AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional "chasm"

Mon Jun 25 10:01:04 CDT 2012

Hi all:

I wanted to jump in here and point to some of the great work scholars are
doing to communicate their ideas to journalists. I think there is great
interest, particularly among the younger journalism scholars who have grown
up as scholars in the world of Twitter and blogging, in making their
research translatable to a wider audience.

In my view, as a field researcher, I find myself constantly trying to
communicate to journalists at my field sites why I want to observe or
interview them. So one solution is to be blogging on cross-over sites or to
be active on twitter about the links between research and what we do. I've
tried to do this in my work with Nieman Lab, but I am certainly not the
only one. Let me point to a few great examples, some of AEJ scholars on
this list.

To highlight some of my colleagues in this space, take for example Melissa
Tully, communicating her work on Ushahidi on PBS Mediashift.

http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/03/lessons-from-phase-1-of-the-ushahidi-evaluation-in-kenya084.html
http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/04/ushahidis-online-toolbox-helps-people-understand-the-service097.html

Or take for example, Will Youmans and Katie Brown - whose work on bias and
Al Jazeera made quite an impact when I visited Al Jazeera just a week ago.
It wasn't the academic article they wrote, but the clear write-up that they
had pushed out over Nieman. And this was a legit quantitative study...

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/the-power-of-brand-to-inspire-bias-how-do-perceptions-of-al-jazeera-english-change-once-the-logos-gone/

Or take for example the great translation that Carrie Brown and Jonathan
Groves have done on their work on organizational culture change in
newsrooms. Here's a recent example:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/03/a-call-for-leadership-newspaper-execs-deserve-the-blame-for-not-changing-the-culture/

Robert Picard, whose email just came across, has written op-eds in the
Christian Science Monitor, for example, on newsroom funding:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0519/p09s02-coop.html

Seth Lewis and I have been trying an experiment, in part because our work
involves working with a community of open-source hacker-types who are all
about transparency, so we've been publishing bits and pieces of
pre-articles on Nieman (sure, this is killing blind review, but eh!).

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/what-newsrooms-can-learn-from-open-source-and-maker-culture/

We got over 300 tweets from this article -- which is just the metrics from
the site's own tweet tracker, and that's how many tweets a pretty
successful article on the site will get. And that was a fairly conceptual
piece.

Chris Anderson (@chanders) has been super successful on Twitter and has a
huge following, and uses Twitter to converse about journalism current
events and his own research among a community of practitioners and
researchers (again, of course, killing double blind!). He also pioneered,
at least for me, the trend of writing on Nieman.

These folks are not alone. And that is to ignore the many many blogs folks
are keeping on their own about their research that is relevant to their
communities that they study.

I think that we are in a double bind, as Barbie Zelizer has often written
about - in the larger field of Communication, we have to justify our
existence as a distinct field of say, journalism studies - (in fact,
journalism studies just began at ICA in 2004) - and at the same time, make
sure that our research does indeed bear some relevance to what we study.
This doesn't have to happen all the time, and certainly is not necessary,
but it is helpful if we want our research to have an impact.

I was a journalist for a little bit, but I don't think that this matters
except in sometimes convincing journalists that you understand a little bit
how they do what they do and why.

Thanks,
Nikki Usher
Assistant Professor
George Washington University

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 10:21 AM, <jennifer at aejmc.org> wrote:

>
> Several years ago AEJMC started a section on our website called "Research
> You Can Use".  Rob Logan, who was then at Missouri, helped get this up and
> running.
>
> It features research that has been published by AEJMC journals, including
> some divisional journals, that is relevant to the professions.
>
> The editor of the journals selects the articles that fit that criteria and
> then sends a press release to us. We put the release and a PDF copy of the
> article on the site. Several times a year we share the link with members of
> our Council of Affiliates and ask them to share it with their members.
> (Affiliate members include SPJ, ASNE, NAB, RTDNA, ONA, and about 25 more
> groups.)
>
> Here is the link:
>
> http://www.aejmc.org/topics/**rycu <http://www.aejmc.org/topics/rycu>
>
> We welcome your help in getting the word out to professionals about this
> link.
>
> Best,
> Jennifer
>
> ------------------------------**-
>
> Jennifer McGill
> AEJMC Executive Director
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting "Everbach, Tracy" <everbach at unt.edu>:
>
>  I agree with what most of you are saying about our research being
>> inaccessible to professionals. In fact, sometimes when I tell professionals
>> about the work I have done (on race and gender) they will say, "That sounds
>> interesting. Where can I read that?" It is somewhat embarrassing to have to
>> tell them, "It's in a research journal that you can only access if you can
>> get into an academic library database or if you subscribe to the academic
>> journal." So, what's the solution? I know Newspaper Research Journal was
>> supposed to be for professionals and for academics, but no professionals I
>> know have ever heard of it, much less read articles in it. So, how do we
>> make our research accessible? I am sure this has been asked many times, but
>> it seems like a group of intelligent journalism profs could come up with an
>> answer.
>>
>> Tracy
>>
>> Tracy Everbach, Ph.D.
>> Associate professor
>> 214-995-8464-cell
>> Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism
>> University of North Texas
>> 1155 Union Circle #311460
>> Denton, TX  76203-5017
>> ______________________________**__________
>> From: news-list-bounces at aejmc.net [news-list-bounces at aejmc.net] on
>> behalf of JOHN B ZIBLUK [JZIBLUK at astate.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 7:53 AM
>> To: SkyeDent at aol.com; john.hartman at dacor.net; dsclaussen at hotmail.com;
>> ted.pease at usu.edu; news-list at aejmc.net
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> This gap has been one of the elephants i the room since I began my
>> academic career 20 years ago, where I worked with our colleague Jack
>> Hartman as he lived in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I was in grad school.
>>
>> How many times have you gone to an academic presentation and rolled your
>> eyes as some nervous grad student presented an incomprehensible set of
>> Powerpoints using four-way ANOVAe and linear regressions describing
>> something totally  arcane and obscure, or a qualitative critical analysis
>> on the social construction of the meaning depictions of codpeices in
>> Edwardian proto-subversive film culture circa 1907?
>>
>> we support our colleagues on principle and roll our eyes under our
>> breath, if I may mix metaphors.
>>
>> I have had MANY conversations over the years about the over-emphasis on
>> researchResearchRESEARCH!!!!!!**, particularly theoretical research
>> rather than lowly and pedestrian applied and accessible research to which
>> many of us former-and-current journalists are attracted . But the academic
>> culture, particularly at research-intensive schools, is all about
>> scholarship. And while there is CERTAINLY a place for that even in our
>> disciplines, it's not everything.
>>
>> Since communication/journalism programs are often viewed as professional
>> programs within universities and within departments, we sometimes have to
>> justify our scholarship as we compete for resources with STEM areas, social
>> sciences and the humanities. We need to show that we're good and valuable
>> scholars, too. But good, professional work is becoming more important all
>> the time within academe and beyond it.
>>
>> At a time when journalism is undergoing radical change and high schools
>> don;t teach civics any more, I think we have an opportunity, perhaps an
>> obligation, to help our students, our colleagues in the profession , and
>> our audiences, understand what's happening and the implications of what's
>> happening. What's at stake, I think, is free speech in America. And we can
>> have a major role in strengthening the profession and the understanding and
>> practice of free speech through serious research and serious application of
>> that research and ongoing serious journalism that we can produce ourselves.
>>
>> But too often we stick our noses in the proverbial sand and crank out
>> jargon-laden piffle that we can reasonably expect to be published somewhere
>> in order to make tenure.
>>
>> There are good programs who have a good balance, some at larger schools,
>> and many are at smaller schools. But many, probably most, are in what the
>> Chronicle of Higher Education (for whom I freelance sometimes) calls "the
>> mushy middle."  That's where I have spent most of my career: trying to
>> balance a research agenda, get tenure (which I did) and then maybe show up
>> for class now and then. The reality is that teaching suffers because it's
>> what you can cut back on, practically speaking, with no penalty.
>>
>> If we don't make changes, or find ways to defend ourselves and resist
>> changes,  outside forces may force us to make substantive changes in what
>> we do and how. I think the general emphasis on assessment is just the
>> start. For good or ill, the Ceppos memo signals that a discussion that we
>> have been having for years  in small programs, of which I am a former head,
>> is coming to the bigger schools.
>>
>> I think the news division of AEJMC is the core of the group. It's the
>> biggest division and it can be the leader in re-focusing what we do. I
>> would be happy  be part  something proactive as we face issues rather than
>> engage in continual hand-wringing over it.
>>
>> jack
>>
>>
>>
>> John B. (Jack) Zibluk, Ph.D.
>> Professor
>> Arkansas State University
>> Department of Journalism
>> P.O. Box 1930
>> State University, AR 72467
>> (H) 870-931-1284
>> (W) 870-972-3255
>> (cell) 870-219-3328
>> ______________________________**__________
>> From: news-list-bounces at aejmc.net [news-list-bounces at aejmc.net] On
>> Behalf Of SkyeDent at aol.com [SkyeDent at aol.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 6:16 PM
>> To: john.hartman at dacor.net; dsclaussen at hotmail.com; ted.pease at usu.edu;
>> news-list at aejmc.net
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I was a pure journalist for almost a decade.  Then I worked in
>> entertainment as a TV writer.  Then, in 05, I went back to school to obtain
>> my MFA so that I could teach journalism and screenwriting on the higher
>> education level.
>>
>> During both my professional career and my academic career, no one from
>> AEJMC ever reached out to me.  Some of the tenured mass comm professors I
>> met even belittled me because I had worked professionally in the field of
>> journalism.  I sought out AEJMC on my own.
>>
>> I'm not sure you should berate professional journalists for not reading
>> academic publications unless it can be proven that you've reached out to
>> all of us.  I've been to BEA conferences, NATPE conferences, National
>> Association of Black Journalists conferences.  Not a word from AEJMC.
>>
>> In addition, just because we are talking about the same subject does not
>> mean that we are talking the same language.  Academicians write in a style
>> that is so unlike the style of professional journalists.  I mean, you would
>> not go to Spain and berate them because they did not speak English.
>>
>> For example, AEJMC splits professors up into a myriad of categories.  In
>> journalism, we're just all journalists.  If you cover politics, you can
>> still cover crime.  And you can go from being a White House correspondent
>> to a public relations expert with the same skills.
>>
>> One can dish professional journalists as much as one wants.  But, in the
>> short time in which new media, piracy, and the internet have caused the
>> death knell of many fine journalism institutions, the cry by students for
>> journalism education is dwindling also.
>>
>> We can stand together or we can fall together.
>>
>> Skye
>>
>> In a message dated 6/24/2012 7:00:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>> john.hartman at dacor.net writes:
>> If it is mission-sensitive, relevant and accessible, journalists and
>> journalism professors will read it. Ted and Dane's thoughts were both
>> mission-sensitive and relevant and should be widely read. Most of what
>> journalism professors write about the profession of journalism is neither
>> mission-sensitive nor relevant. That has been a constant for the three-plus
>> decades I have been paying attention. Gerald Stone created Newspaper
>> Research Journal to provide practical research, but most of his initiative
>> has been lost over the years. I say keep trying to bridge the gap, but in
>> today's environment where the once mighty Newhouse organization is going
>> out of the daily newspaper business and into the tri-weekly advertising
>> distribution business, I would not hold out much hope of a breakthrough.
>> Nonethess, I and we should keep trying.
>> -- John K. Hartman, professor of journalism, Central Michigan University
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Dr. Dane S. Claussen<mailto:dsclaussen@**hotmail.com<dsclaussen at hotmail.com>
>> >
>> To: Edward C. Pease<mailto:ted.pease at usu.edu**> ; news-list at aejmc.net
>> <mailto:new**s-list at aejmc.net <news-list at aejmc.net>>
>> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 7:10 PM
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>>
>> Plenty to respond to in Ceppos's essay, both pro and con, but for the
>> moment I'll say only that readership of J&MC scholarly journals is a
>> two-way street.  Journals could publish more practical research and be more
>> readable for people who don't have Ph.D.s, but professional journalists
>> aren't exactly clamoring for professional development, whatever they might
>> claim in surveys.  Only 10% of U.S. journalists bother to belong to SPJ;
>> fewer than that read AJR or CJR; only 10-15% of U.S. journalists read the
>> paper or electronic version of The New York Times; obviously a very low
>> percentage read books of journalism criticism/recommendations by people
>> such as Fuller, Fallows, Kovach/Rosenstiel, Rosen, etc.; most beat
>> reporters seem only semi-serious, not really serious, about developing
>> expertise on their beat (with sports being the exception that proves the
>> rule, and the rule is quite painful when to comes to, say,
>> business/economics reporting). Good luck in getting U.S. journalists to
>> read Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly regardless of how fine the
>> writing is, how practical the research is, or how low the subscription
>> price is.
>>
>> As for JMC academics not reading scholarly research, there certainly is a
>> high percentage of them who don't want to and/or don't need to do research
>> (they already have tenure, or they teach at an institution where research
>> is not necessary to get tenure, or they are on a non-research tenure track,
>> or not on tenure track). I've seen professors retire from research
>> universities, and how that process physically goes can tell you a lot,
>> especially a visible layer of dust on journals sitting in an open box in
>> the hallway.
>>
>> Dane S. Claussen, Ph.D., M.B.A.
>> Editor (3/2006-9/2012), Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,
>> Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC);
>> and
>> Head (2011-12), Media Management & Economics Division, AEJMC
>>
>>
>> ______________________________**__
>> From: ted.pease at usu.edu
>> To: News-list at aejmc.net
>> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:32:54 +0000
>> Subject: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional
>> "chasm"
>>
>> All: Jerry Ceppos (re)opened this can of worms.
>> Opinion: The same old song about journalism’s academic-professional
>> disconnect<http://**hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031>
>> >
>> June 21st, 2012 Posted in Opinion<http://hardnewscafe.**usu.edu/?cat=1<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?cat=1>>
>> | Edit<https://hardnewscafe.usu.**edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=**
>> 8031&action=edit<https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=8031&action=edit>>
>> | By Ted Pease<mailto:ted.pease at usu.edu**>
>> Jerry Ceppos, the new dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at
>> LSU and a former newspaper editor, writes somewhat grimly this week about
>> “How Journalism Professionals and Educators Can Close the Chasm<
>> http://uiswcmsweb.prod.**lsu.edu/manship/MassComm/**AbouttheSchool/**
>> ReportsandPublications/**item49390.html<http://uiswcmsweb.prod.lsu.edu/manship/MassComm/AbouttheSchool/ReportsandPublications/item49390.html>
>> >.”
>> His column took me back to my first journalism educators (AEJMC<
>> http://www.aejmc.org/>) convention—in 1984 at the University of Florida.
>> As a brand-new assistant professor, newly migrated from the newsroom, that
>> first encounter with journalism/mass communication education was an
>> epiphany. I remember distinctly hearing a research panel presentation that
>> included Guido Stempel and Max McCombs, two of the biggest names in
>> journalism research. I had never heard of them. “Wow!” I thought. “This is
>> great stuff. I wonder if anyone in the newsroom knows about this.”
>> More at http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?**p=8031<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031>
>>
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> Edward C. Pease, Ph.D
>> Professor & Department Head
>> Book Review Editor, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
>> Department of Journalism & Communication
>> Utah State University
>> Logan, Utah 84322-4605
>> 435-797-3293; 435-797-3973 FAX
>> • JCOM Website: <http://www.usu.edu/journalism**> http://www.usu.edu/<
>> http://**www.usu.edu/journalism <http://www.usu.edu/journalism>>**
>> journalism<http://www.usu.edu/**journalism<http://www.usu.edu/journalism>
>> >
>> • Hard News Café: http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu<ht**
>> tp://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/ <http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/>>
>> • PeezPix: http://peezpixphotos.blogspot.**com<http://peezpixphotos.blogspot.com>
>> <http://tedsword.blogspot.**com/ <http://tedsword.blogspot.com/>>
>> • Today's WORD on Journalism: http://tedsword.blogspot.com<h**
>> ttp://tedsword.blogspot.com/ <http://tedsword.blogspot.com/>>
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> "Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you can get the right ones in
>> the right order, you can nudge the world a little." --Tom Stoppard
>>
>> [cid:X.MA1.1340579793 at aol.com]
>>
>> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Nikki Usher, PhD
Assistant Professor
George Washington University
School of Media and Public Affairs
(o) 202-994-3841  (m) 213-220-7824
www.nikkiusher.com
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