Hello, I'm Ellen Wartella and welcome to this episode of the Architects of Communication Scholarship podcast series, a production of the ICA Podcast Network. Today, our architect is Ronald Rice. Ronald Rice is the Arthur N. Rupe Chair of the Social Effects of Mass Communication at UC Santa Barbara. He has published over 200 journal publications and book chapters and 14 books. His research focuses on public communication campaigns, communication science, methodology, organizational and management theory, information systems, information science and bibliometrics, computer-mediated communication systems, and social networks. He served as the president of the International Communication Association from 2006 to 2007 and is a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Today, Ron Rice is in conversation with Abel Gustafson, assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati and co-founder of XandY Analytics. Ron advised Abel’s dissertation at UCSB, and they continue to be collaborators and friends.
Hello, Ron. I’m very excited to talk with you about your work, your perspectives, and the path you've taken to get here. It's always fun to catch up and chat. So, how are things?
The world is degrading around us. But we hang out with good people and do good things. I'm very fortunate to live here in Santa Barbara. The weather's nice and flowers and hummingbirds. So I'm working hard and trying to enjoy life.
Wonderful. What gives you joy outside of work, like what might Dr. Ron Rice be doing on a Saturday morning in Santa Barbara?
Well, my wife and I are big gardeners. Both my offices here at home and in my school are full of plants. We grow a lot of native plants. We have a very unusual yard: each quadrant of the pie-shaped yard is a totally different environment–lots of obscure plants, native plants, and lots of things that flower.
This interesting garden, actually, is exemplifying a lot of your great traits which are an interest in many different things. Over the course of your career, you followed a lot of different interests in your research, and you've contributed to many different subdisciplines. When we worked together, I've always felt that I could propose any topic–something that we might know nothing about–and yet you would always be intrigued about it. Has that attitude always been there?
When I was a grad student and assistant professor, I was interested in several streams of research, and I was doing a few publications in each. People at my first university would sometimes say that's not really a good strategy for an assistant professor, you don't really have a strong enough identity in any one place. I understood that and even explained that to grad students. You have to make a choice. What happens is, early on, you're fragmented. You're not expert enough in any of these fields. But what happens is, over the years, you build up a lot of knowledge in all these fields, and you see how they interconnect. And then life is richer.
Yeah, it is wonderful to be a professional “finder outer.” Thinking about grad students as they're trying to figure out their own path and what they're interested in, how would you frame that in terms of advice? Would you advise people to dive into many different things? Or would you caution them that maybe you got lucky, and they should focus on something?
In one way, I didn't get lucky. I didn't get tenure in my first place. And it was really crushing at the time, but in the long run worked out fine. I think the words that you use to start that sentence are crucial, which is you have to find your own path. There is no one best way to do it. Even though you're interested in a lot of other stuff, you can do that later. You don't want to be so fragmented that it becomes an obstacle. So the general sense is figure out what your path is–talk to other people. But I would say during the dissertation years, you really do have to focus. And it's okay if you don't know what that topic is when you start, and it's okay if you change the topic.
Yeah, that's great advice. So let's talk a little bit about your own path. Can you give us a bird's eye view of the context that you're coming from and how it led you to where you are?
I have three brothers, and my parents didn't go to college. They grew up in the Depression. We were, I guess, lower middle class. We had just enough. And they raised us very well, very responsible. All my brothers and I are highly domesticated because my mom and dad both work. We had lots of chores, and my dad grew up on a farm. So that was just natural. And I really appreciate that. So I went to public high school. And then I was very fortunate to get into Columbia. That transformed my life. I took a lot of math and science, but I left as a literature major. So I'm very comfortable with math and quantitative stuff, but I really liked writing, reading, and editing. I didn't know that at the time, of course, but those are the perfect combination of skills for social scientists. And then I applied to graduate school. But I didn't get in. I mean, I got in, but I didn't have any money and didn't get a fellowship. So I traveled in Europe for a while. I had some friends there. And then I came back and got a job in Richmond, where I grew up, with a statewide bank. That was fantastic. I had a job as a communication analyst. I didn't know that, at the time, communication was gonna be something I was gonna go into. I learned information systems, computing, programming languages and management. So all that stuff was a great background for the research areas that I went into.
In this history so far, it's the first time that you mentioned the word communication. Can you describe what is a communication analyst at that time? And how might it have kick-started where you are now?
This was a very forward-looking organization. This was from ‘74 to ‘76. We were actually a group of communication analysts in the systems analysis group. We studied the interface between units, in terms of what they communicated or needed. So for instance, the Federal Reserve changes regulations. The bank has to respond to that. Where does that show up? Where do you have to make the changes? So we have to track the impact of that throughout the bank, update any documentation and then format publish, distribute, and train it. It forced me to really pay attention to the interface between things. It was also a network job. But I didn't know that there was network analysis. And then I got promoted. I was a manager of operation departments. It was foundational.
So then, at some point, then you decided that grad school would be your best option. Was there a reason for that switch?
Well, there's two questions there. One, I kept getting promoted. At some point, I realized I better get out of here because I'm going to be high enough up that I'm going to want to stay, and I knew that wasn't my career. The second thing was, I realized, at the bank, that the level of quality and accuracy that I wanted to work at was not tolerated. It's a commercial entity. You want to do well, you want to satisfy your customers. But you can't make things perfect. First of all, no one knows what perfect is. But also, it's not worth it. It's not going to pay off. I thought about this. I said, “What kind of profession is going to allow me to be near-maniacal, attentive to detail and quality and not actively punish me?” And then the third thing was, I was working for a bank in Richmond, great and nice life. But I thought, if I go to grad school, whatever happens, life will be more interesting.
Absolutely. So sometimes when we make these kinds of reflections, we notice some key moments in our careers that had a particularly large influence. Sometimes they're things that we do ourselves, maybe an achievement, but oftentimes there's things that are out of our control, like the actions of other people, or just a random circumstance that we happen to find ourselves in. Are there things that come to mind as being the moments that were most influential for you?
Oh, well, a thousand. All these things just come together, and you can't plan them. You don't even know that they're relevant. I had computing and information technology expertise. I could actually program in JCL because they had to take the big computer tapes, and you had to write code to actually put and take data from it. This was in ‘76. So I came in with some very interesting computing skills. It wasn't obvious to me that anything will be relevant. But Everett Rogers was there and there was a doctoral student, Bill Richards, who developed this network program called NEGOPY. Because dealing with large matrices takes a lot of RAM–and in those days, computers had no RAM–he had to write in a language that only can be run on CDC computers. That was downtown Palo Alto, so I knew computers. So I got hired to run the program. I learned a lot about network analysis, as all these datasets came through me. So that was massively influential, and it wasn't anything that I planned. Ev needed this. Bill had graduated. The computer program was on a weird system. That put me in touch with a lot of people, and that became the basis of my dissertation. My advisor, Bill Paisley, really smart, wonderful man, said, “Well, there's a sociologist at New Jersey Institute of Technology studying this nationwide computer conferencing system.” She had the NSF grant to analyze it. And he said, “Well, so maybe she has some data.” So okay, fine. I went to a conference because my other professor Ed Parker decided not to go, and we had co-authored papers. So I went. I came down to breakfast a little late. There's only one seat left in the breakfast area. I sat down next to this woman who happened to be the woman that Bill Paisley was talking about, Roxanne Hiltz. And we chatted and then she said, “Oh, so you’re interested in networks? I have all this network data and don’t know what to do with it.” “Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.” Not only did she give me access to the data, she actually provided some money for my computer runs. She actually got me to be a member of one of the ten groups, which was the network analysis researchers. I started working with the top network researchers in the world and fellow graduate students. I would go to all the online meetings. And that became my dissertation: overtime network analysis. In those days, the RAM in the computers was so small, even the Stanford administrative computer. The tech people were so intrigued by what I wanted to do. They said, “Okay, we're gonna give you two hours on the Stanford administrative computer Sunday from 10pm to 12. We're going to shut down all the other programs because you're going to use all the RAM we have.” And I had money from Roxanne. So I had $500. I had two hours. I had my program, which I paid somebody to help me write in PL/I. We ran it: it crashed. I had to look at it really quick. Since I knew programming, I made a change. It worked! It finished five minutes before 12, and I had $5 left in my account. That's how close I am from not finishing my dissertation.
Wow, that's incredible.
Somebody somewhere was looking after me.
One thing that always stood out to me about your work is how early you were involved in the world of computers and information networks. You've kind of had this front-row view, as these technologies have spread and evolved over the last few decades. So what has stood out to you as being something important in terms of developments or insights?
So I was one of the first people, for instance, who had a portable–quote “portable” computer. It was a sewing machine, basically. I started teaching internet and communication, as a TA. I didn't know this, but I was one of the first people doing these things. I grew up with the people who were the first researchers in this area. For anybody as you grow into it, like you, you have all these skills that I don't have. You grew up with them. You know, people know R or Python. From my point of view, it’s like, “Wow, that's really fancy stuff. I could never learn that.” So it was the same thing. It also meant that everything was exciting because everything was new. There was not much precedent, but also it made it really, really difficult to know where to get stuff published. There weren't many journals. It wasn't an interdisciplinary topic. Now it's pervasive. Both networks and technology are pervasive in every discipline.
So you mentioned at several points, some of these key mentors of yours, like Ev Rogers, Bill Paisley, and Roxanne Hiltz. I know that these people have had a great influence on your career and in the work that you do and who you are. Just thinking about their influence, what makes a great mentor, a great mentor?
That's a great question, Abel. And I want you to know, as soon as you asked that question, I felt this chill go through my body, literally, because if you're fortunate, you have a mentor, which really, really helps you and represents a good person. And when you hang out with good people, you feel better. It allows you to feel really human. So the first example will be Bill Paisley (William Paisley). He wasn't widely known, but he was very respected. He's the smartest guy I've ever met. And also, Don Roberts, was my first advisor. I was still running in those days, so we would run a couple times a week, and I had him for an hour by myself. In those days, there was the black rotary phone. You walk into their office, they take the phone off the hook. They were not gonna let anything interrupt this. When I handed something into Don Roberts, I would get back tons and tons of comments which I want. That's a gift. If I'm just gonna give you that time and effort, then you luxuriate in that. Don Roberts and Bill Paisley were role models in terms of how you interact and deal with grad students. I explicitly have tried to emulate them. If you have the unfortunate experience of having a bad advisor and bad role models, then that's what you're going to emulate because you think, “Oh, that's how professors should be.” And those people do a lot of damage. Ev Rogers was great. Fred Williams, who hired me at Annenberg, was the same way. They were monsters. They would just do a thousand things all the time. Ev Rogers was the master of being interested in everything. When he thought something was becoming a trend, he said, “Okay, I'll just write the most comprehensive book on the topic that you can imagine.” He did dozens of those. It wasn't just one. I still use his Diffusion book. It's out of date, but it's the best book on the topic. And he would get grants, and I’d go with him as a grad student researcher, and I just learned all this stuff. And Roxanne: same way. So another thing is that they were all generous. I think that's one nice thing about our profession. The nature of our work is to share information. That's another thing that makes me feel really human. I mean, all these competitive and zero-sum things are true in nature. But we've converted them into systems. But a true system is when you just feel free to share and to ask, and to help and to get help. I got that from all those people.
Yeah, that's amazing, especially in those relationships, where the human relationship transcends the work and becomes the foundation and what really lasts. So thinking ahead for communication scholars, do you have a sense of what the big intellectual questions are that we need to address? What stands out to you as something that's either important for society or a really sticky problem?
So I thought about that, and I actually came up with three. I'll be succinct. So the first–and this is not actually my area–but with the rise of artificial intelligence algorithms and digital assistants, a really interesting question is, so really, what is communication? Because now we're interacting, and we're “communicating” with these devices, and they are doing things and they are even shaping us, is that communication? Like, we tend to think of communications primarily human, although we know animals communicate, and insects communicate in many, many, many ways. So does it matter that it's a machine? Is that still communication? Animals interact. Do they know what the meaning of that is? Or is this just all chemicals? Many animals are highly social, and they have culture, so they must know what meaning is. So I think that's a really interesting question. I know people are struggling with that. Related to that is what's gonna happen as we rely more and more on programmed algorithmic, unpredictable–that's because it's a neural network learning system–devices and computer and software. That one whole area is very powerful and fascinating. It's not my area, but when we were studying and studying computer mediated communication, people said the same thing. Another one that I have been working in is what's the long-term effects of mobile phones, especially social media. When most technologies come out, there's all these positive utopian visions and also all these negative dystopian visions, always. And they're pretty much the same. There's a great book by Joli Jensen called Redeeming Modernity, and she looked at four communication media innovations and showed that the basic thematic responses of people were the same for all of them, even though they were highly different at different times. We have these underlying notions, fears, and concerns. I mean, all our students are completely tethered to the devices. Many of them are highly aware that, yes, they need them, and they like them. But also they really hate them, and they're addicted. They're aware of both things, and there's nothing they can do about it. That's really problematic. So for me, it's all about choice, awareness, and consciousness. So then the third question is: are these negative things we now see (misinformation, hate speech, trolling, and misogyny) primarily developed because of some features of these technologies? And before we didn't experience a lot of them because people weren't really doing those things.? Or by making the threshold of interacting so low, that anybody can do it, now, what we're seeing is the true nature of humanity? That's a really fundamental question. And if you look back through history, you pretty much have to go with the second interpretation.
So since this podcast series is titled Architects of Communication Scholarship, I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on what you think that you've built. Sometimes it is odd to comment on your own achievements or accomplishments, but the truth is that you have made a lot of contributions. I would like to hear your perspective on some of the things that you've built.
So I thought about that, and that has actually been an issue. I'm not good at or I'm not interested in naming things after me or even coming up with good terms that then become memes in the literature. I don't disparage that skill, I'm just not good at it. I just like to focus on the issue. So there are three answers. One is, I think that one of the things that I've contributed is crossing boundaries. When I was president of ICA, my theme was networking. I don't necessarily mean network analysis, per se, but just saying, “Oh, here's a cool idea, here's a cool person. We should get these things together.” Whenever I have a paper that's good enough to be of interest to another area, another field, another discipline, I will push to make that better, so that it could get accepted there. One of the things is I've crossed boundaries, in particular, library information systems, management information systems, communication organizations, and now environmental issues. So I like that mixing and matching. That's one. The other one was bringing communication technology and network analysis to the field. I'm not the first, but certainly one of the first who brought those two topics together using network analysis as a tool to understand how people use computer media communication. Also with Ev’s and Bill Paisley's encouragement, I got into communication campaigns, and then with Chuck Atkin, we had several editions of Public Communication Campaigns. And that, I think, was a contribution, not because I was an expert in communication campaigns but because I network with so many people. Chuck and I would always find the best possible authors. And then the last thing is, as we talked about before, since I had such good role models, I've been very intentionally conscious, often with high self-monitoring, to be a good role model advisor–to pass that on because I know how it influenced me and made a difference. Grad students have a lot of stress, and they need support and understanding, but also they need guidance and maybe even some pushing.
This has been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time. It's a pleasure to talk to you always, especially to get your perspective on some of these things, at the higher level, about your experiences and your perspective and your wonderful career.
Well, Abel, I just enjoy you so much. Research is great but also just hanging out and listening to your questions and how you follow up. You're really good at asking questions and following up and getting me and anybody else to think about things. Thank you very much for your time.
Always a pleasure to chat with you Ron, and hope to see you soon.
Architects of Communication Scholarship is a production of the International Communication Association Podcast Network. This series is sponsored by The Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Our producer is Dominic Bonelli. Our executive producer is DeVante Brown. The theme music is by Humans Win. For more information about our participants on this episode, as well as our sponsor, be sure to check the episode description. Thanks for listening.
