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

[Carol Dykers]

Reading the fascinating discussion of the Newspaper Division¹s name change
has brought me back to my doctoral dissertation ‹ which among other
questions, asked, What would news discourse include if educators taught
newswriting as ³communicating with citizens² and what would journalism look
like if journalists imagined their goal as creating reciprocity among
citizens?

First, IMHO, a turf war in AEJMC is inevitable. Why fear it? Embrace it and
have a conversation rather than a battle ‹ something like Dewey¹s Great
Community that focuses on learning together what none of us can know alone.
And, of course, Habermas¹s later discourse ethics ideas are involved too.

It appears a bit unwelcome for me to say here, but we need mergers and
change as much as newspapers need change (and are undergoing it after years
of denial ‹ which is not to say that I approve of corporate greed
controlling where journalism is heading).

For example, in the early 1990s, I studied the efforts of Davis Merritt to
transform journalism into public or civic journalism; my topic was not
welcome in Newspaper division circles‹ it was embraced by the new civic
journalism interest group. Those two groups now ought to merge, IMHO. One
example of fracturing because we have not sufficiently conversed. We need a
new language ‹ and we will only find it by conversing and letting go of our
old words and old ways. My 2cents, entirely FWIW. Carol


On 7/17/08 11:16 AM, "Susan Keith" <susank at scils.rutgers.edu> wrote:

> Dear Newspaper Division colleagues,
> 
> I'm writing to ask you to consider an issue that the division's
> executivecommittee will be discussing next month in Chicago: whether   the
> Newspaper Division of AEJMC should consider changing its name.
> 
> In the July issue of our division newsletter, LeadTime, I argued that -- in
> keeping with AEJMC's focus this year on the future of our field -- our
> division should expand its name to clearly indicate that it embraces the study
> of online and other types of journalism practiced by newspaper companies. If
> you are away from the location where you receive your mailed
> copy, you can download a PDF of the newsletter from
> http://aejmc.net/newspaper/leadtime/leadtime_july_2008.pdf But I willbriefly
> recap my reasons for suggesting a name change here:
> 
> 1. "Newspaper" no longer accurately describes the full range of products that
> traditional print journalism outlets are producing.
> 
> 2. "Newspaper" no longer accurately describes the full range of journalistic
> work that our division members study. <SNIP>
> 
> 3. Giving the division a name that accurately reflects the breadth of
> ourinterests might help us stem a decline in membership. Although the
> Newspaper
> <SNIP>
> 
> 4. Giving the division a name that accurately reflects the breadth of
> ourinterests might help us stem a decline over the past few years in
> papersubmissions. <SNIP>
> 
> 5. Expanding our division's name to something like "Newspaper and Online
> Journalism Division" or "Newspaper and Newer Media Division" -- or some better
> name members suggest -- would let us offer a division home to the scholars who
> study online and newer media journalism. Some of those people are now
> affiliated with AEJMC's Communication Technology Division. But for
> others, whose work is focused more on *journalism* than *technology,* that
> division may not seem like the perfect fit.
> 
> 6. Expanding our division's name might help us better weather any internal
> reorganization that grows out of adopting the AEJMC Strategic Plan, <SNIP>
-- 
Dr. Carol Reese Dykers
Salem College
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
office: 336.721.2740
Summer email: cdykers at triad.rr.com 

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