UCSB Communication Scholars Receive Award for Outstanding Article

Michael Stohl, chair and professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Cynthia Stohl, also a professor of communication at UCSB, have received the 2008 Outstanding Article Award from the International Communication Association. The award, which honors an article published in a refereed journal during the past two years, was presented at the organization's annual conference in May.

The article, titled "Networks of Terror: Theoretical Assumptions and Pragmatic Consequences," was published in the May 2007 issue of the journal Communication Theory. Identifying the policies used by many nations to address terror networks, the authors examine how these policies are based on fundamentally flawed assumptions that are contrary to theoretical understandings of networks.

"This article really represents communication scholarship at its best," noted the International Communication Association's award selection committee. "It is theoretically sound, empirically substantiated, but also practically oriented. In other words, it really demonstrates how communication studies can be concretely relevant to address vital and urgent questions like terrorism in our contemporary world."

This is the second year in a row that Cynthia Stohl has co-authored the winning article. Last year, an article she wrote with Bruce Bimber, a professor of political science and communication, and Andrew Flanagin, a professor of communication, received the award. Titled "Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment," it appeared in the journal Communication Theory in November 2005.

Cynthia Stohl's research focuses on the relationship among internal and external communication processes as they are manifest in global collaborations while Michael Stohl's research involves organizational and political communication with special reference to terrorism, human rights, and global relations.

The International Communication Association is an academic organization for scholars interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. With more than 4,200 members in 75 countries, ICA includes 24 divisions and interest groups and publishes five major peer-reviewed journals as well as the Communication Yearbook.