The History Division leadership has finalized the panel selections for the 2019 AEJMC conference in Toronto.

This year was competitive, with 13 panel proposals submitted by our division members, two suggested by outside divisions/groups, and seven open slots. Furthermore, as discussed at our division business meeting in August, we needed to put more emphasis on PF&R and Teaching this year after being so Research heavy lately.

All of the selected panels were ones submitted by our own members and selected after negotiations with other divisions/groups.

We had so many good proposals, and the podcast team will look into doing episodes on many of them, including those not selected for the conference.

Here are brief details of the seven panel deals we made:

1. Using Media History to Contextualize Current Events: Providing a More Nuanced Understanding of Today’s News

PF&R

Co-sponsor: CCSD – Cultural and Critical Studies

Session summary

In a 24-7 news cycle dominated by “breaking news” and the latest presidential tweet storm, journalists often feel pressured to get stories online or on the air immediately. This constant crisis mode approach to reporting, which has increased during the Trump era, can be overwhelming to journalists and their audiences. This panel will examine how understanding media history can help journalists, citizens, students, and faculty contextualize current events.

Moderator: Melita Garza, Texas Christian

Panelists:

Lisa M. Burns, Quinnipiac

Melita Garza, Texas Christian

Chelsea Reynolds, California State, Fullerton

Katie Foss, Middle Tennessee

TBD, TBD – Canadian journalist

 

2. Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History

Teaching

This is our new teaching competition, with winners to be announced in early 2019. See the entry rules here.

Session summary

This teaching panel features innovative ideas and best practices that journalism educators and media historians use in classrooms. Panelists will be winners of a teaching-idea competition open to people from all divisions and sponsored by the History Division.

Moderator: Kristin Gustafson, University of Washington Bothell

Potential panelists

TBD, TBD

TBD, TBD

TBD, TBD

TBD, TBD

TBD, TBD

 

3. Don’t Count the Articles: Assessing Diversity and Breadth of Historiographical Research

Research

Co-sponsor: COAF – Council of Affiliates

Session summary

Historical research spans AEJMC’s divisions, interest groups, and commissions. However, reviewers and readers struggle to understand the different types of research methodologies that historians employ. This panel seeks to bring understanding to historiography so that reviewers and readers can better understand the important role that historical research plays in creating context to help us understand our disciplines and the numbers that make up big data social science research today.

Moderator: Erika Pribanic-Smith, UT-Arlington

Panelists:

Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State

Candi S. Carter Olson, Utah State

Pamela E. Walck, Duquesne

Will Mari, Northwest

 

4. From Emma Goldman to the Marketplace of Ideas: Marking the 100th Anniversary of Free Speech at the Supreme Court

PF&R

Co-sponsor: LAWP  —   Law & Policy

Session summary

Emma Goldman’s anti-war statements landed her in a federal courtroom in 1917. Her widely publicized trial, and appeal before the Supreme Court, was the first of a wave of cases that, fueled by the Espionage Act of 1917, pushed the Supreme Court to squarely address the First Amendment promise of freedom of expression for the first time.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s opinion for the Court in Schenck v. United States in March 1919 provided the clear and present danger test and the court’s first clear statement about the meaning of the First Amendment. In the fall of that year, his groundbreaking dissent in Abrams v. United States introduced the marketplace of ideas theory of the First Amendment, which remains the Court’s dominant tool for communicating how it understands freedom of expression.

This panel will mark the 100th anniversary of this crucial moment.

Moderator: Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas, Arlington

Panelists:

Erin Coyle, LSU

Jared Schroeder, SMU

Brooke Kroeger, NYU

Jeff Smith, UWM

 

5. Walking Tall and Carrying Words: A History of Violence Against the Media

Research

Co-sponsor: MCSD – Mass Communication and Society

Session summary

The current spate of violence against the media isn’t new. It didn’t begin with Trump’s presidency, nor will it end with him. The journalistic eras of partisan, personal, yellow, jazz, minority and new have their heroes who suffered and sometimes died, and the reprobates who attacked, killed, and maimed journalists. Despite such tragedies, American journalists continue to die for the principles of truth, freedom and democracy. This panel looks at and analyzes the long history of perpetrators who have attacked the media.

Moderator: Nan Yu, Central Florida

Panelists:

Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Arizona State

Caryl Cooper, Alabama

Lillie M. Fears, Arkansas State

Cathy M. Jackson, Norfolk State

 

6. Ethics Versus Propaganda in the Age of Trump: Lessons for Strategic Communicators

PF&R

Co-sponsor: ADVD – Advertising

Session summary

This panel will explore how strategic communication in the age of Trump, and direct messaging through social media, may have slipped the bounds of traditional ethics codes. If this is so, in what ways has it followed the historical patterns of propaganda, whether consciously or not? What lessons can history offer strategic communicators interested in carving out an ethical path forward? What can professional industry associations do?

Moderator: Doug Cummings, Washington & Lee

Potential panelists:

Wendy Melillo, American

Jami Fullerton, Oklahoma State

Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist

Ross Collins, North Dakota State

Michael Socolow, Maine

Industry rep, TBD

 

7. Votes for Women Then and Now: Teaching Suffrage in the Media Classroom

Teaching

Co-Sponsor: CSWM  —   Commission on the Status of Women

Session summary

2019 marks the beginning of a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. States around the country will host events to recognize the anniversary, but how can we cover this in the classroom? This panel provides lecture, assignment, and interdisciplinary collaboration ideas to incorporate suffrage and women’s history into your teaching this year and beyond.

Moderator: Carolyn Kitch, Temple

Panelists:

Candi Carter Olson, Utah State

Teri Finneman, Kansas

Melony Shemberger, Murray State

Jane Singer, City, University of London

Cathy Bullock, Utah State