Journal of Concepts in Communication

Many contemporary linguists argue that the meaning of concepts cannot be separated from their uses. In current research practices, however, terms are usually abstracted from their contexts of use and presented as definitions. Considered in their context of use, on the other hand, terms need to be treated as conceptualizations of particular situations (see "Conceptual Logistics"). This is the aim of JCC.

There are three motivating goals that drive the JCC

• Multimodal: We believe it is important to recognize the uses of print-oriented journals but to move towards digital formats that provide more utility and opportunity. As such, the JCC is a multimodal and multimedia journal where authors can contribute images, video, interactive showcases, hypertext documents, sounds, text, in any combination via several formats. The goal is to move away from the limitations of print culture and embrace the opportunities afforded to us by modern technology.
• Open: The JCC is an open access journal meaning it is completely free to contribute, completely free to read, and completely free to share. Further, authors who contribute do so under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license meaning they do not lose their rights and privileges as authors.
• Collaborative: While we accept and publish single-author works, we encourage authors to work with one another to create powerful contributions to communication research since collaborative work helps to generate, investigate, and explicate new conceptions.

JCC is an extension of the values SCLCR has been relying on since its inception:

• Concepts are not, nor should they be, set in stone. Concepts are configured and conceptualized in an on-going process in communication research.
• Visualization is an important part of studying human communication. We encourage work that engages media and information beyond the textual.
• We encourage work submitted by graduate students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners. And while academic research does require specificity and accuracy, we value language accessible to those who study communication.

It is our goal to integrate the various projects of SCLCR so that no opportunities to explore concepts are ignored. Information submitted to the JCC should be connected to relevant entries in the Concept Database, appropriate visualizations, and the Multimedia Library.

We encourage submissions of quality work from any authors studying human communication, regardless of their academic fields or university departments. Psychologists, sociologists, neurolinguists, and others studying communication are welcome in the SCLCR and JCC community. And we do not limit the methodological approach of contributions.

JCC is a peer reviewed journal. There are no deadlines for submission, we accept contributions on a continuous basis.

Each contribution should highlight some sort of conceptual controversy and include at least the following components in an easily accessible format:

• Problematic: We call the articulation of research issues or questions a problematic. This component can include a review of research literature on the problem.
• Concept: What is the communication concept you are addressing? Are you re-conceptualizing an established concept, or are you introducing your own new concept into communication research?
• Conception: After you identify the concept you are describing, the bulk of your contribution ought to explain how you conceptualize it in the context of the problematic. Essentially, your contribution engages a new conception of a particular communication concept in the context of a research problematic.

Anyone can access and read the JCC. SCLCR members can contribute to JCC and post comments or responses to journal contributions creating a powerful dialogue not available in print journals.

Papers should use the APA format where possible. Submissions with multiple typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, or formatting errors will be returned for re-submission.

We are proud to work with our Advisory Board comprised of experts in teaching, researching, and practicing communication and visualization. It is a wonderful opportunity working with such high caliber individuals.

• Joshua Barbour ~ Texas A&M University

  

  Joshua Barbour is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University where he studies the confluence of the communicative and macromorphic (i.e., institutional and organizational) in organizing with a particular emphasis on knowledge work in for example health care organizations, emergency preparedness teams, and consulting firms.

  Spurred in part by the innovation and proliferation of information technology, knowledge work characterizes an increasingly large and consequential category of what gets done in organizations. Knowledge work is the creation, negotiation, interpretation, and sharing of information or, more simply, thinking for a living. Dr. Barbour's research conceptualizes and explores problems of knowledge work oriented around three important ideas:

  1. Knowledge work happens through communication at the nexus of the social and the individual necessitating multiple levels of analysis
  2. Knowledge work involves collaboration between experts within and across knowledge domains
  3. Expertise is a source of power independent of local organizational authority that complicates the construction and management of information.

  His work has been published in Management Communication Quarterly, Communication Theory, the Journal of Health Communication, the Journal of Communication and The Handbook of Health Communication.

  Links: Macromorphic, Texas A&M University

• Bryan Carter ~ University of Central Missouri

  

  Bryan Carter is an Associate Professor of literature at the University of Central Missouri. He specializes in African American literature of the 20th Century with a primary focus on the Harlem Renaissance and has a secondary emphasis on visual culture. He has published numerous articles on his doctoral project, Virtual Harlem and has presented it at locations around the world. His research focuses on how advanced visualization and how sustained and varied digital communication affects student retention and engagement in literature courses taught both online and face-to-face.

  Dr. Carter's experience with virtual environments began with his dissertation project on which he began work in 1997; a representation of a portion of Harlem, NY as it existed during the 1920s Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. This project, Virtual Harlem, was one of the earliest full virtual reality environments created for use in the humanities and certainly one of the first for use in an African American literature course. Virtual Harlem has been presented at venues in Paris, The Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and multiple sites in the US. In 2004, the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, funded the development of Virtual Montmartre. Dr. Carter was asked to be the project leader and was awarded the prestigious "Professeur Invite" from the Sorbonne to spend 6 months in Paris. This project realized itself in the development of an interactive Web Site and a small 3D representation of the Lapin Agile, the oldest surviving cabaret in Montmartre which is still in operation. The evolution of Virtual Harlem was funded in 2006 by the National Black Programming Consortium and the Government of Norway with the development of Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre in Second Life. These sites were two of the most important locations during the Jazz Age/Harlem Renaissance. Dr. Carter began teaching classes that met totally in Second Life in 2005 where his students participate in role play, develop content and attend events on Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre.

  In addition to these activities, Dr. Carter is very active with faculty development locally, nationally and internationally. He regularly conducts workshops for faculty at Central on Digital Humanities through the Center for Teaching and Learning as well as specialized topics such as "Generational Learning Styles", "Podcasting", "Blogging", "Internet Broadcasting" and Second Life. He has done summer workshops for the National Council for Teachers of English on Digital Humanities, led a workshop session for the Digital Africana Studies Conference at the University of Maryland-College Park, conducted a 3-day workshop on Technology in the Classroom at Alabama A&M, and at international venues such as Vaxjo University in Sweden on Digital Humanities and at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne. Dr. Carter is regularly invited to venues around the world to offer keynote addresses or to serve on panels on Digital Humanities. Most recently, Dr. Carter presented several talks at the HumLab at Umea University in Sweden and conducted a several day technology workshop at the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

  Links: University of Central Missouri

• Tom DeFanti ~ University of California, San Diego

  

  Thomas A. DeFanti, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego, is a research scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). At the University of Illinois at Chicago, DeFanti is a distinguished professor emeritus in the department of Computer Science. Before retiring in 2004, he led the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory with colleague Dan Sandin for 31 years. Currently, he is principal investigator of the NSF International Research Network Connections Program TransLight/StarLight award with Maxine Brown, and the principal investigator of the NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program GreenLight award to UCSD that supported the construction of fully instrumented self contained modular server facilities to support research into the energy efficiency of emerging computing and communications system designs, and a theater, called Vroom, full of modular, reconfigurable, energy-monitored tiled displays.

  DeFanti is an internationally recognized expert in computer graphics since the early 1970s. DeFanti has amassed a number of credits, including: use of EVL hardware and software for the computer animation produced for the 1977 "Star Wars" movie; contributor and co-editor of the 1987 National Science Foundation-sponsored report "Visualization in Scientific Computing;" recipient of the 1988 ACM Outstanding Contribution Award; appointed an ACM Fellow in 1994; and appointed one of several USA technical advisors to the G7 GIBN activity in 1995. He also shares recognition along with EVL director emeritus Dan Sandin for conceiving the CAVE virtual reality theater in 1991. He, Dan, and longtime colleague Greg Dawe continue to build novel virtual reality devices for various collaborations worldwide.

  Striving for a more than a decade to connect high-resolution visualization and virtual reality devices over long distances, DeFanti has lead state, national and international teams to build the most advanced production-quality networks available to scientists, with major NSF funding. He is a founding member of GLIF, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, a global group that manages international switched wavelength networks for research and education. In the USA, DeFanti established the 10 Gigabit Ethernet CAVEwave research network between EVL/StarLight, Seattle/Pacific Northwest GigaPop, and UCSD/Calit2 for OptIPuter and other national/international research uses, which is a model for future high-end science and engineering collaboration infrastructure.

  DeFanti has also been active in the ACM SIGGRAPH organization and in the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing (SC) conferences. Current and past activities include: secretary of SIGGRAPH (1977-1981); co-chair of the SIGGRAPH 79 conference; chair of the 11,000-member SIGGRAPH organization (1981-1985); co-chair of the 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2005 iGrid conferences, and continuing editor with UIC's Dana Plepys of the "SIGGRAPH Video Review" video publication, which he founded in 1979.

  Links: Wikipedia, Electronic Visualization Lab, Calit2

• Jeffrey Di Leo ~ University of Houston-Victoria

  

  Jeffrey R. Di Leo edits American Book Review and symplokē, and is professor of English and Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is also Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange, and edits the book series, Symplokē Studies in Contemporary Theory for the University of Nebraska Press.

  His books include Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics (2002), Affiliations: Identity in Academic Culture (2003), On Anthologies: Politics and Pedagogy (2004), If Classrooms Matter: Progressive Visions of Educational Environments (2004, with W. Jacobs), From Socrates to Cinema: An Introduction to Philosophy (2007), Fiction's Present: Situating Contemporary Narrative Innovation (2008, with R. M. Berry), Academe Degree Zero: Reconsidering the Politics of Higher Education (2010), Federman's Fictions: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust (2011), Terror, Theory and the Humanities (2012, with U. Mehan), and Neoliberalism, Education, and Terrorism: Contemporary Dialogues (2012, with H. Giroux, S. McClennen, and K. Saltman).

  Links: American Book Review

• David Downing ~ Indiana University of Pennsylvania

  

  David B. Downing is Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he currently serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in Literature and Criticism. He is the founding editor of the journal, Works and Days, with several recent volumes devoted to the transformation of the university and the threats to academic freedom. These include Information University: Rise of the Education Management Organization (2003); Richard Ohmann: A Retrospective (2005); and Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University (2009). A much edited version of the latter volume was published in fall, 2010, as a book, Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era. He is the author of The Knowledge Contract: Politics and Paradigms in the Academic Workplace (2005), and he is the editor or co-editor of four other books, including Beyond English, Inc.: Curricular Reform in a Global Economy (2002).

  He has published numerous essays, book chapters, and review-articles in the areas of critical university studies, cultural studies, and critical theory.

  Links: Indiana University of Pennsylvania

• Susan Page Estes ~ OnCom Partners

  

  Susan is a science and technology entrepreneur who has developed strategy, systems and products in multiple areas of emerging technologies, including computer-aided manufacturing, satellites, graphic tools, image processing, digital video, compute grids, messaging infrastructures, large data management, and enterprise social expert networks.

  In her role as Innovation Advisor at OnCom Partners, Susan continues to advise startups and identify opportunities for emerging technologies.

  She serves as a Senior Director at The ATHENA Fund, a private foundation focused on opportunities that combine technology, art and education. She also serves on the Board of Directors at CNT Energy, a division of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a leader in promoting urban sustainability.

  Past board experiences includes several years at the Hyde Park Art Center, a venue for emerging art and artists and at the Poetry Foundation in its transition to one of the largest literary foundations in the US.

  Her background includes training in chemistry, biochemistry and environmental science. She was in RRDonnelley's Advanced Technology R&D group, where she was one of the first commercial users of the Xerox Star, the precursor to drag and drop technologies now used in most user interfaces. She has lectured at universities and in several video series.

  For 14 years, she was CEO of OnCom, Inc, a private software and services firm focused on technology systems strategy and commercialization for global clients including AT&T, Donnelley, Citibank, and Fidelity. She and her team commercialized and spun out a company with one of the first enterprise web chat technologies, a company subsequently purchased by Microsoft.

  She joined UBS in 2002 to develop systems and strategy, including introduction of the Euro, global trading platforms and internet infrastructure. She was Managing Director of the Global Technology & Venture Capital Business Development group at UBS where she built and ran an expert network business.

  Susan is also a practicing artist, creating pieces that mix media, art, design and technology.

• Trischa Goodnow ~ Oregon State University

  Dr. Goodnow is a professor of Speech Communication at Oregon State University.

• Patricia Harkin ~ University of Illinois at Chicago

  

  Patricia Harkin is Professor Emerita of Communication and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has taught rhetorical theory and history at UIC, Purdue, and at the Universities of Toledo and Akron.

  Her books include Configuring History, Acts of Reading, and Contending with Words. Her essays have appeared in College Composition and Communication, College English, Rhetoric Review, JAC, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory and has chapters in many edited collections.

  She has served as president of the Society for Critical Exchange and of the College English Association of Ohio, as chair of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English and an Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

  Links: University of Illinois at Chicago

• Andrew Johnson ~ University of Illinois at Chicago

  

  Dr. Andrew Johnson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and member of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

  His research and teaching focus on interaction and collaboration using advanced visualization displays and the application of those displays to enhance discovery and learning.

  Links: Academic Homepage, Electronic Visualization Lab

• Steve Jones ~ University of Illinois at Chicago

  Steve Jones is UIC Distinguished Professor of Communication, Research Associate in the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory, Adjunct Professor of Electronic Media in the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois – Chicago, and Adjunct Research Professor in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds the Ph.D. in Communication from the Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1987), M.S. in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1984) and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1984). He served as Head of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois – Chicago from 1997 to 2003, and as Head of the Faculty of Communication at the University of Tulsa from 1992 to 1997. He served as Associate Dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2006 - 2009.

  Jones is author and editor of numerous books, including Society Online, CyberSociety, Virtual Culture, Doing Internet Research, , The Encyclopedia of New Media, Rock Formation: Technology, Music and Mass Communication (all published by Sage), The Internet for Educators and Homeschoolers (ETC Publications), Pop Music & the Press (Temple University Press) and Afterlife as Afterimage: Understanding Posthumous Fame (Peter Lang Publishing). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals including ones in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Cultural Studies, Journal of Virtual Environments, Works and Days, Iowa Journal of Communication, Stanford Humanities Review, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, The Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media and American Journalism. His research interests include the social history of communication technology, health and new media, virtual environments and virtual reality, popular music studies, internet studies, and media history.

  Jones was the founder and first President of the Association of Internet Researchers and serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. He has made numerous presentations to scholarly and business groups about the Internet and social change and about the Internet's social and commercial uses. He is co-editor of New Media & Society, an international journal of research on new media, technology, and culture and edits Digital Formations, a series of books on digital media, the Internet and communication (Peter Lang Publishing). His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Tides Foundation. In addition to numerous honors and awards, the International Communication Association and the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research created the annual Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture at the International Communication Association convention in recognition of his contributions to the study of communication and technology.

  Links: Homepage

• Jason Leigh ~ University of Illinois at Chicago

  

  Professor Leigh is the director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory and the Software Technology Research Center at UIC.

  He is a pioneer in collaborative virtual environments, and his research for the past ten years has focused on ultra-resolution display-rich collaboration environments amplified by high performance computing and networking. Prof. Leigh's work in lifelike avatars has been featured on the Popular Science's Future Of, and he has been profiled on Nova ScienceNow. His current research focuses on Human Augmentics- the development of technologies for expanding the capabilities and characteristics of humans.

  Other research for which he is well known include: the OptIPuter- a project to investigate how to adapt high performance computation to emerging ultra high bandwidth optical networks; CoreWall- a project to deploy advanced visualization software for the annotation of cores drilled oceans, lakes and land; GeoWall- the most widely used stereoscopic 3D display in education and research; LambdaVision- the worlds first 100-megapixel tiled display wall; Tele-Immersion- the integration of networked immersive virtual environments and video conferencing; and Reliable Blast UDP- a high performance reliable protocol for accelerated data transfer over all-optical networks.

  Links: Electronic Visualization Lab

• Ken McAllister ~ University of Arizona

  

  Ken McAllister is the Director and Professor of the graduate program in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona. He co-directs the Learning Games Initiative (LGI), a transdisciplinary and multi-institutional research collaborative that studies, teaches with, and builds computer games for educational contexts. He also co-curates the LGI Research Archive, one of the world's largest open access collections devoted to computer game studies: more than 12,000 games, 200+ working game systems, and innumerable game industry paratexts ranging from game developers' private lab notes to Xbox 360 boxer shorts. He is also a founding Advisory Board Member of the University of Arizona's Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry.

  Ken lectures and publishes widely on computational culture, including virus writing, hacking, maker culture, collaboration, digital archive practices, and the politics of the electronic entertainment industry. His books include Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture, Fluency in Play: Computer Game Design for Less Commonly Taught Language Pedagogy, The Computer Culture Reader, and Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium.

  Links: Confluencenter at University of Arizona

• Zizi Papacharissi ~ University of Illinois at Chicago

  

  Zizi Papacharissi (PhD University of Texas at Austin 2000), is Professor and Head of the Communication Department at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her work focuses on the social and political consequences of online media. Her book, A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age (Polity Press, 2010), discusses how online media redefine our understanding of public and private in late-modern democracies. She also recently edited a volume on online social networks, titled A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (Routledge, 2010).

  She is author of three books, and over 40 journal articles, book chapters or reviews, and Editor of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. She serves on the Editorial Board of ten journals, including the Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and New Media and Society.

  Links: University of Illinois at Chicago

• Takis Poulakos ~ University of Iowa
• Chris White ~ Weta Digital

  

  Chris White is a Visual Effects Supervisor currently living in Wellington, New Zealand. His most recent work includes Avatar, The Lovely Bones, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Chris began his work in visual effects over 17 years ago at George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. As an intern, his assignment was to develop software to allow artists to easily create a variety of digital tornados for the film Twister. Prior to this, artists would have to manipulate complex code to direct these dynamic systems. Chris developed an interface to these rules to allow artists to sculpt and animate these dynamics, without being programmers. His worked continued on seven years developing special effects techniques in films such as Star Wars Episode I & II, The Perfect Storm, and the Jurassic Park sequels.

  In 2002 he joined Weta Digital to work on the such as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Waterhorse, and King Kong. For King Kong, Chris developed the innovative CityBot software. This software procedurally created over one-hundred thousand buildings to match the 1933 New York City skyline. Each building was composed of hundreds of individual components that matched the architecture and style of the period.

  Between projects Chris also guest lectures and teaches at universities, high schools, and conferences.

  Links: IMDB