Miglena Sternadori (Texas Tech) won the 2023 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award.
Texas Tech University associate professor Miglena Sternadori has won the 2023 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award for her conference submission, “The Last Invisible Minority: Tropes and Stigma in News Coverage of Intersex People Since 1752.”
Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Diversity Award recognizes the outstanding paper in journalism or mass communication history submitted to the annual paper competition that addresses issues of inclusion and the study of marginalized groups and topics. Sternadori will receive a cash prize during the division’s awards gala on Aug. 6 at the AEJMC National Convention in Washington, D.C.
Where do you work: I’m currently on sabbatical during the 2022-23 academic year from Millersville University, where I’ve served as Department Chair (since 2014) and as an associate professor teaching primarily courses in communication/public relations, ranging from intro to the capstone, and including social media campaigns; crisis, emergency and risk communication; health comm and communication for school district leaders, as well as public speaking.
Where did you get your Ph.D.: My Ph.D. from Purdue University focused on Public Affairs and Issue Management. My M.S. from Kansas State University was in Journalism and Mass Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations.
“What connection should one feel to acts committed or omitted before one was born?” It is a question lacking a clear-cut answer, but one that informed the most recent Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities given last October by Dr. Andrew Delbanco who chose to take on the divisive topic of reparations.
Melissa Greene-Blye, assistant professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas
In my last column, I discussed some of the ways in which legacy media outlets were acknowledging gaps in their past coverage, oversights that perpetuated misrepresentation or omission of minority populations in the communities they serve. At that time, I stated, “We, as media historians are uniquely positioned to sound a clarion call to ensure that past oversights and misrepresentations do not continue to manifest in the journalism of the present, and we should ask ourselves what we owe to improving the modern journalistic discourse around underrepresented peoples and communities who have for too long been overlooked in our history and our journalism.”
Chris Lamb, professor of journalism with the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University – Indianapolis
Describe the focus of your book.
When the 11- and 12-year-olds on the Cannon Street YMCA all-star team from Charleston, South Carolina, registered for a Little League Baseball tournament in July 1955, it put the Black team and the forces of integration on a collision course with segregation, bigotry, and the Southern way of life. This was a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. White Southerners saw the young Black ballplayers as a threat to their way of life. White teams refused to take the field against the Cannon Street team. The Cannon Street all-stars advanced by forfeit to the state tournament and then to the regional tournament in Rome, Georgia. If the team won there, it would play in the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Little League officials, however, ruled the team ineligible because it had advanced by winning on forfeit and not on the field. This denied the boys their dream of playing in the World Series. Stolen Dreams chronicles how bigotry scarred the souls of these boys, who spent the next few decades suppressing their story and the decades after that telling everyone they could why it matters. This book tells their story and the story of racism in Charleston from the first slave ship to the present.
Lisa Burns, Professor of Media Studies in the Center for Communications and Engineering at Quinnipiac University.
Dr. Lisa Burns (Quinnipiac University) was named this year’s Outstanding Faculty Scholar for the School of Communications. The award recognizes her research on first ladies and the media, candidate branding and messaging strategies, and journalism’s impact on collective memory. She was also recently elected to AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Teaching.
Dr. Dane S. Claussen, Director of Research, Publications, and Professional Advancement at the National Communication Association.
Dr. Dane S. Claussen in February became Director of Research, Publications, and Professional Advancement at the National Communication Association, Washington, D.C. His responsibilities include assisting NCA’s 11 journal editors, Publications Council, Research Council, and Teaching & Learning Council; writing research reports; promoting NCA members’ research; monitoring government policies on research; lobbying; grant writing; and daily oversight of NCA’s strategic plan.
The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is pleased to announce that Lindsay Palmer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has won this year’s Top Faculty Paper Award.
She will receive a plaque and a $100 cash prize for her paper, “Greater Credibility in Washington: Political Balance in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 1982 Mission to Central America.”
Andie Tucher is the winner of the History Division’s book award.
The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected Andie Tucher as winner of its award honoring the best journalism and mass communication history book published in 2022. Tucher is author of Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia University Press).
A panel of three distinguished media historians chose Not Exactly Lying from a strong field of entries. Tucher presents her history in an insightful and engaging narrative, the judges agreed. One described the book as “beautifully written, richly researched, and exquisitely timely.”
The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) congratulates Dr. Michael Stamm, Professor in the Department of History at Michigan State University (MSU), and Dr. Gerry Lanosga, Associate Professor in The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington (IU), as co-winners of the annual Covert Award for best mass communication history article, essay, or book chapter published in the previous year.
Dr. Catherine L. Covert
The award memorializes Dr. Catherine L. Covert, professor of journalism at Syracuse University, the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the AEJMC History Division, in 1975. Dr. Covert died in 1983. The award has been presented annually since 1985 (see https://mediahistorydivision.com/history-division-awards/covert-award/).
Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith and Dr. Keith Greenwood are the recipients of the History Division’s 2023 Exceptional Service Award. This important award is given by the division’s chair and vice chair to members who have provided stellar service.
Dr. Erika Pribanic-SmithDr. Keith Greenwood
Pribanic-Smith is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is UTA’s journalism sequence coordinator and has served in many roles for the History Division, including as a chair. Her most recent role is as the web content coordinator for the division’s academic journal, Journalism History.
Greenwood is an associate professor at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. He was the division’s website administrator for many years before stepping down last year. He spearheaded the division’s move to a new website platform two years ago and continues his involvement with the division as the listserve administrator.
