From AJHA President Donna Lampkin Stephens and AEJMC History Division Chair Will Mari:

The American Journalism Historians Association and the AEJMC History Division have decided to cancel the 2021 Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC).   

The leadership of AJHA and the History Division have discussed the matter, and we all believe that we need to wait until a vaccine is fully available before holding another JJCHC. 

This is for two reasons: first, as the draw of the conference is the physical place of New York City, and its archives, museums and libraries, we want to focus on providing that experience for our scholars for when going in person is as safe as possible again. And second, by deferring the conference now, and planning ahead to the future, we can better preserve our resources and do a great job when the time comes. To that end, we are still planning on holding the conference in 2022. 

We realize this decision is less than ideal—especially to those who opted to defer last year—which is why we are reaching to those individuals with some options, and they will hear from us shortly.

An alternative mid-year conference for those interested is the SE Colloquium in March, which will be via Zoom or a similar platform.  

Thank you for your understanding, and please let us know if you have questions. 

Will Mari, wmari1@lsu.edu  

Donna Lampkin Stephens, donnals@uca.edu 

By Will Mari

Hi, everyone,

I hope you’re all hanging in there. I don’t have a full column for this month, just some quick updates.

Cayce has done a great job with our panel process—we hope to announce our selections this month (we are waiting on some programming decisions). There was a great deal of negotiation on his part, and working with our sibling divisions, to make things happen, and it was not easy in a year in which folks are feeling understandably crunched. Thank you to all those who sent the division their panel pitches.

If folks are up for it (and as always I am sensitive to limited bandwidth), I’d like to continue Teri’s tradition of hosting a webinar or two, so that we still see and benefit from a virtual panel or two during the academic year. But more on that soon.

As I told our executive board, and as you saw via email and to social media, we had to cancel this year’s Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. You can read that announcement separately in this newsletter, but basically, Maddie, Cayce and I, after talking with our colleagues and fellow leaders at AJHA, Donna Lampkin Stephens, Aimee Edmondson, and Mike Conway, all came to the agreement that it will be safer and smarter to wait another year, and until after we have an effective vaccine and other treatments for coronavirus, to meet in person (with the place of New York being such a critical part of that conference). While disappointed, I appreciate the help of Matt Pressman, our AEJMC co-chair for the conference, and Elisabeth Fondren, our departing co-chair, with facilitating that decision from our end. Scholars who deferred last year are being given some options in the meantime.

For an alternative that will be online in March, I would encourage you to look at the SE Colloquium, and for a hybrid conference option in May, don’t forget our friends at the International Communication Association’s Comm History division. You can read their call for papers and abstracts (as they do have that option) on ICA’s page, here. They pushed their deadline back to Nov. 6, but that’s very soon.

Maddie will have more info on our own paper call closer to the start of the new year. I should also have some updates on pre-conference possibilities, either for next year or beyond.

Finally, I wanted to end with a shout out to our newsletter team, Rachel Grant, Brian Creech and Kathryn McGarr—thank you, for keeping us informed! I am proud of them and the rest of our volunteers, and membership, during a tough time. Congratulations, too, to AJHA, for their successful conference last month.

As we head into the last month or so of the quarter/semester, don’t forget our media-history campaign, #mediahistorymatters—I’m having my students tweet out their observations for their various projects. Think about the podcast competition for your students, as well. As always, you can reach me at wmari1@lsu.edu, wtmari@gmail.com, or @willthewordguy, on Twitter.

Take care,

Will

By Nathaniel Frederick II, PF&R Chair, frederickn@winthrop.edu

The coronavirus pandemic has forced a drastic change in the way of life in the United States. The new normal involves working from home, if possible. More importantly, we must not forget the homeless and other populations that are vulnerable during this time of uncertainty. While anyone can contract the virus, current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups.

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