Story by Jessica Mussel, originally posted on the College of Communication Arts and Sciences website.
Two faculty in MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences were named Fellows of the International Communication Association (ICA), one of the top honors in the field of communication. Monique Mitchell Turner and Tim P. Vos accepted the honor during the 73rd Annual ICA Conference, May 25–29, 2023.
The ICA grants the status of Fellow to communication scholars who have made distinguished contributions to the field. To be considered, candidates must be nominated by ICA members based on a documented record of outstanding scholarly achievement and secure a majority vote from ICA’s current Fellows. Michigan State University is home to the largest network of current and past ICA Fellows.
Monique Mitchell Turner, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Turner’s research focuses on the role that emotions play in the underlying psychosocial processes explaining message effects; her work has examined the effects of guilt, shame, anger, fear and more in the cognitive impacts of public health messaging. She is the author of the Anger Activism model — a behavioral theory explaining when anger can be constructive rather than destructive. Turner is an affiliate of the Health and Risk Communication Center and directs the CASE Lab at ComArtSci, and is the former director of the Center for Risk Communication Research at the University of Maryland. Turner’s research has been funded by organizations such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She regularly conducts communication training programs for the federal government and runs MSU’s Communication Leadership and Strategy Training Institute.
Turner is the former senior editor of Health Communication and is the former associate editor of Communication Research Reports as well as Frontiers in Psychology. She is the past chairperson of both the Communication and Social Cognition Division of the National Communication Association, and the Health Communication Division of the International Communication Association. A proud Spartan, Turner received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University. She was nominated for this honor by University Distinguished Professor and ICA Fellow, Sandi Smith.
Tim P. Vos, Ph.D., is professor and director of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism. Vos’s research examines the roles of journalism, media sociology and gatekeeping, media history and media policy. He is the primary investigator for the Discourses on Journalism project and lead U.S. investigator for the 100-plus-country Worlds of Journalism Study. Vos is book series editor of Journalism in Perspective from the University of Missouri Press, and has co-authored and/or edited four books along with ICA’s International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies. He is a past president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), journalism’s leading research, teaching, and service organization. He is the former vice-chair of the AEJMC Standing Committee on Research and the former head of AEJMC’s History Division. Vos previously served on the Communication faculty at Seton Hall University and was an associate professor and chair of Journalism Studies at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Vos is a first-generation college student and earned his Doctorate in Mass Communication from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. One of his nominators, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Professor and ICA Fellow Esther Thorson, noted that Tim’s Fellow status is a major step for the J-School.
“I’m not sure there’s a greater validation that a scholar in our discipline can receive than to be designated an ICA Fellow,” Vos said. “I’m grateful for all the kind, smart people who invested in me and my research ideas. My goal is to pay them back by making the same kind of investment in others.”