Qué es ICA

ICA is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. ICA began more than 50 years ago as a small association of U.S. researchers and is now a truly international association with more than 3,500 members in 65 countries. Since 2003, ICA has been officially associated with the United Nations as a non-governmental association (NGO).

Over recent decades the field of communication research has grown rapidly all over the world. This growth reflects the need to seek answers to urgent social problems involving communication (e.g., life span
development, family life, cultural development and preservation, quality of life, and political communication among political systems and nations). ICA members ask the relevant questions, conduct academically sound research, and often suggest policy-related solutions to these urgent problems.

As an international association, ICA offers its know-how to everybody and every area of the world where the norms of personal freedom and democracy are upheld. Our members actively contribute to public debate on topics relative to our mission. To make the association even more international and to focus even more on research relevant to the public interest are primary goals for the years to come.

ICA is diverse in its structure and interests and includes 21 divisions and interest groups, each representing a special subfield of communication processes and phenomena. Despite special interests, we view our field as a coherent discipline in which all different aspects of communication are linked by common processes, structures, theories, and methods.

ICA communicates within the association and with others interested in our field through various channels. The association publishes the Communication Yearbook and four major, peer-reviewed journals, Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Human Communication Research, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Members receive a monthly electronic newsletter. ICA holds an annual conference--the next scheduled for Dresden, Germany in June 2006--at which several hundred research papers are presented and close to 2,000 scholars from all over the world participate. We recognize outstanding contributions to the field through awards and fellowship programs.

Our members-only section provides a worldwide membership directory, back issues of ICA journals, current issues of the ICA Newsletter, and other information of particular interest to our members. Feel free to browse the electronic world of ICA. ICA Executive Director Michael Haley and other members of the ICA staff will be happy to answer your inquiries and help you in any way they can. If you would like to contact me personally, you can email me at Pennsylvania State University: JFN5@PSU.EDU.

You will find more about all this on our web pages. And you will find, of course, the procedures for becoming an ICA member. I hope this site enables you to learn more about ICA and to become an active member of this organization and its worldwide network of scholars