Thanks to Scott Althaus and Shanto Iyengar, we are thrilled to post mp3 files from a communication roundtable session made up of Edelman award winners here.

Bennett, W. Lance, Doris Graber, Roderick Hart, Shanto Iyengar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elihu Katz, Gladys Engle Lang, Kurt Lang, Thomas Patterson, and Donald Shaw. “The future of political communication research: Where we’ve been, where we’re going.” Roundtable discussion at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, DC, Aug. Sep. 1–4, 2005.

Introduction
Gladys Engle Lang
Kurt Lang
Thomas Patterson
Roderick Hart
Elihu Katz
Doris Graber
W. Lance Bennett
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Donald Shaw
Shanto Iyengar
Discussion

Political Communication Division, International Communication Association

The Political Communication Division (PCD) of the International Communication Association (ICA) was recognized as an official division of ICA by the Board of Directors at the 1973 conference in Montreal, Canada.  The first political communication programs were organized and offered at the 1973 Montreal conference, since the group had been given initial organizational status as the Political Communication Committee at the 1972 ICA conference.  The founding of the division was spearheaded by Dr. Keith R. Sanders (Southern Illinois University, University of Wisconsin, Illinois Board of Higher Education).  Sanders served as the first president of the PCD, and the group offered its first programs as an official division at the 1974 ICA meeting in New Orleans.  Other scholars who helped to develop the organization in its early years and who served as presidents of the division during its first decade included L. Erwin Atwood (Southern Illinois University; Pennsylvania State University), Dan Nimmo (University of Tennessee, University of Oklahoma), Charles Larson (Northern Illinois University), Doris Graber (University of Illinois-Chicago), Sidney Kraus (Cleveland State University), and Lynda Lee Kaid (University of Oklahoma, University of Florida). 

The ICA Political Communication Division was the first formal division of political communication organized and approved by a scholarly organization.  The Eastern Communication Association (ECA) soon approved a section under its structure.  The American Political Science Association (APSA), the National Communication Association (NCA), and the Central States Communication Association (CSCA) have since added political communication divisions to their organizational structures.  Since its founding in 1973, the ICA division grew to include more than 500 members in 2005.

In addition to organizing panels and programs, the division provided opportunities for discussion and interactions about the growing interdisciplinary field of political communication. To promote the new field and to provide a formal forum for members, the PCD began in 1975 to publish a small annual journal, Political Communication Review (PCR), which in its early years focused on providing members with bibliographic or review essays, book reviews, descriptions of non-print materials available to scholars, and current bibliographies of new publications in the growing discipline.  PCR continued publication under the joint editorship of Keith R. Sanders and Lynda Lee Kaid until 1991 when it was succeeded by Political Communication.

Based on the recommendation of a joint publication committee chaired by Jarold Manheim (George Washington University), the Political Communication Divisions of ICA and APSA agreed in 1991 to co-sponsor a new journal, Political Communication.  The new journal was to be published by Taylor & Francis Publishers and would replace the printing house's journal Political Communication and Persuasion.  After negotiations with the publisher and the boards of both ICA and APSA, the new journal began publication as Political Communication (Volume 10) under the editorship of Doris Graber in 1994.  Editorship of the journal rotates between the ICA and APSA Political Communication Divisions.

The ICA division also joins with the APSA division to sponsor a regular newsletter.  Available on-line since 1999, the newsletter is called Political Communication Report.  The newsletter keeps members informed about research opportunities, conferences, grants, and other opportunities and activities related to the political communication field.

The ICA annual conferences held each year in the U.S. and abroad provide the major opportunity for members to present papers and to network with colleagues from ICA's broad international membership base.