Mass Communication Conferences

Convergence and Society 2010

2010-10-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been lacking in keeping up blogs from conferences recently. Right now I'm at the Convgence and Society Conference at the University of South Carolina. This is the ninth one, and I've been to all. Already some good new information from presenters about use of digital media. Current speaker, Feili Tu, has info about using Second Life to create a virtual library.

And ... When I've done this in recent years I've used a laptop...this is my first blog from an iPad.

The keynote speaker Monday night was Elizabeth Cohen of CNN, talking about medical reporting and new work activities as part of the digital media world.

Tuesday...Bill Densmore .. About Reynolds Journalism Institute ...Newshare.com/converge has his PowerPoint
Paying for content issues ... We need a trust authority for information on the web ... Is this an idea like a university having a contract with publishers and 'members' log in and are recognized, and use for 'free'
The idea is to have some kind of Information Valet ... A shared user network
See similar examples, like Visa credit card story
Then...
Augie Grant ... Problem of Google getting 10% of all advertising revenue ... They don't pay for content, and don't share revenue with content creators. Threre needs to be some kind of model for making money with news content. A Creative Alternative "copyright trolls" ... Finding copyright violations and suing people as a source of revenue. But, there can be realistic ways news organizations can find new ways to sell their content.

Telcos have been masters of 'micropayments'

National Broadcasting Society convention

2010-03-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well, a week late but here are some thoughts about the national NBS convention in Dallas. (coming soon)

Consumer Electronic Show 3

2010-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I've spent two days at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. What seem to be the hot areas? 3D TV for one. Some TV set manufacturers are marketing ones that combine special glasses with shows that have been created as 3D material; Samsung has a TV that has a setting that takes regular 2D content and 'converts' it, the the user using special glasses and sees a 3D-like image. That was pretty cool. Zigbee seems to be hanging in there. I didn't see any Wi-Max booth area so far--Clear.com had a pretty useful booth last year and are busy rolling out Wi-Max markets rights now, including Las Vegas. Another cool item was a completely wireless TV receiver--yes, even the electrical current is sent through the air. Imagine that.

AEJMC Winter Planning

2009-12-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the first weekend of December, so once again that means the AEJMC Winter Meeting to plan for the August 2010 conference in Denver. More details forthcoming.

NBS Region 4, 2009 Conference in Austin

2009-12-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late in posting this, but there's still plenty that needs to be noted, so I'll post this initial comment first, and add more soon.

Convergence & Society: The Changing Media Landscape

2009-11-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

We're underway for 2009 at the University of Nevada-Reno...

My presentation was "Digital Media, HD Radio and Local Market Broadcasting." The study investigates the interrelationship between so-called Wi-Fi Radio, satellite radio, and digital media players as they impact local market radio stations, including assessment of practicalities and limitations of HD Radio to local stations’ image, programming and digital channel monetization. The primary goal of this descriptive study is to assess the current and future viability of local market terrestrial radio within the context of this new competition. HD Radio is the In Band On Channel (IBOC) approach to local market digital radio broadcasting developed and marketed by IBiquity (www.iBiquity.com) and a technology being discussed as allowing local broadcasters to remain competitive as new technologies erode their audience. HD refers to ‘hybrid digital,’ although it is often called ‘high definition.’

One of the session on Thursday included Andrea Guzman presenting Virtual News: Newspapers in Second Life. As part of her master’s thesis at Northern Illinois University, she looked at newspapers that existed within Second Life. It seems while people are ‘living’ within Second Life, they read the newspaper. If ‘circulation’ figures are accurate, those in Second Life more than people in real life. Serena Carpenter of Arizona State presented “An examination of news quality and the extent to which U.S. online newspapers and online citizen journalism publications achieve it,” and noted that the way users judge quality and professionalism is based on design.

It's 3 pm local time in Reno, Nevada --and, wow, Nancy Beth Jackson at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi is doing a slide show presentation over Wimba, originating from the Middle East and it works pretty well! This is ‘digital media’ at its best. Next, Brad Freeman is on a video feed to do his presentation via Wimba – his presentation is coming from Singapore—again, another great use of the technology. Here's a tip: turn off auto-update on your computer before doing this--we just got an offer to update some software.

Here's Augie Grant of the University of South Carolina with just a bit of his presentation at this session: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Ly5eJPAbU

Doug Fisher is also blogging about this conference... http://commonsensej.blogspot.com/

Disney / IRTS Impact Seminar

2009-08-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

IRTS (www.irts.org) co-sponsors this event each August at Disney. I went to one of the older IRTS seminars in New York several years ago. I'll add more soon...

AEJMC 2009

2009-08-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

Well, a long conference (for me) wrapped up today in Boston. It's the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (www.aejmc.org). I arrived in Boston Monday, went to the first session (a pre-conference 'Internships Boot Camp') Tuesday afternoon, then was at sessions from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, then started Saturday with another 7 a.m. session. It was a great conference, but a little more rest would have been nice. I'll add more soon.

Broadcast Education Association 2009

2009-04-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

Among the various things I did at BEA 2009--I served my various duties as Student Audio Chair for the BEA Festival and participated in a session called Preparing Students for Careers in Spanish Language Media. Students and university faculty doing creative work should enter something in the next Festival -- see www.beaweb.org. The deadline will be early December.

One of the great sessions I attended was the Writing Division’s Top Papers session. Patricia Phalen of George Washington University presented “Writing Hollywood: Rooms With a Point of View” and Mary Blue, Tulane University presented a paper about Amaani Lyle - who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit because of what happened in the writer’s room at Friends—that she claimed as harassment. Blue talked about fantasy chaining –from Gary David Goldberg, maker of Family Ties, which relates to how a sitcom group of writers works to be funny. Hollywood writers Dean Batali (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and THat 70s Show) Skye Dent (Star Trek: Voyager and The Burning Zone) and Jonathan Prince ("American Dreams" Executive Producer) then evaluated he content of the papers and talked about the realities of Hollywood writing. Dean, for example said his opinion of why Lyle struggled with her job with Friends was that she basically just couldn’t do the job.
Other points made by the writers...
Jonathan Prince worked with Witt Thomas Harris then MTM to learn to be a show runner. Those kind of comedy and drama ‘factories’ don’t exist any more, so that kind of training has to be done by people working in the current writing staffs. Writer’s assistant used to be a secretarial position—now they are expected to be able to write. Lot of discussion about ‘what goes on in the room.’ “Breaking the story” – the idea of what a story line might be in the show. Put it on the board, decide where the act breaks are. If you’re brilliant enough in Hollywood they’ll put up with a lot of extremes (Dean made this comment) Jonathan pointed out it’s all about how the show runner runs things – Don Rio and Blossom – Rio wanted to push people to finish at the end of the day and had a ‘don’t order dinner’ policy so people would srap up and leave. Bitter writers – Skye talked about writers’ relationship with highly paid actors on Friends, for example.
Prince in replying to the ‘outsiders and insiders’ that happens when people join the writing room–‘welcome to the real world—not matter what job you go into, there are those kinds of dynamics.’ More opportunities now for writers than ever—because there are so many more channels. Skye noted writers are on the set making sure the director and writers implement what they created in a TV drama. You have to get a writer’s assistant job to become a writer. Writer’s assistant has to get a spec script accepted.

Then, at a session on news convergence... One example of what they’re doing at Northern Arizona University—Big issue is the tech side—journalism students who have issues with using the digital audio recorder, etc. Difficulties in doing convergence, difference in ‘what is convergence’—student who saw it as having a portal. Instead, focus on good storytelling, not on distribution. Colorado State showed video about doing multimedia. See studentmediacorp.com and my tweet (www.twitter.com/tdemars)

Texas Intercollegiate Press Association

2009-04-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

This was TIPA's 100 year anniversary--the organization started with a meeting at Baylor University in 1909. This year it was at the Sheraton in downtown Dallas. The 'under construction' Sheraton. Where some meetings were on the 3rd Floor and some were on the 37th--with only three elevators to get the hundreds of folks up there--and some were across the road.

I've been involved with so many different organizations that I have avoided getting involved with TIPA through my years of university teaching. Plus, I've taught more within broadcast programs and TIPA started as, and continues to lean toward, the newspaper world.

(I'll add more to this later)

Southern States Communication Association

2009-04-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note as I depart Norfolk, VA and the Southern States Communication Association Convention. I missed some of the early part of the convention becasue of being involved in so much else, so I could only come over for Friday through Sunday, but it was still a good experience.

In one of the most useful sessions I attended, Ideologies, Pedagogies, and Disciplines Converge to Improve Classroom Communication, Deborah Walker of Coastal Carolina University talked about the research project she and Denise Forrest are doing to show how middle school and high school teachers could be better prepared for communicating in the classroom with students. While this project is focused on grade school, not college or university teaching, and on math, not general subject areas, I found the information to be quite useful regarding what all of us are dealing with in modern education--communicating expectations of engagement and active learning to students, with the expectation that they will be involved with the learning process.

The session I participated in also went well. Jeff South and Marcus Messner of Virginia Commonwealth University joined me in a roundtable discussion of 'new media' issues in the traditional communication curriculum, With me being a broadcast person, Jeff being a print person, and Marcus being a 'multi-media' person, it made for lots of good insight into what Mass Communication programs should be doing right now to update the curriculum.

SSCA has become a much better organization in recent years, so I'm glad I made it to this year's conference--I've attended SSCA for almost 10 years in a row now. Next year it's in Memphis, then 20111 in Little Rock, and 2012 in San Antonio.

National Broadcasting Society convention

2009-03-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am getting the final day started at the National Broadcasting Society / Alpha Epsilon Rho national convention in New York City. On my first day here Wednesday, there was a pretty good presentation from Adobe (http://blogs.adobe.com/jlevmedia/) and then conference kick off sessions Wednesday night.

Thursday, we took buses to Manhattan for tours of the morning shows and other media production facilities (the convention hotel is next to LaGuardia airport). I went on the tour that went to Alan Weiss Productions, where they make Teen Kidz News, among other things. And, they produce HotNewz for college campuses--college students who want to submit news packages should visit their web site to find out more: www.hotnewz.tv --yes, this is .tv not .com. During the afternoon there were several sessions held at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Friday and Saturday, back at the convention hotel I heard various speakers continue to talk about how tough things are in the industry right now, and remind students that media jobs are usually low pay and hard work in the first years--'you have to pay your dues.' I saw a great Adobe demo that followed up what Jason Levine had done Wednesday about Adobe Premiere and the overall CS4 Production Premium software. As a person who has moved more toward Final Cut Pro in recent years, this presentation as well as one from Avid on Saturday made me re-think that a bit. It seems university departments should try to do some training for each of these systems--even if one becomes the dominant 'project work' system for students in the department.

The NBS regional convention for my region (Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico) will be in November 2009, in Austin, Texas and the next national NBS convention will be in Dallas in Spring 2010. Spending less on travel will be nice.

Western States Communication Association

2009-02-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

The Western States Communication Association’s annual convention is taking place this year at the Phoenix / Mesa Marriott February 14-17. My presentation time was Sunday morning, with a discussion planned for research on Spanish-language media as student media. I’ve done some research on Spanish-language media and have supervised student Spanish-language media, so this was intended to share ideas and get educators talking more with industry people. I’ll continue this with another session that will be at BEA in April.

The next session I attended featured Jim Urbanovich and Bud Zeuschner discussing “Does Online Instruction Enhance of Hinder Pedagogy.” This session focused on pros and cons of online courses—especially for teaching public speaking courses. Useful session but not much depth to the whole debate of online degrees, faculty compensation and evaluation issues for online teaching, or ownership of the course.

Next up, the Top Four research papers submitted to the Media Studies Interest Group, where Sarah Janel Jackson of the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities reported on a study of media coverage of the 2006 Megan Williams rape case. Her content and discourse analysis used news coverage on the top two traditional broadcast and top two cable networks found that ABC and NBC each reported the story three times, Fox none and CNN 25 times. Jackson noted in the time period analyzed that the news organizations that did not report the story or did so minimally did have content discussing the case. Overall, Jackson’s study sought to demonstrate the ideological and framing implications of news media coverage. Aaron Hess and Karen Stewart of Arizona State reported on their study “Finding Islands of Community in a Sea of Commodification: A Rhetorical and Ludological Analysis of the Public and Private Character of Second Life.” Noting that ludology is the study of games and play, they sought to use games analysis to look at the playful qualities of Second Life. They found that a distinction between public and private life may be less pronounced in this virtual environment. Alicia Kemmitt and Esteban del Rio presented the paper “Missing the Joke: A Reception Analysis of Satirical Texts,” and Valerie Manusov and Jessica Harvey’s presentation was “Bumps and Tears on the Road to the Presidency: Assessing ‘Mixed Metaphors’ in Mediated Discourse of Key Nonverbal Events in the 2008 Democratic Election.”

The next session featured Hugh Downs as keynote speaker! Super experience (I sat on the front), and really a treat to hear this long-time broadcaster share his experiences and insights. Downs celebrated his 88th birthday Saturday, and he and his wife (who was also there) celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary in a few days. I’ll skip trying to summarize what Downs discussed; a summary from me would be an injustice to the experience of hearing it first-hand.

I finished off the day at the Media Studies Interest Group business meeting.

Consumer Electronics Show

2009-01-11T11:03:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm just back from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The only gambling I did was my various choices of places to eat, mostly less than satisfactory. It was great having the chance to visit with former student Dan Landson, who is a producer for the CBS affiliate there, and it was again an enlightening experience to see all the developments going on in the industry.

Last year, on my flight home from CES, I sat on the plane beside a rep from Misubishi Electronics, who told me all about their big roll-out of the 'next best thing in home TVs--their new laser technology.' I saw none of those in the stores this year and no sign of them at CES (I could have easily just missed them--the exhibits cover an extraordinary amount of space in multiple locations). The big thing I noticed this year for flat screen TVs is Samsung's LED technology--that is super thin and uses less energy than LCDs. I wasn't impressed that the Samsung people were running around rudely stopping people like me from taking pictures of their items they were marketing. I take a camera and get pictures so I can remember some of the stuff--as do many people. So, I stepped outside their booth space, zoomed in, and got the pictures I wanted, as is perfectly legitimate to do. And I'll remember this when I buy another TV brand this year instead of a Samsung. Maybe next year they'll put up walls so no one can come in and see what they have.

AEJMC Winter Planning

2009-01-04T19:09:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm a little late posting this, but I'll go ahead and do a summary of the Winter Planning Meeting for AEJMC that took place the first weekend of December in Louisville. I've done several of these now, and I really like this aspect of AEJMC. I was there this time as the Head of the Internships and Careers Interest Group (ICIG). This planning meeting takes place every year on the first weekend of December to plan the AEJMC Convention that will take place the following August--in this case, August 2009 in Boston.

ICIG did pretty well in scheduling sessions for Boston. As it stands right now, we have a pre-conference session on Tuesday, August 4 from 1-5 p.m. that will be led by ICIG member John Chapin from Penn State. It's scheduled to be a round-table discussion of best practices and challenges in integrating internship and career skills into the curriculum in Journalism and Mass Communication programs. Panelists represent internship coordinators, department heads and faculty in large and small communications programs, and it will be a good --and free to attend -- pre-conference workshop for any JMC educator. We have two panels on Wednesday, 8/5--one co-sponsored with the Small Programs Interest Group and the other with the Radio Television Journalism Division; Thursday we have a panel at 11:45 a.m. and our Scholar to Scholar slot is at 1:30 p.m.; Friday we have a panel at 1:45, our Peer Reviewed Research Session at 5:15 p.m., then our Business Meeting at 7:00 p.m.; then Saturday we have a session co-sponsored by the International Communication Division at 10:00 a.m.

The Winter Meeting is all about planning, and I once again thoroughly enjoyed seeing how well structured the upcoming AEJMC Convention will be. Find out more at www.aejmc.org.

Now, I'm about to head out to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Maybe I'll find some time to write about it this year; I attended CES for the first time last year and was overwhelmed, but never found the time to write about it.

National Broadcasting Society, Region IV Convention

2008-11-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

Having been an adviser to National Broadcasting Society student groups for many years at multiple universities, you'd think I might have made it to at least one NBS convention, yet this is my first. Honestly, educators have too many academic conference commitments in many cases to make it to this type of 'student-focused' convention.

This time was important though. First, having just gotten the NBS chapter going again at Texas A&M University at Commerce, it was important to me that we attended the regional convention. Plus, the host university, West Texas A&M has had a vibrant NBS chapter for some years, and they have great media production activities and facilities--all things our students needed to experience first-hand. Hats off to the four students from TAMU-C who made the drive all the way over to Canyon, Texas for the convention held at WTAMU.

Here's a summary of sessions. Nashville musician Lionel Cartright (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtxyxtUoVh8) gave an inspirational account of his career in offering advice to those pursuing mass communication careers.

Big Brother (CBS) Producer Matt Simms talked about producing reality TV and how it compared to scripted TV shows.

A panel of others from media careers --

(more to come)

Reflections on the 2008 Convergence Conference

2008-10-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

I did not get a chance to blog while at the 2008 Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web" Conference October 8-11, so I'll jot down a few thoughts now. This conference has been sponsored by the University of South Carolina for several years now, and I (Tony DeMars) along with organizer Augie Grant (on the faculty as SC), as well as Jeff Wilkinson (now of United International College in China -- see http://partnerpage.google.com/profjeff.com) and Janet Kolodzy of Emerson College in Boston are the only four people who have attended all of them. Thanks to Augie for recognizing us for that again this year!

Why attend the 'Convergence Conference'? Anyone who teaches journalism, Radio-Television, or new media classes that deal with technologies should be there. I have been able to track changes in the industry and in university teaching through my involvement with this conference. Plus, unlike the huge academic conferences, the 'manageable' number of attendees means we get to attend all the sessions (not have to choose from one of several at a time), and we get to know others doing similar research, not just hear their 15-minute presentation. Augie does a great job too of putting together a program that is enlightening from beginning to end.

So, in my 'after the fact reflections' here, I'll skip summarizing sessions from this year, but instead make a point that next year's conference will be held November 5-7, 2009 at the University of Nevada-Reno. Paper submission deadline is June 15, 2009. E-mail augie@sc.edu with questions, or visit http://Newsplex.sc.edu

SWECJMC 2008 #2

2008-10-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

The second session I attended this morning had research that is very timely in today's college teaching world.

The first research..."How Journalism and Mass Communication Professors Perceive and Cope with Changes in Student Characteristics" by Bruce Plopper and Cassondra Sagan Webb.
There seems to be a trend where students are 'harder to teach'--instead of spending the appropriate time (or even having an expectation) of studying and learning, many expect things to be catered to what they want. Students think learning is a social activity with a technology component. They think they can multitask, but research shows multitasking doesn't work. What to do about it? This presentation did not offer solutions, but proposed that educators test techniques they use for teaching.

Kristy Roschke then talked about "Convergence Journalism in High School: How Educators are Keeping Up with Trends in the Media Industry." As a high school journalism teacher and graduate student, she talked about changes going on in expectations of news employees (see my post below about the 'super reporter').

Carol Schwalbe then discussed "Leveraging the Digital Media Habits of the Millennials: Innovative Strategies for Teaching Journalism Courses." Student-centered or experiential learning are said by some to be good approaches. What are the digital media habits of these students? How can we leverage those into more effective techniques in the classroom?
Educators should not get rid of teaching fundamentals of the profession, but with digital media, can take advantage of non-linear, provide pre-recorded digital feedback, and allow students to critique each other's work on a site like Blackboard (WebCT, eCollege).

Also in sessions today: "Publish or Perish: Getting Published in the Southwestern Mass Communication Journal--and Others" and a special session on "Border Journalism: Issues" -- especially topical for our Las Cruces location and its proximity to Mexico. This web site is important to that discussion: http://www.pasodelsur.com/

SWECJMC 2008

2008-10-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

We're in Las Cruces, NM Friday and Saturday, October 24-25, 2008. On the first day, I heard about research like 'A Content Analysis of Leading Newspapers During the 2008 Democratic Primary' from Thomas Christie and Ivana Segvic-Boudreaux of Texas at Arlington, 'How Newspapers Covered a 1915 Lynching Story in Waco' from Lisa McCollough of the University of North Texas, and a case study on 'Education and Public Life at the Virginian-Pilot' by Leslie-Jean Thornton of Arizona State.

I presented "Socialization and Acculturation Through Interaction with New Media Narratives" in a session that also included the top paper at the conference: "The News That's Fit to Click: An Analysis of Online News Values and Preferences Present in the Most-Viewed Stories on AZCentral.com" by Serena Carpenter and Sky Schaudt of Arizona State.

We ended the day Friday with an awards dinner that also included a mariachi performance from a group made up of students at New Mexico State University. During that dinner, the group conducted an official vote to change the organization's name from Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication (SWECJMC) to Southwest Mass Communication Council. The motion failed, so the discussion focused on potential future proposals for a name change, like Southwest Mass Communication Association.

Saturday morning, while a poster sessions goes on next door, we're hearing about 'Black Images in Cinema' from Oklahoma Ph.D. student Cristal Johnson, 'Feminist Magazines in the 1970s,' from Sammye Johnson, and 'Online Identities of Overseas Chinese' from Aimai Yang, also of Oklahoma.

By the way, after I started doing this blog, I discovered how quickly the spammers were able to start posting irrelevant, self-promoting stuff--so that's why I changed the settings to moderate comments. If you study Journalism and Mass Communication, I'd love to use this blog to share and discuss ideas and research projects. So, offer a relevant comment and I'll let it through.

2008-04-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the 2008 Broadcast Education Association convention...

1--I hate trying to talk about complex subjects in 10-15 minutes. Spending months creating research and writing, then spending hundred of dollars and 3-4 days traveling to do a 15-minute presentation has a certain disconnect for me...

2--I really enjoyed getting more involved in the BEA Festival of Media Arts this year. Anyone (university faculty or students) doing creative work should plan to enter their high-quality work for the 2009 convention. See http://www.beafestival.org/ -- as I post this it still has the entry information for the 2008 convention, but the postmark deadline for 2009 is Dedcember 1, 2008. And I'll also note--sometimes people get exactly what they deserve: my thanks also to Louise Benjamin (University of Georgia) for all her work as Festival Chair; she was appropriately recognized at the Friday night Best of Festival Awards Ceremony.

3--This was a great BEA convention. Everyone gets how the world of electronic media is changing, and so the sessions were very forward thinking.

4--A reminder--if you're doing broadcast and new media related research, the panel submission deadline for the 2009 BEA Convention is 8/15/2008, and the research papers will be due in early December 2008.

I'm back, for now

2008-04-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

O.K. I have to admit, when I first posted I wanted to create an archive for myself, and I didn't really care if anyone found and/or read my blog. So I kind of skipped 2007. I've continued to think about blogging and what this blog might mean, and I now hope to actually pick up where I left off and continue what I started to do, which is to document some things I experience at academic conferences related to traditional and new media. I'm at a session right now at BEA (http://www.beaweb.org) on creating digital portfolios. Some folks from U. of Cincinnati have a forward thinking program that looks like a great idea. Some links:

http://www.emedia.com.ccm.uc.edu/munich-summer-curriculum

http://www.web.mac.com/thedigitalcore

and see the Net Standards list for grades K-12 at www. iste.net

AEJMC

2006-10-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention took place in August 2006 in San Francisco. The research I worked on for this conference was Helping Citizens Be Involved: Usability Factors in Teaching Computer-Based Journalism Courses.

BEA

2006-10-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

The Broadcast Education Association convention was April 2006 in Las Vegas. BEA is in Las Vegas every year--since they are supported by the National Association of Broadcasters and meet in conjunction with the NAB Convention. This is a great convention to attend, since the Radio Television News Directors Association also holds its convention in conjunction with NAB--so educators like me can attend some industry-focused sessions to go along with our academic sessions, plus we can tour the tens of thousans of square feet of broadcast equipment we might like to acquire for our university program. At this BEA, I presented From Classroom to Convergence: What Employers in Smaller Markets Need from Our Graduates.

SSCA

2006-10-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Southern States Communication Association met in Addison (Dallas-Fort Worth area) March 2006. I presented Re-evaluation of Teaching News Convergence in the University Curriculum. This paper and presentation came about after I came to some conclusions at the Fall 2005 Convergence Conference at Brigham Young University, sponsored by BYU and the University of South Carolina. What was my moment of enlightenment? Well, for some years I had studied what was developing in local market news convergence between print, broadcast and web sites. In relation, I had begun, as many others had, trying to incorporate more 'new media' preparation into my broadcast journalism teaching. This presention was a continuation of an argument I started trying to make--that the illusion of creating the 'super journalist' who could shoot video, be the talent, shoot still pictures, then write / create the story for print, broadcast and online distribution was impractical. Yes, we should prepare students for the changing media, but educators should not necessarily assume this economically-beneficial-to-employers super journalist can be produced from redesigning our curriculum. The moral of the story? Focus on still teaching the basic skills.

NATPE

2006-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

O.K. It's been a week since I went to NATPE--the National Association of Television Program Executives--convention, that was 1/22-26, but I'm just now getting to writing about it. I went as Faculty Fellow, through the NATPE Educational Foundation, for which I am extremely grateful. NATPE gave me and all the fellows a chance as educators to stay in touch with the industry--invaluable knowedge and experience to take into the classroom! I'll be adding more as time permits, detailing each day's experiences.

SWECJMC #8

2005-11-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I found out what happens when blogspot goes off for a few hours while you're trying to blog--you wait. So, with any luck, here's all the last post I did and saved to computer.

The Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication symposium program ended Saturday 11/5/05 with a 12:30 p.m. panel presentation called "Selena's Death Revisited: How Are We Doing on Covering Hispanic Subculture a Decade Later?" Panelists included Randy Bangart of the Greeley Tribune, Michael Madigan of the Rocky Mountain News, Greg Nieto of WB2 in Denver, Edwin Ruis, editor or La Tribuna, Manny Trevino of U. of Northern Colorado and John C. Merrill or Northwestern State. How much better does the mainstream media pay attention to subcultures in our society now than they were doing 10 years ago?
Bangart mentioned some backlash with La Tribuna when people thought it was a mistake to publish a paper in Spanish--with the feeling that people in the U.S. should learn English. In La Tribuna they do not simply translate English language stories from the Greeley Tribune into Spanish--La Tribuna does its own stories.
Nieto mentioned in Yakima Washington covering Selena's death what he did in doing stories--10 years later he doesn't sense a lot of progress in covering Latino issues and stories. In TV news 'if it bleeds it leads' keeps station from carrying stories about issues of a community. News judgment made by news director, based on their target audience. He mentioned studies show what people want to know about. Crime stories often give descriptions that are useless -- 'suspect in Hispanic male with black hair, brown eyes.' They have about 12 reporters--about 8 are white, a few Hispanic and a few black--trying to reflect community diversity in reporters not the same as getting into their communities.
Trevino mentioned several Latino performers who don't get covered as one example of how things are. There are plenty of Hispanics who don't read Spanish so La Tribuna does them no good, while the Tribune in English may miss stories important to Tejano culture. Our society tends to cover a variety of cultures but when it comes to Hispanics it's often about illegals or crime. Trevino mentioned the acculturation shuffle--issues include language, religion, family. There are more Hispanics in America than Canadians in Canada, so the Hispanics are not going to go away. For many years, Hispanic cultural activities like qincineras were not done, but these days Latinos are more often doing things like this that are part of their culture and people involved in the activities include other cultures.
Madigan started by reflecting back on when Selena died and their news meeting about what would go into the newspaper, the editors decisions about what would go in, the discussion about Selena--they was not a Latino at the table--they ended up having a reference headline on page one, but it ended up not being a big story for them at that time. NAHJ parity project launched about three yers ago noted. Rocky Mountain News one of the first to embrace the project. The real issue is to better cover the community and culture need more staff from that culture--the project has helped them do a better job with that.

Ruis talked about their small staff but increasing success of La Tribuna. Won first national award and are proud of the work they are doing. He just came to U. S. one year ago. They are a tie between their community, showing people how to do things like how to gt a driver license, how to use the library—and offering them entertainment. They do the basics of a newspaper to be connected with their readers. That means change the language and the interests but still maintain the quality in trying to cover the community of Spanish-speaking Hispanics in Northern Colorado. They are influencing the Greeley Tribune—sharing information they also may use in English. Their paper covers the regular life of their readers that the mainstream media often misses.

Merrill said we don’t do a good job in the U.S. of covering other countries’ news—Latin America, but Canada too. Having people on the staff is only part of the issues. Only 10% of newspaper is news—so imagine how little foreign news there would be because of this. He then opened the sessions up to discussion and questions. People reading this blog—here’s a great session to offer comments on!

By the way, if you teach journalism and have any interest in teaching these kinds of issues to students, watch for The Best Storytelling on Race and Ethnicity from Arlene Morgan and Keith Woods from Columbia University Press.

SWECJMC #7

2005-11-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

The session at 11:00 was moderated by Roger Saathoff from Texas Tech. The topic is a discussion of convergence in the curriculum. Saatthof noted the plans for a convergence Ph.D. at Texas Tech. Russ Shain from Arkansas State began by talking about what they're doing. Noted faculty who say 'we have teach more than one thing." Compared characteristics of broadcast and print then discussed the web component. Partnership with department of Art for digital media. Last summer they visted Ole Miss, who got Gannett grant to remodel the department, As part of this, they kicked out student media center because of space, so student media was able to remodel other space and have a converged news operation. They're doing pilot test of some software. They discovered the same problems you'd expect in throwing students into 'doing everything.' But some of it seems to be working. So, Arkansas State is doing a converged media class in the spring. Doing it as a team teaching approach. Test it to see how convergence, podcasting, etc. can work.

Paula Furr from Northwestern State says they are limited by their department and faculty size but also limited by ACEJMC accreditation effects. They are focusing on still teaching the basics of good writing, good skills, etc. and not trying to 'teach everything.' But, they are pointing students in a capstone class to have had given themselves experience with all their department media and learned some aspects of print, broadcast and Internet. The idea that you are going to teach 'everything' you have to have students come in with good basic skills already--which they mostly do not have.

Charles Ingold of the University of Northern Colorado, said for them the idea was no so much about media convergence but to make students more marketable -- more skills to take to a different assortment of jobs. Also telecommunications emphasis based on technology, PR based on content--theorectically it should be easy for students to cross over through electives. Now, getting into convergent media product--kind of relates to the question of 'what is a convergenc]tmedia product.' Resouces also become an issue--how can you make all your students do a class that is technology-driven and by its nature needs to be small? Referred to BYU's plans (was not aware of recent developments at BYU--pulling back from convergence). Overall, faculty difficulty in being interested in and wanting to cover a variety of activities in one class and disgruntled students make doing convergence a challenge.

Jamie Byrne of Arkansas-Little Rock talked about 'officiating at the shotgun wedding' in pulling together curricula in convergence effort. In looking at new faculty, they are looking at people who have more diverse backgrounds to be able to teach more than one area. In dealing with the faculty--current faculty member who is a newspaper journalist type can do some retraining for other areas. The university needs to suport that financially. Their new convergence effort is to create generalists with a specialty. School of Mass Communication core, with concentrations in journalism, mass communication, strategic communication and media design & production.

As a panel discussion, after the overview from panelists, the audience and the panel interacted on issues of convergence--with a note made that maybe it's better to see it as co-existence. Convergence Tracker from API noted.

SWECJMC #6

2005-11-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

Outside readers--note that for each time slot, two sessions are going on at the same time. Persons in the session I am not in are asked to add their comments by summarizing those sessions.

At 9:30 Marlin Shipman from Arkansas State began the session I am in with "The Newspaper Press, Capital Punishment and Religion." The purpose of the study was to try to identify and classify types of religious statements or images that appeared in execution stories in newspapers, and how these might influience public perception about capital punishment. Shipman talked first about the repentence-redemption model used in stories in the 1800s to the mid-1900s. Race also comes into the coverage--white-owned press reported images about African-Americans based on myths. Black-owned press became important between 1830-1860.
The next model discussed--just punishment model: you break the law, you pay the price. Newspapers 'precahed' in the stories about the messages in this view. Beginning in the 1960s, the 'sanctity of human life' model emerged and continues through to today. Readers started seeing more stories about people protesting the executions. The Roman Catholic Church started evaluating the sanctity of human life as organized religions started speaking against executions. More religious beliefs were included in execution stories.

The second presenter, Janice Wood from Texas Christian University, did "Foote Work for Free Speech: Two Doctors Foote Support Defendants Charged Wth Obscenity, 1872-1915." Wood talked about Anthony Comstockwho in 1873 lobbied Congress about obscenity. Father/sons-doctors named E.B. Foote Sr. and Jr. who were prosecuted. The paper is about a campaign started by the doctors to defend people based on free speech. Summarized obscenity, anti-anarchist, reform issues and courts hostile to free speech. Hicklin rule noted. The paper looks at people affected by some prosecutions under the law-- D.M. Bennett, Exra Heywood, Charles Reynolds, Dr. Sara Chase, Ida Craddock, John Turner, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger.

James E. Mueller of the University of North Texas presented "Victims, Villains and Heroes: Comparing Newspaper Coverage of World War II and the Iraq War." Presented related story about media coverage in Iraq--speaking with a student who returned from Iraq--angry about media coverage. If there was a foul up the story led CNN; something good , he couldn't find any news . Feeling that the coverage indicated the war was a lost cause and its failure made him feel like a fool for being there as a soldier. This anecdote led the author to lok at how news stories framed war coverage. Hero-type stories shown, like one from the Dallas Morning News during WWII. Iraq coverage stories of this type were hard to find. In contrast a lot of the Iraq stories portrayed the story in a victim mode, hopelessness of the war effort, person killed in war had joined the miltary to help pay for college and was a victim by being killed. Even editorial page cartoon portrays Iraq war as hopeless. In the frame of 'soldier as villain, ' Iraq war coverage it was dominant; in WWII similar stories looking at soldiers killings or enemy did not question soldier's motives or look to outside interpretations.

Charles (Curt) Yowell of the University of Houston presented "Community and the Public Realm of Alternative Media" (Don't Hate the Media, Become the Media)
Defined alternative/independent media--not mainstraeam media, non-profit, ideally accomplishes such goals as facilitation of group/organization identity for audience /producers, formation of community by unique use of public space, and engagement of disenfranchised groups. Noted Independent Media Center founded in Seattle 1999 as part of the protest of the WTO meeting. Community Public radio can be for people like the alienated or the faceless. It facilitates discussion of social power, political power and group identity. Discussed how alternative media empowers . Research questions: what role does the production/reception of alternative media have on group identity and what role does the production/reception of alternative media have on public sphere. Evaluated KPFT in Houston, run by Pacifica Radio; noted the station's mission as noted on its web site. Ethnographic and other research is being conducted to continue to add to theory on alternative media influence.

SWECJMC #5

2005-11-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning 11/5/05 and the first session I am attending started even before its 8:00 a.m. scheduled start time! Paula Furr, Interim Chair in the Journalism Department at Northwestern State in Louisiana is talking about faculty collegiality in "Collegiality Helps Put the 'C' in Success." Maybe should be more toward congenialty. There is a misperception about faculty members jobs--people assume long vacations, just show up and teach classes, etc.
How is it best to have collegiality? Can be accomplished through faculty search committees, administrators setting tone, self reflection, guard against clicques/silencing opinion, undestand that criticism/opposition is not necesarily conflict.

Second presenter Kate Pierce of Texas State University - San Marcos. The study that is part of a graduate student's thesis, looked at gay characters on TV as a content analysis, and to look at it from a gay audience's perspective. Study identified a variety of gay characters--like Hetero-Homo characters (Will on Will and Grace; flamerqueen, Jack on W&G ; fabulous fag--helps straight people learn stereotypical things--Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Business Betty--Melannie Queer as Folk; and queer fatale, like Shane of The L Word.

The next speaker, Mark Finney of University of Colorado - Boulder presented "Against a Totalizing Theory of Media Influences." The study seeks to analyze the relationship between U. S. journalism and U. S. foreign policy decisions. Does journalism influence foreign or is it used to promote policies? Are there situations where there is more or less influencence? Two schools of thought--Manufacting Consent, media operate on behalf of govt and CNN effect--media can affect government policy. This study is an effort to compare the merits of each theory in continuing this type analysis. THis paper is an exploratory analysis as part of his dissertation.

Fnally, George Daniels of Alabama and Lillie Fears of Arkansas State presented "So What Can You Do? Perceived Entry-Level Journaliosm Skills of Mass Communications Students."
What kind of predictors are there for high school students going into journalism degrees? Theu also sought to compare journmalism students to ones in other areas like advertising or PR.
Trade publications are critical of how educators are training students for newspaper jobs
The reserchers sought to look at how pre-college socialization affected the pipeline into journalism courses. Among the hyopotheses: years of high school publication experince is positively related to students encouragement to pursue journalism careers, years of high school publication experience is positeively related to students comfort level with technical equipment, and industry introduction skills will predict a student's entry-level journalism skills. The first two hypotheses listed about were not supported. The third one listed above was supported. (There were other hypotheses discussed.) Networking was noted as the most important element in students' introduction to J/MC programs.

As is often the case at the end of the formal presentations, the session ended with a lively Q&A time between audience members and presenters.

New to Blogging --Damn Spam

2005-11-04T20:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been involved in discussing blogs for a few years now and thought I would try one of my own related to Mass Communication-based conferences I attend, starting with SWECJMC 11/3-5 in Colorado. My first evaluation is to wonder how the spam shows up so quickly, and to ask if anyone knows how to keep it from showing up as comments when the comments are not specific to the blog and clearly are just people looking for free advertising and such. I guess I solved the problem by setting it up so the moderator has to approve all posts.

SWECJMC #4

2005-11-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

A reception and dinner topped off the day Friday. Long-time educator and scholar John Merrill was acknowledged. The Northern Colorado School of Communication Director and university president welcomed the group to the university. A university jazz vocal group performed two songs.

The top six papers were recognized, including: "Gagging Trial Participants: Responsibility, Substantiality and Imminence of Prejudicial Publicity in Civil and Criminal Cases, 1991-2005," by Edward L. Carter and Brad Clark, Brigham Young University; and "Online Brand Personality: Test of Big-Five Personality Dimensions," by Hwiman Chung, New Mexico State University and Youngjun Sung, University of Georgia; and "Advertising Believability Based on Medium and Language: A Comparison of Hispanic and White Consumers," by Alex Ortiz, Texas Tech University; and "Victims, Villains and Heroes: Comparing Newspaper Coverage of World War II and the Iraq War," by James E. Mueller, University of North Texas; and "Misappropriation of Justice: Media Framing and the Supreme Court's Abolition of the Juvenile Death Penalty," by Emily Metzgar, Louisiana State University; and the first-place paper "Improving Web Literacy Among Students in an Introductory Journalism and Mass Communication Course,' by Sarah L. Naper and Wayne Melanson, University of Northern Colorado, and Molly Susan Mathias, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Members were reminded by Judith Sylvester of LSU that next year's symposium will be hosted the first weekend of November 2006 at Louisiana State University.

Gil Fowler led the group in honoring Marlin Shipman of Arkansas State University.

Incoming SWECJMC president Meta Carstarphen of the University of Oklahoma closed the program.

SWECJMC #3

2005-11-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

At the same time of this session, a Special Tour is going on called "James A. Michenor Collection" Michenor was a graduate student and faculty member at the University of Northern Colorado and left an endowment and personal collection that is on public display.

The 4:15 p.m. Friday session began with Ray Niekamp from Texas State University - San Marcos presenting "Audience Activity Among Users of the World Wide Web." Uses and Gratifications research assumes and active audience, but are they really? There are passive viewers but there are also active or instrumental viewers--involved and focused on the content. If this is true in TV, does this also apply to the World Wide Web? Audience activity includes Selectivity, involvement and utility (How you make use of the media after you saession has ended. The study used an online survey of web users. 288 usable cases were analyzed. The study expected that a) instrumental users are more selective than ritualistic users, b) selection of informational content predicts an instrumental user, b2) Selection of entertainment content predicts a ritualistic user, c) selectivity during Web use predicts an instrumental user, d) involvement before Web use predicts an instrumental user, e) involvement during Web use predicts an instrumental user, and f) distractions predict ritualistic user. Is the WWW a mass communications medium. Uses and Gratifications is legitimate for studying the Web. Web site design is a practical application to this understanding.

Tony DeMars from Sam Houston State University next presented "Local TV Market Multicasting: A New Paradigm for Digital Television." Started by discussing problems with cable TV system and continued rate increases, problems with retransmission consent and the effect of forcing cable systems and DBS providers to carry extra, minimally-viewed channels from big program suppliers that own local market TV stations, continued rate increase from increasing sports rights fees and sports channels costs--that everyone pays for but few people watch. Local over-the-air DTV channels have the ability to carry 4-5 different services--referred to as multicasting. Presentation demonstrated how multicasting could act as a replacement for having to buy multiple channels through cable TV or DBS. Local (terrestrial) broadcasters could carry about four standard definition digitally-delivered channels on their one digital channel, or one high definition channel. During major events like a Super Bowl, or during prime time, the stations might have their one HD channel; during other dayparts, the stations could send multiple channels. For example, Viacom owns CBS and UPN and they also own local market TV stations. Their CBS affiliate in a market could carry the CBS network, but then also broadcast Viacom-owned channels like Spike TV, Nickelodeon, and TV Land. The locally-owned UPN station could carry UPN, but also MTV, VH1, CMT and BET. In this model, the channels go back to being only advertiser-supported, and the weaker channels will go away when they are not profitable. This compares to the current cable model where subscribers pay for scores of channels they never watch, and these channels that have very low viewership manage to stay on because of the way carriage is currently negotiated.

The final presenter is Edward L. Carter from Brigham Young University, speaking on "The Day Grokster Ate Sony: Examing the Rationale Behind..." Study was based on a Supreme Court case. Started with statement of coyright clause, definition of originality and fixed in a tangible medium, what copyrigjht protects, what copyright does for copyright holder. Copyright infringement--what happens upon infringement. Napster case in 2001 -- court found Napster could be liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement. AS Napster began charging users, Gokster and StreamCast came along and targeted previous Napster users. 9th Circuit Appeals court said Grokster did not have secondary liability because of the way it worked--had examples of non-infringing uses. Case then went to Supreme Court, that reversed the 9th Circuit's decision--result is to narrow application of Sony case (1984). Ruling said there was evidence in Grokster of intent to induce copyright violation. People thought the case would help clarify the Sony case, but it did not.

SWECJMC #2

2005-11-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

Shu-Ling C. Berggreen from University of Colorado - Boulder is speaking at the symposium on "Multiculturalism in Children's Television: Disney and the Nickelodeon Examples." Children's programs expose children to cultural stereotypes and can accept images as the norm. Pocahontas example--people outside U.S. seeing this will not know the history, so this is the only way people 'know' the story of the history of European/American Indian events. The speaker noted that Chinese children for example would see this Disney film as a true story. Even though company's goal is to make money do they have a social responsibility to be socially/historically correct? Lilo and Stitch dolls shown and impact of program discussed. Even as a movie and TV show like this tries to promote multiculturalism, it reinforces stereotypes. Dora the Explorer discussed--Dora as a Latina--basics of characters and that Dora teaches Spanish as part of what children learn from the show. Dora first had blue eyes in first drawings for the show--but not realistic so adjusted to be accurate. Dora is successful and is not so stereotypically done--cultural and social responsibility can be met while also having corporate profitability.

The final speaker in this session is Hwiman Chung from New Mexico State University presenting "The Effects of Web Site Sequence: The Role of Personal Difference." The study is about the structural effects of web sites on users. Many studies on effects of interactiviy--but much of the evidence is based on unrealistic materials, only a few studies have looked at ad design and effects. So the research questions linear or interactive structure as more effective. Different types of structures--hieracrchical, relationally linked or mixed type. Which has the greatest effectiveness? Study also recognizes five different personality dimensions, and the study is based on social responsibility theory.

Southwest Education Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication

2005-11-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

The SWECJMC symposium (see http://www.swecjmc.org) at the University of Northern Colorado is underway 11/4/05. The first sessions at 1 p.m. included

Nicole Smith –Ph.D. student at UNC--Current State of Online Education in J and MC
56% offered distance education; most use online--U. of Phoenix now the nation’s largest private university--Criticism—what is the quality? Purpose—discover what is being done, share findings with others involved, offer this info online. Stage 1—nationwide mail survey – sent to more than 500 universities. 37 schools offering courses and or degrees in J/MC. See LSU web site Stage 2: follow-up, qualitative with those 37 schools—54% response rate. Limited number of schools offering certificates, degrees (bachelors or masters). Limitations in offering these kinds of degrees noted. Problems with faculty assignments. Equipment resources issues
Problems—time required, student apathy, students expect faculty to be available 24 hours, faculty motivation, students may expect the courses to be easier—higher drop rate
Conclusions—university support manadatory, faculty member has to be in charge of deciding what/how, maybe use to reach students you can’t reach now
Know your audience --huge potential 70 million working adults w/o college degree

Cheryl Pawlowski U. of Northern Colorado
Chat Room conversations
Internet as a democratic form of communication – but what we expected is not what has happened—listing of facts about how people use chat rooms, what people use Internet for
Research questions—based on 19 students given gender-specific or neutral usernames. Males communicated more with gender based names and less when user name was gender neutral; females communicated more when username was gender-neutral.

Sarah Naper Northern Colarado
Improving Web Literacy in an Introductory J and MC Course
Literature-- Singh (2005) perception of literacy study
Pre-test administered in computer lab – general Internet knowledge etc.
But this time added a tutorial with four units
Then did post test
Research questions about web literacy
The online tutorial seems to improve web literacy

Last speaker, Mary Tolan of Northern Arizona University, with Facing Media Convergence--In the Newsrooms, In the Classrooms."

At 2:30, I'm listening to Kendra Gale from U. of Colorado - Boulder present "'I haven't made a scrapbook for either of my kids. Does that make me a bad mother?' Scrapbooks and Social Reproduction of the Good Mother"
The presentation said the symbolic interaction of scrapbooking creates the image of being a good mother. The documeted materials of a scrapbook reinforce the notion of good motherhood. More to come...