Dr. Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud, assistant professor of communication studies at The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication, received the 2012 Outstanding Book Award from the International Communication Association (ICA) for her book, "Niche News: The Politics of News Choice."

ICA presents its annual Outstanding Book Award to an author who has published a book in the past two years. Books are judged on several criteria, including the importance of problems addressed, the quality of writing and the strength of evidence.

Published by Oxford University Press in 2011, "Niche News" investigates how people choose from a variety of news options – such as Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Rush Limbaugh Show and National Public Radio.

By analyzing the news formats that citizens rely on and conducting surveys and experiments, Stroud examines the extent to which partisanship influences peoples' media selections. A key concept of "Niche News" is "partisan selective exposure," or people's preference for political information that matches their views.

"Niche News" is available at Amazon.

In addition to teaching in the Department of Communication Studies, Stroud is the assistant director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation. Her research focuses on how the media affect people's political behaviors and attitudes and how political behaviors and attitudes affect people's media use. She received a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania.

The International Communication Association (ICA) is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. ICA began more than 50 years ago as a small association of U.S. researchers and is now a truly international association with more than 3,500 members in 65 countries. Since 2003, ICA has been officially associated with the United Nations as a non-governmental association (NGO).