Kim Voss (Professor, University of Central Florida) and Josie Vine (Senior Lecturer, RMIT University, Australia) are current participants in the History Division’s mentorship program, which pairs junior scholars with a senior scholar mentor who can offer advice and support on all aspects of academic life, from teaching to research to work/life balance. Voss and Vine discuss the benefits of the program in this Q+A.
Kim Voss
Why did you decide to apply to participate in the mentorship program?
Voss: I decided to participate because I have had such good mentors. I now appreciate helping others. This is my third year in the program and I have enjoyed each experience. It’s been a great reminder of the joys and challenges from previous years. I look forward to the emails and phone calls.
Bailey G. Dick of Bowling Green State University has won the 2025 Michael S. Sweeney Award for her article, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Women: Benevolent Sexism in Historical Studies of Women Journalists, 1974–2023.”
The Sweeney Award, presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. The Division’s Publications Committee selected the article from among five finalists provided by Journalism History’s current Editor Perry Parks and immediate past Editor Pam Parry. In addition to receiving a plaque and cash prize, Dick will be honored during the History Division’s awards gala at this year’s AEJMC conference in San Francisco.
University Affiliations: Quinnipiac University, University of Kansas
Research Focus: U.S. First Ladies
1. What is the primary focus or central question (s) of your history research? Explain.
Lisa Burns, associate professor of media studies, Quinnipiac University
Lisa: My motivation is recovering the stories of women whose contributions have been either minimized in our collective memory or forgotten entirely. This often happens with presidential spouses. I was excited to work with Teri on The Cambridge Companion To U.S. First Ladies because we’re taking a different approach to telling these women’s stories. Instead of the typical biographical approach focusing on individual women, this book is a collection of thematic essays examining the first lady institution and the political, social, and cultural influence of the women who’ve served in this role. The result is a more nuanced understanding of how these women have built upon each other’s work to shape the first lady institution and the expectations associated with the position.
Teri: Lisa and I are very focused on public education with our work. We created this book knowing we would do a fair share of speaking about it to the general public. Also, I created a podcast called The First Ladies to tie into the book for that reason. There is a strong niche audience for first ladies and presidential studies, so a key focus was creating content that they would find new and interesting to learn.
Karen Miller Russell of the University of Georgia is the winner of the 2024 Best Podcast Guest Award from Journalism History.
Russell is the guest of “Episode 139: PR and Crime Novels,” which released in April. It was the top-rated episode of the year, drawing over 500 downloads and transcript reads.
Karen Miller Russell is the winner of the 2024 Best Podcast Guest Award from Journalism History.
“I’m delighted that my episode has been recognized by the Journalism History podcast because I think both public relations and popular culture are important but sometimes overlooked topics in media history,” Russell said. “I hope this encourages other scholars to consider working in these areas going forward—if nothing else, it’s a lot of fun.”
Matthew is a professor emeritus in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on social and cultural history, and his most recent book isThe Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine (University of Illinois Press, 2024).
What is the primary focus or central question(s) of your history research?
My new book The Krebiozen Hoax focuses on an alleged cancer treatment of the 1950s and 1960s that was rejected by doctors and medical agencies but embraced by many cancer patients and people in good health. The treatment’s rise and fall took place against the backdrop of America’s never-ending suspicion of educational, scientific, and medical expertise. The book explores how people readily believe misinformation and struggle to maintain hope in the face of grave threats to well-being.
Assistant Professor of Journalism, Auburn University
What is your favorite class to teach?
Journalism history! I’m even more thrilled than usual, because next fall I have been approved to teach a Women in Journalism History course to be cross listed with the Women and Gender Studies department!
What is your current research project?
I am currently finishing up a book about newsgirls and papergirls. The book, Extra! A History of America’s Girl Newsies, is in peer review now and should (hopefully!) be out sometime in 2025.
Fun fact about yourself?
I don’t really believe in soulmates, but if I did, mine would be my extraordinarily large dog named SunSpot. He’s a Briard (a French sheepdog), he has fluffy long blond hair, and it’s like he was built in every way to be mine. I bring him with me everywhere I am legally allowed.
Lisa is an assistant professor at Indiana University
Lisa D. Lenoir (Indiana) received Indiana University’s Presidential Arts and Humanities Fellows Program award to advance her research on the life and career of The Chicago Defender’s Mattie Smith Colin. The fellows program supports IU faculty with promise to be national and international leaders in their discipline. Lenoir’s research focuses on media discourses surrounding journalism, activism, and identity, and consumer culture.
The 2024-2025 fellowship features a $50,000 grant, which allows her to host scholars and to conduct archival and oral history work to bring Colin’s work to the forefront, focusing on the journalist’s career from 1950-2002. Colin is known for covering the return of Emmett Till’s body from Money, Mississippi to Chicago, a critical moment in the long Black civil rights struggle. In addition, the journalist worked as a food and fashion editor. Lenoir knew Colin during her tenure in Chicago, while working as a fashion editor for the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Mattie Smith Colin Project has been generously supported by grants from AEJMC’s Commission on the Status of Women and the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).
Tom is a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University
Tom Mascaro (Bowling Green) has co-authored a revised edition of William Porter’s 1976 classic, Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years, Updated with Analysis of 21st Century Threats to Democracy (University of Michigan Press). The expanded version includes several new chapters, additional Documents of Significance, several key analyses of First Amendment issues, and a critique of the role of academe in the pursuit of rampant authoritarianism.
Do you have member news to share? Send your updates for the next Clio to Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen at caitlinc@uidaho.edu.
Ford is a distinguished professor in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Ashley is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Saint Louis University. The two recently published the book How America Gets the News: A History of US Journalism(Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).
1. What is the primary focus or central question (s) of your history research? Explain.
Ford is a distinguished professor journalism at Penn State University
While our individual research is focused on two separate subjects—Ford examines Civil War era journalism and Ashley researches women’s media history—we are both broadly concerned with questions surrounding media production and media consumption.
Our coauthored book, How America Get the News: A History of U.S. Journalism, is a concise history of American journalism—including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and digital—and introduces readers to the news media from the first colonial newspapers to today’s news conglomerates and the rise of the digital media.
Where are you currently getting your Ph.D. and/or what is your current position?
I am finishing up my dissertation at the University of Missouri, which I will defend in the Fall. In addition to finishing up my dissertation, I will start as an assistant professor at in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis this Fall.
What brought you to grad school?
As a young undergrad student, I grew a love of research through the McNair Scholars program. Engaging with my mentors in the program showed me what I wanted to do with my career. Entering grad school, my goals were reaffirmed by learning from the faculty at Ohio University. From there, I decided to return to my undergraduate alma mater to finish my PhD and once again learn from the faculty that first encouraged me in my journey.
The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) announced Noah Arceneaux (San Diego State University) will become the new editor of the Journal of Radio & Audio Media. The journal publishes research on radio’s contemporary and historical subject matter, and the audio media that have challenged radio’s traditional use.
