By Will Mari

Hi folks,

This is just a brief check-in note as we finish up spring semester (and soon, spring quarter, for those on that system!)—good luck to everyone. It’s been an exceptionally trying, tiring year, but the continuing vaccine news is helping make things brighter, and we’re looking forward to our summer conference. It is online, and will last from Aug. 4-7 (with our awards gala on the night before, on Aug. 3!).

If you haven’t had a chance to, check out the conference site and make sure to register: http://aejmc.org/events/virtual21/. Registration is very affordable this year, at $69 for regular members and $39 for student members, before July 23. If you haven’t renewed your membership, please do so soon—Cayce, Maddie and I are working hard to make sure the conference provides a great mix of scholarship and support for our community. The division’s annual business meeting will take place during the conference, as well—standby for more info on our programming this summer as we finish the paper competition and set the rest of our schedule.

Speaking of which, thank you to all those who have served on a committee, who have worked as a judge or reviewer, or have otherwise supported the division over this past academic year. We literally could not have done this work without you. As we finish the paper-selection process, I should spotlight once more the great work that Maddie Liseblad has done for us, with organizing that part of the conference in her role as research chair.

As I look to pass the baton to Cayce, and finishing my time as chair in August, I’ll be working on my remaining chair goals. Those include outreach to our international partners, including at ICA’s Communication History division. I’ll hope to see some of you at their conference later in May.

Please be thinking ahead to our sibling organization, the American Journalism Historians’ Association, and their call for papers, panels, and research-in-progress abstracts, due on June 15: https://ajha.wildapricot.org/2021_Paper_Call. Especially if you could not submit something to our conference, they are a really fine group of friends and colleagues, so please check them out.

Finally, a huge shout-out is due to Keith Greenwood, for his work on getting our new site up and running: http://mediahistorydivision.com/. We’ll be working on transferring more content over, and the old site should still work for a while, but the new one, as approved by the division last year, is much more secure (definitely something that’s been an issue lately with other nonprofit pages), easier to update and will allow for more continuity, between leadership teams. 

Please keep an eye out for more award announcements on our @AEJHistory Twitter and History Division Facebook page, as well as to that revamped site.

#Mediahistorymatters and so does your work. Please check in with me at wmari1@lsu.edu, wtmari@gmail.com, or @willthewordguy, if you need anything or have any questions or suggestions.