Chair Rachel Grant (Florida) offered a welcome to the 35 members in attendance. Minutes from last year’s division business meeting were approved unanimously.
Leadership presented an overview of the division’s work during the past year: updating the AEJMC Community page for the division, maintaining the website minus a web administrator, continuing to expand international reach and membership, and celebrating 50 years of Journalism History, the division’s journal. There were no questions. Maddie Liseblad voiced the need for a website administrator.
Book Committee: Gwyneth Mellinger (James Madison) could not join the meeting so Chair Grant reported on behalf of the Book Committee. Book Award winner Ken Ward (Pittsburg State) was recognized along with runner-up Josh Sheppard (Colorado). The committee noted a dip in submissions and nominations across all awards. Notable, because we have nearly 200 members and should not have a problem receiving quality nominations for division awards.
Senior Scholar Award Committee: Amber Roessner (Tennessee) also could not join the meeting so Chair Grant reported on behalf of the Senior Scholar Award Committee, recognizing Linda Lumsden (Arizona) as this year’s Shaw Senior Scholar award winner.
Covert Award Committee: Elisabeth Fondren (St. John’s) was also unable to join the meeting. Chair Grant reported on behalf of the Covert Award Committee, recognizing Daniel DeFraia (Emerson) as this year’s winner.
Mentorship Committee: Lisa Burns (Quinnipiac) reported on the work of the Mentorship Committee, noting this year there were four pairings for the mentorship program, down from 10 the previous year and 13 pairings the year before. Burns said there is a need for more mentors and mentees and encouraged membership to participate in this valuable program. The program will continue for the next year and if numbers are still down, the committee will re-evaluate whether to continue offering the program.
Teaching Award Committee: Bailey Dick (Bowling Green) offered a report for the Teaching Award Committee, thanking committee members and recognizing this year’s winners: A.J. Bauer (Alabama), Erin Coyle (Temple), Michael Fulhage (Wayne State), and John Vilanova (Lehigh). Dick also offered discussion on ways to boost submissions including possibly “tweaking” the call including possibly broadening the scope of the call.
PF&R Committee: Jason Guthrie (Clayton State) reported for the PF&R Committee announcing the winner of this year’s Diversity Award, Beth Knobel (Fordham). Guthrie also promoted two panels for the upcoming conference in August, as well as noting that the division was selected for the Theory Colloquium at this year’s conference.
Southeast Colloquium/Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference: Chair Grant reported on this year’s Southeast Colloquium held March 7-9 at the University of Kentucky as well as the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC) held March 15 at the University of Maryland. Thirty-nine people attended the JJCHC, registration was $80 (no fee for graduate students), the submission acceptance rate was 79% including one panel, four papers, and 22 research-in-progress proposals submitted. Ira Chinoy was the keynote speaker.
Membership Committee: Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen (Idaho) reported for the Membership Committee and Clio newsletter. Six issues produced this year with each issue containing several recurring features including a column from the division chair, member Q&A, book Q&A (renamed Research Q&A), and member news as well as announcements of interest to division membership. The membership committee also sought to boost membership by reaching out to former members who had not renewed their membership. As of June 2024, the division records 182 members.
Members were strongly encouraged to self-nominate/advocate for inclusion in Clio. Cieslik-Miskimen closed by thanking fellow committee members.
Publications Committee: Perry Parks (Michigan State), incoming editor of Journalism History, introduced himself and announced new members joining the JH team. Parks and outgoing editor Pam Perry discussed the new Scholar One system, noting the journal has enough accepted submissions to fill the next two-and-a-half issues of the journal.
Sonya DiPalma (North Carolina-Asheville), book review editor, shared information about publishing monthly reviews online and the value of having reviewers from international institutions in addition to U.S.-based institutions. DiPalma also discussed the range of topics including vinyl records, P.R. icons and activism among others and offered thoughts on the value of book reviews keeping in mind the journal’s fiftieth anniversary.
Lexie Little (Georgia), online content coordinator, shared details of the year’s content: nine published book reviews, eleven podcast episodes, and three essays. Little also shared information highlighting the journal’s fiftieth anniversary with the announcement of open access articles and updates to provide more clarity for new readers. Through May, online content had 35, 338 unique page views from thirty-one countries with top views breaking out in the following manner: U.S. (27,793), U.K. (820), Canada (741), India (481), Australia (336), Italy (240), Germany (228), and the Philippines (225).
Willie Tubbs (West Florida), essay coordinator, discussed this year’s focus on the history and importance of the sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, announcing Melita Garza (Illinois) as this year’s contest winner with her examination of Ruben Salazar and the Mexican-American struggle. Garza’s essay and two additional top essays were featured in the September journal issue with other essays posted online.
Submission and peer review trends from 2020 through the current year were reviewed, highlighting the need to encourage and seek out more submissions to the journal as well as the need for more members to serve as reviewers. Also highlighted, top institutions by download during the past twelve months with California State University Long Beach topping the list with 480 downloads. In closing, Perry noted several positives, noting that as we celebrate the journal’s fiftieth anniversary it is financially stable and, again, noting the move to Scholar One as a positive for the journal’s future along with the recruitment of international reviewers. Also noted, the content generated through competitive micro grants, the work being done on a new contract with Taylor & Francis, the ongoing good work of the podcast, and discussion of format-free submission to the journal.
Lastly, winners of this year’s Sweeney Award for outstanding article, Best Podcast Guest, and the Reilly Award were announced. Still to work on, the journal’s impact factor and the need to cite each other in our scholarship. A brief discussion of open access and whether universities/institutions would be willing to pay for access. A final thank you to those who work to make the journals a success.
Journalism History Podcast: Teri Finneman updated on the Journalism History Podcast from June/July 2024: 72,079 audio downloads, 60,365 transcript reads, and 132,450 lifetime interactions. Noted highlights: the 150th original episode aired this month, 32,680 interactions mid-May 2023 to late-April 2024, a 41 percent increase in transcript reads from prior year, and averages of 424 downloads and 364 transcript reads per episode, totaling 788. The “Why Does Journalism History Matter” episode shows 2,801 downloads and 3,520 transcript reads totaling 6,321.
In announcing the end of new podcast production with 155 episodes, Teri noted that is has lasted longer than many well-known television series and in closing offered a thank you to hosts Nick Hirshon (William Paterson), Ken Ward, and Will Mari (Louisiana State) alongside support staff including Erika Pribanic-Smith (Texas-Arlington), Perry Parks, Lexie Little and countless others on audio and social media. A final thank you to Mike Sweeney, all of the guests, donors who support the work, and those who use the podcast in their courses. What’s next? The final show “Journalism History Matters” airs in December, the show will stay live indefinitely, the teaching guide will continue, availability for tenure packet help, catalog promotions will continue, and maybe down the road consider a reboot.
Research: Melissa Greene-Blye (Kansas), this year’s research chair, noted there was an uptick in submissions with a total of 42: 29 full paper submissions and 13 extended abstract submissions. There was a 55 percent acceptance rate for papers and a 38 percent acceptance rate for extended abstracts. It was a robust year for student submissions with an acceptance rate of 43 percent. The division continues to benefit from membership’s commitment to service with 24 members agreeing to review papers and abstracts and averaging three reviews per reviewer.
Panel Programming: Brian Creech (Lehigh), vice chair, discussed panels for the upcoming conference noting that the History Division received five panel submissions and found partner divisions willing to co-sponsor three of those panels: Commission on the Status of Minorities, Magazine Media Division, and the International Communication Division. The division joined as co-sponsor on three additional panels organized by the Magazine Media Division, the Community Journalism Interest Group, and Law and Policy Division. Brian also promoted the methods pre-conference session.
Report from the chair: Rachel reviewed her goals as chair for this year: increasing diversity in membership and research, strengthening connections with other media/communication history organizations such as ICA and other AEJMC divisions, and creating an advocacy space for the impact and importance of history. Rachel also encouraged membership to repost division information on social media platforms.
Division finances showed beginning funds as of October 1, 2023 in the amount of $26,986.97 and currently $28,544.47 (including awards).
In elections: Autumn Linford (Auburn) with no nominations from the floor, was elected incoming research chair and Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen (Idaho) with no nominations from the floor was elected incoming program chair.
Rachel encouraged membership to register for the division gala at AEJMC.
Brian outlined his goals as incoming division chair including: continuing to reach out to new scholars and build upon the division’s strengths, support a smooth editor transition for the division journal, continue work to reinforce the division’s membership with active outreach on scholars who have let membership lapse during the pandemic and beyond, continue to support and advocate for the role of diverse voices and perspectives in the field, and continue to advocate for the importance of history within journalism, media, and communication within the study of history.
Rachel concluded with a discussion of open positions for next year.
Additional items: Brian discussed the website and the need to remove its billing from a personal credit card, noting the division needs a better email option and that the site is more archival as the web presence becomes more centralized in AEJMC.
Maddie suggested the need to rethink the past and current chair serve on the Covert committee as that is a lot to do on top of responsibilities as chair.
Melissa mentioned that there would be an interest meeting at this year’s conference to explore the formation of an Indigenous Scholars Committee within AEJMC.
Teri inquired about voting on the next conference site and Rachel explained that was not happening as it had in the past due to ongoing site obligations due to the need to go virtual during the pandemic.
Rachel closed the meeting.