[AEJMC Newspaper Division list] New name for Newspaper Division?

[Wilson Lowrey]

Thanks so much, Susan for raising this issue. I’ve really enjoyed
reading these thoughtful posts. At this point I’m open to a couple of
possibilities: 

(1) Keeping the present name but supplementing it with outreach efforts
to help AEJMC members and students better understand the division’s
inclusiveness. Bill Reader suggested something similar in an earlier
post. And I agree with him that we shouldn’t so quickly dismiss the
valuable cultural capital and public legitimacy of newspapers.  
(2) Changing the name to something simple and rooted in the division’s
conceptual focus – the News Division or the Journalism Division, or some
such. However, if the Division were to pursue this approach, I think
we'd need to discuss the plans with RTVJ, Community J and Civic J, etc.
Probably any name change will lead to bruised toes, but if it’s done in
an open manner – if we at least invite others to speak their mind, even
at our meeting -- maybe we could minimize the fallout. And it would only
be fair.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to incorporate some other technological
platform into the name – Newspapers and Online News, for example. We’d
still be tying ourselves to the caprice of changing technologies and
changing labels for these technologies (and to the latest industry
interpretation of what the problem is). And we’ll soon be having this
conversation all over again. I remember working on a Sunday Perspective
section front in the early ‘90s (seems like yesterday) that focused on
the then new phenomenon of the Internet. Thinking ourselves ‘with it,’
we went with an arthed like “Surfing the Internet” – at that time, a
cutting-edge term. I don’t remember the last time I heard someone
actually say, “well, I think I’ll go surf the Internet.”


-- 
Wilson Lowrey
Department of Journalism
The University of Alabama
Box 870172
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172
Phone:(205)348-8608
FAX:(205)348-2780
wlowrey at ua.edu