National Communication Association Recognizes Five UCSB Faculty Members

The National Communication Association has presented awards to five faculty members in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. The recipients include Tamara Afifi, Howard Giles, Linda Putnam, Ronald Rice, and David Seibold. The awards were presented at the organization's annual meeting in San Diego in November.

Afifi, an assistant professor of communication, received the Distinguished Article Award from the association's Family Communication division for her 2003 article "Stepfamily Communication Strengths: Understanding the Ties That Bind," which appeared in the journal Human Communication Research. The award honors articles five years or older that have had an established impact on the area of family communication.

Putnam, a professor of communication, received the Best Article of the Year Award from the association's Organizational Communication division for her article "Making Sense of Intractable Multiparty Conflict: A Study of Framing in Four Environmental Disputes," which appeared in the journal Communication Monographs. Putnam co-wrote the article with colleagues Boris H.J.M. Brummans of the University of Montréal; Barbara Gray of Pennsylvania State University; Ralph Hanke of Bowling Green University; Roy Lewicki of Ohio State University; and Carolyn Wiethoff of Indiana University, Bloomington.

Putnam's receipt of the award marks the second consecutive year that it has been presented to a UCSB department of communication faculty member. Last year, it was given to Michael and Cynthia Stohl, professors of communication.

Siebold, a professor of communication, received the 2008 Gouran Research Award for best article published during the last two years by a member of the association's Group Communication division. The article, "Group Argument: A Structuration Perspective and Research Program," appeared in the professional journal Group Research, and was co-written with Renee A. Meyers of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Siebold also received the Robert J. Kibler Memorial Award in recognition of his distinguished service in the field of communication.

"We are so pleased that the Department of Communication continues to garner the kind of recognition that its high ranking warrants," said Melvin Oliver, SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences at UCSB. "These awards add to the luster that the department has achieved over the years."

Other award recipients include Giles, a professor of communication, and graduate student Charles Choi who received top paper honors for "Reported Compliance in Police-Civilian Encounters: The Roles of Accommodation and Trust in Zimbabwe and the United States." The paper was co-written with UCSB alumni Chris Hajek and Valerie Barker of the University of Texas-San Antonio and San Diego State University, respectively; and Sinfree Makoni, of Pennsylvania State University.

Choi received a second top paper award for his article "I Think I Can't: Communication Apprehension and Imagined Interactions," which he co-wrote with James Honeycutt of Louisiana State University.

In

addition, Nabi, an associate professor of communication, and alumna Emily Moyer-Guse of Ohio State University received a top paper award for "Explaining the Persuasive Effects of Entertainment Education Programming: An Empirical Comparison of Three Theories."

Finally, "Motivations and Sources for Traditional and Internet Television by U.S. and Australian Students," a paper co-written by Rice, the Arthur N. Rupe Professor of the Social Effects of Mass Communication, and graduate students Beverly Bondad- Brown and Katie Pearce, received a top competitive paper award.

Tamara Afifi is available at tafifi@comm.ucsb.edu or (805) 893-4860.

Howard Giles is available at giles@comm.ucsb.edu or (805) 893-2055.

Robin Nabi is available at nabi@comm.ucsb.edu

or (805) 893-4531.

Linda Putnam is available at lputnam@comm.ucsb.edu

or (805) 893-5316.

Ronald Rice is available at rrice@comm.ucsb.edu

or (805) 893-8696.

David Seibold is available at seibold@comm.ucsb.edu or (805) 893-8695.

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