Monthly Archives: July 2024

History Division’s Top Paper Award Winners Announced

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is pleased to announce that Autumn Linford of Auburn University has won this year’s Top Faculty Paper Award.

Autumn Lorimer Linford

She will receive a plaque and a $100 cash prize for her paper, ‘“Is This an Evil Practice?”: Newspapers and Newsgirls.’

The second-place faculty paper award goes to Ashley Walter of Saint Louis University for “After the Gauntlet: Sex Discrimination Lawsuits at The Washington Post, 1972-2003.”

Third place faculty paper goes to Eric Freedman, Michigan State University, Joshua Duchan, Wayne State University , Vladislava Sukhanovskaya, and Finn Hopkins, Michigan State University. This co-authored paper is “Extra! Extra! Sing All About It: Portraying Newsies in 19th and 20th Century Sheet Music.”

In the student paper competition, the top award winner is Hannah LeComte of George Mason University for “Radical or Assimilatory? The Fight for Family Life Education by Virginia’s Gay Press, 1977-1998.” She will receive a plaque and a $100 cash prize.

The second-place student award goes to Joey Mengyuan Chen of University of Maryland for “Dancing with Shackles on: The Consulted New Woman in the Exchange of Letters in Linglong Magazine.” 

Third place in the student paper competition was won by Diana Krovvidi of University of Maryland for her paper “How Ethnic Press in the US Urged the Diaspora to Preserve the Ukrainian Language (1893-1914)”

The History Division also awards a top extended abstract award, which will go to the University of Pennsylvania co-authors, Anjali DasSarma and Valentina Proust. Their abstract is titled ““We Want Entire Freedom”: The New Orleans Tribune and the Foundation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse.”

The top faculty papers and student papers will be presented together at the division’s top papers panel during AEJMC’s 2024 conference in Philadelphia on Friday, August 9 at 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Member News: Lisa Lenoir, Tom Mascaro

Lisa is an assistant professor at Indiana University

Lisa D. Lenoir (Indiana) received Indiana University’s Presidential Arts and Humanities Fellows Program award to advance her research on the life and career of The Chicago Defender’s Mattie Smith Colin. The fellows program supports IU faculty with promise to be national and international leaders in their discipline. Lenoir’s research focuses on media discourses surrounding journalism, activism, and identity, and consumer culture.

The 2024-2025 fellowship features a $50,000 grant, which allows her to host scholars and to conduct archival and oral history work to bring Colin’s work to the forefront, focusing on the journalist’s career from 1950-2002. Colin is known for covering the return of Emmett Till’s body from Money, Mississippi to Chicago, a critical moment in the long Black civil rights struggle. In addition, the journalist worked as a food and fashion editor. Lenoir knew Colin during her tenure in Chicago, while working as a fashion editor for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Mattie Smith Colin Project has been generously supported by grants from AEJMC’s Commission on the Status of Women and the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).

Tom is a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University

Tom Mascaro (Bowling Green) has co-authored a revised edition of William Porter’s 1976 classic, Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years, Updated with Analysis of 21st Century Threats to Democracy (University of Michigan Press). The expanded version includes several new chapters, additional Documents of Significance, several key analyses of First Amendment issues, and a critique of the role of academe in the pursuit of rampant authoritarianism.

Do you have member news to share? Send your updates for the next Clio to Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen at caitlinc@uidaho.edu.

A Word From the Chair: See you in Philadelphia!

Rachel Grant is the chair of the Media History Division

We are less than a month away from this year’s conference in Philly. So much work and dedication happened behind the scenes, and I want to thank all the executive members of the History Division leadership. I especially want to thank our vice-chairs Brian Creech (program chair) and Melissa Greene-Blye (research chair) for organizing our panels and research competition. Also, thank you to everyone who submitted and reviewed submissions. Our division has the most dedicated members who continue to help elevate the importance of historical research.

We have an exciting schedule this year and we have an included abbreviated schedule of all our division’s sessions in this issue of Clio. For a full schedule of AEJMC events, check out the program online.

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Research Q&A: Ford Risley and Ashley Walter

Ford is a distinguished professor in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Ashley is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Saint Louis University. The two recently published the book How America Gets the News: A History of US Journalism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).

1. What is the primary focus or central question (s) of your history research? Explain. 

Ford is a distinguished professor journalism at Penn State University

    While our individual research is focused on two separate subjects—Ford examines Civil War era journalism and Ashley researches women’s media history—we are both broadly concerned with questions surrounding media production and media consumption.  

    Our coauthored book, How America Get the News: A History of U.S. Journalism, is a concise history of American journalism—including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and digital—and introduces readers to the news media from the first colonial newspapers to today’s news conglomerates and the rise of the digital media. 

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    Member Q&A: Claire Rounkles

    Where are you currently getting your Ph.D. and/or what is your current position?

    I am finishing up my dissertation at the University of Missouri, which I will defend in the Fall. In addition to finishing up my dissertation, I will start as an assistant professor at in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis this Fall. 

    What brought you to grad school?

    As a young undergrad student, I grew a love of research through the McNair Scholars program. Engaging with my mentors in the program showed me what I wanted to do with my career. Entering grad school, my goals were reaffirmed by learning from the faculty at Ohio University. From there, I decided to return to my undergraduate alma mater to finish my PhD and once again learn from the faculty that first encouraged me in my journey. 

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