By Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma
Bob Trumpbour, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona

In an article written over four decades ago, Jake Highton teased out the tensions between the “green eyeshades” and the “chi-squares.” Highton wrote about the differences between individuals with practical experience in the field and those who plied their academic craft with the statistical tools that were, and still are, embedded in the social sciences. Individuals such as Philip Meyer did much to connect social science with journalistic practices, yet the challenges faced in today’s complex landscape are unlikely to be resolved by the infusion of a single set of core practices into the media landscape. And what had been missing in these pictures of the arena of journalism education was recognition of critical approaches to the media that stretched back at least to the discussions of Lippmann and Dewey in the 1920s.

Despite a continuing line of critique from Lippmann and Dewey through the Chicago School, and the early years of critical theory, when a “green eyeshades and chi-squares revisited” article was presented at AEJMC in 1992 by Dickson and Sellmeyer, this critical line was ignored. The 1992 piece stated that “press criticism” was one way that scholars and theorists could offer “an area of research that (was) ultimately practical for newspapers.” So the debate between the “green eyeshades” and the “chi squares” and those assessing it suffered from a tunnel vision that left critical and cultural scholars on the sidelines. For some in the field, that omission may have been a desirable outcome. However, in a rapidly fragmenting and transforming media world, cultural and critical studies are more important than ever to better understanding the past, the present, and the future of our media environment. [Read more...]