Wendy Melillo, an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University, has won the 2021 Michael S. Sweeney Award for her article, “Democracy’s Adventure Hero on a New Frontier: Bridging Language in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign, 1961-1970.” 

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Sweeney Award recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. In addition to receiving a plaque and cash prize, Melillo will be honored during the History Division’s awards gala at this year’s virtual AEJMC National Convention.

Melillo’s article, published in the Summer 2020 issue of Journalism History, examined the Ad Council’s public promotion of the Peace Corps in the context of internal deliberative materials drawn from four separate archival collections. Her research demonstrated how the coded language and imagery of the Ad Council’s campaign masked the true purpose of the Peace Corps, which was to blunt the spread of communism throughout the world.

In summing up her manuscript, Melillo said, “We can’t ignore the hidden propaganda in federal government advertising campaigns that are presented to Americans as pure public service.”

The History Division’s Publications Committee selected Melillo’s article from among five finalists provided by Journalism History Editor Gregory Borchard. Committee Chair Gerry Lanosga reported the scores were quite close this year with another group of excellent articles.

About Melillo’s winning essay, the judges commented:

“This fascinating article provides a deep analysis of Peace Corps ads and examines communism and other conceptual frames behind the ads themselves.”

“The author is to be commended for the tedious work put into mining the four archives for evidence of propaganda used in the Kennedy Administration’s Peace Corps advertising campaign. As someone who teaches propaganda in media, I consider this work to be an ideal example to use for teaching propaganda techniques. Good job!”

“This article is sharply written and makes a salient point about the importance of seeing self-serving purposes behind the public service campaigns that we see wrapped in the archetypes of American heroism. I enjoyed reading this and thought the visuals helped to ground the numbers and give an example of the ads so that the text didn’t seem too overwhelming at any one point in time.”

Melillo’s research program focuses on the influence of strategic communication in media and society, and she is author of a 2013 book about the Ad Council’s campaigns, How McGruff and the Crying Indian Changed America. She holds an M.A. in the History of Ideas from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. in International Communications from American University. Previously, she was a reporter for The Washington Post and the business publication Adweek.

The History Division created the Sweeney award in 2018 to honor Michael S. Sweeney, who served as editor of Journalism History from 2012 to 2018 and worked to ensure its future by initiating the transition from an independent publication to the official scholarly publication of the History Division.

“The Sweeney Award represents excellence in mass communication history research, and I am honored to be a part of the community of scholars whose work reflects this proud tradition,” Melillo said. “This award is particularly meaningful for me since Prof. Sweeney has been an important role model for me throughout my academic career.”

The other finalists for the 2021 Sweeney Award were Raymond McCaffrey, “From Baseball Icon to Crusading Columnist: How Jackie Robinson Used His Column in the African-American Press to Continue His Fight for Civil Rights in Sports” (Fall 2020); Vanessa Murphree, “Universal Localism: WWOZ Community Radio, 1980-2006” (Spring 2020); Karlyga Myssayeva and Michael Brown, “Labor Propaganda and the Gulag Press: The Case of Putevka” (Fall 2020); and Ronald Rodgers, “The Social Awakening and the News: A Progressive Era Movement’s Influence on Journalism and Journalists’ Conceptions of Their Roles” (Summer 2020).