Internet scholar named fellow of communication association
Zizi Papacharissi, UIC professor and head of communication.
Zizi Papacharissi, professor and head of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been named a fellow of the International Communication Association.
She was awarded the prestigious honor in recognition of her record of scholarly achievement in the study of human and mediated communication and contributions to the association.
Recipients are chosen through a competitive selection process and elected by the small group of previously-elected fellows from the leading academic association of communication scholars.
Papacharissi, who studies the social and political consequences of online media technologies, was honored during the association’s annual conference held last month in San Diego.
Her most recent book, “Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics,” explores online social movements, storytelling practices via social media, and whether these tools lead to political influence, particularly for underrepresented groups. The publication earned her the National Communication Association’s 2015 Human Communication and Technology Division Outstanding Book Award.
In “A Private Sphere: Democracy in Digital Age” she examines how online media redefine our understanding of public and private in late-modern democracies and set new parameters for civic engagement.
Papacharissi has edited seven books and authored or co-authored over 60 scholarly articles and chapters. She is editor of two scholarly journals, including Social Media and Society, which she founded in 2015.
Her productive and highly-cited scholarship was honored in 2014 when she received the High Impact Scholar award for alumni from the School of Journalism at University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication, where she earned her Ph.D. in political communication and new media.
The International Communication Association has more than 4,300 members from nearly 80 countries and recognition by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization.
