تهيهكننده :
محمد قاسمي
نخستين فهرست و چكيده شماري از مقالات مندرج در وب سايت هاي معتبر رشته علوم ارتباطات و روزنامه نگاري در دوره زماني اكتبر - دسامبر 2006 منتشر شد.
هدف از گردآوري اين مجموعه آشنايي بيشتر كاربران و دانش پژوهان با بخشي از آخرين مقالات درحوزه علوم ارتباطات و روزنامه نگاري است.
مقالات گردآوري شده،كه به زبان انگليسي است، حاصل جستجو در دو وب سايت sage و journalsonline است و پس از مطالعه و بررسي بيش از 20 نشريه اينترنتي در اين دو وب سايت انتخاب شده است.
اكثر مقالات حاوي چكيده مطلب است ، شماري از مقالات نيز فقط داراي عنوان و منبع مقاله است. شايان ذكر است كه بمنظور رعايت حقوق مالكيت فكري ، همچنين براي حفظ حقوق مشتركين نشريات الكترونيكي مذكور، مقالات از بخش عمومي و نه بخش اختصاصي مشتركين, انتخاب شده است.
بنابراين بجز يك مقاله كه در بخش مطبوعات و روزنامه نگاري آورده شده است ؛تمامي مقالات ارايه شده فقط داراي خلاصه مطلب است.
نحوه و ترتيب ارايه هر يك از مقالات(خلاصه مقالات) به شرح زير است:
1.نام مقاله
2. نام نويسنده
3. نام مجله و مشخصات آن
4. نشاني اينترنتي مقاله
5. چكيده مقاله
6. كليد واژه هاي مقاله
گزيده مقالات اين شماره، شامل سرفصل هاي زير است:
الف.فهرست مقالات مرتبط با ارتباطات
ب- فهرست مقالات مرتبط با رسانه هاي جمعي
پ - فهرست مقالات مرتبط با مطبوعات وروزنامه نگاري
ت- فهرست مقالات مرتبط با راديو و تلويزيون
ث- فهرست مقالات مرتبط با مطالعات اجتماعي
اميدواريم نخستين تلاش دفتر مطالعات به روش كنوني, رضايت كاربران را تامين كند. پيشنهادهاي شما گراميان مي تواند در ارايه مفيدتر مطالب شماره هاي آتي , ما را ياري رساند.
فهرست مقالات مرتبط با ارتباطات
1- A Look into the Future Impact of ICT on Our Lives
Luciano Floridi
The Information Society
Issue: Volume 23, Number 1 / January-February 2007 Pages: 59 – 64
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(tl43hu45i0prcrjh41ldnl45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,7;journal,1,50;linkingpublicationresults,1:100659,1
This paper may be read as a sequel to a 1995 paper, published in this journal, in which I predicted what sort of transformations and problems were likely to affect the development of the Internet and our system of organized knowledge in the medium term. In this second attempt, I look at the future developments of information and communication technologies and try to estimate what their impact on our lives will be. The forecast is that, in information societies, the threshold between online and offline will soon disappear, and that once there is no difference, we shall become not cyborgs but rather inforgs, that is, connected informational organisms.
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Keywords: cyborgs, digital environment, inforgs, infosphere, IT entities, reontologization
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2- Email Fraud: Language, Technology, and the Indexicals of Globalisation
Jan Blommaert and Tope Omoniyi
Social Semiotics
Issue: Volume 16, Number 4 / December 2006 Pages: 573 – 605
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,5;journal,1,21;subject,22,25;
This paper investigates a corpus of email messages known as “419 scams”: a form of financial fraud in which huge offers of money are being made to people provided they pass on bank details and other personal information to the perpetrators. This kind of message presents us with a typical instance of “globalized” communication: they are produced in the margins of the world (the term “419 scam” is Nigerian) and sent to other places; they are electronically mediated; and they are written in varieties of “world languages”, mostly English. In the messages, authors claim particular identities and relationships, and have to do so using specific, generically regimented forms of communication. Investigating such forms yields a complex view of what it takes to communicate in a globalized environment: at least three different forms of communicative competence seem to be blended. First, authors require technological competence, the capacity to control, explore and exploit the communicative opportunities offered by global email systems. Second, they require cultural competence: they need some awareness of genres and genre expectations among their addressees in order to stand a chance of success. And thirdly, they need linguistic competence: the capacity to actually produce linguistic messages that are congruent with the projected identities and relationships in the transaction. We see that whereas the first two forms of competence appear to be well developed, the third is often problematic, yielding rich indexical signals pointing towards fraud. The genre of email fraud thus yields insights into the changing nature of communication in the age of globalization.
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Keywords: Email, Internet, communicative competence, globalization, mediated communication, Nigeria, genre, indexicality
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3- IT Education and Workforce Participation: A New Era for Women in Kenya?
Victor W. A. Mbarika, Fay Cobb Payton, Lynette Kvasny, Atieno Amadi
The Information Society
Issue: Volume 23, Number 1 / January-February 2007 Pages: 1 – 18
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(tl43hu45i0prcrjh41ldnl45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,7;journal,1,50;linkingpublicationresults,1:100659,1
Victor W. A. Mbarika A1, Fay Cobb Payton A2, Lynette Kvasny A3, Atieno Amadi A4
A1 Department of Management, Marketing, and E-Business, College of Business, Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
A2 Department of Business Management, College of Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
A3 College of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
A4 School of Commerce, Jomo Kenyatta University of Arts and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya
While Sub-Saharan African women have historically assumed the roles of both housewives and subsistence farmers, they have had few opportunities to participate in the modern economies of the region. However, this trend is changing with the exponential growth of information and communications technologies (ICT), giving many Sub-Sahara African women access to computers, the Internet, and other related technologies. Based on the work of a four-member research team from Kenya and the United States, this article examines the integration of female college students into the formal ICT work sector in Kenya. We do so by examining major bottlenecks and enablers to such integration from historical and contemporary perspectives. Using an interpretive approach, we conducted 32 interviews with women in an ICT program offered by a university in Kenya. Our findings indicate that women were highly optimistic, embracing ICT as a practical mechanism for achieving entry into the labor market. However, they perceived significant structural barriers, such as public policies that failed to facilitate the development of the ICT sector, gender discrimination by employers, and training that provided them with insufficient technical skills to enable them to effectively perform in the workplace. These findings largely confirm the gendered perspectives found in similar studies conducted in other countries. However, what appear as global perspectives are informed by the local causes.
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Keywords: information and communications technology, information society, Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa, women
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4- The Attentional Mechanism of Message Sensation Value: Interaction between Message Sensation Value and Argument Quality on Message Effectiveness
Yahui Kang, Joseph Cappella, Martin Fishbein
Communication Monographs
Issue: Volume 73, Number 4 / December 2006 Pages: 351 – 378
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,10;journal,1,23;subject,4,25;
Using a secondary data analysis on adolescents’ evaluations of 60 antimarijuana public service announcements, this study examined the role of message sensation value (MSV) as an attention distractor. The results supported the prediction based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model that MSV might be a distractor of attention to reduce ad persuasiveness when the argument quality was high and to facilitate ad persuasiveness when the argument quality was low. Furthermore, this interaction was evident only for adolescents with greater risk for marijuana use, suggesting that high MSV messages were especially distracting for the high risk adolescents. Specific MSV subcomponents contributing to this interaction were explored. Possible explanations for the interaction effect as well as implications for antidrug ad design were discussed.
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Keywords: Message Sensation Value, Antimarijuana Public Service Announcements, Message Effectiveness
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5- When and How Does Depersonalization Increase Conformity to Group Norms in Computer-Mediated Communication?
Eun-Ju Lee
Communication Research
December 1 2006, Volume 33, No. 6
http://crx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/6/423
University of California at Davis
The experiment reported herein examined how depersonalization, operationalized as the lack of individuating information, affects conformity to a group norm in anonymous computer-mediated communication. Participants made a decision about choice dilemmas and exchanged their decisions and supporting arguments with three ostensible partners via computer, who unanimously endorsed the position opposite of the participant’s. As predicted, depersonalization led to a more extreme perception of the group norm, better recall of the interactants’ arguments, and more positive evaluations of the interactants’ arguments through group identification, albeit only for women. Moreover, depersonalization was more likely to facilitate conformity to group norms among those with higher need for public individuation and among women. A test of indirect effects showed that group identification and extremity of the perceived group norm mediated the effects of depersonalization on conformity.
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Key Words: depersonalization • social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) • conformity • need for public individuation • group identification
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6- Dialectical Tensions in the Classroom: Managing Tensions through Communication
Carolyn M. Prentice and Michael W. Kramer
Southern Communication Journal
Volume 71, Number 4 / December 2006
Pages: 339 – 361
Dialectical tensions have been used principally to study dyadic relationships and, more recently, groups. This study of the classroom setting as a group provided insights into the dialectical tensions in the interactions among students and between students and the instructor. Based on ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews, three principal areas of dialectical tensions emerged for students: (a) their desire to participate and their desire to remain silent during class discussions, (b) their desire for both predictable and novel classroom activities, and (c) managing their personal time and their class time. These tensions and the strategies students and the instructor used to manage them provide a clearer understanding of the group dynamics of classroom interactions.
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7- ICT Inclusion and Gender: Tensions in Narratives of Network Engineer Training
Hazel Gillard, Nathalie Mitev, Susan Scott
The Information Society
Issue: Volume 23, Number 1 / January-February 2007 Pages: 19 – 37
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(tl43hu45i0prcrjh41ldnl45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,7;journal,1,50;linkingpublicationresults,1:100659,1
Government, major information and communications technology (ICT) companies, and educational institutions in the United Kingdom currently claim that ICT skills training offers inclusion into the new economy. We focus on a private–public training initiative and its impact on the socially excluded, specifically lone women parents. Narrative data from four United Kingdom educational sites participating in this computer network engineer training program highlight a systemic paradox: that ICT skills development initiatives designed to support lone women parents are simultaneously working in opposition to broader policy goals such as work–life balance and ironically serve to reproduce the participants' classification as socially excluded. The assumptions underpinning the model of social inclusion driving the ICT skills training course are analyzed critically using the concepts of community of practice, classificatory systems, and marginalization. Our findings suggest that ICT training courses and initiatives should be accompanied by changes in pedagogic practice that accommodate the more wide-ranging needs of those targeted for inclusion, as well as changes in employment settings. We conclude by exploring the implications of this for government policy formation, business vendor qualifications, the design of ICT skills training initiatives, and our understanding of the role of ICT skills in overcoming the digital divide.
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Keywords: community of practice, digital divide, gender, ICT skills training, network engineer, social exclusion, marginalization, work–life balance
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8- Learning Versus Knowing: Effects of Misinformation in Televised Debates
Marcus Maurer and Carsten Reinemann
Communication Research
December 1 2006, Volume 33, No. 6
http://crx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/6/489
Many studies have shown that voters do learn about political issues from televised debates. Because debaters may not be interested in educating voters but in gaining votes, this does not necessarily mean that debate viewers improve their knowledge (i.e., learning something that is correct). Instead, they may become misinformed by watching a debate. Taking the second debate in the 2002 German general election as an example, we first compare people’s knowledge about economic facts before and after the debate with the actual situation as represented by official statistics. In a second step, we trace back the change or stability of their assessments of the state of the economy to candidates’ statements on that issue during the debate by using continuous-response measurement (CRM) measurement. Our analysis shows substantial learning effects among debate viewers. However, most of them did not improve their knowledge. They were rather misled by candidates’ selective presentation of facts.
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Key Words: televised debates • learning • misinformation • state of the economy
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9- Resources and Organizational Identities: The Role of Rhetoric in the Creation of Competitive Advantage
John A. A. Sillince
Management Communication Quarterly
November 1 2006, Volume 20, No. 2
http://mcq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/20/2/186
Aston University, Birmingham, UK
The author uses resource-based view (RBV) to demonstrate how organizations use rhetoric about multiple identities to improve a firm’s competitive advantage. The author presents a model that illustrates how rhetoric can switch the audience’s attention betwe
en identities and resources to gain competitive advantage. When multiple identities exist, the organization can privilege one identity as the salient identity and suppress or disguise the other identities as nonsalient identities. These nonsalient identities then become the salient resources that support the salient identity. In addition to the model, the author develops a set of propositions linked to the rhetoric, identity, and RBV literatures.
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Key Words: organizational identity • resource-based theory • RBV •
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10- Tonight Another Man Will Die”: Crime, Violence, and the Master Tropes of Contemporary Arguments about the Death Penalty
Stephen John Hartnett and Daniel Mark Larson
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Volume 3, Number 4 / December 2006 pp. 263 – 287
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,5;journal,1,12;subject,2,25
Merging our work as grassroots activists and scholars, we map the master tropes of contemporary arguments both for and against the death penalty. This rhetorical work is preceded by analyses of who uses the death penalty and why, noting especially the overlap between lynching and capital punishment; the status of exonerations, moratoriums, and contested scientific evidence; and recent court cases affecting executions. In addition to providing this informational overview of, and rhetorical road map to, debates about executions, we argue that each master trope suggests useful political strategies for advocating against the death penalty.
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Keywords: Capital Punishment, Crime, Violence, Abolition, Prison-Industrial-Complex
فهرست مقالات مرتبط با رسانه هاي جمعي
1- Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making
Des Freedman
Media, Culture & Society November 1 2006, Volume 28, No. 6
http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/6/907
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Despite the growing interest in the organization and regulation of media industries, there is relatively little public discussion of the material processes through which media policy is developed. At a time of considerable change in the global media environment, new actors and new paradigms are emerging that are set to shift the balance of power between public and private interests in the policy-making process. This article focuses on some core challenges to the pluralist conception of public policy-making that still dominates today and considers whether key aspects of UK and American media policy-making can be said to be competitive, accessible, transparent or rational. Based on interviews with a wide range of ‘stakeholders’, the article assesses the power dynamics that underlie media policy-making and argues that the process is skewed by the taken-for-granted domination of market ideology.
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Key Words: free market • government • media policy • media regulation • pluralism
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2- The Matrix and Critical Theory's Desertion of the Real
Dana L. Cloud
Pages: 329 – 354
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Volume 3, Number 4 / December 2006
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,5;journal,1,12;subject,2,25
This article uses the narratives of the popular films The Matrix,Matrix: Reloaded, and Matrix: Revolutions as a lens through which to discuss the problems of the real and human agency in contemporary critical theory. Alongside a reading of the films’ invocations of social theory, the article describes parallel academic theories whose strongest structuralist and poststructuralist manifestations abandon conceptions of the real and willful human agency. In a field whose pessimistic narrative of Marxism often begins with anti-humanist structuralism, classical Marxist discourse theories offer a viable standpoint-based concept of reality upon which to found solidaristic human action.
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Keywords: Agency, Marxism, The Matrix Trilogy, Poststructuralism, The Real
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3- The Revival of the Propaganda State: US Propaganda at Home and Abroad since 9/11
Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor
International Communication Gazette
October 1 2006, Volume 68, No. 5-6
http://gaz.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/68/5-6/389
Nancy Snow
College of Communications, California State University, PO Box 6846, Fullerton, CA, 92834-6846, USA nsnow@fullerton.edu
Philip M. Taylor
Institute of Communications Studies, Houldsworth Building, University of Leeds LS2 9JT, UK p.m.taylor@leeds.ac.uk
Events since 11 September 2001 have brought to light debates about the revival of public diplomacy and the role of propaganda in domestic and global communications. This article analyzes American strategies to manipulate information and to ‘manage’ the media against the backdrop of the ongoing war on terrorism and of the conflict in Iraq. It explores the problematic tension between democratic ideals and principles toward openness alongside government and military needs of operational security and to secure public support in a ‘war’ that has been declared on global terrorism. This ongoing tension requires a genuine movement toward more open media and advocacy on the part of global citizens, including the strengthening of independent and non-corporate media, in order to challenge prevailing media that are subject to government and military influence. In a democracy, when things go wrong at home, it becomes much more difficult to project a positive image abroad. The impact of these trends in undermining the messages of public diplomacy overseas helps to explain both the success of US propaganda at home and its failure abroad.
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Key Words: censorship • democracy • GreatBritain • propaganda • publicdiplomacy • September11 • United States
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4- A Review of: “Telepopulism: Media and Politics in Israel, by Yoram Peri”: Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. 376 pages. $25.95 paper
Dan Caspi
Political Communication
Issue: Volume 23, Number 4 / October-December 2006 Pages: 473 - 474
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,13,17;journal,1,40;subject,17,25;
Department of Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
This article does not have an abstract.
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5- Beyond Excessive Use: The Interaction between Cognitive and Behavioral Symptoms of Problematic Internet Use
Scott E. Caplan and Andrew C. High
Communication Research Reports
Issue: Volume 23, Number 4 / 2006 Pages: 265 – 271
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,10;journal,1,8;subject,7,25;
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that problematic Internet use involves more than simply an excessive amount of time spent online. Participants completed self-report measures of excessive Internet use, cognitive preoccupation with the Internet, and the extent to which they experienced negative outcomes due to their Internet use. Results revealed that the association between excessive Internet use and its negative outcomes is moderated by cognitive preoccupation. The results illustrate the usefulness of including cognitive variables in studies of problematic Internet use rather than relying solely on variables measuring Internet consumption.
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Keywords: Computer-mediated communication, Problematic internet use
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6- Internet Web Logs as Cultural Resistance: A Study of the SARS Arts Project
James Gillett
Journal of Communication Inquiry
Vol. 31, No. 1, 28-43 (2007)
http://jci.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/28?etoc
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
This article examines an Internet project — sarsart.org — that features digital artworks created in response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in spring 2003. Qualitative methods including archival research, semiotic analysis, and interviews are used to examine the emergence and substance of this Internet project. The analysis identifies ways in which contributions by artists and bloggers (i.e., individuals with their own Internet site or Web log) contest institutional representations of SARS. The site challenges the representation of the outbreak on three levels: portrayals of citizens affected by SARS, portrayals of health professionals, and portrayals of the risk and panic associated with the outbreak. The argument is made that Internet projects such as sarsart.org can increase the capacity for cultural resistance by creating greater opportunities for the expression of political opposition to institutional authority.
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Key Words: Web logs • cultural resistance • SARS
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7- Internationalising internet governance: does ICANN have a role to play?
Ian King
Information & Communications Technology Law
Issue: Volume 13, Number 3 / 2004 Pages: 243 – 258
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(qqei4r55uxxmnh55jo1snh45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,4;journal,7,20;linkingpublicationresults,1:104535,1
City University UK
From its inception in the 1960s, Internet governance has been a largely ad hoc affair. Private-sector United States-based bodies have played crucial roles in developing the Internet, the most recognisable being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit, private-sector American corporation formed in 1998 to take responsibility for key Internet management functions. ICANN's structure and, indeed, its very existence, reflects the Internet's origins within the American academic sector, and the dominance thus far of the United States in the growth of the Internet. This structure now faces a challenge from the growing internationalisation of the Internet, which necessitates governance on a more international basis. At the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003, it was agreed that a United Nations working party should be set up to review Internet governance. This article will consider the arguments for change, and will conclude that greater internationalisation of Internet governance is required if the Internet is to achieve its full potential in developing countries, as well as in the developed world. Models for international regulation will be considered, and the article will conclude by proposing a model that will best satisfy both the need for change, and the need to protect the
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8- The Good Will Hunting Technique
Todd Cesaratto
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Volume 3, Number 4 / December 2006
Pages: 307 – 328
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,3,5;journal,1,12;subject,2,25
“The Good Will Hunting Technique” analyzes and enacts rhetorical paradigms present in popular culture. The main objects of examination are Gus van Sant's film, Good Will Hunting, and Eminem's music video “Mosh.” The author extracts positive aspects of popular culture to feature a rational-affective approach to rhetoric. The notion of mind–body rhetorical collaboration, which stems from Behavioral Doctrine developed during Germany's Weimar era, combines an emphasis on exteriority with traditional notions of rhetoric to establish a method for progressive action in lived reality.
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Keywords: Collective Action, Desire, Force, Popular Culture, Rhetoric
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9- The Myth of the Outside Strategy: Mass Media News Coverage of Interest Groups
A. Trevor Thrall
Political Communication
Issue: Volume 23, Number 4 / October-December 2006 Pages: 407 - 420
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,17;journal,1,40;subject,17,25;
The ability of interest groups to make their views heard is a central tenet of pluralist views of American politics. Despite consensus about the importance of news coverage to interest groups pursuing “outside strategies,” however, little work has examined the ability of ordinary groups to make news. I argue that the best predictor of an interest group's ability to use the mass media as a political tool is the level of organizational resources (money, members, staff, etc.) it enjoys. Through an investigation of the quantity and quality of news coverage received by a sample of 244 interest groups, I show that uneven distribution of resources leads to heavy concentration of news on the largest and wealthiest groups as well as to important differences in how the media portray group actions. I conclude that the outside strategy is more a romantic myth than an accurate portrayal of the American system.
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Keywords: interest groups, mass media, news coverage, pluralism
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10- A Review of: “Power and Press Freedom in Liberia, 1830–1970: The Impact of Globalization and Civil Society on Media-Government Relations, by Carl Patrick Burrowes”: Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004. 312 pages. $29.95 paper
Mary H. Moran
Political Communication
Issue: Volume 23, Number 4 / October-December 2006 Pages: 471 - 472
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,12,17;journal,1,40;subject,17,25;
Anthropology at Colgate University, USA
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11- United States v. Carmichael: Prior Restraint and the Internet
William Self and Mark Hickson III
Qualitative Research Reports in Communication
Issue: Volume 7, Number 1 / 2006 Pages: 3 - 8
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,10;journal,1,2;subject,18,25;
This article examines a U.S. federal court decision in which the government sought a prior restraint on publication within the context of the Internet. It is asserted that United States v. Carmichael (2004) is on the cutting edge of Internet censorship law, offering insights in innovative legal grounds and procedures being brought into the realm of communication regulation. The ways in which the investigatory tools for a criminal defendant were used to collect evidence in preparing his defense to pending felony charges are explored. The argument is made that the Carmichael case not only offers communication scholars a look at developing case law, but that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District, Northern Division of Alabama is worth watching in future cases wherein the government seeks prior restraints on publication.
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Keywords: Internet Law, Legal Procedure, Prior Restraint, Web Sites
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12- Civil Society and Cyber Society: The Role of the Internet in Community Associations and Democratic Politics
Michael J. Jensen, James N. Danziger, Alladi Venkatesh
The Information Society
Issue: Volume 23, Number 1 / January-February 2007 Pages: 39 – 50
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(tl43hu45i0prcrjh41ldnl45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,3,7;journal,1,50;linkingpublicationresults,1:100659,1
A healthy civil society has long been held as vital to a healthy democracy and there is interest in whether the Internet affects this linkage. This paper explores the relationships between offline and online modes of associational life and also analyzes offline and online interactions with local governments in the US context. Based on our empirical analyses of 1,203 respondents, we show that online participation is not simply an extension of offline participation, but can be distinguished in important ways. First, we find that political and community-oriented engagements cluster separately from more private-regarding engagements. Second, participants of online democratic engagement are not characterized by the SES markers associated with offline democratic engagement who are older, have higher incomes, and have lived in the community longer. Finally, we find significant links between democratic engagement with the political system and involvement with political associations (but not social and community-oriented associations).
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Keywords: civil society, democracy, digital divide, e-democracy, Internet, local government, political participation
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13- Media Constructions of Mass Murder-Suicides as Drama: The New York Times' Symbolic Construction of Mass Murder-Suicides
James W. Chesebro and David T. McMahan
Communication Quarterly
Issue: Volume 54, Number 4 / November 2006 Pages: 407 - 425
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,7;journal,1,7;subject,5,25;
Mass murder-suicides immediately shock and horrify the living. These shocking dimensions quickly dissolve, however, as the motives underlying such acts are explored. This paper presents six symbolic and interrelated characteristics, which have consistently reemerged through The New York Times' reporting of mass murder-suicides to not just describe events surrounding these acts but also create a sense of order and cast these acts as a destructive form of human behavior. Ultimately, the reporting of the mass murder-suicides by the Times represents a series of symbolic strategies and critical perspectives that present the mass murder-suicide as both burlesque and grotesque.
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Keywords: Branch Davidian, Burlesque, Grotesque, Heaven's Gate, Jonestown, Mass Murder-Suicide, Mass Suicide, The New York Times
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14- The differences of regulatory models and internet regulation in the European Union and the United States
Bruce E. May, Jeng-Chung V. Chen, Kuang-Wei Wen
Information & Communications Technology Law
Issue: Volume 13, Number 3 / 2004 Pages: 259 – 272
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While the Internet has become the dominant platform for individuals and organizations to exchange information with other parties, the regulation of the Internet in which laws and technology come to play have never reached an international common ground. Nations, due to their root theories, legal perspectives and cultural differences, tend to regulate the Internet in their own way. This article first surveys the models for Internet regulation, then examines some social, cultural, political and economical differences in perspectives between the European Union and the United States that impact Internet regulation. Important regulatory issues such as electronic commerce, privacy and data protection, intellectual property rights and content regulation are discussed. The insight provided in this work could help policy makers of the leading nations in the cyberspace to improve their mutual understanding in the quest for establishing a global legal environment for the Internet.
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فهرست مقالات مرتبط با مطبوعات وروزنامه نگاري
1- A scribbling tribe: Reporting political scandal in Britain and Spain
Karen Sanders and María José Canel
Journalism November 1 2006, Volume 7, No. 4
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/453
A scribbling tribe
Reporting political scandal in Britain and Spain
Karen Sanders
University of Sheffield, UK
María José Canel
Complutense University, Madrid, Spain
Comparative research is uniquely able to address theoretical questions about the relationship between journalism and political and cultural contexts. This study takes the reporting of political scandal as the entry-point to an analysis of the practice of investigative reporting in Britain and Spain in the 1990s and its status as a litmus test for a Fourth Estate understanding of the press’ role. Using interview and documentary data, the research explores journalists’ backgrounds, their assumptions about methods, relationships to sources and their perception of the public, political and peer response to their work. Journalists’ views of the rationale for reporting political scandal are also explored. The analysis shows that there are a number of differences between the two groups of journalists but also that they are bound far more by common assumptions about the practices and purposes of reporting political scandal, which, taken together, provide a challenge to certain aspects of the production study research tradition and also evidence for the enduring influence of Fourth Estate understandings of the role of journalism across national contexts.
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Key Words: Britain • comparative research • Fourth Estate • investigative journalism • journalists • political scandal • Spain
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2- Facts, truth and bad journalists in the movies
Matthew C. Ehrlich
Journalism November 1 2006, Volume 7, No. 4
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/501
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Scholars have called for cultural analyses of the press that are more attuned to journalists’ self-image as disciples of facts and truth while also critically examining the contradictions within that self-image. Popular representations of journalism such as motion pictures are one fruitful site of inquiry. This article studies American movies’ depictions of ‘bad journalists’, characters who in many ways contradict the image of upstanding professionalism that the press tries to promote. Although real-life journalists over the years have often objected to such portrayals, ‘bad journalist’ characters still have helped shore up the press’s preferred self-image, either by seeing through lies and pretense to the truth or by paying the price for not telling the truth.
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Key Words: cultural analyses of journalism • film genre • myth • popular culture • representations of journalism
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3- HEGEMONY , DEMOCRACY, AGONISM AND JOURNALISM: An interview with Chantal Mouffe
Nico Carpentier and Bart Cammaerts
Journalism Studies
Issue: Volume 7, Number 6 / December 2006 Pages: 964 - 975
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,11,13;journal,1,30;subject,6,8;
Chantal Mouffe's political philosophy has been influential in a variety of domains, including sociology, cultural studies, media studies, law, art, literary criticism, and journalism studies. By combining Gramsci's focus on hegemony with post-structuralist theory she has developed—in collaboration with Ernesto Laclau—a sophisticated perspective on the political that intersects with all aspects of society, including the role and functioning of journalism. Her emphasis on the productive role of hegemony and conflict in society combined with her plea for a radical pluralist democracy, open a wide range of new perspectives for journalism studies. We present an overview of Mouffe's work set against a recent interview with her, in which we discuss, among other things, the potential diversity of contingent journalistic identities, ranging between being complicit with hegemonic socio-political projects, and safe-guarding or even deepening democratic institutions, including itself.
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4- JOURNALISTS AND THEIR SOURCES: Lessons from anthropology
Isabel Awad
Journalism Studies
Issue: Volume 7, Number 6 / December 2006 Pages: 922 - 939
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,9,13;journal,1,30;subject,6,8;
While anthropology and journalism use similar methods and, many times, produce a similar kind of knowledge, the two professions have significantly different views of their sources. Like all social sciences, anthropology is subject to federal regulation for research with human subjects. This regulation requires the assessment of costs and benefits, the informed consent of informants, and, in general, researchers’ protective and responsible attitude towards them. Citing the First Amendment and arguing that news is non-generalizable knowledge, journalism exempts itself from this regulation. This paper shows that both arguments for exemption are unsustainable and analyzes three other possible incompatibilities between journalism and federal regulation: the watchdog role of the press, the apparent conflict between confidentiality and credibility, and journalists’ reluctance to take responsibility for the consequences of what they publish. It concludes that news professionals’ understanding of truth in terms of facticity and of their job as the transmission of such truths impairs their sense of ethical responsibility.
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Keywords: anthropology, ethics, human subjects, informed consent, journalism, sources
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5- Medea in the media: Narrative and myth in newspaper coverage of women who kill their children
Barbara Barnett
Journalism November 1 2006, Volume 7, No. 4
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/411
University of Kansas, USA
In reporting news stories about maternal infanticide, journalists and sources employ the narrative of the flawed mother in explaining why women killed their children. A qualitative analysis of 250 US news articles over a 12-year period found that journalists characterized murderous mothers in oppositional terms, as either superior nurturers driven to insanity because they cared so much, or inferior caretakers who shirked their maternal duties because they cared so little. This focus on the individual allowed journalists to organize and simplify complex information from diverse sources; however, reporters missed opportunities to present infanticide in the broader context of gender inequity and to examine disparities in punishments for women convicted of murdering their children. Journalists’ accounts of the causes of maternal violence - postpartum illness, economic stress, alcohol and drug abuse, too early and unplanned pregnancies, and loss of hope for the future - too often were superficial, reinforcing the myth of the all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful mother, and ignoring the fact that infanticide is a crime that has complex causes. Journalists can strengthen reporting on maternal violence by critically examining stereotypes of mothering as ‘natural’, and therefore easy, and by questioning the availability of family, community, and institutional resources for women who cannot or do not mother well.
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Key Words: feminism • infanticide • journalism • maternal violence • motherhood • myth • narrative • news
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6- COMMERCIAL NEWS CRITERIA AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
Asle Rolland
Journalism Studies
Volume 7, Number 6 / December 2006
Pages: 940 - 963
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,10,13;journal,1,30;subject,6,8;
Since the 1980s, the commercialisation of the media in Norway has prompted two opposing theories concerning the impact of commercial news criteria; the first suggests it restrains, the second that it stimulates, investigative journalism. But the two theories draw the same normative conclusion, namely that commercialisation has negative implications for the contribution of media to democracy. This article presents the two theories, and puts their empirical assumptions to the test, using the distribution of awards for outstanding investigative journalism as a yardstick. The test results are discussed in the light of economic theory. It seems that critics of media commercialisation have placed too much emphasis on the cost-cutting aspect of a capitalist economy, and too little on capitalism as “the free-market innovation machine”. The conclusion is that commercial news criteria stimulate investigative journalism more than they restrain it, and that investigative journalism's contribution to democracy is more positive than negative.
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Keywords: commercialisation, investigative journalism, journalism awards, media and democracy, monopoly and competition, news criteria
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7- Financial news journalism: A post-Enron analysis of approaches towards economic and financial news production in the UK
Gillian Doyle
Journalism November 1 2006, Volume 7, No. 4
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/433
University of Stirling, UK
The collapse of Enron and other corporate scandals have raised concerns about the efficacy of financial journalism. Based on research on where reporters get their ideas for stories and how they approach their work, this article explores the particular circumstances in which production of financial and economic news takes place. The author argues that, while reporters are generally highly sceptical about ‘spin’ and strongly inclined towards highlighting instances of corporate underperformance and mismanagement, the circumstances and constraints they work within nonetheless make it unlikely that financial irregularities obscured within company accounts will be detected on a routine or consistent basis. Moreover, the way in which the commercial sector is organized (with in-depth analysis generally confined to specialist media whose audiences are already financially literate) means that the task of facilitating a sound public grasp over the significance of financial and economic news developments is largely being neglected.
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Key Words: agendas • corporate influence • economic journalism • financial journalism • financial press • news decisions • sources
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8- JOURNALISM AND EXPERTISE
Tammy Boyce
Journalism Studies
Issue: Volume 7, Number 6 / December 2006 Pages: 889 - 906
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,7,13;journal,1,30;subject,6,8;
Many researchers have observed the paradox of the decline in trust of experts alongside the increasing use of expertise in Western society. This research argues for the division of expertise into a defined category, “expert-source”, separating experts from other sources who do not possess expertise. Using a normative concept of expertise to provide categories can offer a more coherent and consistent method of assessing a source's expertise and how to present their statements. This research presents findings based on a media analysis of television, radio and newspapers, interviews with journalists and sources and the results of national surveys and focus groups with parents and uses a recent medical controversy in the UK as a backdrop to explore expertise. In 1998 a scientist claimed there might be a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. His claims received significant media attention and vaccination rates fell across the UK. This case study examines how journalists constructed expertise, how key sources presented themselves as expert-sources and the effect of balancing expert-sources with sources. This research encourages journalists and academics to question how expertise affects media coverage.
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Keywords: balance, expertise, health, journalism, sources, vaccination
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9- Mapping the journalism–blogging relationship
Wilson Lowrey
Journalism November 1 2006, Volume 7, No. 4
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/477
University of Alabama, USA
Using a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this article maps the journalism-blogging relationship, revealing areas of conflict between the two, vulnerabilities, and predictors of vulnerability. The systems framework suggests occupations exist within a network of other occupations and that they encroach into each other’s jurisdictional areas. A variety of factors shape these fluid processes. Factors that are external to the occupation include organizational division of labor, revenue needs, and relationships with other institutions. Internal factors include the degree to which journalists control the definition of problems and inference to solutions, and the success with which they solve problems. Difficulties posed by external and internal factors have led journalism to neglect some types of news information, which in turn have been poached by bloggers. These include partisan expression, ‘old stories’, stories driven by non-elite sources, and highly specialized content. A model for future study is constructed from these observations.
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Key Words: blogging • journalists • news organizations • news sociology • online • professional control
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Report of the Task Force on the Status and Future of
Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
September 11, 2006
Charles T. Salmon (Chair)
Lee Becker
Janet Bridges
Lucinda D. Davenport
Hazel Dicken-Garcia
Sharon Dunwoody
Mary Ann Ferguson
Carroll Glynn
Jisu Huh
Gerald Kosicki
Oscar Gandy
Charles Self
Daniel Shaver
Mary Alice Shaver
Rick Stephens
Wayne Wanta
David Weaver
Table of Contents Page
1. Introduction 3
2. The Changing Landscape of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) 4
Charles T. Salmon
3. What Do Doctoral Education Programs Need to Do? 11
Hazel Dicken-Garcia and members of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication Doctoral Review Committee
4. Current Status of AEJMC-Affiliated Doctoral Programs 24
Dan Shaver and Mary Alice Shaver (Chairs), Mary Ann Ferguson, Carroll Glynn, Rick Stephens, Wayne Wanta, David Weaver, Chuck Whitney
5. National Research Council (NRC) Recognition 39
Charles Self (Chair), Sharon Dunwoody, Oscar Gandy, Charles Salmon
With a July 2006 update from Lucinda D. Davenport
6. The Role of AEJMC in Promoting JMC Doctoral Education 47
Gerald Kosicki (Chair), Lee Becker, Janet Bridges, Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Jisu Huh
7. Annotated Bibliography for Doctoral Education Success 51
Lucinda D. Davenport
8. Recommendations for Consideration by the AEJMC Executive Committee 57
Charles T. Salmon
1. Introduction
The Task Force on the Status and Future of Ph.D. Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) was assembled by former AEJMC President Theodore Glasser and charged with identifying and analyzing issues that will influence future generations of our peers in mass communication scholarship and education.
Seventeen scholar-teachers representing a broad cross-section of AEJMC-affiliated programs worked on this project, which resulted in two presentations at the AEJMC national convention, in 2004 and 2005, and now, this final report.
The Task Force was organized in a decentralized fashion, with three separate committees focusing on different dimensions of the overall charge. The first committee, led by Dan and Mary Alice Shaver, conducted a survey of AEJMC-affiliated doctoral programs with the goal of providing a snapshot of current JMC doctoral programs. The second committee, led by Charles Self, explored implications of a new development for our field: inclusion in prestigious National Research Council (NRC) rankings. A third committee, led by Gerald Kosicki, developed an agenda for AEJMC to follow in promoting JMC doctoral education. In addition to these reports, two other documents were solicited for inclusion in this report: (1) an excerpt from a report on doctoral education issued by the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication; and (2) an annotated bibliography of resources related to trends and issues in doctoral education, compiled by Lucinda Davenport of Michigan State University.
The result of this multi-year effort is a snapshot of the present, articulations of the need to change in the future, and resources available for the transition that awaits.
2. The Changing Landscape of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC)
Charles T. Salmon
As is the case for many industries in the United States in the early part of the 21st century, state-supported higher education is in the midst of several concurrent and profound trends that are fundamentally altering our mission and future. At the same time, the field of communications is undergoing rapid intellectual changes that are redefining our core identity.
The confluence of these two streams of change should be of great interest and concern to members of AEJMC, for they will have significant influence over the future of the JMC academy and the manner in which our body of knowledge and academic values are transmitted from this academic generation to the next.
Selected Trends in Higher Education
Throughout the country, public universities are absorbing a larger percentage of the cost of higher education, a trend that is escalating pressure on colleges, departments and individual faculty members to both increase revenue and reduce costs. This is not to say that all states are disinvesting from higher education, but rather that costs of higher education are increasing at a faster rate than most state subsidies. In some extreme cases, “public” universities are finding it necessary to fund upwards of 90% of the cost of their operations on their own, signaling a de facto privatization of heretofore public institutions. These financial pressures and trends are nothing new to private universities, which, for many years, have had to be creative in generating their own resources in order to survive. But public universities, which constitute the vast majority of AEJMC-affiliated institutions, are now experiencing similar financial pressures. Furthermore, their legacy makes the situation all the more complicated as they attempt to balance longstanding “public” expectations with contemporary realities and private-sector mentalities. This has resulted in efforts to raise endowments, secure extramural funding, deploy innovative technology-based teaching, and alter faculty composition as means of compensating for the growing cost-revenue imbalance.
The new paradigm for less state support of higher education is pushing more universities into the billion-dollar club of capital campaigns. UCLA, UC-Berkeley, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia were charter members of this club, which has now expanded to a broader circle of universities seeking to build significant endowments as a means of ensuring long-term financial viability. But this paradigm is prodding universities in other new directions as well, and implicitly shaping the nature and role of the university faculty member of the future.
In most research-intensive universities, faculty members are being “encouraged” to seek external funding for their scholarly work. The need to attract grants has long been familiar to faculty members in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering, but it is now expanding to other areas of the university community. In schools of public health, which are similar to JMC programs in that they hybridize pre-professional education and academic scholarship, faculty members are routinely expected to cover at least half of their salaries through grants. Although this stringent expectation has not yet diffused to JMC programs, it is safe to say that faculty members who attract external funding will and do have an advantage over those who do not. Further, grant activity is increasingly becoming an indicator of research quality and productivity. The awarding of a grant is tacit recognition that a scholar is working in an important area and that she or he is sufficiently qualified theoretically and methodologically to be rewarded with funding, both of which are implicit dimensions of research quality. Universities now offer more faculty development seminars and graduate courses to cultivate grant-writing skills and encourage collaborations with traditional grant-getting disciplines. So while refereed publications are still central to the research mission of any research-intensive university, the importance of grants—for scholarship and outreach—is clearly on the rise.
The emergence of distance education technologies is also creating the potential for new academic revenue streams (though profit margins appear small, for the most part, at this point in time, for traditional universities that merely dabble in this area). These technologies are changing the way in which education is being marketed and delivered, and changing the skill set required for future generations of university teachers. Faculty members in both online and brick-and-mortar institutions ultimately will be expected to play a major role in developing and staffing new genres of educational experiences, many of which will likely be highly interactive and unlike classes that they, themselves, may have taken as students.
At the same time, the rise of distance education technologies also creates new sources of competition for administrators and faculty members at traditional universities. Wholly online universities tend to be more convenient, entrepreneurial and market-oriented than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They cater to segments of non-traditional students and divert tuition dollars from traditional public universities in the process, thereby exacerbating financial pressures.
While many universities have responded to new financial challenges by seeking to increase revenue, all have attempted to reduce costs. One of the more common institutional responses to rising costs is to decrease the number of tenure-stream faculty on campus, a practice that has become disturbingly prevalent across the country over the past two decades. Individual programs here and there may experience increases—sometimes dramatic—in faculty complement, but at the aggregate level, across universities and disciplines, the downward industry trend is unambiguous. Commitments to tenure-stream faculty reduce a university’s financial flexibility in times of fiscal duress. This is particularly important given the exponentially large increases in the cost of healthcare and the corresponding rise in costs of medical benefits to tenure-stream faculty members. In contrast, non-tenure-stream faculty members provide universities with greater flexibility and often have lower salaries and fewer benefits. The national increase in employment of non-tenure-stream faculty has several implications for our field. First, JMC faculties may become more bifurcated, composed of the research heavy tenure-stream professors and teaching heavy non-tenure-stream instructors, a result that could have disturbing consequences for morale and sense of community in an academic unit. Second, because the decline in hiring of tenure-stream faculty members is occurring as expectations for grant revenue are increasing; more will be expected of fewer.
As administrators are scrambling for more resources and looking for ways to cut costs, most universities are seeking greater accountability for public dollars allocated and spent. Throughout the country, provosts are focusing on outcome assessments and measurable objectives as tools for increasing the efficiency of the shrinking resources they control. Measures of academic quality will become even more important to monitor as economic trends continue to influence faculty responsibilities and composition.
Communication programs rarely are ranked in such standard guides as US News and World Report, unlike our counterparts in business, education and engineering. This situation is considered undesirable by some, who believe that more standardized external rankings could lead to additional visibility and resources, but desirable by others, who either view such exercises with methodological skepticism or simply do not wish to be judged by others. The area of JMC education has been insulated somewhat in the past by claims that its quasi-professional mission should not be gauged by traditional academic metrics. However, with the inclusion of the field of communications in rankings by the National Research Council (NRC), a layer of this insulation will be peeled away, and for better or for worse, communications programs will be scrutinized for their research productivity as will programs in psychology, chemistry and economics.
All of these trends are occurring and questions surfacing as three other powerful trends are buffeting universities as well.
First, global competition for doctoral students is increasing, particularly in the wake of 9/11 changes in immigration policies and requirements for student visas. Certainly, the United States is still a desirable destination for international students seeking high-quality education; however, it is becoming less attractive with every processing delay and every layer of red tape added to student applications. As well, other countries, particularly in Europe and Asia, are developing viable programs that rival the quality of traditional American academic powerhouses.
Second, university administrators are directing considerable effort and attention to promoting interdisciplinary scholarship and smashing the comfortable, yet provincial, academic silos of the past. Some federal agencies now require interdisciplinary proposals, a development that is accelerating this trend.
Third, skyrocketing rates of tuition at traditional public and private universities are reducing access to higher education at a time in which cultural diversity is increasing at a rapid rate, university faculties are experiencing a need to become more diverse, and college degrees are becoming more important than ever before as a means of entry into the workforce. This signals a pressing need for stewards of higher education to act decisively at all levels of the university to enhance diversity in meaningful ways.
Trends in Communications
At the same time that universities are undergoing profound transformations, the “digital revolution” is radically changing the identity and role of communications education on university campuses. This revolution has thrust communications into the very center of the university mission; it is a phenomenon that is both an opportunity and a threat to our discipline.
Never before have our faculty members had more opportunities for collaborative research or external funding; communications increasingly permeates every aspect of our society and crosses the globe. Never before has our discipline been more relevant, more critical to the overarching university objectives; every academic discipline, from astronomy to zoology, relies heavily on digital information, internet design and technology, ipods, podcasts, m-commerce, IPTV, and virtual reality – to name only a few of the many digital developments of the 21st century – to carry out its charge of research, teaching and outreach.
What may have appeared to be relatively solid boundaries of “communications education” twenty years ago are much more diaphanous and fluid than in the past. Whereas two decades ago interested applicants to our programs may have asked, “What exactly IS communications education?” she or he might now ask, “What ISN’T communications education?” With the proliferation of new communication technologies and the need for communication skills in every discipline, it is increasingly difficult to define the nature and boundaries of our core body of knowledge. This is particularly true given the somewhat antiquated moniker that typically applies to AEJMC-affiliated doctoral programs: Journalism and Mass Communication.
As a result, it can be argued the same trend that is making our discipline more central to the university of the future also has the potential to make it more vulnerable. If communications education becomes integral to every academic discipline and if the boundaries of our field become more ambiguous, then why will universities of the future need freestanding departments of communication? If scientists, artists, engineers, and physicians all teach one form or another of digital communication, then what does our niche, our role, our “value added” to an academic institution need to be?
One obvious and optimistic answer is “theory development,” i.e., that our faculty of the future will need to provide the intellectual infrastructure for the many applications of communications technologies in other disciplines. But how much emphasis are our programs really placing on the development of new and invigorating theory? At the aggregate level, across all programs in our discipline, what new theories, developed by graduates of communications-related programs in the past twenty-five years, have earned widespread respect and adoption both in and outside our field? To what extent are graduates of communications-related programs truly breaking new theoretical ground versus merely raking it? Even a cursory review of AEJMC, ICA and NCA conference programs will show a field that is largely oriented to the comfortable and familiar theories of the past or to theories that have arisen in allied disciplines.
Can our field attract graduate students with the intellectual foundations needed to lead the current and emerging communications revolution? The indications are not promising. Salaries in communication programs already tend to be lower than those in allied disciplines of medicine, law, engineering or business, meaning that recruitment of top intellectual talent is a challenge. Assistant professors in business who teach consumer behavior and marketing research are likely to earn starting salaries at top schools that are approximately 50-100% higher than those of assistant professors in advertising who teach the same courses. Assistant professors in engineering who teach classes in communication technology similarly are likely to earn more than their IT counterparts in telecommunication.
Most of us are familiar with statistics that show that there has been an increase in the number of doctoral programs in the field of communications, broadly defined, over the past several years. AEJMC lists more than forty member universities with doctoral programs in journalism and mass communication, while NCA records show more than 100 universities with doctoral programs in the broader arena of communications.
And, yet, even these figures drastically understate the pool of programs and potential pool of applicants with a focus on communication. Universities that traditionally have had no ties to AEJMC, such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech, are now turning out doctoral graduates who are quickly moving to the forefront of the digital revolution. Many of these students earn their degrees in programs such as “human-computer interaction” or “information studies” from either a Computer Science or Library Science tradition. Still other programs, such as the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, are graduating students with terminal (MFA) degrees who possess skills in digital media that far exceed those of the typical AEJMC-affiliated program. Schools of business are churning out graduates who are experts in e- and m-commerce and completely comfortable in multimedia environments. Furthermore, a number of programs in cognitive science have formed around the country that focus on such familiar topics as “individual and social effects of digital technologies,” “perception and action in real and virtual environments,” and “language and communication.” Most of these programs are forming at the intersection of psychology and linguistics, but rarely in communications departments. In short, the universe of doctoral programs and the pool of doctoral graduates in communication-related disciplines are increasing at a far more rapid rate than is apparent by an accounting of AEJMC-affiliated programs. In addition, much of the groundbreaking work occurring in “communications” education is happening at the margins of these emerging pockets of interdisciplinary activity rather than in the center of traditional communications programs.
Implications for our Doctoral Students
Synthesizing the above trends, a fairly cogent argument can be made that the doctoral students of tomorrow will need to be: stronger researchers, particularly in terms of securing external grants; theoretical pioneers rather than settlers; more versatile teachers, equally adept in in-person, online and virtual environments; more entrepreneurial in terms of their ability and proclivity to generate new revenue streams; highly interdisciplinary and more expansive in their intellectual perspective; and better trained to meet the challenge of competitors from such programs as cognitive science, business, engineering, and human-computer interaction. Further, the field of communication itself needs to do a better job of explaining itself and its potential in the greater university community, recruiting students with stronger research skills from outside the discipline, and achieving more success with funded research.
Are our current doctoral programs set up to produce the successful doctoral student of the future? In my opinion, most are not. Communications colleges, departments and faculty members of the future need to be far more attuned to entrepreneurial thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, theory development and revenue generation.
Scholarly activity can lead to grants and other forms of external revenue, which can help make units strong, independent, visible, powerful, and esteemed in the university community. This is true of disciplines and intellectual traditions rooted in the arts as well as the sciences. Research increasingly will become a justification for state support, both financial and political, particularly if it can lead to improved social conditions, corporate start-ups and new employment opportunities for local citizenry. Further, consistent with the recommendations of the Boyer Commission for Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, research should be integrated in the undergraduate curriculum rather than treated as separate or irrelevant to the predominantly professional curriculum that characterizes the typical AEJMC program. Meanwhile, through increased attention to theory development, communications programs will be able to assert their role in the digital revolution. While other units on campus can focus on techniques and applications, it should be our role and responsibility to provide the intellectual agenda for a revolution that is steamrolling its way around the globe and into homes and corporate settings.
Two cautionary notes should be acknowledged. First, theory building and the pursuit of external funding have not always been compatible endeavors. Federal funding for the development of the Internet and for many projects in health communication has tended to support applied projects in research and development. This means that JMC departments of the future will need to develop the capacity to generate new knowledge that can in turn be used to generate new theory. Secondly, it is important to note that expectations for external funding must be realistic, particularly in terms of the relative potential of scholars in the arts and humanities versus the social sciences to secure grants but also for the potential of grants to provide a meaningful source of revenue to JMC departments. One set of expectations clearly will not fit all scholars and all academic units.
Whereas the field of communications traditionally has stood in the shadow of older, more established social sciences, it is time for our field to take its rightful place in the sun. Communications programs need administrators and faculty who “think big” in reinventing their future. It is no longer satisfactory to be constrained by obsolete industry-based administrative structures or demarcated visions if we are to play a significant theoretical role in the digital revolution that is being led in many labs throughout university campuses—but not frequently enough in our own.
Further, the communications discipline needs to redefine and promote itself relentlessly. Too often individuals in society and faculty in other departments narrowly conceptualize the role of communications education as teaching students to make speeches or to write a news story. We need to position ourselves as sites of significant and socially relevant scholarship on university campuses, enabling other disciplines to better achieve their goals and objectives, and leading the missions of the university in research, teaching and outreach to the community and beyond. We also need to redress what Professor Charles Berger once described as the “intellectual trade deficit” that has for so long plagued our field. The new centrality of communications technologies across campus offers new opportunities and incentives for us to display our merits as a source of important theory and research. This will not happen by itself, but only through our aggressive efforts as individual scholars and as members of national and international associations.
In the last ten years, the communications industries have experienced exponential rates of change while most graduate communications programs have undergone arithmetic or perhaps geometric rates of change. This Malthusian imbalance does not bode well for the future, and neither does the lack of theoretical innovation and leadership that unfortunately has come to characterize our discipline. Indeed, Section 4 of this Task Force Report concludes its national study of JMC doctoral programs with the statement that “Most respondents indicated that they anticipate few changes in their programs in the next five years,” a statement that is extraordinary in its lack of responsiveness to (or anticipation of) the rapidly changing social, technological and financial environments in which JMC doctoral programs exist. AEJMC needs to be aggressive in its attention to doctoral education, and it needs to nurture the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit in its doctoral student members that will prepare the JMC faculty of tomorrow to lead, rather than follow, the next iterations of the communications revolution.
3. What Do Doctoral Education Programs Need To Do?
Hazel Dicken-Garcia and members of the University of Minnesota
School of Journalism and Mass Communication Doctoral Review Committee
The following is adapted from a report by an ad hoc committee,1 chaired by Hazel
Dicken-Garcia, which recently studied doctoral education for the University of
Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC), referred to here as
the Minnesota Report.
At least two national reviews of doctoral education have been ongoing while the ad hoc committee has been at work on its task: the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) and the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation Responsive Ph.D. Initiative.2 The latter has involved fourteen universities in generating ongoing discussions about changes in their own doctoral education programs. The Carnegie Initiative includes essays by leading scholars about doctoral education in their disciplines, and, although none was seen on mass communication, the ad hoc committee found the issues and suggestions translatable to doctoral education across many disciplines. We read carefully among those by scholars in disciplines encompassing subject matter of interest and relevance to mass communication scholars.
The sources about doctoral education have multiplied too fast, even during the relatively short period the ad hoc committee has been considering the SJMC Ph.D. program, for the members to keep abreast of all. All sources consulted point to significant changes afoot and urge explicitly or implicitly that higher education leaders heed and adjust programs accordingly. This suggests, at least to the members of the ad hoc committee, that doctoral education in mass communication is at a crucial threshold. Some directions we believe can be seen clearly, but much cannot—in part because changes are occurring too rapidly for anyone to know how they will coalesce; in part because we do not yet know enough about the impact of many recent global changes to be able to predict the shifts those will set in motion; and in part because all of us are being swept along by changes too close and ubiquitous to allow for clear vision of what may emerge even two years from now.
1 Hazel Dicken-Garcia, SJMC Professor, Chair; Linus Abraham, Roya Akvan-Majid,
John Finnegan, Jr., Jennifer Moore, Helena Sarkio, Brian Southwell. Other contributors included Douglas M.
McLeod, Charles Salmon, and K. Viswanath.
2 Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) essays are available at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/CID/ and http://www/carnegiefoundation.org/CID/essays.htm Members of the ad hoc committee reviewing the
doctoral program in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the members of the AEJMC Task Force on the “Status and Future of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication” thank the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate for permission to quote from Carnegie essays. Special thanks go especially to Emily Crawford, CID Permissions, for her assistance.
The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation Responsive Ph.D. Initiative (2004)) is at http://www/woodrow/org/responsivephd/agenda/html. See also www.phdsurvey.org
The following comes from the Minnesota Report’s Section IV: What Do Doctoral Programs Need to Do?
Recurring themes among all sources were that doctoral programs need to:
1 Articulate clear purposes, missions, identities
2 Prepare stewards of the discipline
3 De-mystify Ph.D. studies
4 Emphasize theory
5 Encompass diversity
6 Teach how to be a professor
7 Provide training in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching
8 Assure interdisciplinarity
9 Reconfigure courses in methodologies
10 Teach public scholarship (that is, prepare students to be citizen-scholars)
Each theme is briefly explained below.
1. Articulate clear purposes, missions, identities
University of Illinois Professor Clifford Christians, speaking at an April 2004 forum on doctoral education, named “primary dimensions” of a Ph.D. program in a Research I university as 1) interdisciplinarity, 2) scholarly curriculum, 3) problem-orientation, and 4) program-level identity.3 Christians stressed a “scholarly curriculum separate from the dissertation,” asserting that “scholars are formed ... through a definitive program of study” in a curriculum “structured with enduring issues at the base, overview courses in between, and some specialized seminars at the pinnacle.” He added that a program needs focus and orientation, an “overall mission holding it together and giving it direction.”
New York University Professor Catharine Stimpson, a CID essayist, stressed that faculty must clearly articulate purposes of doctoral education, including why a program exists, why students are being recruited, admitted, and educated, and how diverse they are to be; what graduating students will be expected to know and be able to do; what a research degree means “in an age of information overload” and how the program intends for students to learn; whether the program is interdisciplinarity and whether research is to be “deep but narrow or broad but shallow”; how flexible the program is in disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, whether its structures facilitate “genuine learning,” how it can create citizen-scholars, and what should be omitted from a program undergoing reform.4
3Clifford Christians, Research Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Address to the Forum on Doctoral Education, University of Minnesota, April 15, 2004.
4Catharine R. Stimpson, New York University Professor, “Words and Responsibilities: Graduate Education and the Humanities,” Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, www.carnegiefoundation.org/cid.
University of Michigan Professor Virginia Richardson divided forms of knowledge needed in Ph.D. programs into the following (The format has been altered and bullets added to highlight the forms and their definitions):
“Formal knowledge …within a discourse community” that “defines the field, conducts the research,” “determines criteria for validity, and helps to mentor and support developing stewards.”
“Practical knowledge,” which is “gained through experience, including teaching, research, submitting proposals, writing for publication, managing research programs, functioning as an academic, networking.
Beliefs and misconceptions–what Ph.D. students bring to their studies as beliefs and misconceptions; Richardson says these need to be explored to give students “opportunities… to… reflect on alternative conceptions” and learn “how unwarranted beliefs and misconceptions develop.”5
The Minnesota ad hoc committee noted that adapting what Richardson discussed as formal knowledge to mass communication implies three categories of subprograms:
Traditional disciplines–areas that bring together core theory, literature, methods.
Special Interest areas–these have significant literature and draw on disciplinary
programs but focus on one area (such as advertising or public relations).
Cross-disciplinary–designed to cross foundational areas–social, cultural, and
critical studies
2. Prepare stewards of the discipline
Some Carnegie essayists said Ph.D. programs prepare stewards of the field, which, Arizona State University Professor David Berliner wrote, requires that students understand how the field began and what it is now to assure it will continue being “faithful to its origins” and “appropriate for its times.”6 Richardson said that stewards (format has been changed, with bullets added, to highlight points made): 7
“generate new knowledge,”
understand their field’s intellectual history,
“use the best ideas and practices in current work,”
“represent that knowledge to others both within and outside the field,”
“have a respectful sense of the broader intellectual landscape, including paradigms and questions,” and are able to
“speak about how their field contributes important understanding to these larger
5Virginia Richardson, University of Michigan Professor of Education, “The Ph.D. in Education,” Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, op cit.
6David C. Berliner, Arizona State University Professor of Education and Educational Psychology, “Toward a Future as Rich as our Past,” Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, op cit.
7 Richardson, op cit.
questions,”
“have a sense of obligation to their field” and help “preserve the best while promoting change and improvement,”
“participate in shaping formal knowledge and understanding,”
need a “meta-awareness of the movements, goals, and potential future of the field, so that eventually they can both provide scholarly leadership and help to mentor new Ph.D. s as stewards of the field.”
Critical to becoming stewards, Richardson said, students must examine beliefs along with “formal knowledge” gained in a Ph.D. program; this prepares them “to work with educators, policymakers, legislators and the public to raise levels of analysis and understanding” about the field.8 Stimpson, who said “steward” embodies “a profound concept,” reminded that stewards often do “mundane tasks.”9
3. De-mystify Ph.D. studies
Given increasing competition for graduate students, “de-mystifying” Ph.D. programs may provide significant advantages to some programs. Among recurring themes in sources consulted is the need to make available to prospective doctoral students as much information as possible about the doctoral educational experience. University of Indiana Professor David Weaver found, for example, that studies stress giving prospective students all the information possible, including data on degree completion rates and time to graduation, “structures and processes of doctoral education,” funding opportunities and jobs of graduates.10 Graduate students surveyed also said prospective applicants should be told how much feedback and interaction they could expect from faculty regarding their work and progress in the Ph.D. program.
Weaver, quoted a 2002 report that “’Many students do not clearly understand what doctoral study entails, how the process works and how to navigate it effectively.’”11 University of Illinois Professor Gerald Graff, who particularly argued for “de-mystifying” Ph.D. work, also argued for engaging students with the “contested issues” in their discipline. To gain “their bearings” in their disciplines, Graff said, graduate students need help in accessing “the shifting disagreements-- and agreements-- that represent the necessary background of working knowledge.”12
8 Richardson, op cit.
9Stimpson, op cit.
10David Weaver, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Indiana, “Summary of Findings From Recent Studies of Doctoral Education,” School of Journalism, Indiana University, October 2002. Based on survey of 4,114 third year and higher doctoral students from 27 universities and one cross-institutional program
11 Weaver. op cit., quoting Chris M. Golde and Timothy M. Dore, At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Today’s Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education (Philadelphia: Pew Charitable Trusts, January 2001):
30.
12 Gerald Graff, Professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, “The Ph.D. in English: Towards a New Consensus,” Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, op cit.
4. Emphasize theory
Berliner said Ph.D. programs must use “big ideas” in emphasizing the discipline’s
content. Past leaders in his field “seemed to defy or demonize theorists” and never gave
sufficient attention to theories used. He continued, “The developing notion of
community of practice...is about the power of models on thinking as well as on overt
behavior. ... there are big ideas that cut across theorists that need to be understood at
least as well as the theorists and theories themselves.”13
Some of Berliner’s important points translate across disciplines, including mass communication. For example, he wrote: “An educational psychology that is embedded in practice may well have more needs of the big ideas contained in theories than in attempting to test whether a theory ‘works’ in practice.” Quoting J. G. Greeno, A. M. Collins, and L. Resnick,14 Berliner added: “Moreover, a [discipline] embedded in practice is likely to contribute to theory development by developing principles that ‘have greater scientific validity than those that have been developed primarily in laboratory work and in disinterested observations of practice, because they will have to address deeper questions of how practices function and develop.’”
Christians argued that theories, to be credible, must explain vast domains of human knowledge. Theories formulate problems in terms of the human predicament and feed the social agenda; and research accounts for things that matter to us.15
5. Encompass Diversity
Christians, noting the focus on pluralism in the 2004 forum at the University of Minnesota, asked: “How can we promote diversity in methodological training? How can we ensure theoretical pluralism, that is, a variety of perspectives?” Pluralism, Christians said, can be guaranteed “when ideas are paramount” because it “creates the organizational culture where ethnic diversity and methodological variety can thrive,” and it respects “the mosaic of alternative paradigms that constitute university culture today.”
Carnegie essayist Andrea Abernethy Lunsford, Professor of English at Stanford University, argued that doctoral programs must be “more open and inclusive, more truly diverse, more responsive” to students’ desires, “more connected to emerging definitions of reading and writing, more collaborative, more engaged with issues close to hearts of
13Berliner, op cit.
14 J. G. Greeno, A. M. Collins, and L. Resnick, “Cognition and Learning, in D. C. Berliner and R. C. Calfee, eds. The Handbook of Educational Psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1996: 2-46. (See p. 41 for quoted passage.) 15Christians, op cit.
communities.”16 University of Minnesota Professor Allen Isaacman said one cannot have diversity without academic excellence, and vice versa.17
6. Teach how to be a professor
Sources emphasized that it is essential to:
Mentor all potential and new faculty members as a way of supporting and adjusting new Ph.D. students’ practical knowledge on the job.
Structure into Ph.D. programs learning opportunities that are focused on practical knowledge.
Involve Ph.D. students in effective governance.
Consider what doctoral students are to be after finishing the degree. Those who will teach must know how to design curricula, wrote Carnegie essayist Stimpson.
7. Provide training in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching
Graff, who said he “’learned to teach’ by fakery, pretending that I knew what I was doing and keeping the pretense up until at some point...it stopped feeling like one,”18 recommended:
Required courses and workshops on teaching.
Scheduling regular faculty to teach skills courses.
Workshops in which faculty and graduate students present work in progress for discussion (beginning dissertation proposals, Graff said, could be submitted for discussion at such a workshop).
Lunsford recommended “ongoing teaching/pedagogy circles” of “faculty, staff and graduate students… working collaboratively on major questions facing” teachers, including the following (The format has been changed, including bullets, to create a listing):
“[W]hat do our pedagogical practices suggest about theories we hold?
How do we best engage all students in productive and cooperative intellectual debate?
How can we create assignments that call forth the best and most diverse thinking, writing, and speaking?
How can we create an effective classroom ethos?
How do we respond to and evaluate student work in ways that are rigorous and honest but not appropriative?
How can we establish and share authority among participants?
How do we develop and share knowledge in and outside the classroom?”
16Andrea Abernethy Lunsford, Stanford University Professor of English, “Rethinking the Ph.D. in English,” Carnegie Initiative on Doctoral Education, op cit.
17Allan Isaacman, Professor of History and Program Director, the University of Minnesota International Center for Global Change, “The Challenge to Higher Education in an Independent and Changing Global Society,” University of Minnesota Commencement Address, May 2004.
18Graff, op cit.
Small faculty-student groups would:
“work together to present an agenda to be considered by all”;
“offer multiple opportunities for teaching and team-teaching, with time for careful response and follow-up and time for students to make explicit and lasting connections between their research and their teaching”;
replace the TA system (in which graduate students now “lead discussion sections, meet with the students, and grade written work while the faculty member” primarily lectures) with team-work in planning and developing course materials, preparing and giving lectures, meeting with students to advise and “respond to class assignments.” This would better prepare graduate students for teaching than does the TA system, Lunsford argued.19
A related sub-theme is the need to assure a link between graduate study and undergraduate research. Graff suggested assigning graduate students’ and faculty research for undergraduates to read and including undergraduates in research teams.20
8. Assure Interdisciplinary
Saying that academic fields don’t stand alone, “are often difficult to differentiate from other fields, and do not stand still,” Richardson said students need “a sense of the whole” and “conceptual understandings” of how they “might fit together in their programs.” Future collaboration “to bring together different fields and to reconceptualize their own area of the field” requires understanding the system more than one specialization permits. Students need to understand their field in the “broader intellectual context,” wrote Richardson.21
Stimpson said one cannot do interdisciplinary work well without a “home plate of knowledge” from which to go and return. Students must understand their “disciplinary roots” and be able “to explain them to others” while learning the “many different ways … of being interdisciplinary.” Graduate education “both trains one’s general intellectual capacities and nurtures a specialization, a strong understanding of something.” The “dramatic increase in knowledge,” which reduces chances for “one person to master a field independently,” and the fact that “much work is communal in nature,” mean good interdisciplinary work also demands collaborations, Stimpson wrote.22
Lunsford said Ph.D. students must engage in “large-scale research projects, including dissertations,” be able to choose “a narrow and highly defined topic” and have chances to work on projects requiring multiple researchers.23
19Lunsford, op cit.
20Graff, op cit.
21 Richardson, op cit.
22Stimpson, op cit.23 Lunsford, op cit.
Isaacman, relating the need for interdisciplinarity research and teaching to globalization, urged approaches that cross “multiple disciplinary boundaries and perspectives … to deepen our knowledge of the complexities of change in global society.” Such “initiatives must be supported regardless of financial constraints and the more narrow interests of some departments,” he asserted.24
9. Reconfigure courses in methodologies
Need to reform teaching of methodologies is among the most recurring themes in sources consulted, and it usually appears in tandem with the ideas that Ph.D. programs must include different methodological approaches and sensitivity to methodology hegemony.
In this “age of proliferating epistemologies,” Berliner said, “it is no longer appropriate ... to claim methodological purity and superiority without … deeper knowledge of other forms of scholarship and their methods of inquiry.”25 Stressing the need to consider any research project’s meaning to both the researchers and participants, he continued:
“... if you give people t-tests, they are sure to see the world in terms of main effects. They are likely to see the world as a horse race between treatments A and B. But this is too simple a view of the way the educational world works. Missing in most ... such research are the subjects’ feelings, beliefs, understandings, critiques, and suggestions for improvement of the research. Missing also are the many interactions that surely occur. It is quite likely that educational treatments are appropriate for some students and not others, work better in some kinds of subject matter rather than in others, and have different effects on the achievement of some kinds of outcomes and not others. Measuring myriad interactions may not be possible, but the research can find clues to their existence from interviews with participants in the research.”
While “traditional methodology courses lead” to scrutiny of “the reliability and construct validity of their measurement instruments,” Berliner added, they “often gloss over the ecological, catalytic, and consequential validity of their research.” Further, “[t]hese courses typically emphasize random assignments of subjects and seek a distancing of the researcher from those subjects, discouraging the researcher from becoming a participant-observer in the study itself.” Berliner further added that “noteworthy issues involved in the linguistic and behavioral transformation of the subject and object of study … to that of participant or co-investigator in the research,” not only go “unexamined in traditional methods courses; they are often actively avoided.”
Quoting J. T. Behrens and M. L. Smith 26 about “what is common to data analysis across methods,” Berliner listed the following (the format has been altered to highlight the points):
24Isaacman, op cit.
25 Berliner, op cit.
26 J. T. Behrens and M. L. Smith, “Data and Data Analysis,” in D. C. Berliner and R. C. Calfee, eds., The Handbook of Educational Psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1996: 945-989.
“a) the act of analysis is a construction of the researcher;
b) … common to all data analysis are words and numbers, both of which are symbols,
and so neither can be said to be hard or soft;
c) the process of analysis is social, with the analyst working from the data back to the
transactions with subjects and participants as well as forward to transactions with
colleagues and audiences;
d) the aim in analysis of all kinds is the reduction of large amounts of data to a
comprehensible amount while insuring that the meanings of the data are not lost;
and
e) whether one works with numbers or text, the results of analyses are
contestable.”
Students must engage with epistemology while learning research methods, Berliner said. Epistemologies “‘undergird all phases of the research process,’” he added, quoting A. M. Pallas (2001);27 they mold “’scholars’ abilities’” to grasp others’ research-- appreciation of which is essential to the “’scholarly conversations that signify a field’s collective learning.’”
In another statement applicable to other disciplines, Berliner said many “central topics” of his discipline no longer reside only in that discipline, and “new ways to address the study of these phenomena exist outside of the discipline.” Approaching issues with certain designs in mind can limit questions studied, Berliner argued, adding that Ph.D. programs need to stress learning alternative epistemologies and methods.
Richardson called it critical to consider “how the politicization of research methodology should or will affect Ph.D. programs.” Formerly, “students were expected to become bi- (or tri-) methodological, with strong and deep knowledge and skills in at least one approach” according to a plan for them to graduate with ability to “immediately” produce “quality” research, understand research using various methods, and be able “to conduct mixed-methods studies.” This approach remains valuable, Richardson said, but methodologies’ strengths and weaknesses need emphasis regarding their “nature and potential use of the knowledge being generated, ethical issues” and “dangers of methodological hegemony.”28
Sources stressed that all kinds of doctoral programs need to reflect respect for and inclusion of humanities methodologies.
Stimpson outlined two “forces” uniting humanists (The format has been altered here to emphasize points made):
1. “[A] loose commitment to a particular method,” albeit not mathematics-based or replicable in laboratory experiments. Other kinds of evidence are used to show humanist research is reliable and credible:
27 A. M. Pallas, “Preparing Educational Doctoral Students for Epistemological Diversity,” Educational Researcher 30 (2001): 6-11 (the quoted passage appears on p. 6).
28Richardson, op cit.
a)” extent and depth of their awareness of the materials relevant to their inquiry–the appropriate archives, texts, historical developments, languages, works of art,and architecture, cultural institutions, and conflicts.”b) “quality of sensibility, how subtle and original, how capable of creating aspacious argument or narrative and yet of doing finely-textured analyses.”c) “capacity for interpretation”–interweaving “sensibility” with knowledge.
The central problem is interpretation, a concept disputed since some say it means
“one person blowing off mental steam, or …biased humanists pushing a position,
or… a skeptic warning that what other people say is false rather than exploring
the true.”29 Stimpson cited John Guillory30 saying that “interpretation is also ameans of ‘producing knowledge’”
2. The subject matter—humans’ activities—also unites humanists, Stimpson said.
“[E]ach humanistic discipline either represents a human capacity of performing at the highest level of complexity, or ... studies a human capacity performing at both its most routine and at its highest level of complexity.” Stimpson named humanities fields to illustrate (The format has been altered and bullets added to highlight points):
philosophy = “capacity for thinking at its most complex”
history = “capacity for remembering at its most complex”
literary criticism = about humans “as language-makers at both [their] most routine and … most complex”
art history= about humans as “picture-makers at both [their] most routine and …most complex”
musicology= about humans as “sound-makers at both [their] most routine and… most complex”
ethics = about people “as just and moral beings [at their] most routine and… most complex.”
To further explain, Stimpson quoted Clifford Geertz31 on “a triple task of seeing: first seeing others, then of seeing ourselves as others see us, and finally of seeing ourselves among others”:
“’To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes. If
29Stimpson, op cit.
30 John Guillory, “The Sokal Affair and the History of Criticism,” Critical Inquiry 28:2 (Winter 2002): 470-508;(the quoted passage is on p 498.)31 Clifford Geertz, “Introduction,” Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology. New York:Basic Books, 1983: 3-16 (quoted passage is on p. 16).
interpretative anthropology has any general office in the world it is to keep reteaching
this fugitive truth.’”
10. Teach public scholarship (that is, prepare students to be citizen-scholars, or, in other words, civic engagement)
To define civic engagement, Victor Bloomfield, Interim Dean of the University of Minnesota Graduate School and Vice Provost for Research, in a 2004 paper, quoted the CIC Committee on Engagement, which said civic engagement it:
“The partnership of university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity, enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.”32
Bloomfield stressed the specter of loss of public support, saying, “[h]igher education is increasingly looked on as a private good, and our research ... is viewed by large segments of the population as either irrelevant or designed to enrich large corporations.” He warned that declining support will continue, “Unless the public perceives that research and the graduate education that makes it possible contribute to the public good, and affect them personally.”33 Bloomfield cited several sources showing “growing conversation in higher education about civic engagement” plus studies emphasizing the need:34
One study listed as a sixth major finding the need to: “‘Produce scholar-citizens who see their special training connected more closely to the needs of society and the global economy.’”
The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate definition of the purpose of doctoral education as “‘preparing stewards of the discipline’” and emphasis that one of
32 Victor Bloomfield, “Civic Engagement and Graduate Education,” p. 3. See Appendix 3 for the paper, which is used with permission of Bloomfield and Debra Stewart, President of the Council of Graduate Schools. A shorter version was published in 2005. See Victor Bloomfield, “Civic Engagement and Graduate Education,” Communicator XXXVIII:3 (April 2005): 1–2, 6. Bloomfield quoted here (p. 2) the Civic Engagement Benchmarking Task Force (20050 Resource Guide and Recommendations for Defining and Benchmarking Engagement, CIC Committee on Engagement in collaboration with National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges: Council on Extension, Continuing Education, and Public Service Benchmarking Task Force. http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/CommitteeOnEngagement/index.shtml
33Bloomfield, 1.
34 Among sources Bloomfield cited about increasing discussion are Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate (Princeton, N.J: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990; Ernest
L. Boyer, “The Scholarship of Engagement,” Journal of Public Outreach, 1:1 (1996): 11-20; Richard Cherwitz and
C. Sullivan, “Intellectual Entrepreneurship: A Vision for Graduate Education, Change (November/December, 2002): 22-27; Kellogg Commission. Renewing the Covenant: Learning, Discovery and Engagement in a New Age and Different World. Washington, D.C.: National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, 2000.
three essential steward functions is “communication with a wide variety of publics.”
• The directive in yet another study is that “the goal of the doctorate [be] redefined as scholarly citizenship.”35
University of Minnesota Professor Harry Boyte, Senior Fellow in the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, Political Science and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, cautioned against developing citizen-scholar training by simply grafting onto old notions of public service. The very idea of “‘citizen scholar,’” which must be rethought, requires a “deep reworking of the meaning of citizenship itself, toward work, not off-hours voluntarism.” The term implies, Boyte said, “that citizenship is woven into the core identities and practices of the work that communications and practitioners undertake.” Using “‘public work’ as a frame for viewing citizenship and democracy,” Boyte offered analysis of public work, and professional and scholarly practices as both expertise and as a democratic craft. Ultimately discussing three models of politics, citizenship and democracy, Boyte stressed obstacles to be overcome in higher education, including “challenging conventional wisdom about democracy itself.”
Richardson advocated that all Ph.D. students be familiar with “issues of policy, policy making, and implementation (formal knowledge) and …learn to communicate (practical knowledge) with those who are passionate” about improving the discipline “but have little understanding of the complexities of the system and the potential for reform.”36
Doctoral programs offering courses and experiences that help students understand the nation’s public policy debates are virtually certain to “inspire ideas for research,” asserted Berliner, who proposed a year-long practicum requiring all doctoral students to work in community settings around their university, perhaps in rotations with a paper required at end of each rotation.37
Summary
After reading extensively in relevant documents, hosting a forum on the subject with speakers from several universities, conducting surveys of faculty and graduate students and interviewing many others, the ad hoc committee at the University of Minnesota found that much discussion about doctoral education at the beginning of the twenty-first century suggests the need for thoroughgoing reform, if not revolution. The Minnesota Report says that sources consulted reveal a new model of graduate education. The traditional (top-down, “ivory tower”) model, wherein the professor-expert disseminates knowledge and trains students in his own
35 Bloomfield, 1, cites J. Nyquist and D. Wulff, Recommendations from National Studies on Doctoral Education (2000); The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (2004); the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Responsive Ph.D. Initiative (2004) directs that “‘...the goal of the doctorate [be] redefined as scholarly citizenship.”
36Richardson, op cit.
37 Berliner, op cit.
likeness, is giving way to an emerging collaborative and/or communitarian model with two dimensions: Students collaborate with professors in pursuit of advanced degrees, and, in the process, students and faculty apply knowledge-seeking and knowledge gained to real and immediate societal issues and problems in communities. Research has shown that programs “that foster collaboration between faculty and students positively affect students’ socialization into the discipline,” according to Indiana University Professor David Weaver.38
The emerging model requires a graduate education culture in which Ph.D. students have clear purposes when they enter (or very soon thereafter) a Ph.D. program. Although high school and college students are expected to need time “to find themselves,” and although a few “late bloomers” will likely necessarily change directions during their Ph.D. studies, the stakes and costs for students have become too high, and funding too limited, for most students to afford to spend much unfocused time while working toward the Ph.D. degree.
38 Weaver, op cit
4. Status of AEJMC-Affiliated Doctoral Programs July 2005
Dan Shaver and Mary Alice Shaver (Chairs), Mary Ann Ferguson, Carroll Glynn, Rick Stephens, Wayne Wanta, David Weaver, Chuck Whitney
In 2003, then-AEJMC President Theodore Glasser appointed a task force to examine the current state and trends in Mass Communication Ph.D. education. An initial data collection was conducted by the task force members in 2003-2004 and formed the basis for an interim report presented at the AEJMC Convention in Toronto in August 2004. Following that meeting, a second data collection was conducted to expand the sample and increase the response rate. Additional data were also collected by examination of some school web sites as well. This report summarizes the results of those data collections.
The Schools
In all, the final sample selected by the committee included 38 doctoral programs at 35 universities affiliated with AEJMC. A list of the schools and programs is included in Appendix
A. Two schools (Indiana University and The University of Texas - Austin) have more than one doctoral program in a mass communication field so the sample contains a larger number of programs than schools.
Considered as geographic groups, there are few striking differences between the programs. Table 1 illustrates the differences between programs grouped regionally in terms of enrollment, faculty, graduate faculty and age of the program.
Averages Midwest West Northeast South
Program Age 47 27 17 21
No. Students 33 26 31 29
Total Faculty 37 26 26 41
Grad. Faculty 22 19 17 29
Faculty/Student Ratio .67 .73 .55 1.0
Organizationally, of the programs reside in a college or school within their university, suggesting relative prominence for the program within the academic community.
Program Approaches:
A review of program structure suggests three basic approaches to doctoral education that can be characterized as generalized, specialized and individualized. Generalized programs dominate and are characterized by offering four or more areas of potential specialization to doctoral students. This group averaged 7.5 specializations and the mode was 6. Thirty-two of the 38 programs reviewed (85%) could be characterized as generalized.
Specialized programs focus on a single or very limited number of specialization options. One example of a specialized program is the doctoral program at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. The program focuses exclusively on the relationship between mass communication and politics, supplementing a strong group of focused courses in the school with a limited number of interdisciplinary courses. Six of the programs reviewed (15%) reported offering three or fewer areas of specialization and fell into this category.
The customized approach is best exemplified by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. With only three graduate faculty members in the school, the program relies heavily on a 12-person interdisciplinary committee. Each student's program is tailored to his or her particular interests with a combination of five core courses within the school focusing on basic areas of communication and appropriate classes from other parts of the university relevant to the student’s particular focus or interest. Although Columbia represented the best and clearest example of customization, other programs—particularly in the generalized category—reported offering varying degrees of flexibility in leveraging resources outside the school to craft programs to meet the particular interests and needs of their doctoral students.
Number and Areas of Specialization Offered:
Slightly more than one-quarter (28.9%) of programs indicated they offer three or fewer areas of specialization and another quarter indicated nine or more specialization options. The median number of specializations indicated was six.
Area of Specialization Responding Programs Offering
Communication Effects/Theory 71.1%
Political Communication/Opinion/Policy 57.9%
Cultural Studies: Race/Class/Gender 57.9%
Communication Technology/New Media 57.9%
International Communication 52.6%
Law 44.7%
Public Relations/Corporate Communication 42.1%
History 39.5%
Advertising/Marketing 36.8%
Telecommunications 31.6%
Media Management & Economics 28.9%
Journalism 28.9%
Information Cognition/Information Studies 26.3%
Ethics 18.4%
Mass Communication 15.8%
Interpersonal Communication 15.8%
Health/Science/Environmental Communication 13.2%
Media Studies 10.5%
Visual Communication 5.3%
Other 23.6%
As the chart shows, the most widely offered area of specialization is Communications Effects/Theory, followed closely by Political Communication, Cultural Studies and Communication Technology/New Media. Health/Science/Environmental Communication, Media Studies and Visual Communication are the least frequently offered specializations.
Demographics
Doctoral Students:
Enrollment in the 30 programs reporting that data totaled 918 students, though that number is slightly inflated by inclusion of students pursuing specializations in interpersonal or organizational communications specialties in programs that include both I/O and mass communication. Overall, female doctoral students (53.4%) slightly outnumber males (46.6%). Minority representation was 18.5% while international students represented just more than one-third (35.8%) of mass communication students.
Although there was some variance in demographics by region—particularly in gender and international representation, none of the differences were statistically significant.
Midwest West Northeast South
Female Students Male Students Minority Students International Students 52.5% 47.5% 14.8% 41.8% 58.0% 42.0% 21.3% 37.6% 49.3% 50.7% 25.6% 36.3% 56.0% 44.0% 18.2% 27.6%
Faculty:
Information regarding the size of the total faculty and the graduate faculty was available for 37 of the programs. Total faculty amounted to 1,277 of which 823 (64.4%) were identified as qualified to teach in the doctoral program. There do not appear to be significant differences in the demographics of the graduate faculty and the overall faculty. Females were 38.6% of total faculty and 38.8% of the graduate faculty. Minorities represented 10.3% of the total faculty and 10.8% of the graduate faculty. Scholars of international backgrounds averaged less than one percent of both the total and graduate faculties.
Admissions
One-fifth (20.6%) of the programs reported that they average five or fewer admissions to their program annually. Another 41.2% accept between six and 10 applicants annually. The remainder of programs (38.2%) reported accepting between 12 and 15 doctoral students a year.
Requirement for Masters Degree:
Most programs (60.5%) require completion of a master’s degree for admission to the doctoral program. Another 15.8% indicated that candidates with a completed master’s degree are preferred. Only 23.7% of respondents indicated that a master’s is not a prerequisite for doctoral studies—although most of those programs require the completion of additional course work roughly equivalent to that required for a masters. It does not appear that most of these programs require completion of a thesis, however. Of the nine schools not requiring a master’s degree for admission, two reported that 91% to 98% of entering doctoral students over the past five years had master’s degrees. Five schools reported that more than 98% of those admitted had completed their masters. Two schools estimated that 26% to 50% of admitted schools had completed an intermediate degree.
Previous Grade Point Averages:
All the reporting schools indicated that the applicant’s grade point average from the master’s degree is “always” a consideration in evaluating the candidate. Half the schools (50%)
reported that the undergraduate grade GPA Cutoff Points
point average is always considered while Masters GPA Undergraduate GPA
20 percent indicated that it is sometimes a
factor. Thirty percent indicated that it is 3.00 46.4% 80.0%
never a factor in the admissions decision. 3.25 6.7%
Most schools (82.9%) reported the use of 3.30 3.6%
minimum GPAs at the master’s level and 3.40 3.6% 6.7%
47.2% reported minimum undergraduate 3.50 46.4% 6.7%
guidelines.
Standardized Exams:
Standardized test scores play a key role in the admission decisions of virtually every program surveyed.
All reporting schools require that applicants take the Graduate Record Exam as part of the application process and three-quarters (76.5%) have established minimum scores for admission to their program. Most programs (61.5%) use cutoffs based on the total GRE score but 37.5% have specific requirements for the verbal and quantitative sections of the exam. Most programs (73.9%) regularly consider the analytical/writing portion of the exam and another 8.7% of programs reported using it as a “tie breaker.” For programs using minimum GRE scores as part of the admission process, the distribution of cutoffs was:
GRE Section Minimums GRE Total Minimums
Minimum Verbal Quantitative Minimum Total Score
450 9.1% 1000 30.8% 500 58.3% 45.5% 1100 26.9% 550 25.0% 9.1% 1150 11.5% 600 16.7% 18.2% 1200 19.2% 650 18.2% 1300 3.8% 1350 Plus 7.6%
All of the responding programs indicated that they require international students to take the TOEFL as part of the admissions process and most (91.7%) indicated that they have minimum acceptable scores ranging from 500 to 677 on the paper version of the test. As the following chart shows, the most common cutoff point is a score of 600.
TOEFL Cutoff Points
500 3.0 % 550 12.1 % 575 3.0 % 580 3.0 % 600 57.6 % 620 3.0 % 640 3.0 % 650 9.1 % 660 3.0 % 677 3.0 %
Relevant Work Experience:
Although previous professional experience is considered a strong plus by most of the programs (60%), only 2 programs (5.7%) demand it as a condition of acceptance into their doctoral program. About one-third (31.4%) of programs do not consider it important and one program reported that expectations vary depending on the program being pursued. Of the 18 programs providing estimates of the level of professional experience in those admitted during the past five years, 33.3% reported that fewer than half their admissions had relevant professional experience. Another 38.9% of programs estimated that 51% to 75% of their students entered with professional experience while 27.8% estimated that more than 75% of their admissions had work experience.
Additional Criteria:
In addition to standard application materials such as a statement of purpose, references, transcripts, etc., a few programs require submission of either an example of scholarly work (a thesis or journal article) and/or a statement describing how the strengths of the school’s faculty or program structure are congruent with the individual’s goals.
Program Requirements
Course and Dissertation Hours:
The number of credit hours required varies widely across doctoral programs, though the mean was 58 hours. By quartiles, the reported requirements for class hours were:
First quartile: 27 to 45 hours
Second quartile: 46 to 54 hours
Third quartile: 55 to 64 hours
Fourth quartile: 66 to 88 hours
The number of dissertation hours available to doctoral students also varies widely in both minimum and maximum requirements.
Dissertation Hours
Minimum Maximum
0-10 29.0% 4.5%
11-15 25.8% 22.7%
16-20 12.9%
21-25 16.1% 4.5%
26-30 6.4% 13.6%
31-35 3.2%
36-40
41 Plus 4.5%
No Limit 50.0%
Specializations and Cognates:
More than half the programs reporting the number of hours doctoral students are required to complete in their area of specialization (55.6%) indicated that number to be 15 or less. Almost a quarter of respondents (22.2%) indicated that their program had no formal maximum limit on hours taken in the specialization while more than half the programs (55.4%) capped hours at 24 or fewer.
Hours Required in Specialization
Minimum Maximum
9 11.1%
12 14.8%
15 29.6% 22.2%
16 3.7%
18 14.8% 18.5%
20 3.7%
21 3.7% 3.7%
24 7.4% 7.4%
27 3.7% 3.7%
30 or More 11.1% 18.5%
No Maximum 22.2%
Almost three-quarters (74.1%) of the responding programs indicated that there is some formal requirement for doctoral students to develop a secondary or cognate field. Three-quarters of those requiring a cognate (75%) required a minimum of 12 or fewer hours to satisfy their requirement.
Hours Required in Cognate
Minimum Maximum
4 6 9 12 15 16 18 21 or More 5.0% 5.0% 30.0% 35.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 10.0% 16.7% 25.0% 25.0% 8.3% 24.9%
The Core:
Most programs have a core set of programs required of all doctoral students. Often this reflects the core competencies associated with the program. Required courses in research methods and communication theory are among the most frequently required core courses.
History and ethics are among the least common. The following chart illustrates the most common subjects included in core courses.
Most Common Subjects at the Core
Subject Required Not Required Not Specified
Quantitative Methods Communication Theory Qualitative Methods Other Research Methods Statistics Special Colloquiums Law Pedagogy Ethics/Media & Society History Other 89.3% 84.2% 73.1% 71.1% 60.7% 57.9% 34.6% 31.6% 15.8% 7.9% 15.8% 7.1% 7.9% 19.2% 13.2% 35.7% 34.2% 61.5% 47.4% 84.2% 92.1% 84.2% 3.6% 7.9% 8.6% 15.8% 3.6% 7.9% 3.8% 21.1%
Subject Minimum Hours in 3 or Fewer Core Subjects 4-6 7-9 10-12 13-15 16+
Statistics Quantitative Methods Qualitative Methods Other Research Methods Communication Theory Pedagogy Law Special Colloquiums 50.0% 78.3% 83.3% 15.4% 48.4% 100% 88.9% 45.0% 7.1% 17.3% 16.9% 34.6% 32.3% 11.1% 15.0% 35.7% 38.5% 6.4% 20.0% 4.3% 7.7% 3.2% 3.8% 6.5% 7.1% 3.2%
Comprehensive Exams:
Virtually all programs require doctoral students to successfully complete a set of comprehensive written exams and all but one respondent indicated that candidates are required to provide an oral defense of their answers. The most common subjects for the comp questions are around the student’s areas of specialization and minor/cognate, methods and communication theory. There are, however, some variances.
Comprehensive Exam Topics
Topic Required Not Required Not Specified Specialization 96.3% 3.7%
Methods 91.7% 4.2% 4.2%
Theory 88.0% 4.0% 8.0%
Cognate or Minor 87.5% 8.3% 4.2%
Communication Behavior 48.1% 47.7% 4.2%
Ethics 11.1% 80.8% 8.0%
Law 7.4% 84.6% 8.0%
History 3.7% 88.3% 8.0%
Other 11.1% 80.8% 8.0%
Program Guidance:
Three basic models for guiding doctoral students during their course work emerged from the data. They are: (1) Individual advisors, usually assigned initially by the program with the student having the option/responsibility of picking another advisor, usually during their second semester; (2) An advisory committee; (3) A combination of advisor and committee where the advisor acts as chair of the committee.
Advisory committees may or may not serve also as the dissertation committee. About one-third (34.5%) of the programs indicated that the advisory committee and the dissertation committee are separate. The same percentage reported that they may be the same or different depending on the circumstances and 31.0% of the programs reported that the advisory and dissertation committees are the same.
Advisory committees typically have a minimum of three (21.7%), four (52.2%), or five (26.1%) members. While most programs require that one (72.7%) or two (4.5%) of the advisory committee members be from outside the program, 22.7% do not require any outside representation.
The dissertation committee, likewise, ranges in minimum size from three (14.7%), to four (47.1%) or five (38.2%) members. All but two (5.6%) of 34 programs reporting on dissertation committee structure require outside representation on the committee. Thirty-two programs (88.9%) require a minimum of one outside representative and one program requires four outside committee members. All programs require production of an original contribution of knowledge to the field for the dissertation and all but one program requires that the student have an oral defense.
Student Evaluations:
Most programs (66.7%) report providing students with annual, written evaluations of their performance while they are completing their course work. Three programs indicated that performance reviews are conducted only at the end of the student’s first year in the program and 24.2% of programs indicated that only informal feedback is provided on student performance.
Language Requirements:
The majority of programs do not require doctoral candidates to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language. Eight programs (21.6%) indicated that they require either satisfaction of a language requirement or an acceptable substitute—most often research methods classes. Most programs (70.3%) indicated that they have no language requirements and 8.1% of programs reported that a language may or may not be required depending on the student’s specialization.
Satisfactory Grade Point Average:
Most programs (97.2%) indicated that satisfactory completion requires that doctoral students maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average on a 4-point scale. Some programs set higher standards.
Acceptable GPA 3.0 3.01-3.25 3.26-3.50 3.51 or Above
Programs 72.2% 11.1% 11.1% 2.8%
Student Research Expectations:
Just under one-third (30.6%) of responding programs indicated that there are specific research expectations—apart from class work and financial aid packages—for doctoral students. Another 50% of respondents indicated that while specific requirements don’t exist, they encourage and expect scholarly research. Only 11.1% (4 programs) indicated that they have no specific research expectations for program participants. Specific expectations include a research externship or preparation and presentation of a specific number of scholarly articles within the school. Most programs expect (60.6%) or encourage (33.3%) conference presentations by doctoral students. A smaller number of schools—but still a majority—expect (48.3%) or encourage (34.5%) publication in scholarly journals. The most frequent form of research encouraged is independent but supervised research with a faculty member.
To support student conference attendance, 79.2% of the 24 programs responding to the item about travel subsidies indicated that they always provide assistance and 20.8% indicated that they often do so. The variable affecting programs that do not always offer support appears to be resource limitations. Available support levels were reported to range from $150 to $2,000 a year with median values for minimum and maximum support of $325 to $600.
Pedagogy:
Slightly more than a quarter (26.5%) of programs require doctoral students to acquire teaching experience as part of their program. About a third (35.3%) indicated that teaching expectations vary depending on the student’s language skills, career goals, and status as a part-time or full-time student. One-fifth of the programs (20.6%) indicated that while they have no specific teaching guidelines, teaching is a critical part of most financial aid packages. Six programs (17.6%) indicated that they have no expectations regarding doctoral student teaching aside from possible financial aid.
Even programs that do not require students to teach may require training in pedagogy. A majority (59.4%) of programs require students to take at least one pedagogy class or seminar, and another 18.8% of programs actively encourage such training. Only three programs (9.4%) do not consider teacher training to be a significant component of their curriculum.
Individual departments and schools provide training in the majority of programs (75.9%) with university programs providing the primary course work 17.2% of the time. In a few instances, other departments or a combined effort between the school and the university provides the necessary learning opportunity.
Financial Aid:
Two-thirds of the responding programs indicated that they offer financial aid to most or all of their doctoral students. Half (50%) indicated financial aid packages for all students admitted while another 17.6% reported offering aid to more than 90% of those accepted. Only four schools (11.6%) indicated that they provide aid to fewer than 75% of doctoral students. Two-thirds (66.7%) of programs reported offering assistanceships or fellowships to 90% or more of those accepted. Only four programs (14.8%) reported that fewer than 75% of their students receive fellowships or assistanceships.
Most financial aid packages either include health insurance or have low-cost coverage available through other university programs. Forty-six percent of respondents indicated that all doctoral students have health insurance available and 17.9% of programs indicated that more than 75% of their students have health coverage. Almost three quarters of doctoral students (72.7%) have full or partial tuition waivers as part of their financial packages. Only 14.1% of programs reported that less than 75% of their students receive tuition waivers or reductions.
The value of stipends awarded varies widely. Minimum amounts reported range from $5,759 to $20,000 a year and maximums range from $7,200 to $33,909. The median minimum value was $12,942 and the median maximum value was $16,500.
The workload associated with fellowships and assistanceships ranged from zero hours per week to 20 with 70% of the programs reporting 20 hours to be the average.
Two-thirds of 20 programs that responded to a question regarding financial assistance for dissertations indicated that some assistance is provided. The value of that support ranged from $300 to $24,000 and in some instances involved additional years of support as a teaching or research assistant while the dissertation is being completed.
Time Limits:
Of the 30 programs reporting on time limits for program completion, 93% indicated that students must complete their course work and dissertation with a set period or reapply and take additional work. The most frequently cited limit was 7 years from entrance into the program, though the median limit was 8 years. Two programs cited limits on the dissertation and begin their countdown (5 and 8 years respectively), after the candidates have completed their comprehensive exams and been admitted to candidacy. Two programs indicated no limits on completion of doctoral work.
Graduates:
The 34 programs reporting graduation rates ranged from an average of two to 12 graduates per year. The median graduation rate was five. Programs reported that most graduates (79.0%) are employed by educational institutions. Another 17.1% find jobs in industry and the remainder are either unknown or employed by non-profit organizations or think tanks.
Trends
Seventeen survey respondents answered a series of questions during the second round of data collection about perceived trends in program direction, student interests and employment opportunities. Although this represents a sub-sample of the schools surveyed, it does represent the opinions of the individuals responsible for almost half of the Ph.D. programs in the survey.
Program Trends:
Responding to a question about the average age and experience level of students admitted to their doctoral program over the past five years, 13.3% of respondents indicated that they believed it had increased. A majority (86.7%) indicated that it had remained about the same.
Slightly more than two-fifths (41.2%) of respondents predicted that their program will increase in size in the next five years. Other respondents predicted the program will remain at its current size; no one predicted a reduction in size.
Almost half of the respondents (47.1%) expect an increase in the number of specializations offered in their graduate program in five years. Other respondents expect to maintain their current range of offerings.
Slightly more than half of the respondents (52.9%) expect to increase their overall level of support for doctoral students in the future. The other respondents anticipated maintaining current levels of financial aid.
More than one-third of respondents (37.5%) expect to become more selective in their admissions policies over the next five years. The remaining 62.5% expect to maintain current standards.
Student Interests:
The following chart reflects the responses received to questions about changes in doctoral student interests. Several topics, including ethics and media literacy, were noted but the number of responses was too small to generate meaningful percentages. The data show that Communications Technology/New Media, International Communications and Public Relations are expected to attract increased student interests in the next five years while interest levels in most other disciplines are expected to remain relatively flat.
Based on your school’s experience in recent years, how do you expect interests/choices among the doctoral students you accept to be in the following areas:
Increase The Same Decrease
Technology/New Media 80.0% 13.3% 6.7%
International Communications 57.1% 42.9%
Public Relations 50.0% 41.7% 8.3%
Journalism 45.5% 54.5%
Information Studies 41.7% 50.0% 8.3%
Cultural Studies:
Race/Gender/Etc. 41.7% 50.0% 8.3%
Advertising 36.4% 54.5% 9.1%
Political Communication/Policy 35.7% 64.3%
Law 33.3% 66.7%
Comm. Theory and Effects 29.4% 70.6%
Telecommunications 22.2% 55.6% 22.2%
History 21.4% 71.4% 7.1%
Media Mgmt./Economics 10.0% 60.0% 10.0%
Job Market Trends:
The following reflects respondent’s perceptions regarding trends in job opportunities for graduates focused in key specialties.
Looking at the academic job market, how would you predict the job opportunities for Ph.D. graduates in the following specialties
are likely to change: A
Increase The Same Decrease lthough
the
Technology/New Media 83.3% 8.3% 8.3% survey
Public Relations 72.7% 18.2% 9.1% is far
Cultural Studies: from
Race/Gender/Etc. 70.0% 30.0% conclusi
Information Studies 66.7% 22.2% 11.1% ve, the
International Communications 61.5% 15.4% 23.1% differen
Advertising 45.5% 54.5% ces in
Media Mgmt./Economics 40.0% 40.0% 20.0% anticipat
Telecommunications 40.0% 50.0% 10.0% ed
Journalism 25.0% 66.7% 8.3% student
Comm. Theory and Effects 21.4% 78.6% interests
Law 16.7% 75.0% 8.3% and
Political Communication/Policy 16.7% 83.3% anticipat
History 7.7% 76.9% 15.4% ed job
opportu
nities suggests the need for a more extensive survey to determine whether there is a potential disconnect between the specialties in which doctoral students will be graduating and their employment opportunities in the years ahead.
Conclusions
While the data suggest three distinct approaches to doctoral education, there are broad commonalities. Differences in the demographics of students and faculty vary little by geographic region and most programs use similar measures and approaches to selecting and admitting students. The development of specialized and customized programs may reflect an effort to differentiate newer programs from the larger number of generalized programs available and to minimize the breadth of faculty expertise required to successfully operate the programs.
Most programs report having a set of core classes that emphasize theory and methodology, appropriate for a research degree.
Most programs have relatively similar standards for evaluating the progress of students—use of grade point average, research productivity and annual, written feedback—and most programs appear to offer significant levels of financial support and funding to their doctoral students.
One program trend of note appears to be an increased emphasis on developing students’ teaching skills. Since the majority of graduates are employed by universities, this seems to be a reasonable step. Of the programming changes that occurred over the past five years, the one most frequently cited by respondents was the addition of either a teaching requirement or a required pedagogy course.
Most respondents indicated that they anticipate few changes in their programs in the next five years. Those that did predict changes focused on increasing the number of specializations, tightening admission standards, and increasing the level of financial support.
Appendix A: Participating Programs
Bowling Green State University Columbia Univ. Grad. School of Journalism Cornell University Indiana University (Telecom) Indiana University (Journalism) Louisiana State University Michigan State University Ohio State University Ohio University Pennsylvania State University Rutgers University Southern Illinois-Carbondale Stanford University Syracuse University Temple University University of Alabama University of Connecticut University of Colorado--Boulder University of Florida University of Georgia University of Illinois University of Iowa University of Maryland University of Miami University of Minnesota University of Missouri University of Michigan University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill University of Oregon University of South Carolina University of Southern Mississippi University of Tennessee University of Texas (Advertising) University of Texas (Journalism) University of Texas (Radio/TV/Film) University of Utah University of Washington University of Wisconsin – Madison
5. National Research Council (NRC) Recognition and the Committee to Investigate NRC Rankings
Charles Self (Chair), Sharon Dunwoody, Oscar Gandy, Charles Salmon
The Committee on NRC Recognition of the AEJMC Task Force on Doctoral Education has worked with several other organizations to monitor decisions by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Academies, and the National Research Council to recognize doctoral education in journalism and mass communication. Such recognition is considered essential to Congressional support for research in the field. The NRC is the principal operating agency of the National Academies, chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific and technical matters. The NRC recognizes only research and doctoral education, not undergraduate education. Furthermore, it examines only universities choosing to participate in its tracking studies.
The Committee has worked closely with the Council of Communication Associations, an umbrella organization of seven academic communication associations. CCA has coordinated a five-year effort to achieve such recognition. The roots of the effort go back to a series of AEJMC and ASJMC Task Force reports in the early 1990s and a sustained effort for better recognition of mass communication doctoral education and scientific research by successive AEJMC and ASJMC presidents. AEJMC and ASJMC were key players in the original formation of CCA.
Background
The United States Congress created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863 to advise the government in scientific and technical matters. As described on its Web page, “the National Research Council is part of the National Academies, which also comprise the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of further(ing) knowledge and advising the federal government….(T)he National Research Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public and the scientific and engineering communities.”
Interest in broader recognition of JMC research goes back at least to the early 1990s. At that time, several AEJMC and ASJMC task forces and other study groups issued reports suggesting that JMC research offered knowledge important for society and central to university education. These task forces suggested that ways needed to be found to leverage the position of JMC scholarship to gain better recognition of this centrality. Among those task forces were the Task Force on the Future of AEJMC (which also examined the relationship between JMC education and Liberal Arts education), chaired by Pamela Shoemaker; the AEJMC/ASJMC Joint Task Force on Alliances and the AEJMC/ASJMC Joint Committee on Alliances, chaired by Jack Hamilton, Doug Newsom, and Charles Self; and a “State of the Field” conference at the University of Texas, convened by Ellen Wartella.
These efforts and others helped lead in 1996 to the formation of the Council of Communication Associations, an umbrella organization of officers and executive directors of seven major communication-related academic associations in United States. It was formed to pursue interests in common to the various associations. Both AEJMC and ASJMC were charter members of CCA. From its beginning CCA sought to gain wider recognition for the quality of scholarship across all communication-related fields and particularly among the doctoral degree granting institutions. Judy VanSlyke Turk helped form CCA. Other AEJMC presidents during the time CCA was carrying out this work were Pamela Shoemaker, Alex Tan, Steve Lacy, Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, and Will Norton. Among the ASJMC presidents during this time were Doug Anderson, Bob Ruggles, Bill Click, Terry Hynes, Shirley Carter, Charles Self and Bill Slater.
Initially this effort was centered on building a database on “the field of communication.” In 1998, the Council asked one of its members “to check with the National Research Council about criteria used by that organization to list leading institutions and/or fields who grant Ph.D. degrees.” Over the next four years, this led to a series of meetings and presentations with representatives of the NRC, the U.S. Department of Education, the NSF and the NRC’s Methodology Committee designed to explore recognition by the NRC.
Activities of the Committee
The Committee was formed at the 2002 AEJMC summer convention. Its chair, Charles Self, has served as a member of CCA representing ASJMC and AEJMC. Other members of the Committee have been active in research and doctoral education for many years.
The Committee began its work by contacting the president of CCA (at that time, it was Linda Putnam of Texas A&M University) to receive an update on the effort of work with NRC. The committee learned that the NRC’s Methodology Committee already had made plans to conduct a pilot study of doctoral education in the spring of 2003. It had proposed to expand the number of academic fields it recognized in its study from 41 to 57. “Communications” would be among 17 new fields whose research would be recognized by the NRC for the first time.
The NRC’s Methodology Committee had requested a fall briefing from CCA about the various fields of “communications.” In September 2002, CCA President Linda Putnam organized that briefing. Members of the Committee on NRC Recognition assisted in involving AEJMC and ASJMC members in that briefing effort.
The briefing was conducted by a team of members from various associations. That team included AEJMC member Ellen Wartella of The University of Texas. The team reviewed the diversity of the communication fields, the types of research conducted in those fields, the range of academic journals, the evidence of awards and quality indicators in the communication research fields, and a typology of subfields.
During the late fall of 2003, the Committee notified all doctoral programs of the NRC’s plans and requested feedback from doctoral programs about the NRC’s proposals to study doctoral education in the communication fields.
Also during the fall, members of the Committee contacted provosts on their campuses to discuss the efforts of the CCA and the approaches of the NRC to ensure that communication fields could be included appropriately.
In Spring 2004, the NRC engaged in its methodological pilot study of nine campuses around the United States: Auburn, California-San Francisco, Florida State, Maryland, Michigan State, Rennsalear Polytechnic, Southern California, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Yale. The purpose of the pilot study was to test new measures of scholarly reputation for all academic disciplines being ranked (not just the seventeen newly added ones).
In the early spring, the President of AEJMC wrote a column in the AEJMC News that gave voice to concerns about the NRC’s plans and shared questions about the effort raised by the AEJMC Executive Committee.
In the late spring, Charles Salmon and Charles Self wrote a column that detailed the NRC’s plans and provided some context for developments surrounding the NRC’s work.
In April, the President of AEJMC, Theodore Glasser, the Chair of the Committee, Charles Self, and the Chair of the Task Force on the Status and Future of Doctoral Education, Charles Salmon, attended the meeting of the CCA in Washington, D.C., to discuss NRC issues. Charles Self was elected President of the CCA at that meeting.
By 2003, the National Research Council had decided to include Journalism and Mass Communication doctoral programs in the next study of doctoral education. The agency began seeking funding for that next study.
The NRC included communication in the pilot study of doctoral programs in the following spring. Its Methodology Committee recommended that communication be included for the first time in the next full NRC study. That study originally was scheduled to begin in the fall of 2004. Funding uncertainties delayed implementation of the study.
The Methodology Committee also recommended that three subfields of “communications” be included in the study: Speech and Rhetorical Studies, Mass Communication and Media Studies, and Communication Studies. NRC said it would not use these subfields to evaluate doctoral programs. They would simply permit universities to indicate which subfields they offer and would permit individuals to indicate areas in which they had expertise.
CCA formed a Task Force, headed by Linda Putnam of Texas A&M University, to monitor NRC progress and to advise NRC of matters related to communication. Members of AEJMC were included on that Task Force. Among the recommendations accepted by the NRC was to accept the term “communication” in place of the term “communications.”
In 2004 and 2005 committee members worked to evaluate journals listed in the Institute for Scientific Information Index in order to assure that the NRC would have appropriate indicators of doctoral program excellence available.
Over the next two years, CCA task force members nominated 37 journals from our disciplines to be included in the ISI index. So far, nine have been rejected, one accepted, three did not have sufficient numbers to qualify, and 24 still were pending in the summer of 2006.
The CCA task force members also compiled a comprehensive list of communication doctoral programs and sent letters to deans and central administrators recommending steps that would need to be taken in order to prepare for the NRC study.
Members of AEJMC’s Task Force on Doctoral Education offered information sessions on the NRC’s plans at the summer conventions in Kansas City and San Antonio. Charles Self, president of CCA, and Linda Putnam, chair of CCA’s Task Force on the NRC, joined others in discussing the latest developments at those conventions.
Committee members also continued to advise CCA on the taxonomy of the subfields for the study. In the spring of 2006, we learned that the NRC had changed the subfield taxonomy after lobbying from other sectors. We recommended urgently additional changes. After several exchanges with NRC, a compromise taxonomy was created. It was not everything that we recommended, but represented the best compromise we could negotiate on short notice.
In the Spring of 2006, the NRC finally was ready to begin its full study. It began by sending notices to Vice-Presidents and Deans of Graduate Schools to identify those programs that would be reviewed. It also worked to complete its survey instruments.
The AEJMC and the CCA began information initiatives for members including letters to deans of communication programs and program sessions for directors of graduate studies.
All this does matter
NRC recognition offers several advantages to universities choosing to participate in its tracking programs. The first is assessment. Those universities are included in the NRC’s study of the quality of doctoral education. Assessment includes tracking related to faculty successes in grants, awards, and publications. It includes assessment of student processes and outcomes, such as numbers and characteristics of graduate students across the field, and student recruiting patterns. It also includes a reputational survey.
In 1995, this survey resulted in a numerical ranking of doctoral programs according to their quality as measured by the NRC’s tracking mechanisms. These rankings became one important indicator used by university administrators in deciding funding allocations among doctoral programs. They also became controversial. Members of the NRC’s methodology committee are considering modifying or dropping those numerical rankings in its next study and replacing them by sorting programs into “a general range” or doing a comparative analysis using new, “less subjective measures” of quality. It is still not clear whether the NRC finally will use the ranking approach or the general range approach.
The NRC also plays an important role in advising the government agencies about allocating funding to support research in scientific fields. Fields not recognized by the NRC have significantly less funding available from government sources, particularly those agencies concerned with scientific research. NRC recognition also opens new possibilities for scholars to develop research initiatives in communication fields for the NSF and to apply for Directorate positions with NSF.
The one indisputable fact is that it is important for AEJMC officers and faculty in AEJMC-affiliated doctoral programs to become knowledgeable about and involved in this unfolding initiative. Among other things, AEJMC officers, through the Task Force on the Future of Doctoral Education and its Committee on NRC Recognition, will need to advise NRC about AEJMC-affiliated publications and the importance of their inclusion in the Institute for Scientific Information Index, and, by extension, in NRC citation analyses of scholarly output. AEJMC faculty should work with their university administrators to help ensure that, if they choose to be, they are included in the reputational study.
Update on the NRC Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs39
Lucinda D. Davenport
NRC has financial support and is gathering data.
NRC Objectives
Communication is one of the 17 new fields to be included in the assessment. “The assessment has been designed to focus on providing and disseminating new quantitative and descriptive information about doctoral programs that will be of great help to students assessing programs, to administrators and faculty evaluating these programs, and to the programs themselves,” according to Dr. Ralph Cicerone, NRC chair. Some of the information gathered will include:
Scholarly productivity and impact of program faculty
Effectiveness of doctoral education
Research resources
Demographic characteristics of students and faculty
Resources available to doctoral students
Characteristics of each doctoral program
Why We Should Care
Members of AEJMC should care very much about the NRC assessment for the following reasons:
1 Participating AAU universities and NSF, NIH, USDA and other federal agencies and private institutions fund the NRC assessment. These agencies want to know if they are investing their grant resources into the best research programs and universities. They link research grants to doctoral programs (and research assistantships). Also, strong contenders for grants and other resources will be those universities that participate in the assessment.
2 University administrators may consider the assessment when reviewing resource allotments to their own various programs. Results may help universities improve their doctoral programs through benchmarking.
3 The assessment will appear on a website and in documents accessible to the public. The status of a program likely will influence prospective faculty hires and potential student applications. One outcome will be an interpretive paper to graduate students on what they should look for in a successful doctoral program, such as completion rates, placement data, faculty quality, facilities and support.
Thanks to updates from Dr. Karen Klomparens, Dean of the Graduate School, Michigan State University.
NRC Data Collection Instruments
Online surveys to institutions, programs and faculty are the data collection devices. (In addition, student surveys are included for five fields as a preliminary experiment.) Only those programs with a faculty response rate greater than 60 to 70 percent will be included.
New Timeline for NRC Data Collection and Analysis
July/August 2006 – Distribute institutional surveys.
August – Distribute program surveys.
September/October – Distribute faculty surveys.
November to February 2007 – Raise response rates.
May to September – Prepare analytic essay.
December – Release database and essay.
September 2008 – Conference on uses of assessment data.
Latest Changes to the NRC Study
Two major changes to the NRC procedure were noted in a letter to deans and department chairs on July 14 from Linda Putman, Chair of the NRC-CCA Task Force.
1 Ratings and Rankings from the study: The NRC plans to rate and rank programs, although NRC is uncertain on the procedure. Different from the 1995 NRC reputational study, the two proposed methods are: 1) Develop a set of quality indicators (publications, placement of graduates, etc.) from a sample of deans and faculty and then rate and rank programs according to these indicators, 2) Conduct a follow-up survey of faculty on doctoral programs in the field and use this information in conjunction with publications, national awards, federal grants, etc., to run statistical tests to develop ratings and rankings.
2. Changes in the sub-field taxonomy: Sub-field taxonomies are the list of specialty areas that characterize a particular program. This will provide NRC with an inventory on which programs train students in what areas. NRC has said it will not rank sub-fields separately, but will conduct their ratings and rankings based on programs. The original sub-fields were communication studies, mass communication, and speech and rhetorical studies. A July meeting with the NRC-CCA Task Force resulted in a more comprehensive set of sub-topics:
broadcast/video studies
communication technology and new media
critical and cultural studies
gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity in communication
health communication
international and intercultural communication
interpersonal/small group communication
journalism studies
mass communication
• organizational communication
public relations/advertising
social influence and political communication
speech and rhetorical studies
communication, other
More Information on the NRC Study, Updates and Questionnaires
Comprehensive information about the NRC can be found on the National Academies website: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.html
Updates on the NRC assessment procedures can be found on the National Academies website: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/Whats_new.html
An overview of the NRC assessment can be found on Inside Higher Ed website: Lederman, D. (2005). “Rating Doctoral Programs,” insidehighered.com. http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/23/graduate
6. The Role of AEJMC in Promoting JMC Doctoral Education40
Gerald Kosicki (Chair), Lee Becker, Janet Bridges, Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Jisu Huh
The scholarly quality of graduate programs in the field of Journalism and Mass Communication can be expected to attract increased attention as the National Research Council prepares to undertake its first-ever examination of Ph.D. programs in the field of Communication. While professionally oriented graduate instruction in journalism appears to be specifically excluded from consideration, it is clear that mass communication research at the doctoral level will pay a key role in the evaluations. It can be expected that a number of universities are going to be paying close attention to the NRC ratings process and it is the experience in many fields that NRC ratings are highly sought by central administrators. Many institutions divert substantial resources towards highly ranked programs in hopes of moving them higher. Others may re-examine their existing commitments to programs in light of their realistic chances of moving higher.
Against this backdrop, it may be important to ask what special role, if any, a professional association such as AEJMC can or should play in the area of graduate education. The purpose of this document is to create an agenda for discussion of possible roles for the association in enhancing graduate education. Recommendations from the Task Force will follow from the discussions at the 2003 summer meeting. First, it might be useful to review a few of the key initiatives that the association itself and its various divisions are doing for graduate education.
The Association does have an active 10-year-old interest group, the Graduate Education Interest Group, at present and this group has about 60 active members. The GEIG is an important student-directed voice within the association. The GEIG engages in a variety of convention programming and is active in a mid-winter conference and other activities, which are highly beneficial. There are about 600 student members of AEJMC generally.
The Communication Theory and Methodology Division, with annual contributions from the Commission on the Status of Minorities, sponsor the Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Minority Scholarship, which recognizes one promising graduate student annually with a cash award. The Barrow scholarship is meant to be a research award, to promote quality research by recognizing it in a public fashion and providing a tangible reward. Another example of a graduate student award is the Newspaper Division’s MacDougal Award. Many divisions have special rates to attract graduate students as members with the goal of helping to socialize them to the association and the habit of scholarship. For example, CT&M has experimented with innovative paper competitions that involve students as shadow judges to learn about the paper competition process. CT&M also makes a cash award to each graduate student paper author whose paper is accepted by the division on the official conference program. This practice encourages convention attendance and paper submissions of high quality.
40 With thanks to Brandy L. Ethridge of the School of Public Policy & Management at Ohio State University for comments and assistance.
The Association itself sponsors a dissertation award, which is highly prestigious, and the association sponsors the publication of a directory of theses and dissertations, which helps disseminate the results of this kind of research. These are just some examples of many things being done throughout the association to encourage graduate student participation. In addition, many other divisions sponsor graduate student paper competitions and special awards for papers and research.
As helpful as these types of activities are, however, we are asking what role the Association itself and its various divisions might play in fostering research-based graduate education more generally. This topic will be the focus of a session at this year’s conference. Ideas for things that the association could do to help improve the general climate for graduate education in mass communication are divided into two broad areas focused on information gathering and disseminating, and assistance in the recruiting of prospective graduate students.
Information Dissemination
Scholarly peer-reviewed journals of the highest possible quality. The key role of most professional associations is to publish the work of the field in general interest, peer-reviewed journals of the highest quality, as well as specialized journals. This is a fundamental role for which there is no easy substitute. The exact characteristics of prestigious journals vary somewhat by discipline, but tend to have low acceptance rates, and help define the field by providing a scholarly base for future research and teaching. Citation analyses show that the core journals are influential in defining the research agenda for the field. Association-based journals are generally among the highest quality in a given field and have considerable prestige. They are often relatively well-supported and receive wide distribution through membership benefits and library subscriptions. By providing field-defining journals of high quality, the Association can set high academic standards for the field and discourage poor quality research. This agenda requires highly rigorous review processes and journals of exemplary quality that help define the fields they represent. It is vital that association journals are included in the major citation services. It is increasingly necessary that journals published in traditional paper formats also have an online presence, and that all articles ever published be available online.
Information about the structure and organization of the field. The Association might consider expanding its web presence to include a variety of information about the current structure and history of the field, and the kinds of career opportunities that are available in teaching and research. It’s important to note that research jobs for mass communication graduates can be found in places other than universities – government, business and non-profits organizations.
For example, the National Communication Association web site contains a wide variety of information about the field of communication, including history and purposes, the importance of the field of communication, as well as hotlinks directly to websites of the individual programs. NCA has information about its Preparing Future Faculty program featured prominently on its web site. The NCA web contains a wealth of information about the study communication that would be very helpful to students contemplating a career in the field, including a reputational study of schools and departments in the field.
Recruiting Information. Students interested in applying to graduate programs will be seeking specific information about programs. While it is the role of each program to provide this information, AEJMC might have a role to play in terms of providing a central point of entry where information could be located. Prospective Ph.D. students will want to know what kinds of Ph.D. programs are available in the field. What can one expect in terms of research and teaching experiences while in graduate school? How does graduate school prepare students for careers in teaching and research? Are there alternative uses of the Ph.D. in mass communication beyond the university? Who are prospective industrial employers and what job skills do they seek?
In terms of providing information about the field, the Association could conceivably provide standard information about programs. A site where universities could enter their own information about their programs and links to their own web pages and other sources of information might be an important resource.
Recruiting of Graduate Students
The match between students and university graduate programs is very important. All graduate programs are not interchangeable. In fact, substantial differences exist among the various doctoral programs in the field. Assisting both universities and students in their goals of matching aspirations and qualifications may be a worthwhile goal for which the association is uniquely positioned.
Universities face formidable problems in recruiting qualified graduate students in general, and in professional fields the problem is harder. As a professional field, there may be wide agreement that some research should be incorporated at the undergraduate level for all journalism and mass communication students. Yet, it is unlikely that many of our units would ever incorporate as much research in the curriculum as many non-professionally oriented academic fields do. In fact, such limits on research in the curriculum might be taken by some as one of the hallmarks of professional education. The Association might provide leadership in thinking about this issue, as well as what is a reasonable expectation for the types and amount of research available in the undergraduate curriculum, particularly for students who might be interested in graduate education. Comparative information about recruiting practices in other disciplines may be very helpful to decision-makers in journalism and mass communication.
Most graduate students in the field can be expected to come from our undergraduate programs, which tend to be excellent, but largely focused on professional training. Graduate programs are often the last thing on the minds of some of our most talented undergraduate students. Those who might be interested in becoming future graduate students need to be counseled along the way to take appropriate research electives in their home departments as well as in other departments on campus that would help them develop research and theoretical thinking skills. Hands-on research training might be an important consideration and universities might want to experiment with a variety of efforts to expose more talented and interested undergraduates to research and theory course work.
Good undergraduate training in a particular university does not guarantee that institution a suitable stream of graduate students, however. Many students who develop a serious interest in graduate studies will discover that graduate instruction in their undergraduate department will expose them to many of the same professors and ideas that they have been exposed to previously. Many people may properly feel that undergraduates would benefit most from a new experience for their graduate program. If this perspective is widely shared, it suggests that universities need to find ways to identify and recruit promising undergraduates at both their own institution and that of other universities. It seems clear that universities could benefit from information sharing about prospective graduate students.
Master’s programs in the field often are mixtures of professional education and traditional research skills and theories. Does this create problems for the field in terms of doctoral instruction as students move from master’s to doctoral programs? If this were found to be an issue, how might the problem best be addressed?
Insuring diversity among future faculty is a high priority, and the steps in building future faculty begin with our undergraduate programs. High-ability students need to be encouraged into graduate schools and into university positions. Successful recruiting depends on many things, of course, but it would be an important service to the field if an entity such as the Commission on the Status of Minorities took it upon itself to help organize an annual project of developing lists of qualified undergraduate students that schools could target for information and graduate recruiting purposes.
A larger problem, however, is helping students develop the interest in pursuing graduate education. Part of the challenge is providing information about programs and careers, as well as having faculty support and encourage interest in graduate degrees and proposing graduate study as an option for our more promising students.
Additional possibilities noted by the Task Force as a whole included the following:
Encouraging divisions to focus some of their teaching sessions on issues in doctoral education;
Creating a web-based clearinghouse of information for prospective doctoral students, one that would include information on program descriptions and emphases; a search engine to help identify programs by location or specialty; and information on job opportunities for persons with doctorates in communication;
Developing ways of enhancing recruitment for doctoral education in communication, especially among students of color.
Enhancing and promoting undergraduate research opportunities in general and showcasing undergraduate research at our national and regional meetings whenever possible.
7. Annotated Bibliography for Doctoral Education Success
Lucinda D. Davenport
Aguinis, Herman, Mitchell Nesler, Brian Quigley, Suk-Jae-Lee, and James Tedeschi. (1996) “Power Bases of Faculty Supervisors and Educational Outcomes for Graduate Students.” Journal of Higher Education 67 (3): 267-297.
Authors studied the dyadic power relationship between the graduate student and supervising faculty. Graduate students regard their relationship with faculty as the benchmark of the quality of their graduate education, affecting their learning and motivation. The type of power relationship is a critical determinant of graduate student success. Authors identify and describe five situational power relationships as predictors of student success.
Anderson, Melissa, Karen Seashore Louis, and Jason Earle. (1994) “Disciplinary and Departmental Effects on Observations of Faculty and Graduate Student Misconduct.” Journal of Higher Education 65(3): 331-350.
Program and department environments socialize students to understand moral and ethical behavior in research, employment and personal misconduct, which are the professional values that students assimilate into the profession and in greater society. This study of 2,000 doctoral students showed that departmental climate is the strongest predictor of overall misconduct; students learned through observation how departments dealt with misconduct. The study also found that the average graduate student was exposed to two to five incidences of misconduct, but was unlikely to report these occurrences.
Council of Graduate Schools' website: http://www.cgsnet.org/
CGS is an organization of institutions of higher education engaged in graduate education, research scholarship, and the preparation of students for advanced degrees. CGS is the only national association dedicated to the interests of graduate education and whose mission is to improve and advance graduate education. The website includes publications and policy statements for administrators and resources for students.
Denecke, Daniel, and Jennifer Slimowitz. (2004) Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Policy, Numbers, Leadership, and Next Steps. Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
This study focused on the literature across disciplines for attrition and completion (33% to 76% completion rates). Authors addressed possible reasons for attrition and posit how to develop a normative consensus for completion through the selection process, mentoring, financial support, program environment, research mode, curriculum process and procedures.
Gaffney, Nancy (ed). (1994) Selected Legal Issues Relating to Due Process and Liability in Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
This booklet would help administrators and faculty understand the legal implications involved in the resolution of conflicts affecting students, faculty, academic programs and research. Of particular interest are due process and liability concerns related to academic performance (cheating, plagiarism), student misconduct, termination or discipline of employees, research and revocation of degrees, sexual harassment and privacy of student records. Also included is a checklist to minimize academic legal problems.
Golde, Chris, and Timothy Dore. (2001) “ At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education.” Philadelphia, PA: The Pew Charitable Trusts. Available online: www.phd-survey.org
This research focuses on the opinions of doctoral students about their education, whereas most reports are from the views of administrators or those already in the profession. More than 4,100 students responded to the survey, which found out, among other things, that: 1) students do not receive the training they want nor does it prepare them for the jobs they take; 2) many students do not understand what doctoral study entails, how the process works nor how to steer their way through it. The authors offer recommendations for a variety of changes.
The Graduate School. (2005) Graduate Handbook Template. Michigan State University http://grad.msu.edu/staff/ght.htm
This template of a graduate program handbook denotes the processes and procedures students should expect during the course of their program. All entering students are given a handbook to serve as a guide throughout their program, helping them to unambiguously understand the department’s, the program’s and their own responsibilities.
Hartnett, Rodney T. and Joseph Katz. (1977) “The Education of Graduate Students.” Journal of Higher Education 48(6): 646-664.
After examining graduate student’s experiences and graduate school environments, the authors surmised that graduate education is not as it should be. It is counter productive to creative ideas, individualism and self-esteem. Programs do not guide students to becoming a good teacher and helping solve society’s problems. Recommendations to encourage student intellectual and personal development are in the form of informed choice, competition, length of study, integration of knowledge, the role of faculty, and training for research vs. training for teaching.
Inside Higher Ed website, available online at http://insidehighered.com/
This is an online source for news, opinion and career advice and services for all of higher education. It contains breaking news and feature stories, daily commentary, areas for comment on every article, and practical career columns.
Kahlil, Edna (ed). (1990) The Doctor of Philosophy Degree: A Policy Statement. Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
The task force had several objectives: Part I identified procedures that should lead to successful Ph.D. programs. Part II summarized factors to be to be considered in establishing a new Ph.D. program. Part III discussed requirements that programs commonly set for the Ph.D. degree. Prospective students can find what to expect from a quality program and academic administrators can consider what to expect when setting up or reviewing a program. Quality of excellent faculty is No. 1 in an excellent doctoral program and departments must be supportive of students and build a cohort with colloquia, seminars, etc. The task force also presented several concerns about graduate education. In undergraduate education, students complete a university foundation, and pursue a specialization or major. In graduate education, students are narrowly specialized. Doctoral graduates are not integrated well with society and their work is not in step with how society functions, which is across disciplines.
Kahlil, Edna (ed). (1991) The Role and Nature of the Doctoral Dissertation. Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
This report can be viewed as a guide of “best practices” for dissertation advisors, summarizing information from 50 universities. The report discussed several components surrounding the dissertation: role of the research, polices and practices, importance of the advisor, time to degree, the changing research environment, obstacles to completion and financial support. Several themes emerged, including the nature of the relationship between advisor-advisee, and the way research is done in different disciplines affects the nature of the dissertation.
Kerlin, Scott. (1995) “Pursuit of the Ph.D.: ‘Survival of the Fittest,’ Or is it Time For a New
Approach?” Education Policy Analysis Archives 3(16). Also found online at
http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v3n16.html
This compilation of research literature and statistics presented a detailed sociological portrait on the status of students who pursue the Ph.D, and trends and recommendations. In particular, the author traced a decline in diversity. The study examined students’ fields and citizenship, age, socioeconomic levels, parent’s education, degree attrition and time to completion, women and minorities. An omission in the body of literature is what happens to students who drop out and why. An extensive bibliography is included.
King, Margaret. (2003) On the Right Track: A Manual for Research Mentors. Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
Mentoring makes a difference to the graduate student’s experience and success. This short text examined mentoring at each stage of graduate study, from recruiting and admissions to career advising, and discussed the issues and problems involved in the ethics of graduate research supervision. Mentoring is broadly defined at times to mean the graduate program policies and procedures and graduate faculty.
Michigan State University Task Force on Research Mentoring of Graduate Students. (2004) “Research Mentoring.” Research Integrity 7(2). East Lansing, Mich. Also found online at http://grad.msu.edu/staff/mentoring.htm
This set of recommendations to the University met three charges: 1) examine current roles, responsibilities and practices at all levels for the quality and ethical conduct of research, 2) identify “best practices” and set expectations, 3) recommend tasks to assist departments, programs and individuals in this process. The Task Force recommended items for inclusion in graduate handbooks, guidelines for graduate student advising and mentoring relationships, and guidelines for integrity in research and creative activities.
Nettles, Michael T. and Catherine M. Millett. (2006) Three Magic Letters: Getting to Ph.D. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
This book offers a portrait of the graduate school experience and identifies key issues affecting the success and failure of doctoral students. The researchers surveyed more than nine thousand students from the top twenty-one doctorate-granting institutions in the United States. Their findings shed light on multiple factors critical to the progression of the doctoral degree, particularly adequate institutional funding and engaged and accessible faculty mentors.
NORC (National Opinion Research Center), “The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED),” Available online: http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/issues/docdata.htm.
NORC gathers information annually from 42,000 new U.S. research doctorate graduates about their educational histories, funding sources, and post-doctoral plans. These are added to a database of surveys begun in 1920 about doctoral education. Recent annual surveys are online.
Nyquist, Jody and Bettina Wodford. (2000). “Re-envisioning the Ph.D: Seven Propositions
from the 2000 National Conference.” Center for Instructional Development and Research,
University of Washington. Available online:
http://www.grad.washington.edu/envision/project_resources/metathemes.html
Meta-themes emerged from the conference, “Re-envisioning the Ph.D. to Meet the Needs of the 21st Century.” Participants from nine sectors, ranging from research- and teaching-intensive universities to foundations to K-12 education, identified a set of seven propositions that need to occur for doctoral education to be successful in the years ahead. Some of the themes included better preparation for teaching, transparent understanding to students on the expectations of doctoral education, faculty incentives to nurture/support students and diversification of the American intellect.
Nyquist, Jody and Donald Wulff. (2001) “Recommendations from National Studies on Doctoral Education.” Center for Instructional Development and Research, University of Washington. Available online: http://www.grad.washington.edu/envision/project_resources/nationalrecommend.html
Recent national studies on doctoral education seem to coalesce around three themes: 1) Current doctoral education does not meet the demands of the changing academy and society. 2) A lack of appropriate supervision exists for those who seeking careers stemming from a doctorate. 3) There is growing concern about the high level of attrition among doctoral students. Eight recommendations and implementations are identified to address these issues. Also included is a list of the examined national projects and studies, some are linked online to their complete text.
Nyquist, Jody and Bettina Wodford. (2000). “Re-envisioning the Ph.D: What Concerns Do We
Have?” Center for Instructional Development and Research, University of Washington.
http://depts.washington.edu/envision
Shared concerns about doctoral education came from interviews with 375 individuals from nine sectors of doctoral education stakeholders inside and outside the academy. Many graduates with doctorates do not have academic positions; this is a situation that has caused a rethinking of the Ph.D. in terms of eligibility, purpose and training. Widely conflicting views about doctoral education is remarkable. Although the Ph.D. adequately prepares students to conduct quality research, many disagree this is sufficient training. Doctoral education is viewed as limiting for other responsibilities in society and in aspects of their careers.
“Re-envisioning the Ph.D: Selected Bibliography on Doctoral Education.” (2003) Center for
Instructional Development and Research, University of Washington. Available online:
http://www.grad.washington.edu/envision/project_resources/biblio_alpha.html
A gold mine: more than 700 citations of recent studies and projects on doctoral
education; many are linked online to their complete text.
Research Student and Supervisor: An Approach to Good Supervisory Practice. (1990) Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools.
This report can be regarded as a handbook for supervising a student’s dissertation to successful completion. It is a good resource for departments to give to new faculty. The report outlines challenges and offers a checklist of good supervisory practices. Also included are questions directed to students in the dissertation stage.
“Status Report: Ph.D. Education in Mass Communication.” (2005) Columbia, SC: Association
for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication_ (AEJMC). Available online:
http://www.aejmc.org/pubs/phd/finalreport.pdf
The task force describes and summarizes the doctoral programs in mass communication at 35 universities. Topics include the schools and their approaches to doctoral education, faculty and student demographics, admissions requirements, program procedures and expectations. Trends in programs, student interests and job markets are also portrayed.
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. (2005) Diversity & The PH.D: A Review of Efforts to Broaden Race & Ethnicity in U.S. Doctoral Education. P.O. Box 5281 Princeton, NJ 08540-5281.
Doctoral programs have made less progress in diversification than government, industry and other levels of education--and the numbers continue to decline. Recent court challenges have had a chilling affect on institutional supportive resources for students of diverse ethnicity. This study pinpoints a decided shift away from significant programs offering support to minority students and notes that as such program are labeled euphemistically, fewer minority students are aware of such opportunities. Thirteen university programs and directors were examined and authors offer recommendations to all institutions offering doctoral programs.
Zhao, Chun-Mei, Chris Gold, and Alexander McCormick. (2005) “More than a Signature: How
Advisor Choice and Advisor Behavior Affect Doctoral Student Satisfaction.” Paper presented to
the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Montreal, Canada. Available online:
http://www.phd-survey.org/aera05.pdf
Authors explore the link between doctoral students’ advisor selection strategies and satisfaction with advising behaviors from a survey of students from 11 disciplines in 27 universities. Some felt their relationship was based on exploitation (on research studies) and females responded with lower satisfaction that males. Nonetheless, the general literature on good advising behaviors seems to point to what students want and need to achieve success in their programs.
8. Recommendations for Consideration by the AEJMC Executive Committee
Task Force reports are useful only to the extent that they become living blueprints for change rather than static snapshots of the past and present. It is our sincere hope that the work of this Task Force will lead to an enhanced presence for doctoral education in AEJMC.
Recommendations listed in this section were distilled from the preceding chapters of this Report, and refer to the expanded role that AEJMC might play in enhancing doctoral education in the field of Journalism and Mass Communication.
1 Become a better and more systematic clearinghouse of information about doctoral education in general, and individual doctoral programs in particular, in an effort to help inform and recruit prospective students. Special efforts should be made to recruit students with strong research skills from allied disciplines.
2 Embark on an aggressive recruitment initiative to increase diversity among graduate students and faculty in our discipline.
3 Monitor developments during the NRC rankings process and set up a systematic, centralized approach to helping member schools and departments keep abreast of changes in procedures, definitions, and outcome measures.
4 Become a stronger voice in disseminating, explaining and promoting the significance of JMC research to a variety of constituencies, including policy makers, state legislators, media professionals, prospective students, and allied disciplines. The efforts and successes of the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the National Communication Association may be informative here.
5 Encourage divisions to sponsor programming that creates and nurtures interdisciplinary opportunities well beyond those normally afforded within the confines of AEJMC.
6 Develop metrics for use in assessing doctoral program quality and performance, both in the aggregate as well as for use by specific programs.
7 Explore ways of cultivating the notion of “civic engagement” in JMC doctoral programs, with the goal of enhancing the social, political and economic relevance (and external perception of such) of JMC research.
8 Explore and cultivate new approaches to doctoral education, based upon new paradigms of the academic experience and new technologies for learning.
9 Encourage the integration of research into the undergraduate curriculum, with the goal of reducing the gap between undergraduate professional education and doctoral research training in JMC programs. The Boyer Commission Report on “Educating Undergraduates in the Research University” may be particularly germane to this topic.
10 Expand AEJMC’s web presence and capabilities as a means of implementing several—if not most—of the above recommendations.
11. Implement procedures to ensure that research published in AEJMC journals is of the
highest possible quality and available to the widest possible audiences.
11 In general, elevate the profile of doctoral education within the organization through division sessions, workshops, newsletter features, website content, periodic surveys of programs and the formation of committees to continue the efforts of this Task Force.
براي مطالعه متن كامل ( همراه با نمودار ها و جداول) پيوست 1 را كليك كنيد
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فهرست مقالات مرتبط با راديو و تلويزيون
1- Music Videos and National Identity in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
Danette Ifert Johnson
Qualitative Research Reports in Communication
Issue: Volume 7, Number 1 / 2006 Pages: 9 - 14
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,3,10;journal,1,2;subject,18,25;
Media exert a pervasive influence on personal and national identity. Kazakh independence in 1991 necessitated forming national identity where only limited common identity existed previously. This paper examines the socio-political context of Kazakhstan, explores how images in Kazakh music videos assist in conveying national identity, and addresses ongoing challenges that shape how Kazakh identity continues to develop.
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Keywords: Identity, Kazakhstan, Music Videos
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2- Television Viewing in Child Care Programs: A National Survey
Dimitri A. Christakis, Michelle M. Garrison, Frederick J. Zimmerman
Communication Reports
Issue: Volume 19, Number 2 / October 2006 Pages: 111 – 120
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,4;journal,1,3;subject,6,25;
Although the amount of television that young children watch at home is well-described, to date no study has examined how much television preschool children watch in day care settings. We performed a cross-sectional analysis using the Profile of Child Care Settings Study, examining predictors of television viewing in center (n = 2089) and home-based (n = 583) child care programs. On average, preschool-aged children were reported to watch more than four times as much television while at home-based programs than at center-based programs (1.39 hours per day vs 0.36 hours per day); with significant differences between groups in the type of television content viewed, and in the proportions of programs in which no television viewing occurred at all. The proportion of programs where preschool-aged children watched no television during the child care day was 65% in center-based programs and 11% in home-based programs. The hours a program was open each day was associated with increased television viewing in both settings; provision of after-school care to older children and being in a county with high family poverty rates were only significant factors in center-based programs. Factors associated with decreased television viewing included post-secondary education of staff members, as well as the average staff volume of the program. Preschool children in day care settings watch a considerable amount of television in addition to what is viewed at home. These results further highlight the urgent need to better understand the effects of viewing on young children.
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Keywords: Children, Daycare, Television
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3- Universities, public service experimentation, and the origins of radio broadcasting in the United States, 1900–1920
Hugh Richard Slotten
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
Volume 26, Number 4 / October 2006
Pages: 485 – 504
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,9;journal,1,36;subject,3,8;
فهرست مقالات مرتبط با مطالعات اجتماعي
1- Girls in Crisis: Newspaper Coverage of Adolescent Girls
Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma O. Pecora
Journal of Communication Inquiry
January 1 2007, Volume 31, No. 1
http://jci.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/6
Sharon R. Mazzarella
Clemson University
Norma O. Pecora
Ohio University
Within the past several years, a growing body of scholars have exposed the media-generated crisis discourse surrounding youth — a discourse resulting in the construction/ definition of youth as a problem. Informed, in part, by this scholarship and grounded in frame theory, this study analyzes how U.S. newspapers covered the lives of adolescent girls during a particularly noteworthy period — the mid- to late 1990s, a time when a number of high-profile studies of girls' lives were published. During this time, the press, through the choice of topics covered, sources quoted, and overall organizing themes employed, perpetuated a discourse that constructed girls as a social problem in need of a solution. The authors argue that this construction of girls as weak and vulnerable denied them any form of agency and presented to the reader a dire situation in which adult intervention was needed to save these girls in crisis.
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Key Words: girl's studies • adolescent girls • newspapers • frame theory • crisis discourse • journalism
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2- Prison Decayed: Cinematic Penal Discourse and Populism 1995–2005
Paul Mason
Social Semiotics
Issue: Volume 16, Number 4 / December 2006 Pages: 607 - 626
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,5;journal,1,21;subject,22,25;
The increased populist and punitive turn in criminal justice policy in the United Kingdom over recent years has led to punishment becoming politicised, harsher and more ostentatious. The role of media and popular culture discourses of prison is rarely examined in this account. Adopting a Foucauldian discourse analysis of prison films released over the past 10 years, this article explores the prison film as one important element of the discursive regime. It seeks to investigate what representational practices are at work, how they limit the meaning of prison and prisoners, and how this may contribute to debates about the nature and aim of prison in contemporary society. It argues that several discursive practices exist in cinematic representations of the incarceration that strengthen support for the use of prison. The explicit and recurring depiction of violence in most prison films over the past 10 years, while appearing to offer evidence for prison reform, does the opposite. This paper suggests that discourses around the futility and inhumanity of incarceration are scant, replaced by scenes of prison violence; rape and death appear, which appear to exist purely for the pleasure of the spectator: a generic feature of the prison film. Secondly, prisoners are largely constructed as an inhuman other: a danger to society and deserving of harsh punishment. Consequently, the discursive regime of prison in cinema over the past decade constructs prison as not only necessary, but as the only process for crime control and reduction.
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Keywords: Prison, cinema: media, Foucault, prison abolition, penal populism
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3- THE CHEAP PRESS AND THE ‘READING CROWD’
Visualizing mass culture and modernity, 1838–1910
Caroline Sumpter
Pages: 233 – 252
Media History
Volume 12, Number 3 / December 2006
http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/%28h3hntjyxtnua30vqzkjw1k45%29/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,7;journal,1,17;subject,7,8
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پيوست 1 (متن كامل مقاله ...Report of the Task Force on the Status با حجم 319 كيلو بايت)