Monthly Archives: November 2020

In A League of Their Own: AEJMC History Division Mini-Profiles- Brian Creech

Where you work: I am an associate professor in the journalism department in the Lew Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, where I am also a faculty member in the Media and Communication Ph.D. program.

Where you got your Ph.D.: I have a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and MAss Communication. As a timely sidenote, alums of this program have been pushing to change the college’s name upon learning that Henry W. Grady, known for being a proponent of “The New South,” included in his vision continued segregation and white supremacy across the South. More information on the name change effort can be found here.

Current favorite class: I am very lucky to teach a range of classes in our Ph.D. program, and doubly lucky that Temple has long been a program committed to critical perspectives, qualitative inquiry, and theory-driven cultural studies work. I teach an advanced methods class on text-based methods, primarily critical textual analysis, mediated discourse analysis, visual analysis. This semester, I am excited to include units on the analysis of policy documents and institutional discourse, analysis of media objects and infrastructures, and approaches to using textual methods in digital spaces. I’ve found the methods and theoretical perspectives at the heart of British Cultural Studies to be a useful touchstone for this class and get really excited when our students discover how to think deeply and critically about texts and the ways in which they crystallize a range of social relations.

Current research project: I’ve got two projects running simultaneously, which is generally how I work. First, I am finishing a short book about journalism education in the digital age, looking at how discourses about digital changes in the news industry over the past couple of decades have situated journalism education as a particular site of discursive contest, where visions of the future are often struggles over who should have greater influence over the field of journalism. Secondly, I am continuing an ongoing project looking at how journalism and various other forms of public discourse have positioned tech industries as arbiters of the public sphere. Specifically, I am working on an essay looking at how Mark Zuckerberg has sat at the center of these discourses, finding that discussions and debates about his persona and personality often displace more urgent debates about what technology companies’ authority over our public lives should actually be.

Fun fact about yourself: One time, Bob Dylan’s road manager obliquely threatened to slice off both of my thumbs.

2021 Media & Civil Rights History Symposium

Abstracts are being accepted for the biennial Media & Civil Rights History Symposium, which will be held virtually Friday, March 26, 2021.

“Social Justice and the Media” is the theme of the one-day symposium, sponsored by the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Registration is free.

To submit an abstract for a research paper, research in progress presentation, or panel, or to register, visit the symposium website at http://bit.ly/uofsc-sjmc-mcrhs.

The submission deadline is January 11, 2021.

Contact symposium Kenneth Campbell at kcampbell@sc.edu for more information.

2021 Ronald T. and Gayla D. Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History

Entries are being accepted for the 2021 Ronald T. and Gayla D. Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History, which recognizes the best journal article or chapter in an edited collection on the historical relationship between the media and civil rights, published in 2019 or 2020.

The recipient will receive a plaque and a $1,000 prize, and will present the scholarship in a featured address at the virtual 2021 Media & Civil Rights History Symposium, March 26, 2021, at the University of South Carolina. To nominate, visit bit.ly/uofsc-sjmc-farrar-award

The nomination deadline is January 11, 2021.

Contact Kenneth Campbell at kcampbell@sc.edu for more information.

Minutes of AEJMC History Division 2020, Virtual Conference

2020 History Division Business Meeting

Friday, Aug. 7: Virtual

6:45 p.m. PT/7:45 p.m. MT/8:45 p.m. CT/9:45 p.m. ET

Minutes of AEJMC History Division 2020, Virtual Conference

Chair Teri Finneman called the meeting to order.

Finneman gave an overview of the year’s accomplishments, which can be found in the annual report. She gave special recognition to Brian Creech for his fast turnaround from an in-person to virtual conference in March for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference and noted the success of a summer Zoom graduate student social.

Throughout 2019-20, she noted that 48 people were involved in some kind of division position and 110 people were featured in Clio. The division membership sits at 291, with 29 of them students.

Finneman reported the History Division was the only AEJMC division to gain members this year, which is a huge accomplishment for history, and shared the annual DIG report indicating other major divisions saw significant membership declines.

Taking into consideration divisions, commissions and interest groups, only Sports Comm (interest group) gained more members (28) compared to History (24). Participatory Journalism gained 13 and small programs gained 1. All other commissions and interest groups saw membership losses.

Finneman noted the division is positioned extremely well in case there are drop-offs due to the pandemic.

Finneman also gave service recognition to the following members moving out of positions: Kristin Gustafson, Melita Garza, Robby Byrd, Terry Lueck, Sheila Webb, Kate Edenborg, Earnest Perry.

Finneman also provided a financial report, noting that the numbers are approximates due to waiting on several billings. The division’s balance is about $38,000 while the journal should end 2020 with around $15,000. Conference expenses this year were $2,282: $520 for plaques, $37 for certificates (designed by Erika Pribanic-Smith and mailed by Finneman) and $1,725 for award checks. She noted that the division is sitting extremely well financially ahead of the pandemic.

Discussing action items, Finneman noted that she and webmaster Keith Greenwood wanted to propose establishing a new website for the division. The current site is tied to AEJMC, which has a dated system that doesn’t allow us to make basic modern improvements like adding in our podcast feed or uploading our experts list. With the move to electronic communication and the updates that Finneman and Greenwood made in the past year, the website also has seen a substantial increase in traffic from 269 monthly visitors in August 2018 to 836 visitors in May 2020.

In a submitted report, Greenwood proposed the division pay a small fee each year to launch a new website that better services the division.

Terry Lueck made a motion, Dale Cressman seconded, to create new domain name for the AEJMC History Division

Members then discussed the domain name change. Finneman noted there is also a potential issue since AEJMC may change its name, so the division does not want a site that is tied to old name just in case. Greenwood and the board will discuss potential names for the site to communicate to the membership. 43 members voted in favor of the change, with no opposition.

Finneman gave a journal report from Taylor and Francis.

2900 article downloads 2020 YTD
Texas A&M, Toronto, Penn State top download institutions
Submissions 26 in 2019, 27 to date July 2020
Journal has a 40 percent acceptance rate
Refereed decisions in 90 days or less
It was noted that Journalism History has U.S. heavy submissions. Readership is more international from Canada, Hong Kong, Greece, India Cyprus.
International media is important since we have high European readership, but low submissions from Europe.

Finneman discussed signing up for journal alerts so that members can receive emails when new content is available.

Journalism History Update: Greg Borchard and Pam Parry

Greg Borchard thanked everyone for their contribution. He noted that a lot has changed since last year’s business meeting. Much of the plans fell into place for the journal and many of the people helped within the division. Diverse submissions outside of pure “journalism history.” He also noted there was a smooth transition from him to Pam Parry.

Pam Parry: Parry thanked the Publication Committee. Parry noted that she has a philosophy coming in as an outside person to first “do no harm.” She wants to to recruit heavily from the conference and create buzz about the journal. She noted that she invited 500 people to like the journal’s Facebook page, and 100 people did. She also noted that the board of the Stars and Stripes Museum provided a notice about the journal. She said she is very honored take on the journal.

Website Update: Pribanic-Smith

Pribanic-Smith noted that there is content related to the journal and books reviewed in the journal. There is new content including podcasts going forward. Views have come from 109 countries, with the following top 5: U.S., UK, Canada, Germany and Spain. She noted there is a paper call for the upcoming essay series about the 20^th anniversary of 9/11.

Finneman: Podcast. Finneman noted there were 1,800 downloads of the podcast in the last 30 days, with about 11,000 downloads to date. Great worldwide downloads. She again encouraged members to use the podcast in their classrooms

Book reviews: Finneman noted that she and Garza had discussed the backlog in getting book reviews into the journal. There are so many that it’s taking many months to get them published, which is problematic for both the book author and the reviewer for tenure packet purposes.

Finneman discussed the various scenarios of how to handle this problem, ranging from leave it as is to moving all of the book reviews online to our own Journalism History website where they can be published much more quickly. There was also discussion of having short abstracts of the reviews in the printed journal that then refer to the website to read the whole review.

After discussion, there is now a new plan to pull book reviews from the printed journal and place them on our own Journalism History website managed by Pribanic-Smith, with Parry able to use a few journal pages to refer to them online. This will allow for publishing in real time and open public access. Members also discussed having a more formal look to the reviews, and Pribanic-Smith mentioned the possibility of having a PDF version of the review on the website that has a more formal look. Members agreed to move forward, and a committee will meet to work out the details of moving forward with publishing our own book reviews on our own website.

AEJMC 2020 Conference Update: Finneman

The division conference statistics were as follows:

47 papers submitted total

19 of which submitted by students

49 judges

Accepted 23 papers overall, or 49 percent, which broke down as:

— 14 of 28 faculty papers (50 percent)

— 9 of 19 student papers (47 percent)

Conference Feedback Provided by Members:

A member noted programming has been good and timely. Commendation for Finneman and Mari.

A member noted engagement session has been fantastic, and attendance and chats have been fantastic.

A member noted that they missed the one on one. Gotten more out of the session because it’s about the research.

A member noted they liked the idea and listen[ed] to the sessions.

Amber Roessner noted frustration over research and support for abstract submissions.

The division did not need to vote on a new city for a future conference since San Francisco will automatically be the host site in 2025.

Research Awards:

First-Place Faculty Paper: Natascha Roelsgaard and Mike Sweeney

First-Place Student Paper (and Diversity Award winner): Carolina Velloso

Second-Place Faculty Paper: Ali Mohamed

Second-Place Student Paper: Christopher T. Assaf

Third-Place Faculty Paper: Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State

Third-Place Student Paper: Kate Yanchulis, University of Maryland

The Top Extended Abstract Award went to Meghan McCune and John Maxwell Hamilton, (Louisiana State)

Finneman noted that Maddie Liseblad of Middle Tennessee State University was placed in nomination for second vice chair.

Other nominations from the floor: None

Motion to Close Nominations: Jon Marshall

Second: Dave Davies

Voting link given. Unanimous vote for Liseblad.

Auction

The division also auctioned a Mike Sweeney typewriter painting to raise money for the podcast. The painting was sold for $380 to Dale Cressman.

Incoming Chair Statement: Will Mari

Mari’s goals for the year:

1) Support our members during a challenging year

2) Build on/reinforce existing initiatives and programs

3) Increase our outreach/connection(s) to the international media-history community

4) Increase our outreach to related fields and the community of historians of media technology

5) Hold a 2021 AEJMC pre-conference at a HBCU campus

2020 leadership team announced.

Will Mari-Chair

Cayce Myers-Vice Chair and Programing Chair

Maddie Liseblad-Research Chair

Announcements:

AJHA promoted for September.

Motion to Close Meeting: Paulette Kilmer

Dale Cressman seconded.

Motion Passed, Meeting Adjourned 8 p.m. PT

Appendix:

Award winners recognized during the division’s earlier awards gala were:

Jinx Brossard for the establishment of the Jinx Coleman Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History. This year’s winners were:

Lisa Burns, Quinnipiac

Elisabeth Fondren, St. John’s

Andrew Offenburger, Miami University

Joe Saltzman, USC Annenberg

Pamela Walck, Duquesne

Donald Shaw for the establishment of the Donald Shaw Senior Scholar Award. This year’s winners was Maurine Beasley, Maryland

The Dicken-Garcia Award went to Mark Mayfield (Alabama) with advisers Chris Roberts and Dianne Bragg.

The Covert Award went to Katie Day Good (Miami).

The Sweeney Award went to Ronald Zboray and Mary Zboray (Pittsburgh).

The Best Podcast Guest Award went to Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State)

Exceptional Service to the History Division: Madeleine Liseblad (Middle Tennessee) and

Perry Parks (Michigan State).

The Book Award went to Will Slauter (Universite de Paris). The runner-up was Aimee Edmondson (Ohio).

Submitted by Cayce Myers and Teri Finneman

Member News Round-Up: Elisabeth Fondren, Nick Hirshon, Vincent DiGirolamo, Stephen Banning, Debbie van Tuyll, Stephen Bates

Elisabeth Fondren (St. John’s University) recently participated in a global panel on civility in political communication organized by the University of Vienna, Austria. She spoke about American efforts to promote propaganda literacy through public education and the press before and during World War II.

The Society of Professional Journalists chapter that Nick Hirshon (William Paterson University) founded and advises was recognized in November as the National Campus Chapter of the Year, out of almost 100 chapters across the United States. SPJ cited eighteen programs and projects that Hirshon coordinated during the 2019-2020 academic year, including a discussion series with professional journalists on campus as well as trips to shadow a theater critic and a professional basketball announcer.

Vincent DiGirolamo (Baruch College) has received the American Historical Association’s 2020 Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the History of Journalism for his book Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys (Oxford). The book explores the newspaper industry’s relationship with paid and unpaid labor from the era of colonial slavery to the end of the “American Century.” Crying the News previously won the Frank Luther Mott/Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the Philip Taft Labor History Prize, and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians.

Stephen Banning (Bradley University) has published Journalism Standards of Work Today: Using History to Create a New Code of Journalism Ethics (Cambridge Scholars Publishing). The book’s premise is that the same concerns that gave rise to journalistic standards of work after the Industrial Revolution still apply in the Digital Age. Banning notes that the book is a culmination of 25 years of research into the origins of journalistic professionalization and the roots of the “Canons of Journalism.”

Debbie van Tuyll (Augusta University) has won the Donald L. Shaw Lifetime Award for Outstanding Service to Journalism History at the 2020 Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression.

Stephen Bates (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) delivered the annual State of the First Amendment Address at the University of Kentucky on November 12, sponsored by the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center in the School of Journalism and Media. Bates is the author of the new book An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press (Yale).

AEJMC History Division Business Meeting Minutes, 2020 Virtual Conference

Friday, Aug. 7: Virtual

6:45 p.m. PT/7:45 p.m. MT/8:45 p.m. CT/9:45 p.m. ET

Chair Teri Finneman called the meeting to order.

Throughout 2019-20, she noted that 48 people were involved in some kind of division position and 110 people were featured in Clio. The division membership sits at 291, with 29 of them students.

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