By Teri Finneman, University of Kansas, History Division Chair, teri.finneman@ku.edu
The History Division officers and the staff of our Journalism History journal are working this year on a marketing campaign to better promote the journal and journalism history more broadly.
The steering committee of the 27th annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression invites all CLIO readers to attend this year’s conference in Chattanooga, November 7-9. The symposium is sponsored by the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga communication department, the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, and the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Fund for the Symposium, and because of this sponsorship, no registration fee will be charged. If you are interested in attending, please contact David Sachsman at david-sachsman@utc.edu. Additional information is available at www.utc.edu/west-chair-communication/symposium/index.php .
By Rachel Grant, University of Florida, Membership Co-Chair, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu
Lillie Fears (Arkansas State) was named coordinator of the Multimedia Journalism Program in the School of Media and Journalism at Arkansas State University.
Teri Finneman (Kansas), Candi Carter Olson (Utah State) and Jinx Broussard (Louisiana State) discussed suffrage history at the Bob Dole Institute of Politics in September during the launch event for KU’s celebration of the 19th Amendment.
Nick Hirshon (William Paterson) learned that the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists that he founded and advises was named the Outstanding Campus Chapter in the northeastern United States, placing above every other student chapter in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, central and eastern Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The distinction placed the William Paterson Society of Professional Journalists among ten finalists under contention for the most Outstanding Campus Chapter in the nation.
Julie Lane (Boise State) published a book chapter titled, “”Cultivating Distrust of Mainstream Media: Propagandists for a Liberal Machine and the American Establishment.” The chapter is featured in Oxford University Press’ News on the Right: Studying Conservative News Cultures, edited by Anthony Nadler and A.J. Bauer.
Jon Marshall (Northwestern) had an op-ed, “Like Watergate All Over Again? In Some Ways, Yes, but There Are Stark Differences,” published Sept. 25 in the Chicago Tribune.
Historians and scholars who presented research at the symposium included (l-r in picture): Kathy Roberts Forde, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Kristin Gustafson, University of Washington-Bothell; Razvan Sibii, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina; Blair L.M. Kelley, North Carolina State University; Sid Bedingfield, University of Minnesota; and Brian Bowman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Symposium participants not pictured: Alex Lichtenstein, Indiana University; Douglas A. Blackmon, Georgia State University; and Robert Greene II, Claflin University.
The Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota hosted a symposium in September for scholars contributing to an edited collection on journalism and the rise of Jim Crow in the New South. The book project, co-edited by Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, examines the various ways newspaper editors and publishers exerted influence and shaped outcomes in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Forde says the book will “document the substantive role of the white press in actively building, nurturing, and protecting the white supremacist political economies and social orders that emerged in the region.” The book will also highlight the struggle by black leaders who used the tools of mass media to fight these oppressive new regimes. “We envision this collection as part of the growing effort among historians to reconsider the political role of news media during times of change,” Bedingfield said. “Historians rely on news outlets as sources of information about political change, but they frequently ignore the specific and substantive roles that journalists and other media figures played in fostering that change.”
By Teaching Standards Co-Chairs Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, aroessne@utk.edu, and Kristin L. Gustafson, University of Washington Bothell, gustaf13@u.washington.edu
Amber Roessner
Kristin L. Gustafson
As AEJMC’s History Division teaching standard co-chairs, we would like to share our two primary goals for the year ahead. First, we want to highlight the best practices in history pedagogy with a special focus on pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community and justice. And second, we hope to advocate nationally and internationally for the importance of historically informed students across journalism and mass communication curricula. To that end, we will focus on orchestrating the second-annual Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History contest and on implementing a new salon venture focused on spreading the word about the importance of historically informed students across journalism and mass communication curricula.
Do you have an innovative idea or best practice for transformative teaching? We are seeking entries for the Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History, a teaching-idea competition sponsored by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The competition, founded in 2019, will acknowledge and share best practices publicly that we as journalism educators and media historians use in classrooms. Winning entries receive a $75 prize.
By Perry Parks, Michigan
State University, Membership Co-Chair, parksp@msu.edu
Teresa Mastin
Where you work:Michigan State University, Department of Advertising
and Public Relations , Professor and Chairperson
Where you got your Ph.D.:Michigan State University, 1998
Current favorite class:All classes that allow myself and the students to
connect by way of our past, present, and future, which is essentially every
class I teach. I appreciate that infusing these concepts into each course helps
us to think well beyond those of us in the room.I am currently teaching Contemporary Issues
in Advertising (and Public Relations)
Current research project:The one that is most timely is revisiting two
articles that myself and colleagues published in 2004 and 2005 that explored
slavery reparation.
Fun fact about yourself: I am double middle child, that is, the fourth child of eight and the middle of the the girls. I am a classic middle child.
By Brandon Storlie, Graduate Student Co-Liaison, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, bstorlie@wisc.edu
Dr. James Kates is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s College of Arts and Communication, where he teaches classes in media history, media law, digital journalism, writing, reporting and editing. A longtime journalist with degrees from both Michigan State University (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A.), Kates served in editing roles at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Philadelphia Inquirer before earning a doctorate in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. His primary research interests include natural-resources conservation and environmental issues.
Dr. James Kates
Kates published the book Planning a Wilderness, a historical account of the crusade to restore the Great Lakes cutover region, in 2001.
By
Rachel Grant, University of Florida, Membership Co-Chair, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu
Dr. Aimee Edmondson, an associate professor and graduate director at Ohio University, recently wrote a book titled “In Sullivan’s Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law during the Long Civil Rights Struggle.”
Q:
Describe the focus of your book.
A: The far right has long sown public distrust in the media as a political strategy, weaponizing libel law in an effort to stifle free speech and silence African American dissent. In Sullivan’s Shadow demonstrates that this strategy was pursued throughout American history, as southern public officials filed scores of lawsuits in their attempts to intimidate journalists who published accounts of police brutality against civil rights protestors. Taking the Supreme Court’s famous 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan as my starting point, I work to illuminate a series of often astounding libel cases that preceded and followed this historic ruling.
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 2020, recognizing the outstanding mass communication history thesis completed during the 2019 calendar year.
The award will be presented during the member awards gala at the 2020 AEJMC Conference, scheduled for Aug. 5-9 in San Francisco, Calif.
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, 2019 and December 31, 2019. 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, 2020.
Questions should be directed to Dr. Amy Mattson Lauters, chair of the AEJMC History Thesis Award Committee, at AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com
Journalism History earlier this year joined the ranks of academic publications distributed by Taylor & Francis’ highly professional production team. With a full volume in this arrangement nearing completion, Journalism History still features the articles, essays, and reviews that have drawn writers and readers to it in previous decades.