On the Value of an NCA Journal Dedicated to Communication and Technology: Quantifying a Missed Opportunity

The introduction of virtually any new journal sponsored by the National Communication Association (NCA) is likely to prompt questions among scholars in our field. Why does NCA need yet another journal? At the end of 2019, NCA already sponsored 11 journals covering a range of topics from communication education and first amendment studies to intercultural and applied communication. What possible justification could exist to dedicate a twelfth journal to communication and technology? Although there are a number of ways such questions might be answered, one worthwhile approach is to consider contemporary publication practices to determine whether a new journal is warranted. To this end, I report an analysis of publication patterns in NCA and International Communication Association (ICA) journals from 2000-2015. Using keywords in article abstracts as a means to identify technology articles, I track the prevalence of communication and technology articles over time and across journal types. The growth in communication and technology research in our field and differences in the prevalence of technology articles appearing in NCA and ICA journals are then used to highlight the substantial need for an NCA journal dedicated to this topic. As will be shown, the absence of such a journal represents a considerable missed opportunity for NCA to embrace cutting-edge research trends in our discipline and become a leading voice in communication and technology scholarship.