Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies JournalDr. Greg Dickinson, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies in the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University, has been selected to serve as editor for Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, a peer reviewed journal of the National Communication Association, for three volumes that will appear between 2019 and 2021.  

The journal publishes original scholarship that situates culture as a site of struggle and communication as an enactment and discipline of power. It is one of 11 journals produced by the National Communication Association, which advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry.  

“Editing one of the field’s flagship journals is a nice affirmation of my own work—I have published several times in CC/CS—and is a humbling vote of confidence from my disciplinary colleagues,” Dickinson says. In early 2018 he will begin reviewing articles for possible inclusion in Volume 15, which won’t be published until 2019.  

Dickinson’s role is to review online paper submissions to make sure they meet the journal’s minimum qualifications of length, citation style, and content, and then assign two reviewers for each paper. “We use a blind review process where the reviewers do not know who the author is and vice versa,” says Dickinson.  

Once reviewers render a judgment of reject, revise and resubmit, or accept, they typically offer extensive comments that can guide any requested revisions. Dickinson will then read the reviewer comments and the paper, determine the paper’s status—reject, revise and resubmit, or accept—and contributes his own comments.  

“Quality scholarship depends on this peer-reviewed process,” Dickinson says. “And, hosting the journal in our department certifies the quality of the scholarship and disciplinary service of our faculty. It’s very rewarding.”  

This is Dickinson’s first go as primary editor of a peer-reviewed journal. He has previously served as associate editor for the Western Journal of Communication and currently serves on the editorial boards of a number of communication journals. 

The journal’s publisher, Taylor and Francis, will provide editorial support that, with additional help from the College of Liberal Arts, allows Dickinson to hire a Graduate Research Assistant as his editorial assistant. “This is one of the reasons I wanted to become editor,” Dickinson says. “I thought that offering this experience to one of our new Ph.D. students would be a great opportunity for professional growth.” 

Dickinson succeeds Dr. D. Robert DeChaine of California State University, Los Angeles, who’s editorship ends with the publication of volume 14 in 2018.  

Dickinson is an award-winning teacher and scholar, having received the College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award, the CSU Alumni Best Teacher Award, NCA’s Gerald R. Miller Dissertation Award, and (with his co-authors Brian L. Ott and Eric Aoki) the NCA Golden Anniversary Monograph Award.

Dickinson writes about the ways buildings and human landscapes engage viewers and users on questions of values, beliefs, and action. His work advances critical and theoretical understanding of memory, place, materiality, and everyday life. He has published in numerous communication, cultural studies, and rhetoric journals on coffee shops, shopping malls, museums, and gentrified urban spaces. His book Suburban Dreams: Building and Imagining the Good Life was published by the University of Alabama Press in 2015, and is completing a co-authored book on the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. He joined CSU’s Department of Communications in 2000.