Communication Department News

September 1, 2009

One of the communication field’s most prestigious journals is now led by School of Communication and Information senior faculty member Professor James E. Katz.

For more than 30 years, Human Communication Research, a peer-reviewed publication of the International Communication Association, has published some of the most influential empirical work in field.  Katz, who is also chair of the Department of Communication and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was named as the new editor-in-chief at the Association’s annual meeting in May.

“Bringing Human Communication Research to Rutgers is in keeping with Dean Schement’s vision of the School of Communication and Information as a home for leading scholarship,” Katz said. “Rutgers gains substantial recognition by virtue of having this top-ranked journal based here—it helps make us an international center of intellectual activity and leverages our ability to contribute to the discipline of communication.”

Katz said the quarterly journal is read by researchers in many fields beyond communication, such as psychology and sociology. “HCR is among the journals that have the greatest interdisciplinary impact. We not only have substantial influence on what communication scholars think, but also on what other disciplines think about when they think about the field of communication.”

Katz had a pathbreaking article published in Human Communication Research more than 10 years ago. The article applied hierarchical log linear regression, an advanced statistical technique, to the problem of obscene and harassing phone calls. His analysis was among the first to show how the technique could be useful in communication research.

Katz’s students will have an opportunity to see firsthand the process of how rigorous scholarship moves from initial reports of findings to published research.  He says he will welcome their involvement in the mechanics of the editorial process. “This gives them a chance to see how critical assessment is done and how work is revised to meet the highest standards of rigor and validity, and, finally, enters into the body of scientific knowledge.”

Katz currently serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Information, Communication & Society and Personal and Ubiquitous Communication.