Dane S. Claussen is a Professor & Director of Graduate Programs at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Point Park University, Pittsburgh, Pa. He teaches Communication Law and Regulation; Applied Mass Communication Research Methods; Media Ethics and Professional Culture; Mass Communication History; Newspaper and Magazine Management; and Writing the Nonfiction Book. Dr. Claussen also regularly chairs master’s thesis committees and supervises many Directed Readings, Directed Research and Publication Project studies. (From August 2005 to May 2006, he also was Point Park’s first campus-wide Faculty Development Coordinator.) Since July 1987, Dr. Claussen has been President/Principal of American Newspaper Consultants, Ltd., a management consulting, expert witness, research, writing, editing, and publishing firm.
Dr. Claussen is Editor of the quarterly Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, one of the two major scholarly journals published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
How do you define mass communication?
Some say “mass communication” is a dead term or a dead concept, but I disagree. The question is not whether there still is mass communication, because a lot of communication is still aimed at audiences larger than a few to a few dozen friends, neighbors, co-workers, and/or relatives, but how many is “mass”? And even this is not a new concept. When Robert Rhett’s famous Charleston newspaper had a circulation of only 550, was that really a “mass medium”? We treat it as such. So why isn’t a listserv with only, say, 550 names, or a blog with only 550 regular visitors, also a “mass” medium? It is. And we still have interpersonal media: cellphones, emails, IMs, Skype, etc. As for asynchronous media, such as TV on demand or Web sites, if the intended cumulative audience is intended to be more than only a limited number of persons as above, then it also is still a “mass” medium. I never thought that the term “mass communication” required simultaneous dissemination and/or simultaneous consumption, or that “mass” necessarily meant only numbers in the tens of thousands to hundreds of millions.
How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?
Those who are truly excited about working in communications keep themselves excited by the important and nature of the work. Those who are not excited are difficult to excite any time. They show us their enthusiasm level because JMC enrollments almost always have gone up in good economies, and almost always have gone up in bad economies.
What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?
Back to basics: the importance of journalism to democracy, the importance of democracy to journalism, thus politics/government news and opinion, business/economics news and opinion, religion news and opinion, high quality writing, giving the audience something that they cannot get anywhere else or at least being the highest quality provider of material they can get somewhere else, and accuracy!, accuracy!!, accuracy!!! These were the goals of publishers/printers in the 17th and 18th centuries, although the three-pronged accuracy exhortation didn’t come until later.
If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?
Media history, because it’s often difficult to communicate the importance of news media in the present, let alone the past, without teaching media history. Technologies come (and sometimes go), and journalism work is not always exciting or even interesting, but unless one covers nothing but sports or celebrities, journalism is always important.
What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?
None. I focus on content, not technology.
If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?
Focus on content, not technology. Why is everyone focusing on how many staff members news organizations have and not how good they are? The news media would not be in the situation they are in now if they had both focused on the highest quality staffing, and believed in high quality content; most newspapers and essentially the entire TV industry did neither.
What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?
Given the lack of focus on quality, from printing to advertising sales staffing to writing in the newspaper industry, and in essentially all areas in television news, and the limited number of consumers who demand high quality, it’s difficult not to be pessimistic about the news industries. Public relations and advertising will adapt/morph as corporations, industries, technologies (including but not only mass media), consumers, and the overall economy each change. In higher education, one can only hope that trends are cyclical, and that at some point, we again will have more than a few percent of our print, broadcast and online journalism students interested in reporting on subjects besides sports, other entertainment, and fluffy (often “me-search”) features.