Ronald Rice

Dr. Rice is the Chair of the Department of Communication, the Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication, and Co-Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center at University of California, Santa Barbara. The Arthur N. Rupe Foundation is dedicated to achieving positive social changes by shining the light of truth on critical and controversial issues through the support of scholarly studies, education, research, and public debates, and by the dissemination of the results via a variety of media to all segments of the public.

Dr. Rice has been elected divisional officer in both the International Communication Association and the Academy of Management, elected President (2006-2007) and Fellow (2010) of the International Communication Association, awarded a Fulbright Award to Finland (2006), appointed as Wee Kim Wee and then University Professor of the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (each August 2007-2010), awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Montreal, and has served as Associate Editor for Human Communication Research, and for MIS Quarterly.

Dr. Rice received his B.A. in Literature from Columbia University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication Research from Stanford University. He also has corporate experience in systems and communication analysis, banking operations, data processing management, publishing, statistical consulting, and high school teaching. Before coming to University of California at Santa Barbara, he was Professor II (Distinguished) and Chair of the Department of Communication at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University, NJ, and Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.

He has co-authored or co-edited Public Communication Campaigns (1st ed: 1981, 2nd ed: 1989, 3rd ed: 2001, 4th ed: 2012, Sage), The New Media: Communication, Research and Technology (1984, Sage), Managing Organizational Innovation (1987, Columbia University Press), Research Methods and the New Media (1988, The Free Press), The Internet and Health Communication (2001, Sage), Accessing and Browsing Information and Communication (2001, MIT Press), Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement and Interaction (2002, MIT Press), The Internet and Health Care: Theory, Research and Practice (2006, Erlbaum), Media Ownership: Research and Regulation (2008, Hampton Press), and Organizations and Unusual Routines (2010, Cambridge University Press).

He has conducted research and published widely in communication science, public communication campaigns, computer-mediated communication systems, methodology, organizational and management theory, information systems, information science and bibliometrics, and social networks. His publications have won awards as best dissertation from the American Society for Information Science, eight times as best paper from the International Communication Association, National Communication Association, and Russian Communication Association, a book award from the Health Communication Division of ICA, and twice as best paper from Academy of Management divisions.