Dr. Young Ji Kim has been awarded the prestigious UCSB Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship. The Fellowship will provide Young Ji with a course release in the 2025-26 academic year to support her project entitled, ”Collaborative Neuro-Inclusivity in Action: Exploring Teamwork and Technological Scaffolding in Neurodiverse Groups.”
Muniba Saleem and Ismaharif Ismail received a top three paper award from the Intergroup Communication Division of the International Communication Association. Saleem, M. & Ismail, I. (June, 2025). Testing the Reciprocal Influence of Media and Identity: A Longitudinal Study of Muslim Adolescents. Paper presented at the 75th Annual International Communication Association Conference. Denver, Colorado, USA.
America Edwards has been selected as the 2025 winner of the Dissertation of the Year award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of ICA! Her dissertation was entitled "Maintaining Long-Distance Mother-Daughter Relationships during College via Technologically Mediated Self-Disclosure and Co-Rumination".
Qing Huang has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in Interpersonal/Relational Communication, Dept. of Media and Communication Studies, at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. Chronemics, technology, and personal relationships, and their relational and health outcomes, are key elements in her research.
They have received a 2025 top paper award in the Interpersonal Communication division of the International Communication Award for their paper entitled Response Delayed, Message Adapted: How Mediated Response Timing Shapes Perceptions and Message Construction Within Long-Term Relational Dyads.
Ceciley Zhang will join Cal State University Fullerton as an Assistant Professor in Digital Media beginning Fall 2025. Congratulations, Ceciley!
Ms. Zhang studies and conducts research in sociopsychological influence on adoption and outcomes of social media, AI, ChatGPT, and social robots. One of her research projects seeks to develop informative and persuasive messages parents may use to engage their children in consciously shaping their social media use toward more beneficial outcomes.
Sami Kudsi has been teaching Communication Studies at City College of San Francisco since 1994 and at San Francisco State University since 2012. He is a full-time tenured professor at CCSF, where he also serves as the Honors Coordinator and previously was the Director of Forensics for the Speech and Debate Team. His specialty is group communication, but he also enjoys teaching public speaking, debate, and interpersonal communication. He is known on both campuses as the go to guy if you are feeling anxious about public speaking or experience communication apprehension in general, because he will calm you down by listening to your concerns and validating your feelings while providing a positive and encouraging perspective. Sami graduated with a bachelor's degree with high honors from UCSB in Communication Studies in 1991. He earned his Master's degree in Communication Studies from UCSB in 1993. His favorite part of UCSB was living in the residence halls and serving as a resident assistant.
Click here to register (free) and get your Zoom link for Sami Kudsi.
Hello Gauchos!
On behalf of the UCSB Communication Association Executive Board, we would like to invite you to our annual Winter Internship Mixer. Every year, this event brings together professionals with students seeking to gain experience in communication-related career paths, including – but not limited to – marketing, public relations, business, and HR. This year the Winter Internship Mixer will take place on Wednesday, March 5, 2025 from 6:00-7:30 pm in Corwin Pavilion.
Students – Please bring your resume and wear business formal attire. This event is aimed at helping current students secure internships as
well as to gain valuable perspectives on successful internship experiences. We've reached out to various companies within the Santa Barbara area and are anticipating 30+ companies to be in attendance.
These internship opportunities will range from this spring, summer, or even fall of this year in any sort of discipline. Additionally, the event will include a panel discussion with panelists discussing their career experience and overall advice to students. To RSVP/register, please click here: https://forms.gle/U5rWqM2b1TYJsW3n9
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to (epazosramirez@ucsb.edu). We hope to see you there!
For more information on the UCSB Communication Association, click here:
https://www.comm.ucsb.edu/undergrad/involvement/communication-student-groups
Musa Malik, Kylie Falcione, Brittany Wheeler, and Rene Weber’s study The ecological determinants of morality: A global analysis of news media content has been awarded Top Paper at the 8th meeting of the Moral Media (2025) conference, held in Buffalo, NY.
Abstract. This study examines the influence of ecological factors on representations of morality in global news media. Using Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the extended Moral Foundations Dictionary (eMFD), we analyze textual data from the Global Database of Event, Language, and Tone (GDELT) to assess how climate, resource availability, parasite stress, disaster impacts, and population density shape moral language across cultures. We included a total of 15,068,000 records from 200 territories across 1,369 unique dates, spanning from June 15, 2020, to August 31, 2024 in our analysis. Findings show that higher daily temperatures are associated with reduced use of both individualizing and binding moral language, with this effect more pronounced in historically warmer regions. Elevated precipitation is associated with decreased emphasis on binding moral foundations. Additionally, increased disaster-related injuries amplify both individualizing and binding moral expressions, while high population density uniquely heightens the emphasis on binding foundations. Altogether, we believe our findings contribute to the emerging literature on ecological determinants of morality, offering future research an empirical foundation for understanding how ecological contexts shape global moral narratives.
The Communicative Constituion of Organizations: The Four Flows Model (McPhee, R. D., Myers, K. K., & Iverson, J. O. (2025) illustrates how communication makes an organization what it is, presenting in-depth information on the Communicative Constitution of Organizations. Written by a team of renowned experts in the field, this comprehensive resource is designed for all those involved in the study of organizations, particularly advanced students and researchers in Business, Sociology, Communication Studies, and the subdiscipline of Organizational Communication.
Click below to download the detailed book flyer.
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