Media Ethics Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • Exploring moral ecology in the coverage of the 2020 racial protests: Analyzing sentiment and intent classification of Newspapers and Broadcast news content in the US • Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado • This study contributes to the literature of media moral ecology and the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) model. It does so by significantly expanding the methodological approaches, and theoretically, by incorporating media genres as a form of moral ecology that informs journalistic practices. The study uses the 2020 news content about racial protests to examine whether the media genre/category (Newspaper or Broadcast) affects how journalists choose to uphold their moral features of implicit norms, the harm principle, and the question of justice. Findings suggest that compared to broadcast media, newspaper genres are more likely to uphold ethical values when reporting racial protest. However, this only happened when political affiliations were controlled for. But when regressed with political affiliations, the effects were significantly skewed, indicating a higher presence of adulterated moral features in the news stories.

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • A Need for Change: The Perceived Power of Media and Journalists in Greece • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • Through 42 interviews with prominent political actors in Greek society, such as members of political parties (including Members of the Greek Parliament and their employees), alongside with well-known anti-fascists during 2019 and 2020, this paper analyses their opinions, ideas, and thoughts regarding the role of media and journalists in the events connected with the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) in 2018 and 2019. MND was one of the most influential securitized topics on the agenda due to the promoted “Prespes Agreement” from the then-government that was supposed to solve the dispute. The use of MND in Greece’s political competition provoked several important events, such as the government’s fall and change. This study reveals that the MND’s coverage for the interviewees was a part of the problematic Greek media landscape, in which the journalists and the media are perceived as the most powerful societal actors in the country. In addition, the interviewees tend to believe that Greek journalism is not real journalism, as the professionals of the field are pulling strings to realize other goals than serving the public.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Ethical Organizational Listening in Issues Management for Stakeholder Engagement and Moral Responsibility • Shannon Bowen, University of South Carolina; Marlene Neill, Baylor University • Ethical listening is an essential component of strategic issues management as an executive-level problem solving function. This qualitative study of elite Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) seeks to help fill a gap in making listening an explicit and purposeful part of ethics. We seek to enhance the vital role of listening in engaging stakeholders and demonstrating moral responsibility in issues management.

Research Paper • Central Office Staff • Open Call • Confucian Virtue System: Bring Media Ethics (Back) to a Humanistic Path • Yayu Feng, University of St. Thomas • This article engages with Confucianism, the Chinese moral philosophy, and aims to introduce how Confucian ethics could benefit media ethics theorizing by explaining the central component in this ethical system: the notion of good and excellent it pursues and its highest principles. It facilitates a better understanding of the cultural and philosophical context that shapes media’s role in countries influenced by Confucianism, and contributing to the field a new perspective as it searches for global framework.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Tear down this wall: Native advertising as boundary object in scholarship. • Andrew Duffy, Nanyang Technological University • Journalism’s iconic wall separates editorial from advertising with entrenched ideological differences. A hybrid form straddles this wall: native advertising. As a boundary object where competing fields meet, this has been a subject of growing scholarship, making it a suitable subject to investigate the doxa and habitus of academic thought in different fields. This paper analyses titles and abstracts of papers in journalism and advertising scholarship to assess how each frames the subject of native advertising, with a view to identifying ontologies and axiologies of each. It observes the value of such analysis of boundary objects as a means to identify limitations and potentialities in cross-disciplinary work; and to challenge epistemic authority in differing fields. Mapping fields creates space for re-articulation of normal practice in scholarship. This paper also expands earlier theorising on boundary-work to include pragmatics as an element of any field and associated boundary.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • I Dare Someone to Try: SNL’s “Can I Play That” and the Ethics of Whitewashing and Stereotypes • Rick Moore, Department of Communication and Media, Boise State University • The topic of whitewashing has been discussed in the popular press for many years. Scholars of media ethics, however, have been very slow to investigate the phenomenon. In this paper I wish to suggest a rather unusual place for academics to catch up on the most recent complications that whitewashing proposes. Given its growth in complexity, though, the problem—if looked at in all its dimensions—may have reached the point where it is insurmountable.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Journalists with Different Mindsets Agree on Truth as the Profession’s First Obligation • Greg Munno, Syracuse University; Megan Craig, Syracuse University; Katherine Farrish, Central Connecticut State University; Alex Richards, Syracuse University • This mixed-method study examines the mindset journalists bring to their work. Study 1 (n = 167) asked professional journalists, journalism professors, and student journalists to rank statements on journalism ethics and norms from most to least like their mindset toward journalism. Using the factor analysis procedure common to Q methodology, we identified two distinct mindsets among the participants. One factor expresses a neutral journalistic mindset that favors dispassionate reporting. The other shows more concern with the impact of journalism on its sources and a desire for more engagement in political discourse. A participant pool larger than that of a typical Q study allowed for additional quantitative analysis that identified significant differences in journalistic mindset by age, gender, professional experience, and journalistic platform. Using an explanatory-sequential design, study 2 (n = 16) further explored the journalistic mindset—the underlying web of beliefs and attitudes about the profession’s core values—with a textual analysis of follow-up interviews. The results, we believe, have applications to research on journalistic ethics and norms, and may provide some insight into the divisions generating conflict in many newsrooms today.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide: Analyzing Moral Conviction, Perceived Motives, and Organization-Public Relationships in Corporate Social Advocacy Efforts • Holly Overton, Penn State University; Anli Xiao, University of South Carolina • “This study conducts an online survey (N = 267) to examine the role of moral conviction as a

predictor of organization-public relationships (OPR) in the context of corporate social advocacy

(CSA). Four types of attributions are examined as a mediating variable. Results indicate that

moral congruency between an individual and an organization directly leads to stronger trust and

power balance and that moral conviction positively predicts all four OPR dimensions through

values-driven attributions. Implications are discussed.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Moral Foundations in Life Narratives of Emerging Adults in Media-Related Fields • David Craig, University of Oklahoma; Katie Place, Quinnipiac University; Erin Schauster; Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Chris Roberts, University of Alabama; Ryan Thomas; Casey Yetter, University of Oklahoma; Jin Chen, Penn State University • The purpose of this study was to explore the moral foundations evident in the life narratives of emerging adults in media-related fields, based on analysis of life story interviews with 182 recent graduates from six media-related programs across the United States. Participants offered rich accounts of how their sense of morality was shaped over the course of their lives, and thus influenced their sense of the virtues of care/harm, fairness/injustice, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority, and purity/integrity. Findings identified how individuals draw upon concrete examples of the moral foundations from their childhood, but also identified ways in which individuals moral awareness had refined during emerging adulthood. Thus, media educators must develop pedagogy that best enables our students to a) reflect on moral values and the roles they play in students’ holistic lives, b) engage in dialogue about virtues and moral foundation concepts, and c) have opportunities to explore and refine their moral awareness with regard to the media fields they will enter.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Moral Orientations and Traits of Public Relations Exemplars • Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Marlene Neill, Baylor University; Jin Chen, Penn State University • This study seeks to contribute to moral psychology research on media professionals with a survey of the highly selective College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America. The study explores personality and character traits as well as ethical ideologies, and it also introduces the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) assessment to media ethics scholarship. Results (N = 59) affirm the exemplar status of Fellows, indicated by their top-ranked Global Character Strengths, including Honesty and Fairness, their above-average scores on Conscientiousness and Openness to experience traits, as well as the fact that a large majority reject relativistic thinking and demonstrate a strong concern for harm. Results also document positive correlations among several factors linked to empathy, justice and concern for harm. Those, coupled with an embrace of the MFT’s Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations, suggest a progressive moral orientation, and affirm the usefulness of a neo-Aristotelian framework for media ethics scholarship.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Call • Moral reasoning and the life stories that depict personal interest, maintaining norms and universal principles • Erin Schauster • 75-word Summary: Moral exemplars in advertising are ideal candidates for understanding moral reasoning because of the challenges they face in the collaborative practices of strategic communication. Life story interviews and DIT results suggest that, while they exhibit high levels of moral reasoning, reasoning based on personal interest and, more so, maintaining norms are used to justify ethical decision making. More research is needed to understand the integrated, collaborative work of strategic communication and practices that influences norms.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Skepticism, Egoism, & COVID-19 Advertisements: An Exploratory Study of Consumer Attitudes and Moral Foundations • Christopher Vardeman, University of Colorado Boulder • The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for advertisers, and for small businesses in particular. Many retailers have had to adopt new messaging strategies to address responses to the virus in order to allay fear. This study measures consumer attitudes toward advertisements that make reference to COVID-19 safety responses alongside individual factors of advertising skepticism, egoism, and moral foundations thought to influence and predict such attitudes. Results are interpreted and implications for advertisers are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Morality rules: Understanding the role of prior reputation in consequences of scansis • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Pratiti Diddi, Lamar University • Drawing from literature on crisis communication and moral licensing/consistency, we explored the role of prior organizational reputation on people’s responses to organizations’ morality-oriented negative publicity (i.e., scansis) through an online experiment (N = 293). We found organizations with better prior reputation tended to get more severe backlash in scansis than those with poorer reputation, which implicated the need to take the unique role of morality in scansis into account in both pertinent research and practice.

Research Paper • Faculty • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • A New Objective: Recasting Journalism Ethics Through the Racial Reckoning • Brad Clark, Mount Royal University • During the “racial reckoning” in 2020, racialized and Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada called out their employers and industry for the systemic racism endemic to news operations and content. They explained their frustrations, criticisms and insights in columns, social media posts, essays, interviews, and other published media, frequently challenging notions of objectivity. This paper uses a qualitative content analysis of those media accounts to explore how journalism’s dominant ethic subverts inclusive newsrooms and news coverage.

Research Paper • Student • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • Converging Theory with Practice in the Media Skills Classroom • Alexis Romero Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This article provides that there is a need to incorporate contemporary media and film theory in the media skills classroom to adequately work to decolonize education and bring equity to higher education media programs. Using an autoethnographic approach, the article showcases how to incorporate concepts related to equity in lighting in the skills classroom. The article additionally provides an adjusted approach to critical media literacy to effectively bring equity and inclusion to the media skills classroom, and proposes questions that instructors should ask themselves as they create their curriculum for their courses.

2022 Abstracts

Media Ethics Division

2021 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado • Exploring moral ecology in the coverage of the 2020 racial protests: Analyzing sentiment and intent classification of Newspapers and Broadcast news content in the US • This study contributes to the literature of media moral ecology and the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) model. It does so by significantly expanding the methodological approaches, and theoretically, by incorporating media genres as a form of moral ecology that informs journalistic practices. The study uses the 2020 news content about racial protests to examine whether the media genre/category (Newspaper or Broadcast) affects how journalists choose to uphold their moral features of implicit norms, the harm principle, and the question of justice. Findings suggest that compared to broadcast media, newspaper genres are more likely to uphold ethical values when reporting racial protest. However, this only happened when political affiliations were controlled for. But when regressed with political affiliations, the effects were significantly skewed, indicating a higher presence of adulterated moral features in the news stories.

Research Paper • Student • Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Student Papers • Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication HKBU • A Need for Change: The Perceived Power of Media and Journalists in Greece • Through 42 interviews with prominent political actors in Greek society, such as members of political parties (including Members of the Greek Parliament and their employees), alongside with well-known anti-fascists during 2019 and 2020, this paper analyses their opinions, ideas, and thoughts regarding the role of media and journalists in the events connected with the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) in 2018 and 2019. MND was one of the most influential securitized topics on the agenda due to the promoted “Prespes Agreement” from the then-government that was supposed to solve the dispute. The use of MND in Greece’s political competition provoked several important events, such as the government’s fall and change. This study reveals that the MND’s coverage for the interviewees was a part of the problematic Greek media landscape, in which the journalists and the media are perceived as the most powerful societal actors in the country. In addition, the interviewees tend to believe that Greek journalism is not real journalism, as the professionals of the field are pulling strings to realize other goals than serving the public.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Shannon Bowen, University of South Carolina; Marlene Neill, Baylor University • Ethical Organizational Listening in Issues Management for Stakeholder Engagement and Moral Responsibility • Ethical listening is an essential component of strategic issues management as an executive-level problem solving function. This qualitative study of elite Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) seeks to help fill a gap in making listening an explicit and purposeful part of ethics. We seek to enhance the vital role of listening in engaging stakeholders and demonstrating moral responsibility in issues management.

Research Paper • Central Office Staff • Open Call • Yayu Feng, University of St. Thomas • Confucian Virtue System: Bring Media Ethics (Back) to a Humanistic Path • This article engages with Confucianism, the Chinese moral philosophy, and aims to introduce how Confucian ethics could benefit media ethics theorizing by explaining the central component in this ethical system: the notion of good and excellent it pursues and its highest principles. It facilitates a better understanding of the cultural and philosophical context that shapes media’s role in countries influenced by Confucianism, and contributing to the field a new perspective as it searches for global framework.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Andrew Duffy, Nanyang Technological University • Tear down this wall: Native advertising as boundary object in scholarship. • Journalism’s iconic wall separates editorial from advertising with entrenched ideological differences. A hybrid form straddles this wall: native advertising. As a boundary object where competing fields meet, this has been a subject of growing scholarship, making it a suitable subject to investigate the doxa and habitus of academic thought in different fields. This paper analyses titles and abstracts of papers in journalism and advertising scholarship to assess how each frames the subject of native advertising, with a view to identifying ontologies and axiologies of each. It observes the value of such analysis of boundary objects as a means to identify limitations and potentialities in cross-disciplinary work; and to challenge epistemic authority in differing fields. Mapping fields creates space for re-articulation of normal practice in scholarship. This paper also expands earlier theorising on boundary-work to include pragmatics as an element of any field and associated boundary.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Rick Moore, Department of Communication and Media, Boise State University • I Dare Someone to Try: SNL’s “Can I Play That” and the Ethics of Whitewashing and Stereotypes • The topic of whitewashing has been discussed in the popular press for many years. Scholars of media ethics, however, have been very slow to investigate the phenomenon. In this paper I wish to suggest a rather unusual place for academics to catch up on the most recent complications that whitewashing proposes. Given its growth in complexity, though, the problem—if looked at in all its dimensions—may have reached the point where it is insurmountable.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Greg Munno, Syracuse University; Megan Craig, Syracuse University; Katherine Farrish, Central Connecticut State University; Alex Richards, Syracuse University • Journalists with Different Mindsets Agree on Truth as the Profession’s First Obligation • This mixed-method study examines the mindset journalists bring to their work. Study 1 (n = 167) asked professional journalists, journalism professors, and student journalists to rank statements on journalism ethics and norms from most to least like their mindset toward journalism. Using the factor analysis procedure common to Q methodology, we identified two distinct mindsets among the participants. One factor expresses a neutral journalistic mindset that favors dispassionate reporting. The other shows more concern with the impact of journalism on its sources and a desire for more engagement in political discourse. A participant pool larger than that of a typical Q study allowed for additional quantitative analysis that identified significant differences in journalistic mindset by age, gender, professional experience, and journalistic platform. Using an explanatory-sequential design, study 2 (n = 16) further explored the journalistic mindset—the underlying web of beliefs and attitudes about the profession’s core values—with a textual analysis of follow-up interviews. The results, we believe, have applications to research on journalistic ethics and norms, and may provide some insight into the divisions generating conflict in many newsrooms today.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Holly Overton, Penn State University; Anli Xiao, University of South Carolina • Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide: Analyzing Moral Conviction, Perceived Motives, and Organization-Public Relationships in Corporate Social Advocacy Efforts • “This study conducts an online survey (N = 267) to examine the role of moral conviction as a

predictor of organization-public relationships (OPR) in the context of corporate social advocacy

(CSA). Four types of attributions are examined as a mediating variable. Results indicate that

moral congruency between an individual and an organization directly leads to stronger trust and

power balance and that moral conviction positively predicts all four OPR dimensions through

values-driven attributions. Implications are discussed.”

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • David Craig, University of Oklahoma; Katie Place, Quinnipiac University; Erin Schauster; Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Chris Roberts, University of Alabama; Ryan Thomas; Casey Yetter, University of Oklahoma; Jin Chen, Penn State University • Moral Foundations in Life Narratives of Emerging Adults in Media-Related Fields • The purpose of this study was to explore the moral foundations evident in the life narratives of emerging adults in media-related fields, based on analysis of life story interviews with 182 recent graduates from six media-related programs across the United States. Participants offered rich accounts of how their sense of morality was shaped over the course of their lives, and thus influenced their sense of the virtues of care/harm, fairness/injustice, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority, and purity/integrity. Findings identified how individuals draw upon concrete examples of the moral foundations from their childhood, but also identified ways in which individuals moral awareness had refined during emerging adulthood. Thus, media educators must develop pedagogy that best enables our students to a) reflect on moral values and the roles they play in students’ holistic lives, b) engage in dialogue about virtues and moral foundation concepts, and c) have opportunities to explore and refine their moral awareness with regard to the media fields they will enter.

Research Paper • Faculty • Open Call • Patrick Plaisance, Penn State; Marlene Neill, Baylor University; Jin Chen, Penn State University • Moral Orientations and Traits of Public Relations Exemplars • This study seeks to contribute to moral psychology research on media professionals with a survey of the highly selective College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America. The study explores personality and character traits as well as ethical ideologies, and it also introduces the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) assessment to media ethics scholarship. Results (N = 59) affirm the exemplar status of Fellows, indicated by their top-ranked Global Character Strengths, including Honesty and Fairness, their above-average scores on Conscientiousness and Openness to experience traits, as well as the fact that a large majority reject relativistic thinking and demonstrate a strong concern for harm. Results also document positive correlations among several factors linked to empathy, justice and concern for harm. Those, coupled with an embrace of the MFT’s Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations, suggest a progressive moral orientation, and affirm the usefulness of a neo-Aristotelian framework for media ethics scholarship.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Open Call • Erin Schauster • Moral reasoning and the life stories that depict personal interest, maintaining norms and universal principles • 75-word Summary: Moral exemplars in advertising are ideal candidates for understanding moral reasoning because of the challenges they face in the collaborative practices of strategic communication. Life story interviews and DIT results suggest that, while they exhibit high levels of moral reasoning, reasoning based on personal interest and, more so, maintaining norms are used to justify ethical decision making. More research is needed to understand the integrated, collaborative work of strategic communication and practices that influences norms.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Christopher Vardeman, University of Colorado Boulder • Skepticism, Egoism, & COVID-19 Advertisements: An Exploratory Study of Consumer Attitudes and Moral Foundations • The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for advertisers, and for small businesses in particular. Many retailers have had to adopt new messaging strategies to address responses to the virus in order to allay fear. This study measures consumer attitudes toward advertisements that make reference to COVID-19 safety responses alongside individual factors of advertising skepticism, egoism, and moral foundations thought to influence and predict such attitudes. Results are interpreted and implications for advertisers are discussed.

Research Paper • Student • Open Call • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Pratiti Diddi, Lamar University • Morality rules: Understanding the role of prior reputation in consequences of scansis • Drawing from literature on crisis communication and moral licensing/consistency, we explored the role of prior organizational reputation on people’s responses to organizations’ morality-oriented negative publicity (i.e., scansis) through an online experiment (N = 293). We found organizations with better prior reputation tended to get more severe backlash in scansis than those with poorer reputation, which implicated the need to take the unique role of morality in scansis into account in both pertinent research and practice.

Research Paper • Faculty • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • Brad Clark, Mount Royal University • A New Objective: Recasting Journalism Ethics Through the Racial Reckoning • During the “racial reckoning” in 2020, racialized and Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada called out their employers and industry for the systemic racism endemic to news operations and content. They explained their frustrations, criticisms and insights in columns, social media posts, essays, interviews, and other published media, frequently challenging notions of objectivity. This paper uses a qualitative content analysis of those media accounts to explore how journalism’s dominant ethic subverts inclusive newsrooms and news coverage.

Research Paper • Student • Special Call for Ethics and Inclusion in Media Practice • Alexis Romero Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Converging Theory with Practice in the Media Skills Classroom • This article provides that there is a need to incorporate contemporary media and film theory in the media skills classroom to adequately work to decolonize education and bring equity to higher education media programs. Using an autoethnographic approach, the article showcases how to incorporate concepts related to equity in lighting in the skills classroom. The article additionally provides an adjusted approach to critical media literacy to effectively bring equity and inclusion to the media skills classroom, and proposes questions that instructors should ask themselves as they create their curriculum for their courses.

<2021 Abstracts

Scholastic Journalism Division

2022 Abstracts

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • The Future of the Field: Journalism Degree Motivations, Roles and Relevancy of the Field • Brian J. Bowe, American Univ. in Cairo / Western Washington Univ.; Lucinda Davenport, Michigan State University; Robin Blom, Ball State University • “Journalism students represent the future of the industry. Learning how they conceptualize journalism may build understanding of the field’s evolution. This survey research examines the motivations and perceptions of journalism students about the profession. Preliminary results show that students’ top motivations for pursuing journalism were related to creative reporting skills, continual learning, and travel in their job. They were also interested in current affairs and displayed a modest drive for addressing social injustices.”

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Student Activism vs. Student Journalism: Racial Justice, Free Speech, and Journalism Ethics in College Newspapers • Jason Shepard • Using two recent controversies involving campus social justice protests and student news organizations, this study uses an interdisciplinary lens to examine free expression and normative journalism ethics discourse. It explores themes related to First Amendment rights and values, journalism ethics, and racial justice, asking which are evident and absent in opinion journalism focused on the cases. It examines universities’ dual missions of supporting free expression and advancing the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • Extended Abstract: “We’re Playing a Telephone Game”: Understanding How Teenagers Engage with News Through a Simulation • Theresa de los Santos, Pepperdine University; Elizabeth Smith, Pepperdine University; Jillian Johnson, Pepperdine University • With misinformation at an all-time high, this study explores how high school students cope with inaccurate information and perceive journalists through observation of their skills in a breaking news simulation and post-study interviews. Results reveal that young people desire accurate information but lack the tools to correct it and that immersive learning experiences, like the one used in this study, can teach about the role of quality journalism in stopping the spread of false information.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • The long-term value of networking and diverse professional experience in online communication master’s program cohorts • Shanetta Pendleton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson • A survey of alumni from a 10-year-old cohort-based online master’s program in digital communication showed that respondents felt high levels of sense of community both during the program and after graduation. Respondents reported regular interteraction with cohort members and valued the ability to network with peers from a wide range of communication subfields. Results suggest a cohort structure has strong networking benefits for online master’s students, although more identity-based diversity among cohort members is needed. Universities that currently utilize a cohort structure should more robustly promote this aspect of their programs in marketing and recruitment efforts. They should also take steps to maximize interactions between and among cohorts after graduation to enhance connections with a professionally accomplished base of alumni.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Pandemic grading strategies: A natural experiment with audio feedback in an introductory mass communications course • Carolyn Hedges, Syracuse University • The COVID-19 pandemic realities of the Fall 2020 semester provided an opportunity to try integrated technology grading strategies. The natural experiment deployed personalized and generalized feedback to two sections of an introductory mass communications class for their first written assignment. A survey captured students’ perspectives about ‘helpfulness’ and ‘purpose’ of the grading implements. The results indicated that personalized feedback is preferred, and the combination of grading efforts, in general, is helpful.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • The Inconsistency of Journalism Education and Trauma-related Instruction • Joe Hight, University of Central Oklahoma; Elana Newman, University of Tulsa; Ilissa Madrigal; Bret Arnold • Although journalism educators believe trauma topics are important, curricular coverage is inconsistent. This survey examined the extent educators covered specific trauma topics. Participants rated the importance and extent of coverage across four domains in required classes: self-care, trauma-informed interviewing, trauma impact on community, and best community reporting practices. The commonly deemed highly valued topics include ethics of accuracy, sensitivity, respect for survivors, and privacy rights. Self-care was deemed important but often not covered in courses.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy • You Li, Eastern Michigan U; Ye Wang; Yugyung Lee; Huan Chen, University of Florida; Alexis Nicolle Petri; Teryn Cha • This study notices a significant gap of data literacy between communication students and science students across four U.S. universities. This project develops an experiential teaching and learning platform (OCEL.AI) and proposes a story-centric approach to teach data gathering, analysis, modeling, application, and ethics to students. The results showed that the storytelling approach had significant impacts on students’ knowledge, appreciation, motivation, confidence, and competence in data science, even after controlling the effects of major and gender.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • Student Journalists Exhibit Different Mindsets, Agree on the Need for Truthful Reporting • Greg Munno, Syracuse University; Megan Craig, Syracuse University; Alex Richards, Syracuse University; Mohammad Ali, Syracuse University • “This study investigates journalism students’ beliefs about the profession they seek to enter. Using Q methodology to explore the participants’ subjective conceptions of journalism, we map their attitudes and beliefs along four dimensions: impartial, neutral, point-of-view, and involved. Participants (n = 54) sorted 28 statements about journalism from “most like” their journalistic mindset to “most unlike.” Factor analysis identified two distinct mindsets among the participants, one expressing a traditional journalistic mindset, the other embracing a more involved, vocal journalism. Yet both factors expressed strong support for many facets of traditional journalism.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • A Systematic Review of Media Literacy Interventions and the Case for Teaching a Logic-Based Debunking Approach • Alexander Sussman; Elia Powers, Towson University • This study uses a systematic review to examine pedagogical approaches used to teach media consumers to debunk falsehoods and evaluate claims. We find that the fact-based “checklist approach” is dominant. This approach, while useful in some contexts, is limited. We make the case for teaching media literacy lessons through a less commonly used logic-based debunking approach in which students ask the question: In what world could this information or claim possibly be true?

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • A mission-based argument for private K-12 student press • Erica Salkin, Whitworth University Department of Communication Studies • While the First Amendment does not guarantee student press within public schools, it does help affirm the value of such opportunities to student communities. Private schools do not enjoy such constitutional support, but may have a more powerful tool closer to home: their own school mission statements. This study analyzes nearly 500 private K-12 school mission statements to determine if the priorities identified by these programs align with the documented benefits of student journalism.

Research Paper • Faculty Papers • An Exploration of and Intervention to Increase Children’s Critical Analysis of News • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Anne Vlaanderen; Kirsten Bevelander, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University and Medical Centre.; Mariska Kleemans • To take the first steps in increasing children’s critical analysis of fake news, this study (N = 298, 10–12 y/o) looks into children’s fake news knowledge (qualitative) and a theory-based fake news e-learning intervention for children (quantitative). Results show that children do have knowledge on fake news, but that there a large individual differences. The fake news intervention (e-learning) did not increase children’s fake news knowledge and awareness, but it did increase their self-efficacy.

Extended Abstract • Faculty Papers • How to Increase News Literacy via Interventions: Insights from Early Adolescents • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Mariska Kleemans; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University, Behavioural Science Institute; Inge Molenaar, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Tibor Bosse, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University • As a first step in the development of news literacy interventions for early adolescents, we discussed with the target group what a successful intervention targeting their own age group’s news literacy should look like. In the focus groups, participants mentioned that it is a challenge to motivate their news literacy, but also discussed intervention elements that they believe can be effective. These are: competition and rewards, tailored content, the accessibility of the intervention, and interactivity.

2022 Abstracts

History Division

2022 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Evangelical Erasure?: Digital Communications Technology and the Memory of Rachel Held Evans • Karlin Andersen, The Pennsylvania State University • Rachel Held Evans was a blogger, author, and speaker who chronicled her “evolution” from a devout evangelical Christian to critic in four books, a popular blog, and multiple social media profiles before her death in 2019. Evans’ work is contextualized within the relationship between evangelicals and online technology and ends with a review of Evans’ community as of 2020. Evans’ story offers valuable insights for historians studying digital media, online communities, or public memory.

Research Paper • Faculty • Acadian Airwaves: A History of Cajun Radio • Noah Arceneaux, San Diego State University • This study explores French-language radio in southern Louisiana, particularly in the region known as “Acadiana.” This region is so named for the Acadian French who settled there in the late 1700s, a group commonly known today as “Cajuns.” Drawing from a variety of sources, this study outlines the history of this form of broadcasting, which has persisted since the beginning of radio in the region.

Research Paper • Faculty • Deadline: A History of Journalists Murdered in America • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • Although non-profit organizations issue periodic reports on violence directed against the media, little scholarship exists to explain why these attacks occur. Previous studies have focused primarily on volatile regions of the world, but this work looks at attacks on the news media in the United States. It identified seventy journalists who were murdered from 1829 to 2018 and offers a typology with which to categorize the violence.

Research Paper • Faculty • The effect of early journalism codes and press criticism on the professionalization of public relations • Thomas Bivins, University of Oregon • Following the end of WWI, both journalism and the nascent practice of public relations sought to establish a more professional image. The challenge to professionalize from Walter Lippmann on the one hand and Edward Bernays on the other exacerbated an already tense relationship between the two practices. While journalism reinforced its historical role, public relations attempted to elevate its occupation to a higher plane. The result was a sometimes literal battle of codes of ethics.

Research Paper • • Civil War Generals for President: Press Coverage of Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield During the Elections of 1876 and 1880 • Jack Breslin • During the 19th Century, four American “military chieftains” – Jackson, Harrison, Taylor and Grant – won the presidency. Besides their political careers, Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield also served as Union generals. By analyzing news stories and editorials during the Elections of 1876 and 1880 in selected New York City newspapers, this study examines campaign press coverage and electoral impact of the military heroism and political experience of Hayes and Garfield, who defeated General Winfield Scott Hancock.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Extended Abstract: Targeting the trades, press associations, and J-schools: Tobacco industry mapping and shaping of metajournalistic discourses • Michael Buozis, Muhlenberg College • Drawing on archival sources, this study explores how the tobacco industry targeted journalism trade publications, professional and press associations, and journalism schools in a decades-long effort to map and shape metajournalistic discourses to their advantage. By contributing to media-to-media publications, funding and participating in conferences, and engaging in journalism “education” initiatives the industry sought to influence journalistic practices. These journalism-adjacent actors and sites are particularly vulnerable to infiltration from corporate actors and deserve more scrutiny.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • An Attempted Coup on King Coal: How The Tennessean helped reshape discourse of coal mining • Anthony Cepak, University of Tennessee – Chattanooga • Through extensive archival research, oral history and ethnography, “An Attempted Coup on King Coal” examines the reportage of journalists at The Tennessean at the beginning of the environmental movement. The activism of The Tennessean’s journalists is illustrated through the lens of photojournalist Jack Corn, as the newspaper covered issues related to the waning coal industry in Tennessee’s Clear Fork Valley, and the social, economic and environmental devastation left in the wake of its abandonment.

Research Paper • Faculty • Community Divisions and Fractures in Print: Institutional and Student Media Coverage of a 1927 High School Student Strike • Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, University of Idaho • Throughout the 1920s, high school students went on strike across the United States. Yet, despite the number of strikes, their size, and their geographic diversity, they’ve largely been lost in scholarship. This paper examines the longest and largest strike of the decade, and details how it unfolded in institutional media, represented by the community’s daily newspaper, and student media. It argues the strike represented a clash of narratives and revealed a series of community tensions.

Research Paper • Faculty • Where There Was a Will, AEJ Made a Way for Diversity • George Daniels, The University of Alabama • The words “Still Here” were a banner to promote Lee Barrow’s work to recruit and retain students of color in the journalism and mass communication. This paper spotlights Barrow’s work and the others in the leadership of Association for Education in Journalism (AEJ) as they operated the AEJ/New York University Summer Internship Program, created The Journalism Council to raise funds for these efforts and supported a Job/Scholarship Referral Service and career-oriented newsletter Still Here.

Research Paper • Student • The 1980s and the War on Drugs: The Media’s Declaration Against Hollywood? • Andrew Daws, The University of Alabama • What began as a crusade against countries in Latin America turned into a war on the home front – a war against drugs. The federal government was fighting to curb drug use while Hollywood was brandishing images of it. Oftentimes the media sided with the government. Critics from The New York Times were quick to point out these distinctions in films such as Scarface, Drugstore Cowboy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Clean and Sober.

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended Abstract: A Socially Responsible Trade: an Analysis of Ethical Discourse in Editor & Publisher, 1930-1934 • James Fuller, UW-Madison • This paper shows the trade journal Editor & Publisher regularly discussed ethics of journalistic practice. Through an analysis of 265 Editor & Publisher journals published from 1930 to 1934, I show that newsmen were concerned about ethics in the normative practice of journalism. Further, I argue ethical conversations found within Editor & Publisher illustrate elements of the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press over a decade before its adoption by the Hutchins Commission in 1947.

Research Paper • Faculty • The Making Of “The Young Budgeter”: The American Girl Magazine’s Role in a Girl Scout’s Life During the Great Depression • Tamar Gregorian • Juliette Gordon “Daisy” Low founded the Girl Scouts and almost immediately began publishing The American Girl, arguably the most significant publication for adolescent girls at the time. Its content was reflective of societal norms for girls’ behavior. However, were economic effects of the Great Depression reflected in the content? The author, through a close reading of the magazine during that decade found the magazine avoided such content, leaving questions of the publications true influence.

Research Paper • Student • Perceptions of Progressive Era Newsgirls: Framing of Girl Newsies by Reformers, Newspapers, and the Public • Autumn Linford, University of North Carolina • As part of a larger project about news work and gender, this study focuses on the gendered experiences of Progressive era newsgirls. Newsgirls took up a disproportionate amount of public conversation during this time period, but have been mostly ignored by historians. This research suggests the image of the newsgirls was strategically framed and exploited to further reformer’s causes, bolster newspapers’ business, or excuse the public’s apathy.

Research Paper • Student • Cementing Their Heroes: Historical Newspaper Coverage of Confederate Monuments • Alexia Little, University of Georgia • Following continued conflicts about Confederate monuments in American society, this study explores Civil War memory encapsulated in newspaper coverage of four Confederate monument unveilings. Discourse and narrative analyses of 258 articles published in seven U.S. newspapers in the 1890s and 1920s examine how the American public negotiated terms of heroes, victims, and villains, largely in a hegemonic Lost Cause myth that took primacy over fact, thus distorting collective memory of the war.

Extended Abstract • Student • Extended Abstract: “By Far the Best of Our Foreign Representatives:” Vira B. Whitehouse and the Origins of Public Diplomacy • Ayla Oden, Louisiana State University; John M. Hamilton, Louisiana State University • The Committee of Public Information’s efforts during the first World War mark the beginning of American public diplomacy, but its influence has since been overlooked by scholars. The CPI owes a large portion of its overseas success to suffragist Vira Boarman Whitehouse. This paper examines the role Whitehouse played in the CPI’s efforts in Bern, Switzerland. So far, scant research has looked at Whitehouse’s role in shaping public diplomacy, and even then, diminishes the challenges she faced due to her position in a male-dominated field and how her initial efforts were marred by poor mismanagement. This paper analyzes how her role as a leader in the New York suffrage movement gave Whitehouse the skillset to serve as one of the most-accomplished CPI commissioners and trailblazers for modern public diplomacy.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Dorothy Barclay: Mediating Parenting Advice • Diane Prusank, Westfield State University • Research on the history of the women’s pages has neglected a staple of the women’s pages, namely the information provided regarding family and parenting advice. This study begins to fill this gap by analyzing the work of Dorothy Barclay, editor of the parent and child section of The New York Times between 1949 and 1965.

Research Paper • Student • Race Films and the Black Press: Representation and Resistance • Carolina Velloso • This paper investigates Black press coverage of race films in the early twentieth century. Using archival methods and textual analysis to examine coverage in three Black newspapers, this study argues that through advertisements, film reviews, actor profiles, and production updates, Black newspapers played a crucial role in the advancement of positive screen representations of African Americans. The Black press challenged dominant media representations of African Americans and provided readers with positive examples of Black accomplishment.

Extended Abstract • Student • Title: The Image of Heroines in Advertisements of Shanghai’s Martial Arts Films during1920s-1930’s • HUANG WENLU • This paper argues that Nüxia pian such as Red Heroine displays the females’ bodies in a de-gendered way, challenging the visual culture in which females’ bodies was often seen as objects of desire by male viewers. However, in newspaper advertisements, the image of Nuxia Pian has become sexualized,implying the resurrection of the male’s desire. By discussing the disparity of image representations, the present study attempts to offer an analysis related to issues of women’s liberation in Nüxia pian.

2022 Abstracts

Scholastic Journalism Division

2021 Abstracts

Extended Abstract • The Future of the Field: Journalism Degree Motivations, Roles and Relevancy of the Field • Faculty Papers • “Journalism students represent the future of the industry. Learning how they conceptualize journalism may build understanding of the field’s evolution. This survey research examines the motivations and perceptions of journalism students about the profession. Preliminary results show that students’ top motivations for pursuing journalism were related to creative reporting skills, continual learning, and travel in their job. They were also interested in current affairs and displayed a modest drive for addressing social injustices.” • Brian J. Bowe, American Univ. in Cairo / Western Washington Univ.; Lucinda Davenport, Michigan State University; Robin Blom, Ball State University

Research Paper • Student Activism vs. Student Journalism: Racial Justice, Free Speech, and Journalism Ethics in College Newspapers • Faculty Papers • Using two recent controversies involving campus social justice protests and student news organizations, this study uses an interdisciplinary lens to examine free expression and normative journalism ethics discourse. It explores themes related to First Amendment rights and values, journalism ethics, and racial justice, asking which are evident and absent in opinion journalism focused on the cases. It examines universities’ dual missions of supporting free expression and advancing the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. • Jason Shepard

Extended Abstract • Extended Abstract: “We’re Playing a Telephone Game”: Understanding How Teenagers Engage with News Through a Simulation • Faculty Papers • With misinformation at an all-time high, this study explores how high school students cope with inaccurate information and perceive journalists through observation of their skills in a breaking news simulation and post-study interviews. Results reveal that young people desire accurate information but lack the tools to correct it and that immersive learning experiences, like the one used in this study, can teach about the role of quality journalism in stopping the spread of false information. • Theresa de los Santos, Pepperdine University; Elizabeth Smith, Pepperdine University; Jillian Johnson, Pepperdine University

Research Paper • The long-term value of networking and diverse professional experience in online communication master’s program cohorts • Faculty Papers • A survey of alumni from a 10-year-old cohort-based online master’s program in digital communication showed that respondents felt high levels of sense of community both during the program and after graduation. Respondents reported regular interteraction with cohort members and valued the ability to network with peers from a wide range of communication subfields. Results suggest a cohort structure has strong networking benefits for online master’s students, although more identity-based diversity among cohort members is needed. Universities that currently utilize a cohort structure should more robustly promote this aspect of their programs in marketing and recruitment efforts. They should also take steps to maximize interactions between and among cohorts after graduation to enhance connections with a professionally accomplished base of alumni. • Shanetta Pendleton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson

Research Paper • Pandemic grading strategies: A natural experiment with audio feedback in an introductory mass communications course • Faculty Papers • The COVID-19 pandemic realities of the Fall 2020 semester provided an opportunity to try integrated technology grading strategies. The natural experiment deployed personalized and generalized feedback to two sections of an introductory mass communications class for their first written assignment. A survey captured students’ perspectives about ‘helpfulness’ and ‘purpose’ of the grading implements. The results indicated that personalized feedback is preferred, and the combination of grading efforts, in general, is helpful. • Carolyn Hedges, Syracuse University

Extended Abstract • The Inconsistency of Journalism Education and Trauma-related Instruction • Faculty Papers • Although journalism educators believe trauma topics are important, curricular coverage is inconsistent. This survey examined the extent educators covered specific trauma topics. Participants rated the importance and extent of coverage across four domains in required classes: self-care, trauma-informed interviewing, trauma impact on community, and best community reporting practices. The commonly deemed highly valued topics include ethics of accuracy, sensitivity, respect for survivors, and privacy rights. Self-care was deemed important but often not covered in courses. • Joe Hight, University of Central Oklahoma; Elana Newman, University of Tulsa; Ilissa Madrigal; Bret Arnold

Research Paper • Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy • Faculty Papers • This study notices a significant gap of data literacy between communication students and science students across four U.S. universities. This project develops an experiential teaching and learning platform (OCEL.AI) and proposes a story-centric approach to teach data gathering, analysis, modeling, application, and ethics to students. The results showed that the storytelling approach had significant impacts on students’ knowledge, appreciation, motivation, confidence, and competence in data science, even after controlling the effects of major and gender. • You Li, Eastern Michigan U; Ye Wang; Yugyung Lee; Huan Chen, University of Florida; Alexis Nicolle Petri; Teryn Cha

Research Paper • Student Journalists Exhibit Different Mindsets, Agree on the Need for Truthful Reporting • Faculty Papers • “This study investigates journalism students’ beliefs about the profession they seek to enter. Using Q methodology to explore the participants’ subjective conceptions of journalism, we map their attitudes and beliefs along four dimensions: impartial, neutral, point-of-view, and involved. Participants (n = 54) sorted 28 statements about journalism from “most like” their journalistic mindset to “most unlike.” Factor analysis identified two distinct mindsets among the participants, one expressing a traditional journalistic mindset, the other embracing a more involved, vocal journalism. Yet both factors expressed strong support for many facets of traditional journalism.

Extended Abstract • A Systematic Review of Media Literacy Interventions and the Case for Teaching a Logic-Based Debunking Approach • Faculty Papers • This study uses a systematic review to examine pedagogical approaches used to teach media consumers to debunk falsehoods and evaluate claims. We find that the fact-based “checklist approach” is dominant. This approach, while useful in some contexts, is limited. We make the case for teaching media literacy lessons through a less commonly used logic-based debunking approach in which students ask the question: In what world could this information or claim possibly be true? • Alexander Sussman; Elia Powers, Towson University

Research Paper • A mission-based argument for private K-12 student press • Faculty Papers • While the First Amendment does not guarantee student press within public schools, it does help affirm the value of such opportunities to student communities. Private schools do not enjoy such constitutional support, but may have a more powerful tool closer to home: their own school mission statements. This study analyzes nearly 500 private K-12 school mission statements to determine if the priorities identified by these programs align with the documented benefits of student journalism. • Erica Salkin, Whitworth University Department of Communication Studies

Research Paper • An Exploration of and Intervention to Increase Children’s Critical Analysis of News • Faculty Papers • To take the first steps in increasing children’s critical analysis of fake news, this study (N = 298, 10–12 y/o) looks into children’s fake news knowledge (qualitative) and a theory-based fake news e-learning intervention for children (quantitative). Results show that children do have knowledge on fake news, but that there a large individual differences. The fake news intervention (e-learning) did not increase children’s fake news knowledge and awareness, but it did increase their self-efficacy. • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Anne Vlaanderen; Kirsten Bevelander, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University and Medical Centre.; Mariska Kleemans

Extended Abstract • How to Increase News Literacy via Interventions: Insights from Early Adolescents • Faculty Papers • As a first step in the development of news literacy interventions for early adolescents, we discussed with the target group what a successful intervention targeting their own age group’s news literacy should look like. In the focus groups, participants mentioned that it is a challenge to motivate their news literacy, but also discussed intervention elements that they believe can be effective. These are: competition and rewards, tailored content, the accessibility of the intervention, and interactivity. • Sanne Tamboer, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Mariska Kleemans; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University, Behavioural Science Institute; Inge Molenaar, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University; Tibor Bosse, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University

<2021 Abstracts

History Division

2021 Abstracts

Research Paper • Student • Karlin Andersen, The Pennsylvania State University • Evangelical Erasure?: Digital Communications Technology and the Memory of Rachel Held Evans • Rachel Held Evans was a blogger, author, and speaker who chronicled her “evolution” from a devout evangelical Christian to critic in four books, a popular blog, and multiple social media profiles before her death in 2019. Evans’ work is contextualized within the relationship between evangelicals and online technology and ends with a review of Evans’ community as of 2020. Evans’ story offers valuable insights for historians studying digital media, online communities, or public memory.

Research Paper • Faculty • Noah Arceneaux, San Diego State University • Acadian Airwaves: A History of Cajun Radio • This study explores French-language radio in southern Louisiana, particularly in the region known as “Acadiana.” This region is so named for the Acadian French who settled there in the late 1700s, a group commonly known today as “Cajuns.” Drawing from a variety of sources, this study outlines the history of this form of broadcasting, which has persisted since the beginning of radio in the region.

Research Paper • Faculty • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • Deadline: A History of Journalists Murdered in America • Although non-profit organizations issue periodic reports on violence directed against the media, little scholarship exists to explain why these attacks occur. Previous studies have focused primarily on volatile regions of the world, but this work looks at attacks on the news media in the United States. It identified seventy journalists who were murdered from 1829 to 2018 and offers a typology with which to categorize the violence.

Research Paper • Faculty • Thomas Bivins, University of Oregon • The effect of early journalism codes and press criticism on the professionalization of public relations • Following the end of WWI, both journalism and the nascent practice of public relations sought to establish a more professional image. The challenge to professionalize from Walter Lippmann on the one hand and Edward Bernays on the other exacerbated an already tense relationship between the two practices. While journalism reinforced its historical role, public relations attempted to elevate its occupation to a higher plane. The result was a sometimes literal battle of codes of ethics.

Research Paper • • Jack Breslin • Civil War Generals for President: Press Coverage of Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield During the Elections of 1876 and 1880 • During the 19th Century, four American “military chieftains” – Jackson, Harrison, Taylor and Grant – won the presidency. Besides their political careers, Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield also served as Union generals. By analyzing news stories and editorials during the Elections of 1876 and 1880 in selected New York City newspapers, this study examines campaign press coverage and electoral impact of the military heroism and political experience of Hayes and Garfield, who defeated General Winfield Scott Hancock.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Michael Buozis, Muhlenberg College • Extended Abstract: Targeting the trades, press associations, and J-schools: Tobacco industry mapping and shaping of metajournalistic discourses • Drawing on archival sources, this study explores how the tobacco industry targeted journalism trade publications, professional and press associations, and journalism schools in a decades-long effort to map and shape metajournalistic discourses to their advantage. By contributing to media-to-media publications, funding and participating in conferences, and engaging in journalism “education” initiatives the industry sought to influence journalistic practices. These journalism-adjacent actors and sites are particularly vulnerable to infiltration from corporate actors and deserve more scrutiny.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Anthony Cepak, University of Tennessee – Chattanooga • An Attempted Coup on King Coal: How The Tennessean helped reshape discourse of coal mining • Through extensive archival research, oral history and ethnography, “An Attempted Coup on King Coal” examines the reportage of journalists at The Tennessean at the beginning of the environmental movement. The activism of The Tennessean’s journalists is illustrated through the lens of photojournalist Jack Corn, as the newspaper covered issues related to the waning coal industry in Tennessee’s Clear Fork Valley, and the social, economic and environmental devastation left in the wake of its abandonment.

Research Paper • Faculty • Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, University of Idaho • Community Divisions and Fractures in Print: Institutional and Student Media Coverage of a 1927 High School Student Strike • Throughout the 1920s, high school students went on strike across the United States. Yet, despite the number of strikes, their size, and their geographic diversity, they’ve largely been lost in scholarship. This paper examines the longest and largest strike of the decade, and details how it unfolded in institutional media, represented by the community’s daily newspaper, and student media. It argues the strike represented a clash of narratives and revealed a series of community tensions.

Research Paper • Faculty • George Daniels, The University of Alabama • Where There Was a Will, AEJ Made a Way for Diversity • The words “Still Here” were a banner to promote Lee Barrow’s work to recruit and retain students of color in the journalism and mass communication. This paper spotlights Barrow’s work and the others in the leadership of Association for Education in Journalism (AEJ) as they operated the AEJ/New York University Summer Internship Program, created The Journalism Council to raise funds for these efforts and supported a Job/Scholarship Referral Service and career-oriented newsletter Still Here.

Research Paper • Student • Andrew Daws, The University of Alabama • The 1980s and the War on Drugs: The Media’s Declaration Against Hollywood? • What began as a crusade against countries in Latin America turned into a war on the home front – a war against drugs. The federal government was fighting to curb drug use while Hollywood was brandishing images of it. Oftentimes the media sided with the government. Critics from The New York Times were quick to point out these distinctions in films such as Scarface, Drugstore Cowboy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Clean and Sober.

Extended Abstract • Student • James Fuller, UW-Madison • Extended Abstract: A Socially Responsible Trade: an Analysis of Ethical Discourse in Editor & Publisher, 1930-1934 • This paper shows the trade journal Editor & Publisher regularly discussed ethics of journalistic practice. Through an analysis of 265 Editor & Publisher journals published from 1930 to 1934, I show that newsmen were concerned about ethics in the normative practice of journalism. Further, I argue ethical conversations found within Editor & Publisher illustrate elements of the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press over a decade before its adoption by the Hutchins Commission in 1947.

Research Paper • Faculty • Tamar Gregorian • The Making Of “The Young Budgeter”: The American Girl Magazine’s Role in a Girl Scout’s Life During the Great Depression • Juliette Gordon “Daisy” Low founded the Girl Scouts and almost immediately began publishing The American Girl, arguably the most significant publication for adolescent girls at the time. Its content was reflective of societal norms for girls’ behavior. However, were economic effects of the Great Depression reflected in the content? The author, through a close reading of the magazine during that decade found the magazine avoided such content, leaving questions of the publications true influence.

Research Paper • Student • Autumn Linford, University of North Carolina • Perceptions of Progressive Era Newsgirls: Framing of Girl Newsies by Reformers, Newspapers, and the Public • As part of a larger project about news work and gender, this study focuses on the gendered experiences of Progressive era newsgirls. Newsgirls took up a disproportionate amount of public conversation during this time period, but have been mostly ignored by historians. This research suggests the image of the newsgirls was strategically framed and exploited to further reformer’s causes, bolster newspapers’ business, or excuse the public’s apathy.

Research Paper • Student • Alexia Little, University of Georgia • Cementing Their Heroes: Historical Newspaper Coverage of Confederate Monuments • Following continued conflicts about Confederate monuments in American society, this study explores Civil War memory encapsulated in newspaper coverage of four Confederate monument unveilings. Discourse and narrative analyses of 258 articles published in seven U.S. newspapers in the 1890s and 1920s examine how the American public negotiated terms of heroes, victims, and villains, largely in a hegemonic Lost Cause myth that took primacy over fact, thus distorting collective memory of the war.

Extended Abstract • Student • Ayla Oden, Louisiana State University; John M. Hamilton, Louisiana State University • Extended Abstract: “By Far the Best of Our Foreign Representatives:” Vira B. Whitehouse and the Origins of Public Diplomacy • The Committee of Public Information’s efforts during the first World War mark the beginning of American public diplomacy, but its influence has since been overlooked by scholars. The CPI owes a large portion of its overseas success to suffragist Vira Boarman Whitehouse. This paper examines the role Whitehouse played in the CPI’s efforts in Bern, Switzerland. So far, scant research has looked at Whitehouse’s role in shaping public diplomacy, and even then, diminishes the challenges she faced due to her position in a male-dominated field and how her initial efforts were marred by poor mismanagement. This paper analyzes how her role as a leader in the New York suffrage movement gave Whitehouse the skillset to serve as one of the most-accomplished CPI commissioners and trailblazers for modern public diplomacy.

Extended Abstract • Faculty • Diane Prusank, Westfield State University • Dorothy Barclay: Mediating Parenting Advice • Research on the history of the women’s pages has neglected a staple of the women’s pages, namely the information provided regarding family and parenting advice. This study begins to fill this gap by analyzing the work of Dorothy Barclay, editor of the parent and child section of The New York Times between 1949 and 1965.

Research Paper • Student • Carolina Velloso • Race Films and the Black Press: Representation and Resistance • This paper investigates Black press coverage of race films in the early twentieth century. Using archival methods and textual analysis to examine coverage in three Black newspapers, this study argues that through advertisements, film reviews, actor profiles, and production updates, Black newspapers played a crucial role in the advancement of positive screen representations of African Americans. The Black press challenged dominant media representations of African Americans and provided readers with positive examples of Black accomplishment.

Extended Abstract • Student • HUANG WENLU • Title: The Image of Heroines in Advertisements of Shanghai’s Martial Arts Films during1920s-1930’s • This paper argues that Nüxia pian such as Red Heroine displays the females’ bodies in a de-gendered way, challenging the visual culture in which females’ bodies was often seen as objects of desire by male viewers. However, in newspaper advertisements, the image of Nuxia Pian has become sexualized, implying the resurrection of the male’s desire. By discussing the disparity of image representations, the present study attempts to offer an analysis related to issues of women’s liberation in Nüxia pian.

<2021 Abstracts