Recent and Upcoming Episodes of Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast

NCA Podcast
November 2, 2020

Recent episodes of Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast have highlighted a variety of issues, including NCA’s fall public programs. The fall public programs were aired as a special series of Communication Matters episodes entitled, “Communicating During a Presidential Election Year.” The three public programs included “The Politics of Health and Healthcare: Communicating about Health in a Presidential Election Year,” “Communicating about the Role of Race and Social Change in Politics,” and “VEEPS 2020: Kamala Harris vs. Mike Pence.”

In a bonus Labor Day episode on September 7, graduate employee labor activists José G. Izaguirre III, former Grievance Officer of the Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Alicia Massie, a Coalition of Student Employee Unions Coordinating Committee member, discussed their experiences as labor organizers and the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on graduate employee organizing.

Aspiring journal editors should check out the September 17 episode of Communication Matters, which featured current and former NCA journal editors Deanna Dannels (North Carolina State University), Kory Floyd (University of Arizona), Shiv Ganesh (University of Texas at Austin), and NCA Past President Ronald Jackson II (University of Cincinnati). 

On October 1, Armond Towns (University of Richmond), Maegan Parker Brooks, (Willamette University), and Robin Boylorn (University of Alabama) discussed a variety of issues related to the history and future of the nation’s civil rights movement. The participants shared insights about their research, the influence of the 1960s civil rights movement of on today’s activist agenda, and the future of civil rights protests. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans have been forced out of work, others have shifted to working from home, and many children and young adults are now attending school at home. On October 15, Jeffrey Hall (University of Kansas), Mei-Chen Lin (Kent State University), and Jordan Soliz (University of Nebraska) discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced communication in families and romantic relationships. 

New episodes of Communication Matters are released every other Thursday. Upcoming episodes of Communication Matters will feature a variety of interesting guests, including: 

  • November 12: NCA Second Vice Presidential candidates Walid Afifi (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Bonnie Dow (Vanderbilt University) will share their vision for NCA. 
  • November 26: Jason Edward Black (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Daniel A. Grano (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), and Abraham Khan (Penn State) will discuss issues related to sports communication, including playing during the COVID-19 pandemic, changing teams’ mascots, and political activism by athletes related to the Movement for Black Lives.  

You can find the podcast by entering “Communication Matters” in the search bar of your favorite podcast app. Subscribe and listen today!