Monthly Archives: September 2024

Notes from the History Division Business Meeting

Chair Rachel Grant (Florida) offered a welcome to the 35 members in attendance. Minutes from last year’s division business meeting were approved unanimously.

Leadership presented an overview of the division’s work during the past year: updating the AEJMC Community page for the division, maintaining the website minus a web administrator, continuing to expand international reach and membership, and celebrating 50 years of Journalism History, the division’s journal. There were no questions. Maddie Liseblad voiced the need for a website administrator.

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Panel Proposals for AEJMC 2025 due October 7

The History Division welcomes panel proposals for the 2025 AEJMC conference in San Francisco, Calif., August 6 – 10. The theme for next year’s event is “Leading in Times of Momentous Change: Individual and Collective Opportunities.” Panel proposals can be submitted via this link.

The History Division is one of the original divisions of AEJMC, having been established in 1966, and supports research into a variety of topics related to the journalism and mass communication industry, including but not limited to:

  • the newspaper industry (newspapers, editors, publishers, and reporters)
  • the broadcasting and cable industry (individual networks, stations, anchors, and reporters)
  • photojournalism and photography
  • advertising (advertising agencies, practitioners, campaigns)
  • public relations ( agencies, corporations, campaigns, practitioners, techniques and tactics)
  • media technologies (computerization, emerging digital technologies, and the early Internet)

Some History Division members focus on the history of media relationships with the government and other power-wielding entities, and some members focus on the histories of technologies from the printing press, the telegraph and the typewriter, to the Internet, while others focus issues of culture, power, and longstanding inequities around race. 

The History Division generally accepts and hosts or co-hosts three types of panel proposals each year: Professional Freedom & Responsibility (PF&R), Teaching, and Research. 

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A Word From the Chair: Final Reflections

The annual conference in Philadelphia was a success! I was extremely happy with the community and atmosphere of research, teaching and professional development in our sessions. Thank you to everyone who gave their time and support to the History Division. 

Rachel Grant is the outgoing chair of the Media History Division

As the outgoing chair, I have enjoyed my time serving as a leader and truly appreciate everyone. We have had a great journey this year. I appreciate your willingness and dedication to our community. I know incoming chair Brian Creech will bring new perspectives and ideas to make the division better. His insight has always been helpful to me. Also, I am proud of Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen and Autumn Linford as they step into leadership roles. We are moving in the right direction, but society’s need for the understanding history’s impact is still a concern. 

We continue to see historical moments and events unfolding with our election season. Hopefully, this election will inspire new projects, panels and collaborations for next year’s conference in San Francisco. History is meant to be chronicled and studied. I end my last chair column with the same words I wrote in the first one— “I encourage our members to explore aspects of diversity, inclusion, and equity — not only in their work but also from the framework of social justice as an everyday practice.” 

Research Q&A: Seven Questions with Matthew Ehrlich

Matthew is a professor emeritus in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on social and cultural history, and his most recent book is The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine (University of Illinois Press, 2024).

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

My new book The Krebiozen Hoax focuses on an alleged cancer treatment of the 1950s and 1960s that was rejected by doctors and medical agencies but embraced by many cancer patients and people in good health. The treatment’s rise and fall took place against the backdrop of America’s never-ending suspicion of educational, scientific, and medical expertise. The book explores how people readily believe misinformation and struggle to maintain hope in the face of grave threats to well-being. 

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Member Q&A: Autumn Linford

What is your current position?

Assistant Professor of Journalism, Auburn University

What is your favorite class to teach?

Journalism history! I’m even more thrilled than usual, because next fall I have been approved to teach a Women in Journalism History course to be cross listed with the Women and Gender Studies department!

What is your current research project?

I am currently finishing up a book about newsgirls and papergirls. The book, Extra! A History of America’s Girl Newsies, is in peer review now and should (hopefully!) be out sometime in 2025.

Fun fact about yourself?

I don’t really believe in soulmates, but if I did, mine would be my extraordinarily large dog named SunSpot. He’s a Briard (a French sheepdog), he has fluffy long blond hair, and it’s like he was built in every way to be mine. I bring him with me everywhere I am legally allowed.