DIG News

Courtesy of AEJMC News, March 2011

Divisions and Interest Groups have been asked to contribute one original column per year related specifically to its perspective area. Each column will be featured in AEJMC News and cross-posted on the AEJMC web site. Magazine Division, Mass Communication and Society Division, Media Ethics Division, Media Management & Economics Division and Political Communication Interest Group are featured below.

MAGAZINE DIVISION
We’re All Marketers Now
Dear Scott Gant,
I cringed a little at the title of your 2007 book “We’re All Journalists Now.” But you were right (mostly). I have this idea for a follow-up: “We’re All Marketers Now.” Please send me a contract with an enormous signing bonus at your earliest convenience.

Much to my surprise, I find I’m spending more time teaching marketing strategies to magazine journalists. I’m sure it would be even more surprising to the directors of marketing I clashed with over the separation of Sales and Editorial during my years in the magazine biz.

That separation is still sacred, of course. Journalists must act ethically and independently of advertisers and other special interests as they pursue a story. But once the story is written, it’s sell, sell, sell. The payoff isn’t cash, but clicks.

Mobile applications are making it easier to connect directly to an audience, but on the Internet, the challenge continues: How to rise above the growing clutter of content to capture a reader’s attention? Yes, SEO. Yes, RSS. But the new goal is an online version of hand-delivery, often article by article. And social media tools are making it easier.

Drake’s senior magazine majors, during their capstone course last fall, worked all the social media angles while creating a digital-only lifestyle magazine (Urban Plains) for readers in the Midwest.

• While gathering information for their stories, some students shot behind-the-scenes videos that they posted on YouTube. The videos worked like commercials to promote the magazine.

• Students identified specific stories that could be springboards to greater visibility for the magazine. The link to a profile about a former University of Minnesota athlete should go to the school’s alumni office. The feature about world triathlete Charlie Whittmack should land on a Facebook page for triathletes-in-training.

• The students also used Twitter to extend their reach. That included connecting with advocates like Silicon Prairie, which provides services for business entrepreneurs in the Midwest and has nearly 3,000 followers on Twitter.

For the first time, our spring magazine capstone class features a marketing and promotions team that will work on audience building from the start of the semester, rather than just at the end. We can’t afford to treat the marketing of our students’ work as an afterthought, or we risk not being heard at all. Are you listening, Scott Gant?
BY LORI BLACHFORD,
DRAKE UNIVERSITY


MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY DIVISION
The Mass Communication and Society (MCS) Division continues to work toward improving its outreach to graduate students, its offerings to division members, and its organizational structure. To this end, one of the specific areas we have been focusing on is our awards offerings. For example, an awards committee was formed at the division’s business meeting during the 2010 Denver conference to help streamline and promote the current awards offered by MCS. Not only does this addition offer additional opportunities for members to engage in division leadership, the addition also serves to provide a central point of submission for anyone wishing to submit nominations or entries. The awards our division offers include the Trayes Award, the Distinguished Educator Award, the Promising Professors Awards, and the division’s Research Award. The Trayes Award, our division’s highest distinction for service, is given in honor of Edward Trayes, whose many accomplishments include starting our division’s journal (then called Mass Communication Review and now known as Mass Communication and Society). The Distinguished Educator Award is our division’s highest honor for teaching and mentorship. Complementing the Distinguished Educator Award, the Promising Professor Awards are given to new faculty (who have taught full-time for five years or less) and graduate students who have demonstrated teaching excellence and innovation. Finally, our Research Award grants up to $5000 to the top submitted research proposal (or the top two proposals in cases where the award can be split). Information about these awards can be found on our division website (http://www.aejmc.net/mcs/).

This year, the division will also be voting on the establishment of two new scholarships—one for dissertation and one for masters thesis work. We hope to begin awarding up to $3000 for the top PhD. student’s dissertation proposal and up to $1500 for the top masters student’s thesis proposal as soon as next year’s 2012 conference in Chicago. These two new scholarships are a part of an ongoing effort to better serve our graduate student members.

Other improvements, which include providing our division journal Mass Communication and Society free to our members, will be highlighted at our next business meeting in St. Louis. We invite all members, as well as those interested in becoming members, to the meeting to learn more about our division’s efforts, as well as to contribute new ideas about how the division can continue to improve its service to its membership.
BY FRANCESCA DILLMAN CARPENTIER,
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL


MEDIA ETHICS DIVISION
A Year of Many “Firsts”
Ethics touches almost every decision we make; it gives us responsibility in organizations, rectitude for corporations, and moral autonomy for individuals. In MED, we discuss these issues related to all of the varied areas of our discipline. If you care about ethics you are invited to join our division!

2010 was an exciting year of many “firsts.” In Denver, we held our division’s first high-density session, in which several papers were presented concurrently in a discussion-based format. The session was lively, with presenters and audience members engaging in discussion on ethical questions relating to all types of papers, from war journalism to advertising. MED also held our first division social. Food, drinks, and great conversations were in plentiful supply at the historic Denver Press Club.

Great news! Your conference planners, Kati Berg (Marquette) and Shannon Bowen (Syracuse) went to the mid-winter planning meeting in December and organized a great program for St. Louis. We nabbed one of the scarce, highly-sought after “high density” sessions, meaning that we can accept a greater number of competitive papers than usual this year. We also planned a “cutting edge” late-night offsite social (we admit that the time choices forced us to be a little more cutting edge than initially planned, but we are game)! A mutual interest in ethics allowed us to partner with many other divisions and interest groups in co-sponsored panel and paper sessions. MED members will be able to pick and choose from the many panels and paper sessions in St. Louis.

Another exciting first for MED is that we have recently formed a graduate student travel scholarship of $550 per year. Several generous MED members are donating money yearly to support this award for excellence in graduate student research in ethics. For more information or to donate, please contact our teaching chair Jan Leach (Kent State). MED also announces another first: Our Teaching Ethics Resource website. The website will debut at our preconference in St. Louis, and will offer teaching ideas, resources, and ethics materials. We hope this resource will encourage educators of all types to engage in ethics instruction and discussion in the classroom.

MED is exciting and welcoming — we encourage you to join us! Your membership includes the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. Please visit our website and take a look at our quarterly newsletter Ethical News! http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~tbivins/aejmc_ethics/index.html. We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis!
BY SHANNON BOWEN,
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

    MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS DIVISION
    Media Management and Economics (MME) is about more than business and math. Maybe the division name creates a hard sell among AEJMC members who hear about the group, but MME is a dynamic division that is focused on the teaching, research and public service issues related to media management and economics.

    The studies featured in MME are open to all types of research questions and methods. From studies about media competition and organizational behavior to research about cross-cultural implications of social media adoption, our division membership is active in researching and publishing about topics that ties into several mass communication interest areas. Although several MME scholars find outlets in publications such as The Journal of Media Economics and The International Journal on Media Management, manuscripts relating to the core issues of media management and economics are published in a wide variety of AEJMC-affiliated journals.

    From a teaching perspective, the membership of MME comprises a number of excellent teachers. The division recognizes excellent teaching in the areas of media management and economics with the Barry Sherman teaching award. In August, a panel featured some of the past winners of the award who demonstrated role-play exercises, budget “how to” worksheets and other teaching techniques.

    The division also recognizes the contributions of media organizations through the MME Professional Freedom & Responsibility Award. This year, the division recognized The Cable Center for its contributions to the cable industry.

    A goal of the division this year is to increase membership, particularly among graduate students. The division decided that graduate students could join our division at no cost. In my opinion, one of the biggest strengths of MME is the connection between senior scholars and graduate students.

    At this year’s convention, I watched Dr. Steve Lacy receive the 2010 recipient of the Paul Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research. It reminded me of my days as a Ph.D. student who was nervous about attending a division business meeting with some of the names I had become so familiar with. I felt anxious and wondered what I might have to offer the division. This year, as I watched Dr. Lacy receive that award, I remembered how he and many others welcomed me into the MME division and made me feel like I was part of something – from the moment I walked into the meeting room.

    Maybe it’s not such a hard sell after all.
    BY TODD CHAMBERS,
    TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY


     POLITICAL COMMUNICATION INTEREST GROUP
    One of the real perks of buying a new car is that new car smell, and we have it. The Political Communication Interest group is one of AEJMC’s newest, rolling off the assembly line last August at the Denver conference under the leadership of Tom Johnson (U. Texas Austin), Guy Golan and a few others elected the group’s first officers. We traveled pretty far in the four months after being established:

    • Beginning in October, we began to collect membership dues. We kept them low ($5) to attract new members without poaching from any existing group. You can sign for membership on the AEJMC’s website.

    • We are included in the AEJMC call for papers for St. Louis and invite you to submit original research papers related to political communication. We are convinced we will receive a lot of entries this year and are desperately looking for reviewers. If you are interested, please visit our blog http://aejmcpolcomm.blogspot.com/ for additional information.

    • We partnered with other divisions to increase the numbers of papers we can accept during our first conference. The first weekend in Dec., head Tom Johnson went to Albuquerque for the business meeting to determine the schedule for St. Louis. “If you haven’t been to a chip auction it is like the reality show Survivor combined with roller derby without the helmet and elbow pads,” Johnson said. “Success depends on developing several solid alliances with several other groups and a whole lot of luck. I had both.” We were able to secure a poster session along with Mass Comm & Society and the International Division, two research sessions, and great research, teaching and PF&R panels. We also are co-sponsoring a preconference PF&R session. This means we will be able to schedule up to 44 papers at AEJMC, so we will be a strong presence in St. Louis.

    • More good news: The top paper to be presented in St. Louis as part of our sessions will receive a $50 research excellence award.

    • We will co-sponsor a luncheon to honor agenda-setting scholar Max McCombs’s retirement (look for date and time in the conference schedule).

    This has been an exciting start. We are hoping to make a loud noise at St. Louis and we need your help to do it. Please submit your papers, join us as reviewers and attend our business meeting in St. Louis.
    BY THOMAS JOHNSON,
    UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

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