2020 History Division Business Meeting
Friday, Aug. 7: Virtual
6:45 p.m. PT/7:45 p.m. MT/8:45 p.m. CT/9:45 p.m. ET
Minutes of AEJMC History Division 2020, Virtual Conference
Chair Teri Finneman called the meeting to order.
Finneman gave an overview of the year’s accomplishments, which can be found in the annual report. She gave special recognition to Brian Creech for his fast turnaround from an in-person to virtual conference in March for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference and noted the success of a summer Zoom graduate student social.
Throughout 2019-20, she noted that 48 people were involved in some kind of division position and 110 people were featured in Clio. The division membership sits at 291, with 29 of them students.
Finneman reported the History Division was the only AEJMC division to gain members this year, which is a huge accomplishment for history, and shared the annual DIG report indicating other major divisions saw significant membership declines.
Taking into consideration divisions, commissions and interest groups, only Sports Comm (interest group) gained more members (28) compared to History (24). Participatory Journalism gained 13 and small programs gained 1. All other commissions and interest groups saw membership losses.
Finneman noted the division is positioned extremely well in case there are drop-offs due to the pandemic.
Finneman also gave service recognition to the following members moving out of positions: Kristin Gustafson, Melita Garza, Robby Byrd, Terry Lueck, Sheila Webb, Kate Edenborg, Earnest Perry.
Finneman also provided a financial report, noting that the numbers are approximates due to waiting on several billings. The division’s balance is about $38,000 while the journal should end 2020 with around $15,000. Conference expenses this year were $2,282: $520 for plaques, $37 for certificates (designed by Erika Pribanic-Smith and mailed by Finneman) and $1,725 for award checks. She noted that the division is sitting extremely well financially ahead of the pandemic.
Discussing action items, Finneman noted that she and webmaster Keith Greenwood wanted to propose establishing a new website for the division. The current site is tied to AEJMC, which has a dated system that doesn’t allow us to make basic modern improvements like adding in our podcast feed or uploading our experts list. With the move to electronic communication and the updates that Finneman and Greenwood made in the past year, the website also has seen a substantial increase in traffic from 269 monthly visitors in August 2018 to 836 visitors in May 2020.
In a submitted report, Greenwood proposed the division pay a small fee each year to launch a new website that better services the division.
- Terry Lueck made a motion, Dale Cressman seconded, to create new domain name for the AEJMC History Division
Members then discussed the domain name change. Finneman noted there is also a potential issue since AEJMC may change its name, so the division does not want a site that is tied to old name just in case. Greenwood and the board will discuss potential names for the site to communicate to the membership. 43 members voted in favor of the change, with no opposition.
Finneman gave a journal report from Taylor and Francis.
- 2900 article downloads 2020 YTD
- Texas A&M, Toronto, Penn State top download institutions
- Submissions 26 in 2019, 27 to date July 2020
- Journal has a 40 percent acceptance rate
- Refereed decisions in 90 days or less
- It was noted that Journalism History has U.S. heavy submissions. Readership is more international from Canada, Hong Kong, Greece, India Cyprus.
- International media is important since we have high European readership, but low submissions from Europe.
Finneman discussed signing up for journal alerts so that members can receive emails when new content is available.
Journalism History Update: Greg Borchard and Pam Parry
Greg Borchard thanked everyone for their contribution. He noted that a lot has changed since last year’s business meeting. Much of the plans fell into place for the journal and many of the people helped within the division. Diverse submissions outside of pure “journalism history.” He also noted there was a smooth transition from him to Pam Parry.
Pam Parry: Parry thanked the Publication Committee. Parry noted that she has a philosophy coming in as an outside person to first “do no harm.” She wants to to recruit heavily from the conference and create buzz about the journal. She noted that she invited 500 people to like the journal’s Facebook page, and 100 people did. She also noted that the board of the Stars and Stripes Museum provided a notice about the journal. She said she is very honored take on the journal.
Website Update: Pribanic-Smith
Pribanic-Smith noted that there is content related to the journal and books reviewed in the journal. There is new content including podcasts going forward. Views have come from 109 countries, with the following top 5: U.S., UK, Canada, Germany and Spain. She noted there is a paper call for the upcoming essay series about the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Finneman: Podcast. Finneman noted there were 1,800 downloads of the podcast in the last 30 days, with about 11,000 downloads to date. Great worldwide downloads. She again encouraged members to use the podcast in their classrooms
Book reviews: Finneman noted that she and Garza had discussed the backlog in getting book reviews into the journal. There are so many that it’s taking many months to get them published, which is problematic for both the book author and the reviewer for tenure packet purposes.
Finneman discussed the various scenarios of how to handle this problem, ranging from leave it as is to moving all of the book reviews online to our own Journalism History website where they can be published much more quickly. There was also discussion of having short abstracts of the reviews in the printed journal that then refer to the website to read the whole review.
After discussion, there is now a new plan to pull book reviews from the printed journal and place them on our own Journalism History website managed by Pribanic-Smith, with Parry able to use a few journal pages to refer to them online. This will allow for publishing in real time and open public access. Members also discussed having a more formal look to the reviews, and Pribanic-Smith mentioned the possibility of having a PDF version of the review on the website that has a more formal look. Members agreed to move forward, and a committee will meet to work out the details of moving forward with publishing our own book reviews on our own website.
AEJMC 2020 Conference Update: Finneman
The division conference statistics were as follows:
47 papers submitted total
19 of which submitted by students
49 judges
Accepted 23 papers overall, or 49 percent, which broke down as:
— 14 of 28 faculty papers (50 percent)
— 9 of 19 student papers (47 percent)
Conference Feedback Provided by Members:
A member noted programming has been good and timely. Commendation for Finneman and Mari.
A member noted engagement session has been fantastic, and attendance and chats have been fantastic.
A member noted that they missed the one on one. Gotten more out of the session because it’s about the research.
A member noted they liked the idea and listen[ed] to the sessions.
Amber Roessner noted frustration over research and support for abstract submissions.
The division did not need to vote on a new city for a future conference since San Francisco will automatically be the host site in 2025.
Research Awards:
First-Place Faculty Paper: Natascha Roelsgaard and Mike Sweeney
First-Place Student Paper (and Diversity Award winner): Carolina Velloso
Second-Place Faculty Paper: Ali Mohamed
Second-Place Student Paper: Christopher T. Assaf
Third-Place Faculty Paper: Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State
Third-Place Student Paper: Kate Yanchulis, University of Maryland
The Top Extended Abstract Award went to Meghan McCune and John Maxwell Hamilton, (Louisiana State)
Finneman noted that Maddie Liseblad of Middle Tennessee State University was placed in nomination for second vice chair.
Other nominations from the floor: None
Motion to Close Nominations: Jon Marshall
Second: Dave Davies
Voting link given. Unanimous vote for Liseblad.
Auction
The division also auctioned a Mike Sweeney typewriter painting to raise money for the podcast. The painting was sold for $380 to Dale Cressman.
Incoming Chair Statement: Will Mari
Mari’s goals for the year:
1) Support our members during a challenging year
2) Build on/reinforce existing initiatives and programs
3) Increase our outreach/connection(s) to the international media-history community
4) Increase our outreach to related fields and the community of historians of media technology
5) Hold a 2021 AEJMC pre-conference at a HBCU campus
2020 leadership team announced.
Will Mari-Chair
Cayce Myers-Vice Chair and Programing Chair
Maddie Liseblad-Research Chair
Announcements:
AJHA promoted for September.
Motion to Close Meeting: Paulette Kilmer
Dale Cressman seconded.
Motion Passed, Meeting Adjourned 8 p.m. PT
Appendix:
Award winners recognized during the division’s earlier awards gala were:
Jinx Brossard for the establishment of the Jinx Coleman Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History. This year’s winners were:
Lisa Burns, Quinnipiac
Elisabeth Fondren, St. John’s
Andrew Offenburger, Miami University
Joe Saltzman, USC Annenberg
Pamela Walck, Duquesne
Donald Shaw for the establishment of the Donald Shaw Senior Scholar Award. This year’s winners was Maurine Beasley, Maryland
The Dicken-Garcia Award went to Mark Mayfield (Alabama) with advisers Chris Roberts and Dianne Bragg.
The Covert Award went to Katie Day Good (Miami).
The Sweeney Award went to Ronald Zboray and Mary Zboray (Pittsburgh).
The Best Podcast Guest Award went to Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State)
Exceptional Service to the History Division: Madeleine Liseblad (Middle Tennessee) and
Perry Parks (Michigan State).
The Book Award went to Will Slauter (Universite de Paris). The runner-up was Aimee Edmondson (Ohio).
Submitted by Cayce Myers and Teri Finneman
