The steering committee of the thirtieth annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression solicits papers dealing with US mass media of the 19th century, the Civil War in fiction and history, freedom of expression in the 19th century, presidents and the 19th century press, images of race and gender, sensationalism and crime in 19th century newspapers, and the antebellum press and the causes of the Civil War. Selected papers will be presented during the conference Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 3–5, 2022. The top three papers and the top three student papers will be honored accordingly.

The Symposium will be conducted via ZOOM (for both speakers and participants). If possible, it will also be conducted in person.

The purpose of the November conference is to share current research and to develop a series of monographs. This year the steering committee will pay special attention to papers and panel presentations on the Civil War and the press, presidents and the 19th century press, news reports of 19th century epidemics, coverage of immigrants, African Americans, and Native Americans, and 19th century spiritualism and ghost stories. Since 2000, the Symposium has produced eight distinctly different books of readings: The Civil War and the Press (2000); Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007); Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (2008); Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press (2009); Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting (2013); A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War (2014); After the War: The Press in a Changing America, 1865–1900 (2017); and The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War (2019). The panel presentations from the 2020 Symposium were recorded and aired on C-SPAN.

The symposium is sponsored by the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Communication Department, the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, and the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Fund for the Symposium, and because of this sponsorship, no registration fee will be charged. Papers should be able to be presented within 20 minutes, at least 10–15 pages long. Please send your paper (including a 200–300 word abstract) as a Word attachment to west-chair-office@utc.edu by August 26, 2022. We hope you will join us this year, and we hope you will invite your friends. We would appreciate it if you would duplicate and circulate our Call for Papers and poster to anyone who might be interested.

AEJMC’S History Division announces the 37^th annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History for entries published in 2021.

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.

Submit an electronic copy in pdf form of the published article/essay/chapter via email to Professor Thomas A. Mascaro, mascaro@bgsu.edu, by March 31, 2021. The publication may be self-submitted or submitted by others, such as an editor or colleague.

The following links connect to articles providing more background on Dr. Covert:

https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=sumagazine

https://roghiemstra.com/covert-bio.html

https://clas.uiowa.edu/sjmc/people/catherine-covert

This award is presented to the winners of the division’s teaching competition. Members may submit an innovative teaching strategy to the contest, which is judged by a committee each spring.  

Teaching ideas should be original, tested, and transformative pedagogies that have been used by the author in teaching media and journalism history and could be used by other instructors or institutions. Teaching ideas should help professors address one or more of these pedagogies: diversity, collaboration, community, or justice. The competition welcomes a variety of teaching ideas, including those taught across a quarter/semester or taught as a module within an individual course. The 2022 deadline for submissions is Feb. 15. 

The applications should be submitted as one document saved in a PDF format to aejmchistory@gmail.com using the subject line “Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History” and should include: 

·         Required: a three-page CV 

·         Required: a single-spaced, two-page discussion of the teaching idea that includes a 250-word overview followed by discussions of these seven criteria used for judging: 

·         Originality (makes clear how the work has not been published or presented at a conference or an online forum previously; is not in any other 2022 AEJMC competition; and does not represent another person’s teaching without acknowledgement of that work and discussion of significant modification by the author), 

·         tested (describes how employed previously in the author’s classroom), 

·         transferability (makes a case for how other schools/classes/programs could use), 

·         degree of transformative nature (speaks to evidence of how the teaching leads to a marked change on the part of students, such as via assessment or student feedback), 

·         degree of focus on diversity, collaboration, community, and/or justice (addresses one or more of these pedagogies, as defined by the author), 

·         degree of clarity (presented clearly, completely, and concisely), 

·         willingness to present (expresses willingness to present at the 2022 AEJMC conference). 

·         Optional: a set of supplementary teaching materials relevant to the teaching idea, such as syllabus, assignment, handouts, links, or slide, saved as PDF and no more than five pages 

Please send any questions about the 2022 question to division teaching award chair Ken Ward at kjward@pittstate.edu. 

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will present its award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis in Journalism and Mass Communication History in 2022, recognizing the outstanding mass communication history thesis completed during the 2021 calendar year.

The award will be presented during the member awards gala at the 2022 AEJMC Conference.

Any master’s thesis on a topic in mass communication history will be considered, regardless of research method. Submissions must be in English. The thesis must have been submitted, defended, and filed in final form to the author’s degree-granting university between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Membership in the AEJMC History Division is not required to submit.

Candidates for the award should submit the following materials:

• A cover letter with the thesis author’s contact information. 
• A letter of nomination from the thesis chair/director or the chair of the university department in which the thesis was written. The letter should concisely describe the scope and significance of the thesis, including its contribution to the knowledge base of the discipline.
• A blind copy of the full thesis (including abstract) in PDF form. IMPORTANT: Please make sure that all identifying information—including author, school, and thesis advisor/committee names—have been removed from all parts of the document. Be sure to check not only the title page but also the abstract, dedication/acknowledgements, bio page, and other pages that such identifying information often appears in academic theses.
• A blind copy of a sample chapter, submitter’s choice, from the thesis, identifying information removed, for first-round competition. This should also be in PDF form.

Nominations, along with all the supporting materials, should be sent to AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific on March 1, 2022 (this is a deadline extension).

Questions should be directed to Dr. Amy Mattson Lauters, chair of the AEJMC History Thesis Award Committee, at AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com