Matthew C. Ehrlich, an emeritus professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has a new book, Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK (University of Illinois Press). The book focuses on two academic freedom cases at the University of Illinois: a biology professor fired in 1960 after he condoned premarital sex, and a classics professor not fired in 1964 after he claimed that the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy was a loathsome traitor. The book places those two cases in the context of the culture wars of the time and shows how the cases continue to resonate in today’s polarized political climate. The book also highlights the distinction between academic freedom and free speech, as well as the important role of student news media in promoting the open exchange of ideas.
Will Mari, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, has a forthcoming book, Newsrooms and the Disruption of the Internet: A Short History of Disruptive Technologies, 1990-2010 (Routledge, February 2022). It explores how the internet impacted the journalism industry in the 1990s and 2000s and is a sequel to A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies, 1960-1990 (Routledge, 2019), which explored the computerization of the newsroom during the Cold War. (Contact Will for a digital copy of the latter.)
Elisabeth Fondren, an assistant professor at St. John’s University, published “Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda during World War I (1914-1918)” in Journalism & Communication Monographs. Her article chronicles the ideas and methods of early German propagandists, including their secret attempts to copy ideas from their enemies, and how World War I conspiracy theories and publicity lessons carried over to World War II and informed Nazi propaganda. Michael S. Sweeney, Ross F. Collins, and Sarah Oates wrote expert commentaries. In October, Elisabeth was invited to speak at Yale University about her research on archiving media, memory, and propaganda history.
A class lecture by Joe Campbell, a professor at American University, about the media myths of the Washington Post and Watergate was taped by C-SPAN in November and is to be shown in 2022 on the cable network’s “Lectures in History” series. C-SPAN previously has aired Joe’s lectures about the myths of yellow journalism and the Spanish-American War and of the “Cronkite Moment” of 1968. Joe, a former History Division chair, is in his 25th year at American.
Ph.D. Candidate Ashley Walter of Pennsylvania State University
Where you are currently getting your Ph.D.: Penn State University
What brought you into grad school for journalism: I knew I wanted to be a professor while sitting in a media law class during my undergraduate. But, it was important for me to work first. I worked for an alt-weekly, and after a handful of years, I knew it was time for grad school. Luckily for me, in my master’s program, I was randomly paired to work with Pamela Walck, who opened up the journalism history world to me.
Why journalism history: My journalism history origin story starts with historical fiction. As a young girl, I loved the Dear America book series, which looked at a historical event through the eyes of a fictitious young girl. I still love historical fiction, but, as the saying goes, I’ve found that real life is even stranger than fiction. I love finding new stories and figuring out how to tell that story best.
Current research project: I am finishing my dissertation, which looks at sex discrimination class-action lawsuits at press organizations during the 1970s. After the 1964 Civil Rights Act banned sex discrimination, women working at U.S. magazines, newspapers, and wire services sued for equal rights in contentious decades-long battles. It is a project rooted in oral history and sheds light on modern-day inequities inside U.S. newsrooms.
Fun fact about yourself: I love folk music, and I play guitar and sing. I am most attracted to narrative folksongs and have written a few songs based on stories I’ve dug up while researching.
The 47th annual AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, scheduled for March 17-19, 2022, will take place as a hybrid event. You are welcome to join us at University of Memphis or via Zoom.
Do you have some research in progress you would like to workshop? A paper ready to roll? What about a panel idea that is so current you can’t wait to make it happen? You don’t have to wait until Detroit. Authors are invited to submit their work for the 47th annual AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, March 17 -19, 2022, at the University of Memphis and online.
Planned as a hybrid conference, submitters will have the option to present in person or online. Panels will be conducted in person and shared on the conference platform.
Six AEJMC divisions will participate in the annual event: Electronic News, History, Law and Policy, Magazine Media, Newspaper and Online News, and Visual Communication. And there is an Open division as well, so everyone is welcome to participate.
In addition to the research competition, the conference will host a session about academic citizenship to help graduate students and early-career scholars learn some of the skills of presenting at a conference, reviewing research, and networking. We’ll also have a session with Great Ideas For Teaching presentations.
Come to the home of blues and birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll! You will be just in time for the start of spring, so, you can drink iced tea and eat Memphis barbecue while enjoying the warm spring Southern breeze, live music on Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, Sun Studios, Stax Records, the Rock and Soul Museum, and maybe even see an Elvis or two.
Acceptance of papers to colloquium competitions does not prevent authors from submitting to AEJMC divisions for AEJMC’s annual conference in Detroit. Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit their work.
Click here for the paper call and additional info.
Each month, Clio will highlight the latest episode of the Journalism History podcast and recommend a set of episodes from the archives. The podcasts — available on the website and through many podcast players — are excellent teaching tools, easy to add to your syllabi. Transcripts of each episode are available online.
In the latest episode, Professor Kathy Roberts Forde discusses her co-edited book, Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America.
This month, we’re highlighting episodes about television.
Episode 91: Ratings Powerhouses Univision and Telemundo Author Craig Allen describes how Spanish-language television networks Univision and Telemundo became ratings powerhouses by programming a unique mix of news, soccer, telenovelas and variety shows.
Episode 78: The Commercialization of PBS Historian Camille Reyes charts the history of the Public Broadcasting Service as a platform for new ideas and information that has been haunted and hobbled by capitalism and cronyism.
Episode 49: The Made-for-Television Tunnel Escape Historian Mike Conway describes the controversial production of a 1962 NBC documentary that captured the digging of a tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall to sneak East Germans to the West.
And a special Christmas episode that first aired in 2019:
Episode 39: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus The hosts of the Journalism History podcast come together for a special Christmas episode that tells the story of an 8-year-old girl and the most reprinted editorial in the English language.
American Journalism is soliciting submissions of abstracts for think-piece essays to run in special fortieth anniversary issues. We are soliciting original perspectives on the present and future of media history scholarship, written by graduate students and junior (non-tenured) faculty, as part of a broader celebration of the journal.
Submissions may explore a wide range of topics, including the present and future of historiographical frameworks and methodologies, trends in research, challenges facing the scholars of tomorrow, and vision-casting for the future of media history research. Possible essay topics include how particular frameworks or methods could become more popular or less common in coming decades, or how historical scholarship might be impacted by ongoing social and political movements and world events such as the COVID pandemic.
Scholars identifying with and/or researching historically marginalized populations are particularly encouraged to submit their work.
Submission packets should include: 1) an essay abstract of 600 to 800 words, submitted as .doc or .pdf; and
2) a two-page condensed CV that highlights publications, awards, and service roles that reflect the scholar’s contributions to the study of media history.
Digital abstract submissions should be sent to americanjournalismeditor@gmail.com by 11:59 p.m. December 31, 2021.
Submissions will be refereed by a panel of media historians who will judge entries based on the scholar’s standing in the field, the quality of their arguments, and their ability to present views about the past, present, and future of media history that reflect original thinking and promise to stand the test of time.
Selected authors will be invited to submit a full-length, 2,000- to 3,000-word essay for publication in one of a series of anniversary issues commencing in Winter 2023.
Deadline for Abstract Submissions: December 31, 2021 Announcement of Winning Proposals: January 15, 2022 Deadline for Full Essays: August 1, 2022 Expected Commencement of Publication: Winter 2023
For more information or questions about submissions and potential topics, please contact AJ editor Dr. Pamela E. Walck at walckp@duq.edu.
In the History Division we have been hard at work putting together programming for the 2022 convention in Detroit. A big thank you to all of our members who submitted panel proposals for the upcoming national convention. Our Vice Chair Dr. Madeleine Liseblad (California State-Long Beach) is currently working on finalizing that programming with AEJMC, and those who submitted panels should hear back from the division in early 2022.
Members are what make the History Division such a strong unit within AEJMC. However, some of our members may not have received their membership renewal notifications this year. If you have not received your renewal notification, or are unsure of your membership status, please reach out to AEJMC membership directly.
There is a lot going on in History Division. Of particular note is Dr. Terri Finneman’s (Kansas) update on the new submission guidelines for Journalism History, which we believe will provide a greater opportunity for more submissions. As always, there’s exciting podcast recommendations, member news, and profiles.
Finally, many of our members mourn the loss of the legendary scholar-mentor-teacher Dr. Donald Shaw (North Carolina) who passed away on October 19, 2021. Dr. Bradley Hamm (Northwestern) has written a remembrance of Dr. Shaw and the significant role he played in the field of communication and, more importantly, his impact on his many students.
Once again, thank you to all of our members for your continued support of the division. If there is anything that the division leadership can assist with, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America, a new book co-edited by Kathy Roberts Forde, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Sid Bedingfield, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, appears in November. White publishers and editors used their newspapers to build, nurture, and protect white supremacy across the South in the decades after the Civil War. At the same time, a vibrant Black press fought to disrupt these efforts and force the United States to live up to its democratic ideals. Journalism and Jim Crow centers the press as a crucial political actor shaping the rise of the Jim Crow South.
Matthew Pressman is co-editing a volume tentatively titled The Saturday Evening Post Goes to War, examining the history of the magazine’s coverage of conflict. Please view the complete CFP here and consider submitting a proposal or sharing with others. Proposals are due February 14, 2022. Email matthew.pressman@shu.edu with any questions!
Owen Johnson, an associate professor emeritus at Indiana University, will be participating in two events in November: a panel on World War II correspondents with Ray Boomhower of the Indiana Historical Society on November 6 at the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana, Ind.; and a 75th anniversary Zoom celebration of the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University on November 18 on Zoom.
Renowned media scholar Donald Shaw of UNC Hussman passed away on October 19, 2021.
In his heart, Donald Shaw was a historian.
He was known worldwide as co-author of the original Agenda Setting studies. The 1972 article combined journalism, political communication and public opinion research and created perhaps the greatest of the “milestone” communications studies of our lifetime.
Yet Shaw’s focus in the 1960s was an influential study on news bias and the telegraph. He lived intellectually across research fields, a lesson for us all. Years later, he delivered an influential talk on “The Rise and Fall of American Mass Media,” which predicted media fragmentation today based on historical trends. He published on journalism and military history, plus agenda setting, into his 80s.
Shaw died October 19, 2021, after a brief illness.
I met with Shaw at least weekly in Chapel Hill over the past several years. He was my PhD mentor, and we formed a long friendship. A lunch conversation with him could jump across centuries and disciplines, yet he always came back to two core topics: family and research. In our last time together, he was going strong — planning for the 50th anniversary of Agenda Setting, discussing an update of “Rise and Fall,” and excited about the issues of today.
Shaw was unique. His history, particularly his impact, can be told through the stories of the many people he met, mentored and loved.
Fittingly, the top award given at AEJMC in Shaw’s name is in the history division and recognizes lifetime achievement. His traditional academic home remains where he started sixty years ago as a young student at Wisconsin — in journalism and media history.
– Bradley J. Hamm
Donations to the Shaw Senior Scholar Award may be made to AEJMC.
The book looks at how media relations strategies of U.S. first ladies have evolved over the years with a focus on how the relationship between presidential spouses, their staffs, and journalists can shape press coverage. I was fortunate to assemble an amazing team of contributors, including some of the most prominent first ladies scholars. Their chapters examine the media relations of first ladies from Jacqueline Kennedy, who was the first to have a staff member (Pamela Turnure) with the title “press secretary,” to Melania Trump.
Each chapter analyzes the relationship between their first lady and the media, the role played by her press secretary and communications staff in cultivating this relationship, examples of the first lady’s media coverage, and an assessment of how successful the first lady and her staff were in communicating their message through the media to the public. The book also includes a chapter by Maurine Beasley that provides an overview of how presidential wives handled the media before the role of first lady press secretary formalized. My introduction establishes the framework for the collection while Alison Novak’s conclusion summarizes the keys to successful media relations.
How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
My primary research focus has been on media coverage of presidential spouses. My first book, First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives (2008), looked at newspaper and magazine coverage of 20th century first ladies from a feminist rhetorical perspective, which merged my professional background as a journalist with my academic training as a media historian and rhetorical critic. When I teach my Political Communication course at Quinnipiac University, I do so from a strategic communication perspective. This book project brought together my research and teaching interests, offering me a chance to explore how the strategic communication tactics of first ladies and their staffs impacted their media coverage.
I was also inspired by the memoir of Lady Bird Johnson’s press secretary, Liz Carpenter. I think Ruffles and Flourishes is one of the best books about the inner workings of a presidential administration. Carpenter and Johnson set the standard for first lady press relations. They recognized that establishing a good working relationship with reporters would result in largely positive media coverage. While I’ve written about Johnson’s media relations, there’s very little scholarship on other first ladies. So, this book was an attempt to fill that gap in the literature.
What archives or research materials did you use?
The contributors based their analyses of each first lady’s communication strategy on a variety of sources. The presidential libraries were tremendous resources. Some of the archival documents examined included press releases, speech texts, press conference transcripts, memoranda, and notes detailing how the first lady and her staff handled various events and topics. Meanwhile, the oral histories and memoirs of first ladies and their press secretaries detailed how these women assessed their media relations efforts and the resulting press coverage, while books by White House reporters offered journalists’ perspectives on covering first ladies. For some of the chapters, authors interviewed former White House staffers and reporters. I was fortunate to have a few contributors with first-hand experience working with Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, and Nancy Reagan. Examples of media coverage – newspaper and magazine articles, transcripts, and video footage of first lady media appearances – were also examined. Finally, these primary sources were supported with information from books and articles that provided additional insight into the relationship between first ladies, their staffs, and members of the media. I was incredibly impressed with the amount of research we managed to pack into this book.
How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?
I think public relations history is an important part of journalism history, but it’s often treated as its own specialty area. We need more studies that examine the interplay between PR practitioners, journalists, and public figures. In this project, we argue that there is a lot we can learn about media relations, rhetorical strategies, message construction, and image management from looking the communication tactics of first ladies and their press secretaries. There are also interesting gender dynamics to be explored, including the relationships between first ladies, their press secretaries (all but one was female), and the reporters (historically women) who cover the East Wing and how media coverage of presidential spouses highlights shifting social views on gender roles. Finally, first lady media relations reflect how political figures, public relations practitioners, and media professionals have responded to changes in the media industry, including the emergence of new communication outlets reaching audiences interested in politics. For example, Shaniece Bickham’s chapter examines how Michelle Obama and her team leveraged television appearances and social media to control their messaging, which was a very effective strategy.
What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?
My biggest takeaway from this project is that you don’t always need to do it all yourself. While our quantitative colleagues are used to working in teams, we historians tend to toil alone in the archives. I initially wanted to do this as a solo authored book but I knew I didn’t have the time or resources to do the research necessary. So, I shifted to the idea of an edited collection, which ended up being the best decision. My contributors brought such an incredible wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion to each of their chapters. It would have taken me years to compile the impressive amount of research my team was able to do in less than a year. I also enjoyed being an editor and working with each of the authors to shape their chapters. It was a different challenge from being an author, leaving me with a greater respect for scholars willing to lead a project from start to finish. The book is still my vision, but it was truly a team effort and a much better product than if I’d written it on my own. Since completing this project, I’ve done two co-authored chapters and I’m currently working on a third. In the past I was always hesitant to write with someone else, but thanks to the book project, I’ve learned how rewarding collaboration can be.
Assistant Professor and Director of the Center for Ethics in Journalism, School of Journalism and Strategic Media, University of Arkansas
Where you got your Ph.D.: Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland
Current favorite class: Ethics in Journalism
Current research project: A study of the formative years of Roone Arledge, the former head of ABC Sports and ABC News named by Time magazine as one of the most innovative individuals of the 20th century.
Fun fact about yourself: I was planning on doing quantitative research for my dissertation until I fell in cahoots with some outstanding historians at the University of Maryland.
