Diversity, racism not issues of the past

July 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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By Jennifer Bailey Woodard, Middle Tennessee State University and Ilia Rodriguez, The University of New Mexico | AEJMC Minorities and Communication

The election of Barack Obama, a black president, symbolizes to many of our students that the United States is now a fair and color blind society where there is no need to discuss issues of diversity and racial relations. Therefore, they do not see the need to be bothered with class assignments like creating a diverse source bank or ethical case studies on how to enter multicultural communities and report on them.

Our nation wants to be one that is finished with the problem of racism, but unfortunately we are not yet at this point in our history. On the contrary, a cursory view of recent events offers ample evidence of the pressing need to address race and diversity issues in our teaching, research and advocacy. [Read more...]

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Discussing JMC with… Tricia Farwell

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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Tricia FarwellTricia M. Farwell, assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University, is the current teaching co-chair of the public relations division of AEJMC and secretary of the Entertainment and Sports Section for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). She holds degrees from Arizona State University and has worked in corporate public relations and advertising for more than 17 years. Farwell has presented research at the HIC on Arts and Humanities at theMPCA . Additionally, Dr Farwell has authored the book, Love and Death in Edith Wharton’s Fiction. When she is not teaching or researching, she can be found restoring or driving her 1998 corvette convertible with Barry, the Gnome.

How do you define mass communication?

This is becoming somewhat murky. Do we count cellular phones as part of mass communication? Do we confine the definition to what is considered “traditional media”? Do we cast the widest net and call it mass communication? [Read more...]

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Discussing JMC with… Jane Marcellus

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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Jane MarcellusAssociate professor Dr. Jane Marcellus is an Associate Professor who teaches media history, feature writing and cultural studies at Middle Tennessee State University. Her research focuses on media history and gender, with a particular interest in representation of employed women in the 1920s and 1930s. Her work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, American Journalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Journal of Popular Culture, and Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, master’s degrees from the University of Arizona and Northwestern, and a bachelor’s from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She is a former journalist.

How do you define mass communication?

I would say mass communication or media communication refers to the institutions and practices through which public discourse is mediated, using a variety of technologies and imbricated in political, economic, and cultural concerns. [Read more...]

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Cross-University Collaboration through Micro-blogging: Introducing Students to Twitter for Promoting Collaborations, Communication and Relationships

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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By Tricia M. Farwell, Middle Tennessee State University and Richard D. Waters, North Carolina State University

University collaboration with schools, communities and industry has been around for some time. While recently some universities are feeling increased pressure to focus on community partnerships through service learning due to President Obama’s pointing towards service as part of the higher-education agenda (Ashburn, 2010), partnering across universities is still slowly growing in some fields (Fisher, Phelps, & Ellis, 2000). [Read more...]

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