Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute Fellow Dr. Thomas Cryer has won the 2025-26 essay contest sponsored by Journalism History.
A panel of judges from across the globe assessed this year’s submitted essay proposals and selected Cryer’s as the best response to this year’s theme, which recognizes the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.
Continue readingNominations are open for the AEJMC History Division’s 2026 Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award. This division honor will recognize an individual for excellence in research on the history of journalism and mass communication. Nominees must have a minimum 15-year academic career and a record of division membership. To submit a nomination, please compile a single PDF file with the following items:
Last summer, the History Division launched a membership survey, its first effort in quite some time to learn about what the members think about division activities and the value it delivers. We’re working on the best way to share the results from the survey, but I wanted to use this issue of Clio to share some of the highlights and to discuss how these responses might impact our programming this year. This column is a bit longer than the ideal 400 to 500 words I was taught in undergrad, but our survey covered a lot of territory (and elicited some thoughtful comments and feedback).
Continue readingJournalism History and American Journalism are offering a combined $5,000 in microgrant funding to encourage research relating to the intersection of diversity and media history. The microgrants are sponsored by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division and the American Journalism Historians Association, respectively. Topics should incorporate any of the following or an intersection of the following with media history: race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, class, religion, disability, mental health, and/or rural populations. Topics related to public relations and advertising diversity history are also welcome.
To apply, write a one- to two-page description of your research project proposal that includes a brief description of your budget and how the grant money will be used. The maximum grant request is $1,200. Please also include a brief curriculum vitae (no more than three pages).
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AEJMC’s History Division announces the 42nd annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History for entries published in 2025.
The Covert Award recognizes the author of the best mass communication history article or essay published in the previous year. Book chapters in edited collections published in the previous year are also eligible. The AEJMC History Division has presented the award annually since 1985.
The $400 award memorializes the esteemed Dr. Catherine L. Covert, professor of journalism at Syracuse University (d.1983). Cathy Covert was the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the History Division, in 1975. Prof. Covert received the AEJMC Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Education Award in 1983.
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For the last few months, one question has loomed large in my teaching, research, and, to some extent, my sense of self: What is the role of history in the field of journalism and mass communication? Students ask it, non-history colleagues ask it, grant reviewers and journal reviewers ask it, my friends and family ask it, and I’m pretty sure my dog would ask it if given the opportunity. But it’s not just one question that follows me around – it’s the follow-up, too: Why does history matter? Why bother?
I’ve long struggled with articulating why history matters to journalism and mass communication, in part because to me, it has always seemed so obvious. As with many media historians – and those media scholars whose research engages historical questions and uses historical methods to some degree – I’ve always been drawn to the idea of exploring what once was. It can be hard for me to articulate why history matters without deploying cliché after cliché. There’s a cyclical nature to history and contemporary events, I’ll say. History matters because context matters, I’ll write. If we don’t try to understand the messiness of the past – in all its ugliness and complexity – how can we possibly make sense of what’s happening now or understand what’s at risk?
Continue readingThe AEJMC Southeast Colloquium serves as one of the oldest regional gatherings of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The event provides a collegial and supportive environment for the exchange of research, feedback and ideas across AEJMC divisions, interest groups and commissions.
Continue readingThe Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division is soliciting entries for its annual award for the best journalism and mass communication history book. The winning author will receive a plaque and a $500 prize at the August 2026 AEJMC conference in New Orleans. Attendance at the conference is encouraged as the winner will be honored at a History Division awards event.
Book authorship is defined as the person or persons who wrote a book. Edited collections with substantial chapter contributions by the editors may be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Continue readingThe colonial-era US printer Benjamin Franklin is credited with responding to a question about what the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had produced by saying, “A republic – if you can keep it.”1 The convention was the United States’ second attempt to form a national government after its revolutionary break from Britain – a break that was codified by the signatures of Franklin and fifty-five fellow delegates on July 4, 1776.
Of course, Franklin and his contemporaries’ vision of a democratic republic for propertied white men was significantly narrower than what most people in the US conceive today. That original vision of representative democracy was transformed by President Abraham Lincoln’s rhetorical reframing during the Civil War and subsequent constitutional amendments granting citizenship and basic rights to formerly enslaved people.2 The vision was further expanded by the nineteenth amendment granting women the vote in the early twentieth century and by the civil rights laws of the 1960s that added enforcement mechanisms to the amendments passed a hundred years earlier. By the turn of this century, many US institutions had, at least rhetorically, embraced the notion of working toward a truly pluralistic multiracial democracy.
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First off, thanks to all of you for an engaging and successful annual conference in San Francisco. Thanks to everyone who attended, who reviewed, who submitted, who volunteered to organize a panel, and who served in some capacity to the division throughout the year. So many smiles, so many great conversations, and so much learning. It has been a great year, and a lot of that is due to engagement from membership across the division.
As I type out this final column, I am reminded that the work of the division continues year-round. Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen is set to take over leadership and has a many great initiatives planned, as well as a leadership team squarely focused on the important role history plays in the discipline and the value of our members within AEJMC. This is a team with great ideas for the growth of the discipline and the value of membership, and I think we all will benefit from their tenure.
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