The International Communication Association (ICA) was founded as the National Society for the Study of Communication (NSSC) in 1950. NSSC, initially an affiliate of the Speech Association of America, was established as a forum for instructors of the so-called ‘communication course’ introduced by many US colleges and universities during the Great Depression. The early NSSC was constituted largely by these communication course instructors and industrial communication specialists. In 1969, the association’s leadership proposed a name change to International Communication Association (ICA), soon ratified by a full member election. The ICA is the largest worldwide academic organization devoted to the systematic study of communication. From NSSC to ICA: 75 Years of the International Communications Association chronicles the organization's history and efforts to make good on its internationalizing ambitions, as well as a broader, if often uneven, effort to include critical and humanistic voices in the association’s conferences and publications.

75th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association