International Communication Association Honors Four UCSB Faculty Members

Four faculty members in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara have received awards from the prestigious International Communication Association (ICA).

Bruce Bimber, professor of communication and political science; Andrew J. Flanagin, associate professor of communication; and Cynthia Stohl, professor of communication, were selected to receive the 2006 Outstanding Article Award for their paper titled "Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment." The award recognizes an article published in a peer-reviewed journal during the previous two years.

"The authors offer a sophisticated update that should be of interest not just to communication scholars, but psychologists, political scientists, and even historians," noted the Outstanding Article Award selection committee. "This paper has the potential to trigger a new generation of scholarship and critical engagement with many in the social sciences."

Also recognized by the ICA was Howard Giles, professor of communication, who received the 2006 B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award. The award honors outstanding scholars, teachers, and advisors in the field of communication who serve as role models in those capacities and who have had a major impact in the field of communication by virtue of their own accomplishments or those of their former students.

"Dr. Howard Giles is one of the most influential scholars and mentors in the field of communications," said Eytan Gilboa, chair of the Fisher Mentorship Award selection committee. "His reach is truly multidimensional, multidisciplinary, and global. He is one of the leading linguistics scholars in the world, but has substantially contributed to other areas of communication."

Giles has supervised 20 doctoral students and has been a member of the dissertation committees of 22 other doctoral candidates.

"The receipt of these awards exemplifies the excellence and outstanding scholarship of our communication department," said Melvin Oliver, dean of social sciences at UCSB. "In addition, the honor bestowed on the article by professors Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl recognizes the unique interdisciplinary focus that characterizes the social sciences at UCSB."

Added Michael Stohl, professor and chair of communication, "The ICA outstanding article award is the second major award in the past two years that these three scholars have received for their work on collective action. The work is theoretically rich and grounded in detailed study of multiple organizations."

Regarding Giles, Stohl cited his mentorship award as "ICA's recognition of a career of superb mentorship and a testimony to the quality of both Howard's teaching and the relationships that he has nurtured with his advisees. It is a recognition truly earned and for which he is most respected by his colleagues here at UCSB and within the discipline at large."

The ICA is an academic organization for scholars interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. With more than 3,500 members in 65 countries, ICA includes 21 divisions and interest groups and publishes four major peer-reviewed journals.