By Rachel Grant, Membership Co-Chair, University of Florida, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu
Matt Cecil (Minnesota State University, Mankato) was named Interim Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs on Jan. 13, 2020.
Teri Finneman (University of Kansas) and Will Mari (Louisiana State University) have received $500 grants each from the South Dakota, Kansas and Arkansas newspaper associations to do an oral history project examining the impact of the pandemic on community journalism in middle America. They plan to expand to working with seven states in the coming weeks.
Karen Russell (University of Georgia) published her book titled “Promoted Monopoly: AT&T and the Politics of Public Relations, 1876- 1941.”
Abstract: Since the invention of the telephone in 1876, publicity has been central to the growth of the industry. In its earliest years the Bell company enjoyed a patent monopoly, but after Alexander Graham Bell’s patents expired, it had to fight competitors, the public, and the U.S. government to maintain control of the telephone network. It used every means its executives could imagine, and that included constructing one of the earliest and most effective public relations programs of its time. This book analyzes the development of public relations at AT&T, starting with a previously forgotten publicist, William A. Hovey, and then including James D. Ellsworth and Arthur W. Page, who worked with other Bell executives to create a company where public relations permeated almost every aspect of work, leveraging employee programs, stock sales, and technological research for PR. Critics accused it of disseminating propaganda, but the desire to promote and protect the Bell monopoly propelled the creation of a corporate public relations program that also shaped the legal, political, media, and cultural landscape.