Author Archives: Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen

Member News: Lisa Burns, Dane S. Claussen, W. Joseph Campbell

*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.

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Author Q&A: Berkley Hudson, Photographing Trouble & Resilience in the American South

O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble & Resilience in the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

*Berkley Hudson is an associate professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism*

Describe the focus of your book.

Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891–1967) for forty years was the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus—known to locals as “Possum Town.” His work recalls many Farm Security Administration photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town.

He photographed fellow white citizens and Black ones, too, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi’s last public and legal executions by hanging, and a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images, Pruitt’s documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers an invitation to meditate on the interrelations of photography, community, race, culture, and historical memory. The book is a companion to an NEH-traveling exhibition.

Member Q&A: Allison Frisch

Where do you work: Ithaca College Journalism Department, in Ithaca, N.Y.

Tell us about your journalism experience: I was a journalist and editor at newspapers in NY and PA for 15 years before transitioning to a career in higher education.

Current favorite class: I really don’t have a favorite. In Investigative Journalism, we are embarking on a podcast project to document homelessness in Ithaca. In Journalism Innovation, we will create grassroots startups to present to the community at the end of the year. And Introduction to Journalism is always a favorite because I’m heartened to hear a new class of student journalists talk about why they are pursuing the field!

Member News: Jason Lee Guthrie, Jon Marshall, David E. Sumner, Carolina Velloso, Ashley Walter

Jason Lee Guthrie, an assistant professor at Clayton State University, won the Leibner Cooper Grant for Creative Productions on the History of Media from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA). Guthrie was honored for his podcast Recollecting Carter, which explores the life of President Jimmy Carter. The full series will consist of several episodes and will feature oral history interviews with journalists, archivists, and academic experts, as well as archival media from the 1960s to the present day. The podcast is available through Apple podcasts and Spotify.

Jon Marshall of Northwestern University won the Best Podcast Guest Award from Journalism History. He is a guest in “Episode 105: Watergate and the Press,” a top-rated episode of the podcast with over 400 downloads. Marshall was also selected for his support of the show in the past year. Journalism History chooses its top guest from the prior calendar year.

The AEJMC History Division Experience: A Conversation with Graduate Student Liaisons Carolina Velloso (Maryland), T.J. Mesyn (Michigan State), and Ava Francesca Battocchio (Michigan State)

WHY YOU SHOULD SUBMIT TO AEJMC AND THE HISTORY DIVISION

Ava Francesca Battocchio (AF): For me, AEJMC is a great place to get feedback. But what lingers with me the most is the professional relationships that I’ve been able to build. So while it’s important to be submitting papers to conferences to develop our research and to get our research out into the world, I think we also shouldn’t overlook the fact that conferences are opportunities to build these professional relationships that can turn into collaborations and mentorships.

T.J. Mesyn (TJ): I agree – I think the networking piece is huge. The History Division has an amazing mentorship program, for example, where senior scholars are paired up with junior scholars and grad students and provide advice on research, teaching, applying for jobs, and more.

A Word from the Membership Committee

When History Division Chair Maddie Liseblad asked us to write about what the membership committee does for this issue of Clio, I was initially at a loss at how to explain our role. At first it seemed obvious: We’re the people emailing you to participate in a membership Q&A or a book author Q&A, and we’re the ones reminding you to send in your recent news and updates. But as I reflected more on not just our committee’s monthly tasks, but how we fit into the mission of the history division, I realized that the membership committee’s work can best be described as creating a sense of community among its members.

*Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen is a Membership Committee Co-Chair and an assistant professor at the University of Idaho*

Historians often labor out of the spotlight — tucked away working in a special collections room or sitting in front of a microfilm reader scrolling through old issues of newspapers. Too often, historical research can seem isolating. Much of our scholarship is solo authored, and many of us work in departments where we are the only faculty who ask historical questions and use historical research methods. We often have to explain the value of historical research (or at least its somewhat lengthy path to publication).

For me, the AEJMC History Division was a way to connect with other historians and learn the latest about scholarship in my area of interest. But the real value in joining the division was to meet other graduate students, early career scholars and established leaders in the field — people who could inspire me at each step of my academic journey.

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Membership Q&A: Dana Dabek

Where are you currently getting your Ph.D.?

Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University

*Dana Dabek is a doctoral student at the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University*

What brought you to grad school?

Prior to starting my doctorate, I spent about fifteen years working in the non-profit sector. First, I worked as a program director at a historic site (which relates to my current research), and then for several years in fundraising and communications for grassroots community organizations. Over time, I became increasingly disenchanted with the sector. Not the organizations I was working for, but larger structural issues that would have been present no matter where I was working in the field. At the same time, I was craving the space to step back and take a big picture approach to social change, but my day-to-day was bogged down by the nitty gritty. I had gone into the non-profit sector after my master’s program because at that time I wanted to be in the nitty gritty. The circuitous nature of my career aspirations is not lost on me.

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Comprehensive List of Journalism History Articles Organized by Subject Available to Membership

In an effort to raise awareness about the depth of the Journalism History archives, Pam Parry and Teri Finneman have organized 600 Journalism History articles by topic. The hope is that this document will aid in the compilation of readings lists, literature reviews and syllabus development. The list includes more than 30 topics.

The list was distributed to History Division members in January. If you would like to receive a copy, please reach out to Teri Finneman (finnemte@gmail.com) or Pam Parry (pparry@semo.edu).

Author Q&A: Matthew C. Ehrlich, Dangerous Ideas on Campus

Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK (University of Illinois Press, 2021)

*Matthew C. Ehrlich is a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign*

Describe the focus of your book.

The book is a historical case study about explosive ideas and the struggle to spark, spread, contain, or extinguish them on college campuses. The setting is the University of Illinois in the early 1960s: a traditionally conservative Midwestern campus in an era of idealism over civil rights and fear over nuclear annihilation. The protagonists are two Illinois professors: Leo Koch, a biology teacher and humanist who was fired after writing a letter to the editor that condoned premarital sex; and Revilo Oliver, a classics teacher and white supremacist who was not fired after writing an article that accused the recently assassinated President Kennedy of being a loathsome traitor. The book tries to cast fresh light on the meaning of academic freedom, the early 1960s, and the continuing debates over free speech on college campuses.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

I’ve long been interested in how the news media have historically covered controversial subjects related to higher education. That interest comes from working in journalism and teaching at state universities. I found that premarital sex was a hot news topic in the early 1960s; everyone from Margaret Mead to Gloria Steinem was writing about it. That in turn alerted me to Leo Koch, who made news during that time period for what then seemed like far-out views on sex. After he was fired, the University of Illinois strengthened its academic freedom protections, and one of the beneficiaries was Revilo Oliver. I was reluctant at first to write about Oliver given that he was a racist and anti-Semite. But I decided that addressing the Koch and Oliver cases together would make for a stronger book with broader relevance to what we’re going through these days.

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Member News: Dane Claussen, Cayce Myers

Dane S. Claussen taught on Semester at Sea as it sailed from Germany to Dubai via 11 ports in the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Kenya, and India. During the Fall 2022 semester, he taught International Mass Communication, Media in Society, and an intermediate-level journalism course. Since March 2022, he has been copyeditor for a new Shanghai International Studies University-based scholarly journal published by De Gruyter, Online Media and Global Communication (Louisa Ha, editor). Since June 2022, Claussen has been leading the effort by the South Asia Communication Association (SACA) to launch its own scholarly journal. In September 2021, he completed his four-year term as Editor of Newspaper Research Journal. In Spring 2021, he was one of two official candidates for AEJMC vice president.

Cayce Myers (Virginia Tech) was elected to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) National Board of Directors representing the Mid Atlantic District. He will serve a two-year term.