Tips for PF&R Division Chairs
From AEJMC Standing Committee on PF&R
Every year there is talk among division officers about PF&R. Usually, it begins with "What is it anyhow?" Perceiving the need for advice from the Standing Committee to divisions, we offer this hand-out of tips or guidelines. It is not prescriptive but descriptive.
The elected Standing Committee on Professional Freedom and Responsibility is particularly concerned with freedom of expression legally and intellectually, ethical issues among media educators and practitioners, media criticism and accountability, diversity/inclusiveness affairs, and professional relationships between educators and media professionals.
The PF&R Standing Committee, like the other two, seeks to show intellectual leadership within the association. A few divisions have developed meaningful projects extending over several years, but most still operate on a yearly ad hoc basis in their programming ideas. Generally, a well-balanced program means a division touches upon several, but not necessarily all, of the PF&R areas each year.
To improve the collegial relationship between the PF&R Standing Committee and divisions, we wish to continue strengthening the liaison connection between us. At any time the division representative can call on any of the members of the PF&R Standing Committee for assistance, and vice-versa, i.e., liaisons should be in touch with division representatives on an as-needed basis. In addition, our summer deliberations are open meetings, and division representatives are welcome to sit in on our discussions.
The five subject areas that comprise our PF&R mission are:
1) FREE EXPRESSION. The freedoms of speech and press embodied in the First Amendment have played a central role in the field of communication. AEJMC has been traditionally concerned with protecting the open circulation of ideas. Its members should not only work to improve the understanding of free expression historically and legally, but also to implement this freedom in the broadest sense.
2) ETHICS. The ethical issues in each of the communication professions and AEJMC divisions vary somewhat. However, ethical concerns most certainly include such topics as individual privacy, confidentiality, conflict of interest, sensationalism, truthtelling, deception, social justice, news coverage of terrorism and tragedy, pornography and violence. Media professional practitioners and educators should be encouraged to seek the highest ethical standards possible through education and research.
3) MEDIA CRITICISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Educators should conduct constructive evaluation of the professional marketplace. Together educators and practitioners ought to inspire media analysis. The search for appropriate mechanisms to foster media accountability must be facilitated.
4) RACIAL, GENDER AND CULTURAL INCLUSIVENESS. This addresses issues of unequal treatment of women and minorities reflected in hiring and promotion practices, institutional policies, and stereotyped portrayals in the mass media. One of the functions of the PF&R Committee is to monitor division programming within AEJMC to make sure that it includes women and minorities at all levels. Cultural inclusiveness means that efforts should be made to include segments of the population historically excluded from public communication because of lack of opportunity.
5) PUBLIC SERVICE. Educators have a mandate to serve society beyond their teaching and research, and educators concerned with communication should offer services related to their appropriate professional fields. This category refers to activities that enhance understanding among media educators, professionals, and the general public. It includes assistance to AEJMC committees or divisions, other media organizations, and media practitioners. For divisions with an academic orientation, public service may involve establishing meaningful liaison with their counterpart scholarly organizations.
To assist in planning division programs, seeing what some divisions have done in past years may be informative and inspiring.
Programming in these five subject areas can be offered in the following ways: regional conferences; in-convention sessions and panels, out-of-convention programming or surveys; newsletters with substantive articles dealing with such concerns as they relate to a division; workshops and sessions with other professional organizations within the field to address relevant issues; awards to minorities, professionals, educators; visits to media offices where the conventions take place for specific, relevant information; dialogue with professionals; and more.
Here are some specific examples of programs within the divisions that have met PF&R goals in the past. They are offered for your guidance, but by no means should divisions feel limited to these activities.
Return to About the PF&R Committee