart, and Sophia Maier about Communication research related to ableism and disabilities, as well as some best practices for classroom and campus accessibility and inclusion.

Communication professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Research Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center Daniel Romer discuss their recent study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research about how social media, mainstream media, and conservative media have influenced beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories and intentions to wear a mask or get a vaccine.

Hear from Communication professors Carlnita P. Greene, Amber E. Kinser, Ascan F. Koerner, and Audra K. Nuru as they address the Fourth of July and holiday gatherings broadly, including the relationship between food and nationality, the burdens that family meals can place on women, family communication related to celebrations, and the changes in family gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hear from Communication professors Garry Bailey, Christina S. Beck, and Stacy Tye-Williams about bullying at school and in the workplace, cyberbullying, and the role that gender, race, ethnicity, and culture play in bullying.

This episode highlights two books that received awards at last year’s convention. Mia Fischer discusses Terrorizing Gender: Transgender Visibility and the Surveillance Practices of the U.S. Security State, winner of NCA’s 2020 Diamond Anniversary Book Award, and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz addresses Homeland Maternity: U.S. Security Culture and the New Reproductive Regime, winner of NCA’s 2020 James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address.

This episode addresses journal reviewing as mentorship and some related issues in journal editing with Devika Chawla, the incoming Chair of NCA’s Publications Council; Mary Stuckey, a past editor of NCA’s Quarterly Journal of Speech, and two veteran reviewers: Denise M. Bostdorff and Rebecca de Souza.

Hear from Communication professors Zhuo Ban, Richie Hao, and Ali Na about anti-Asian hate speech and discrimination, including the rise in violence and xenophobia related to the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies to address these issues.

In this bonus episode as part of NCA’s 2021 public programming series, entitled “Communication & Resilience: COVID in Contexts,” this episode will focus on how COVID-19 has brought changes to education and how those changes create challenges but also present opportunities for digital learning moving forward.

Hear from Communication professors Ellen Gorsevski, Robert Mejia, and Wei Sun about the state of the Communication Ph.D. How have our programs fared during the COVID-19 pandemic? What is the job outlook for Communication graduates? This episode’s guests will address these questions and many more.

Hear from the authors recently released book, The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education, Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch, about the state of graduate school today and the possibilities for reforming graduate education.