부산대학교 도서관

This paper examines the current structure of Communication Studies as a discipline through a network analysis based on joint memberships in the National Communication Association's (NCA) divisions and units, and through a semantic network analysis based on the shared use of symbols in conference paper titles. Further, it compares the structure of NCA with that of the International Communication Association (ICA), based on the divisions common to both organizations. The result suggests that similar dimensions that differentiate subdisciplines found in previous research -- mass to interpersonal, humanities to social science (Barnett & Danowski, 1992; Lee & Barnett, 2005) -- are applicable to NCA. The result of a comparison between ICA and NCA suggests that there were some differences in structure in both organizations. More scholars in NCA are involved in philosophical Communication Studies and individual-level studies than in ICA. The semantic network analysis discovered that American Studies was the most central division followed by Critical and Cultural Studies. Finally, using members of professional associations as representative samples to map the structure of Communication Studies is validated in this study. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]