By Teri Finneman, University of Kansas, History Division Chair, teri.finneman@ku.edu
Teri Finneman History Division Chair
Creating a greater sense of community among the History Division throughout the year has been a priority of mine since I joined the leadership team as a membership chair four years ago.
Initiatives like #MediaHistoryEngagementWeek, e-Clio and the Journalism History podcast have aimed to bring more multimedia to the division, to have more frequent communication and connections among members, and to open our work to a broader audience to illustrate the importance of media history.
Therefore, one of my first initiatives as your chair this year also fits this theme with the launch of a new virtual conference consisting of a series of History Division webinars throughout the school year.
Madeleine Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University, Membership Co-Chair, Madeleine.Liseblad@mtsu.edu
Mark Arbuckle
Where you work: I’m a Professor in the Department of Communication at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Where you got your Ph.D.: I earned my Ph.D. (2001) from the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Current favorite class: A tie between History of Mass Communication and Law of Mass Communication. I also greatly enjoy teaching my Free Speech graduate seminar class.
Current research project: I have a manuscript under review at a law journal that chronicles the numerous warnings from lawmakers, FCC commissioners, and the courts, over the decades, against excessive media ownership consolidation. The manuscript concludes that current-day regulators should heed the warnings from the past and return to a regulatory philosophy that promotes ownership diversity and, thus, protects the public interest, journalism and democracy.
Fun fact about yourself: I was a Maytag repairman for 10 years in my parents’ appliance business before going back to school to complete my B.S. in journalism at the University of Central Missouri. I’m also a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and have been writing and recording songs in my home studio, playing all the instruments myself, for 35 years.
By Rachel Grant, University of Florida,
Membership Co-Chair, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu
Dr. Patrick C. File, an assistant professor of media law at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, recently wrote a book titled “Bad News Travels Fast: The Telegraph, Libel, and Press Freedom in the Progressive Era.”
Q:Please describe the focus of your book.
A: The book demonstrates how
law and technology intertwined at the turn of the twentieth century to
influence debates about reputation, privacy, and the acceptable limits of
journalism. It does this by examining a series of fascinating libel cases by a
handful of plaintiffs—including socialites, businessmen, and Annie Oakley—who
sued newspapers across the country for republishing false newswire reports.
Q:How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
A: When digging through
journalism trade publications of the 1880s and 1890s as a Ph.D. student, I found
coverage of the infamous Tyndale Palmer and Annie Oakley libel crusades, and
wondered why I hadn’t read about them in journalism history scholarship since
they seemed like a really big deal to journalists at the time. There appeared
to be an interesting parallel to present day issues related to mass
communication technology, the careless or wanton spreading of false, harmful
information, and questions about how the law should try to keep up. I got to
thinking about the relationship among professional practices and ethics,
communication technology, and the social construction of the concept of press
freedom, and a dissertation and book were born.
As the current president of the American Journalism Historians
Association (AJHA), Ross Collins of North Dakota State University has long
dedicated himself to the advancement of journalism history and stressed its
importance to university journalism and communications programs. In his
position as president, he has worked to raise the profile of AJHA and encourage
more journalism history scholarship.
Recently, Ross provided insight into his approach to journalism
history, offered advice for junior faculty members, and explained why all
journalism historians need to think internationally.
Q:What is the most recent historical research project you have worked on?
A: I took a look at American volunteers during World War I who served in France before the United States joined the war. Because I’m a journalism historian I was particularly interested in how the French press used these Americans as a propaganda tool to boost morale.
Q:How did you come to your area of scholarship?
A: I began as many of our members did—I was a professional journalist. But I also had a minor in French and a master’s in European cultural history, emphasizing French and German history at the beginning of the last century. When I decided to try for a Ph.D., I thought, why not combine all those? My Ph.D. was in French history, emphasizing journalism.
By Erika Pribanic-Smith, History Division Chair, University of Texas-Arlington, epsmith@uta.edu
The History Division has had a busy year, and the incoming leadership aims to continue the momentum we’ve built. To that end, the membership has a lot to discuss during our annual member business meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Aug. 9 at the AEJMC conference in Toronto.
To make sure meeting attendees have enough time for discussion, the meeting format will be different from what we have done in recent years. For one, we will not have a lengthy recap of the previous year’s activities. Although we view the work we’ve done as important and we are proud of what we have accomplished, we have done so much that we simply do not have time to go over everything in detail. Instead, after voting on whether to approve last year’s minutes, I will give a brief summary of the highlights to start the meeting. Those interested in the full review of our activities are encouraged to read the 18-page (single-spaced) annual report that we submitted to AEJMC Headquarters. Clicking this link will download the report as a PDF. We also will have a few copies available in Toronto.
Next on the agenda, the membership will discuss several items up for a vote.
W. Joseph Campbell (American University) presented research in May at the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in Toronto. Campbell’s presentation, “Myths of Political Polling,” addressed such misperceptions as the notion that pollsters ended their fieldwork weeks before the “Dewey defeats Truman” election of 1948 and that the Literary Digest‘s demise was caused by the magazine’s failed polling about the 1936 election.
Elisabeth Fondren (Louisiana State University) will be joining St. John’s University in New York as an assistant professor of journalism in September 2019.
By Rachel Grant, Membership Co-Chair, rlgrant6@gmail.com
AEJMC History Division member Carrie Teresa, an assistant professor and chair in Communication and Media Studies at Niagara University, recently authored Looking at the Stars: Black Celebrity Journalism in Jim Crow America, and we recently had a chance to chat with her about the process of researching and co-authoring this thought-provoking manuscript.
Q: Describe the focus of your book.
A: Looking at the Stars focuses on an analysis of the entertainment pages of Black press weeklies from 1900 to 1940. It charts the development of celebrity reporting in those pages, and it analyzes the discourse journalists used to discuss famous black performers in theatre, radio, film, and sports. The book argues that early Black celebrities fulfilled three important social functions. First, they constituted what ordinary black citizens deemed “positive representations” of the race, though that definition changed by decade and, I think, continues to evolve today. Second, they worked tirelessly to give back to the communities from which they emerged. And finally, they proudly defined black identity on its own terms, confronting and dismantling racist ideologies along the way. Ultimately, the book argues that early coverage of the popular culture celebrities of the Black press set the stage for the work of modern “entertainer-activists” such as Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, and Colin Kaepernick.
Q: How did you come across this subject?Why did it interest you?
A: This work began as my dissertation project for Temple’s Media and Communication program. My interest in the Black press was first sparked in Carolyn Kitch’s Journalism History course, and my interest in celebrity culture and representation developed after I watched Ken Burns’s documentary on the first Black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, called Unforgiveable Blackness. Johnson’s position as a polarizing celebrity in the early 1900s prompted me to think about how other Black celebrities might have been framed as representations (or not) of the race, especially against the backdrop of rapidly changing technological, political, and social conditions during the early twentieth century.
Where you
work: I’m
an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Whitworth
University, where I’ve been since 2015. From 2009 to 2015, I taught in the E.W.
Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
Where you got
your Ph.D.:
Indiana University (2009). I received my M.A. from the University of Utah in
1993. In between those two degrees, I was working in journalism before being
drawn back to academia.
Current
favorite class: Definitely my Media History course. I also enjoy teaching
International Media Systems, a class that allows me to tap into my passion for
talking to students about journalism across borders.
Current
research project: I have recently wrapped up a research project on the
German-American press during World War I (article forthcoming). I am now
exploring my next direction in my research areas of history of foreign-language
journalism and Cold War-era journalism.
The AEJMC History Division’s leadership team is proposing a series of Constitution and Bylaws amendments for the membership to vote on at the member business meeting in Toronto (6:30 p.m. on Aug. 9).
This document contains all proposed amendments in red type, with review notes explaining each change.
Book Award Chair Lisa Burns suggested that the division create language outlining the duties and makeup of the award committees, and she drafted a section on the Book Award Committee that the division’s officers used as a template for sections on the Covert and Dicken-Garcia awards.
Discussion regarding language in the document specifying two membership chairs led to the creation of new language outlining the duties and makeup of a membership committee. The division has three membership chairs this year, and the graduate student liaisons have worked closely with them on membership initiatives. Therefore, the new proposed article on standing committees also includes a section for a newly formed membership committee, containing the two student members and up to three faculty members. The division’s newsletter remains a charge of the membership committee, but the committee chair(s) may not be the Clio editor(s), so references to the membership chair(s) as Clio editor(s) have been deleted.
