Check in from the chair, July 2021

Hi folks!

I hope that your summers are off to a good start, and that we can all catch our collective breath a bit.

It almost goes without saying that summers still mean work for scholars, and even in a pandemic-recovery season, that includes catching up on much-needed research, service, reading, writing and even getting in some extra teaching. Our community continues to impress me in its resilience, resolve and grace with all these endeavors. Recently, I was on a road trip to see my mom in Seattle and got a chance to meet (safely!) with a few of our members. I’ll just say this: you rock.

A couple of quick reminders before I proceed: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you to please renew your membership if you haven’t done so yet, and to please register for the conference. It is online, Aug. 4-7, with our awards gala the night of Aug 3, at 7 p.m.; our general membership meeting is at 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 5. Registration remains just $69 for regular members and $39 for student members, before July 23.

Cayce, Maddie, myself and the rest of the leadership team are excited for what we have in store, but we are also aware that we’re all more than a little Zoomed out, and so I can promise a straightforward experience, with an emphasis on breaks and starting/stopping at reasonable hours, as far as possible.

As this is my penultimate column—past chair Erika Pribanic-Smith will have a *final* word from me in our wonderful conference guide, which she is again graciously producing for us and which will be available in July, ahead of the conference—I just wanted to say a brief word of thanks for all the hardworking volunteers who have reviewed, signed on as moderators and discussants, served on committees, helped with initiatives, wrote emails, posted to our social-media channels, answered my often-tiresome queries and generally selflessly gave of themselves. Thank you!

We have continued a number of important efforts from last year, despite the pandemic, including our mentorship program, our teaching competition, our inclusion of grad students, our web site’s revamp, our various new awards, our journal’s healthy relationship with Taylor & Francis, and, of course, our awesome podcast, among other projects and programs. My time as chair has focused on supporting you during the pandemic in as many concrete ways as possible, and I hope I have succeeded in that. I have again realized my (many!) limitations, but you continue to inspire me.

We’ll be honoring a number of you at the conference with specific shoutouts, but I wanted to specifically recognize both Maddie and Cayce, for all their help, in matters large and small, throughout the year. They’ll do wonderful work as your new vice chair and chair, respectively.

I am filled with optimism and gratitude that the division will be in truly capable hands next year and beyond, and I am increasingly confident that we will be able to return in person, as well, to Detroit.

Finally, I’m grateful for our immediate past chair Teri Finneman’s encouragement and advice—she has acted as liaison for our journal, but has also been a critical sounding board for me and your other division leaders—thank you!

Look for more conference-specific highlights from me in my final column in the conference guide, which we’ll post to social media and to our listserv, but see other updates on our site, https://mediahistorydivision.com/, and again on @AEJHistory Twitter and our Facebook page.

Please reach out to me at wmari1@lsu.edu, wtmari@gmail.com, or @willthewordguy, if you need anything, or just want to say “hi” as I wrap up my time as your division head.

It has been my great honor to have been your chair. Keep up the great work—#mediahistorymatters.

Clio Book Q & A: John Maxwell Hamilton

Name: John Maxwell Hamilton

University Affiliation and Position: Louisiana State University, Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor of Journalism

Book Title:  Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda 

  1. Describe the focus of your book. 

This book is about the profound and enduring threat to American democracy that rose out of the Great War – the establishment of pervasive, systematic propaganda as an instrument of the state. That horrific conflict required the mobilization of entire nations, no less in the United States than in Europe. The government in Washington exercised unprecedented power to shape the views and attitudes of the citizens it was supposed to serve. Its agent for this was the Committee on Public Information, the first and only time the United States government had a ministry of propaganda. Nothing like it had existed before, and it would be dismantled at the end of the war. But the CPI endured as a “blueprint” for the Information State that exists today in peace time as well as during war.

  1. How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

The story of the CPI is a sprawling one that had not been told fully. It deserved to be. The few histories of it that have been written passed over congressional inquiries into its practices, its failures in field propaganda, its heavy-handed promotion of White Russian disinformation, and its bizarre (there is no better word) end-of-war mission to Central Europe, to name a few episodes. Not well understood or documented was the CPI’s connection to intelligence agencies, its use of front organizations, or its imaginative and chaotic way of doing business. No connection had been made between political campaigning in Wilson’s election of 1916 and the birth of the CPI in 1917, a connection that shows how campaigns are test kitchens for presidents’ use of their propaganda powers after their secure the White House. No attention had been given to the constitutional irregularly of Wilson’s creation of the CPI by executive order, rather than with congressional authorization, a lapse that put it on uncertain footing from the beginning.

3.What archives or research materials did you use? The full story cannot be found in the CPI records in the National Archives. The archives of organizations with which the CPI interacted, the personal papers of individuals whom it touched, and the records of other countries that waged propaganda at the same time contain invaluable information on what the CPI did to shape views and provide context for reconstructing the conditions shaped it. Altogether I consulted more than 150 collections in the United States and Europe.

  1. How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

Presidents enjoy enormous power to shape public opinion. In some cases this is a matter of bypassing he press. In some cases a matter of using the press.  This book looks at both aspects. I was surprised, by the way, by the extent to which journalists were willing to be used, even if they resented the CPI. I would call this a major finding of the book. The dynamic that existed in the Great War exists today. The Trump administration’s excessive use of is propaganda power added to the relevance of the book, something I had not anticipated when I began to write it.

5. What advice you have for other historians working/starting on book projects 

The same advice that every reporter gets from editors. Always make one more call, if you have time. I sought to turn over every rock – read that as sought to peer into every archive – that I could identify. That is why the book took so long to write.

Check in from the chair, June 2021

By Will Mari

Hi again, everyone,

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely still in recovery mode, post-semester (though I am rooting for our friends still wrapping things up on the quarter system!).

I have been humbled by my limitations over the past year, but especially over the past month or so. Please know I deeply appreciate of you all and your resiliency and community.

I just wanted to check in to encourage you to please renew your membership and register for the conference, if you have not done so—our draft schedule is also out, thanks to the hard work of Maddie and Cayce. We will be following up closer the conference with more details. Thank you to all those who submitted, reviewed or have otherwise volunteered to help.

As a reminder, the conference is online, from Aug. 4-7—though don’t forget that our awards gala will be on the night of Aug 3, at 7 p.m. We’d love to see you at the general membership meeting at 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 5. Registration is till only $69 for regular members and $39 for student members, as long as you sign up before July 23. I’m looking forward to a great conference, and hopefully to next year back in person in Detroit.

A few other quick reminders:

We’ll continue to update you via the listserv, @AEJHistory Twitter and the History Division Facebook page, as well as our new site: https://mediahistorydivision.com/; please know your leadership team is working hard behind the scenes, for you all.

Feel free to drop me a line at wmari1@lsu.edu, wtmari@gmail.com, or @willthewordguy, if you have any questions or just wanted to say “hi.” Take care—#mediahistorymatters.

Member News Round-Up: Kevin Grieves, Vincent DiGirolamo, Amber Roessner, Earnest Perry, Jinx Coleman Broussard, John Maxwell Hamilton

Kevin Grieves (Whitworth University) is pleased to announce the publication of his new book, Cold War Journalism: Between Cold Reception and Common Ground (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). The book explores journalism and journalists of the Cold War era as they were perceived as threats, but also attempts at forging transnational journalistic connections across the Iron Curtain. The book also illuminates efforts to find common journalistic ground within the East and West blocs. The research draws on a range of archival sources, including historical radio and television content.

Vincent DiGirolamo (Baruch College) has been awarded the 2021 Vincent P. DeSantis Prize from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era for Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys (Oxford University Press, 2019). The prestigious prize honors the best first book written on the period 1865 to 1920 published in the previous two years. Crying the News, said the award jury, “sensitively brings to light the experiences, struggles, and influence of a massive group of child laborers who walked the streets of our cities and towns, often unseen if rarely unheard, for more than a century.”

Amber Roessner (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) has won the History Division’s annual Covert Award for her article, “The Voices of Public Opinion: Lingering Structures of Feeling about Women’s Suffrage in 1917 U.S. Newspaper Letters to the Editor.” Her article “offers insight into the production of letters to the editor as an act of strategic communication by suffragists and anti-suffragists, the regulation of letters to the editor by news gatekeepers and agenda-setters, and the consumption of letters to the editor by newspaper readers in 1917, a pivotal year in the decades-long cultural struggle over women’s suffrage.”

Earnest Perry (University of Missouri) has won the AEJMC’s Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity and Research Education. His work includes co-editing Cross-Cultural Journalism and Strategic Communication: Storytelling and Diversity (Routledge, 2020, second edition), with Maria E. Len-Rios.

Jinx Coleman Broussard (Louisiana State University) has won the History Division’s annual Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award for her ground-breaking contributions in the history of journalism and mass communication scholarship, as well as her years of excellence in teaching and mentorship. Her work includes Public Relations and Journalism in Times of Crisis: A Symbiotic Partnership (Peter Lang, 2019), with Andrea Miller;African American Foreign Correspondents: A History (LSU Press, 2013); and Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: Four Pioneering Black Women Journalists (Routledge, 2004).

John Maxwell Hamilton (Louisiana State University) has won the History Division’s annual book award for Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda (LSU Press, 2020). The judges described the book, which examines the Creel Committee’s establishment of a propaganda system and the threat it posed to democracy, as “a magisterial work, comprehensive and highly readable.” 

AJHA Call for Papers/Abstracts/Panels

Good afternoon, everyone, 

I sent this out to our listserv, but also wanted to post this message from Gerry Lanosga, about AJHA’s upcoming CFP:

“AEJMC colleagues,

Many of you are also members of or familiar with the American Journalism Historians Association. But in case you missed it, I wanted to post this quick plug for AJHA’s annual research competition. The deadline is June 15, so there’s still time to polish a paper, put together a panel proposal, or draft a research in progress abstract.

Please check out the call and consider submitting your work.
https://ajha.wildapricot.org/2021_Paper_Call“

Linford Wins 2021 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award

Autumn Linford of the University of North Carolina is the winner of the 2021 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award. The award – presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) – recognizes the outstanding paper in journalism or mass communication history that addresses issues of inclusion and the study of marginalized groups and topics. The award winner is selected from research submitted for the annual conference paper competition.

Autumn Linford
Autumn Linford won both the division’s Top Student Paper Award and the Diversity in Journalism History Research Award.

Linford, a Ph.D. student, also won the division’s Top Student Paper Award for her paper, “Perceptions of Progressive Era Newsgirls: Framing of Girl Newsies by Reformers, Newspapers, and the Public.”

Continue reading →

History Division’s Top Paper Award Winners Announced, Draft Conference Agenda Published

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is announcing that Elizabeth Atwood of Hood College has won this year’s Top Faculty Paper Award. She will receive a plaque and a $100 cash prize for her paper, “Deadline: A History of Journalists Murdered in America.”

Elizabeth Atwood
The History Division’s Top Faculty Paper Award winner is Elizabeth Atwood of Hood College.

The second-place faculty paper award goes to Noah Arceneaux of San Diego State for “Acadian Airwaves: A History of Cajun Radio.”

Third place faculty paper goes to Tamar Gregorian of Tulane University for “The Making Of ‘The Young Budgeter’: The American Girl Magazine’s Role in a Girl Scout’s Life During the Great Depression.”

Continue reading →

Be thinking ahead (already!) for the Dicken-Garcia Award, for 2022!

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will present its award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis in Journalism and Mass Communication History in 2022, recognizing the outstanding mass communication history thesis completed during the 2021 calendar year.

The award will be presented during the member awards gala at the 2022 AEJMC Conference, scheduled for August 2022 in Detroit.

Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia, the pioneering media historian for whom the award is named.

Any master’s thesis on a topic in mass communication history will be considered, regardless of research method. Submissions must be in English. The thesis must have been submitted, defended, and filed in final form to the author’s degree-granting university between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Membership in the AEJMC History Division is not required to submit.

Candidates for the award should submit the following materials:

  • A cover letter with the thesis author’s contact information.
  • A letter of nomination from the thesis chair/director or the chair of the university department in which the thesis was written. The letter should concisely describe the scope and significance of the thesis, including its contribution to the knowledge base of the discipline.
  • A blind copy of the full thesis (including abstract) in PDF form. IMPORTANT: Please make sure that all identifying information—including author, school, and thesis advisor/committee names—have been removed from all parts of the document. Be sure to check not only the title page but also the abstract, dedication/acknowledgements, bio page, and other pages that such identifying information often appears in academic theses.
  • A blind copy of a sample chapter, submitter’s choice, from the thesis, identifying information removed, for first-round competition. This should also be in PDF form.

Nominations, along with all the supporting materials, should be sent to AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Feb. 1, 2022.

Questions should be directed to Dr. Amy Mattson Lauters, chair of the AEJMC History Thesis Award Committee, at AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com.

History Division Names Jinx Coleman Broussard Senior Scholar Recipient

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will honor Dr. Jinx Coleman Broussard as the Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar during the division’s Awards Gala on Aug. 3. Broussard is the Bart R. Swanson Endowed Memorial Professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.

Established in 2020, the award honors a scholar who has a record of excellence in media history that has spanned a minimum of 15 years, including division membership. It is named in honor of the pioneering journalism theoretician, distinguished journalism historian and former head of the History Division, who taught for almost half of a century at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Dr. Jinx Broussard

“We are gratified by the quality of the nominees for this prestigious award, which is only in its second year,” the judges said. “In a wonderful field of nominees, Dr. Jinx Broussard stood out as the perfect choice for this significant award. The depth and breadth of her research, as well as the scholars she has helped to support and inspire, have left an indelible mark on the study of media history. She is a rock star among rock stars, and we are thrilled to select her for this honor.”

Broussard was excited to hear she had won the award.

“I am incredibly honored to receive an award of this magnitude that is named after someone who made a tremendous contribution to journalism and mass communication. I had no idea when I began to conduct research on the Black press while seeking to break new ground in media history, the work would lead me to this recognition.”

She added, “I am ecstatic and grateful to be so recognized and to know that my colleagues and those who conduct impactful scholarship hold me in such esteem. For this, I thank them.”

Broussard left the professional public relations world for higher education in 1997. She teaches public relations, strategic communication, mass communication theory, media history, and pedagogical courses at LSU. Earlier this year, she was named a recipient of the LSU Distinguished Faculty Award. She received the LSU Rainmaker senior scholar award the previous year. In 2018, she won the Scripps Howard Foundation/AEJMC National Teacher of the Year. The History Division also notified her in 2019 that it would name an excellence in teaching award after her: Jinx Coleman Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History.

In 2019, she was the co-author of Public Relations and Journalism in Times of Crisis: A Symbiotic Partnership, released by Peter Lang Publications. Six years before that, she wrote African American Foreign Correspondents: A History, was published by LSU Press and won a national award. She also penned Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: Four Pioneering Black Women Journalists, was published in 2004 by Routledge. Additionally, she has written or co-written several book chapters and journal articles.

The totality of her research was honored with the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University 2019 Guido H. Stempel III Research Award.

Broussard noted, “My passion for removing the veil of obscurity; and uncovering, examining and presenting untold stories will continue as I seek to mentor and motivate others to do the same.”

Some of the scholars nominating Broussard recognize her contribution as a mentor.
Division member Erin Coyle was among the scholars who nominated Broussard, noting that she shared many traits of Donald Shaw.

“Both are innovative scholars who have enriched the field of mass communication history with their extensive bodies of scholarship,” Coyle wrote in her nominations letter. “Dr. Broussard has published three books, six book chapters, and numerous peer-reviewed articles. Her excellent research addressing women, African-Americans, foreign correspondents, and public relations has broken new ground in our field.”

Dr. Broussard will receive a plaque and check for $200 during the division’s Awards Gala in conjunction with the AEJMC annual meeting.

AEJMC History Division Announces Sweeney Award Winner

Wendy Melillo, an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University, has won the 2021 Michael S. Sweeney Award for her article, “Democracy’s Adventure Hero on a New Frontier: Bridging Language in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign, 1961-1970.”

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Sweeney Award recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. In addition to receiving a plaque and cash prize, Melillo will be honored during the History Division’s awards gala at this year’s virtual AEJMC National Convention.

Prof. Wendy Melillo

Melillo’s article, published in the Summer 2020 issue of Journalism History, examined the Ad Council’s public promotion of the Peace Corps in the context of internal deliberative materials drawn from four separate archival collections. Her research demonstrated how the coded language and imagery of the Ad Council’s campaign masked the true purpose of the Peace Corps, which was to blunt the spread of communism throughout the world.

In summing up her manuscript, Melillo said, “We can’t ignore the hidden propaganda in federal government advertising campaigns that are presented to Americans as pure public service.”

The History Division’s Publications Committee selected Melillo’s article from among five finalists provided by Journalism History Editor Gregory Borchard. Committee Chair Gerry Lanosga reported the scores were quite close this year with another group of excellent articles.

About Melillo’s winning essay, the judges commented:
“This fascinating article provides a deep analysis of Peace Corps ads and examines communism and other conceptual frames behind the ads themselves.”

“The author is to be commended for the tedious work put into mining the four archives for evidence of propaganda used in the Kennedy Administration’s Peace Corps advertising campaign. As someone who teaches propaganda in media, I consider this work to be an ideal example to use for teaching propaganda techniques. Good job!”

“This article is sharply written and makes a salient point about the importance of seeing self-serving purposes behind the public service campaigns that we see wrapped in the archetypes of American heroism. I enjoyed reading this and thought the visuals helped to ground the numbers and give an example of the ads so that the text didn’t seem too overwhelming at any one point in time.”

Melillo’s research program focuses on the influence of strategic communication in media and society, and she is author of a 2013 book about the Ad Council’s campaigns, How McGruff and the Crying Indian Changed America. She holds an M.A. in the History of Ideas from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. in International Communications from American University. Previously, she was a reporter for The Washington Post and the business publication Adweek.

The History Division created the Sweeney award in 2018 to honor Michael S. Sweeney, who served as editor of Journalism History from 2012 to 2018 and worked to ensure its future by initiating the transition from an independent publication to the official scholarly publication of the History Division.

“The Sweeney Award represents excellence in mass communication history research, and I am honored to be a part of the community of scholars whose work reflects this proud tradition,” Melillo said. “This award is particularly meaningful for me since Prof. Sweeney has been an important role model for me throughout my academic career.”

The other finalists for the 2021 Sweeney Award were Raymond McCaffrey, “From Baseball Icon to Crusading Columnist: How Jackie Robinson Used His Column in the African-American Press to Continue His Fight for Civil Rights in Sports” (Fall 2020); Vanessa Murphree, “Universal Localism: WWOZ Community Radio, 1980-2006” (Spring 2020); Karlyga Myssayeva and Michael Brown, “Labor Propaganda and the Gulag Press: The Case of Putevka” (Fall 2020); and Ronald Rodgers, “The Social Awakening and the News: A Progressive Era Movement’s Influence on Journalism and Journalists’ Conceptions of Their Roles” (Summer 2020).