Special Issue on Service Learning
SUBMISSIONS are being sought for a special issue of Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication: A Journal Published by the Small Programs Interest Group. This journal is a peer-reviewed, electronic journal that focuses on teaching journalism and mass communication in small departments and dedicated to the open exchange of information.
Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication invites competitive paper submissions that address service learning and journalism and mass communication, particularly ideas associated with the Small Programs Interest Group of AEJMC. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship.
Directions:
- All papers and proposals must be submitted using Microsoft Word.
- Put “Special Issue” in the subject line of the email.
- Papers may include historical and/or critical analyses as well as more theoretical discussions of themes.
- Papers may use quantitative or qualitative analysis. Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication is open to a variety of research methodologies.
- In addition to primary research, the journal is encouraging essays and case studies on the topic of service learning.
- Include an abstract of 250-500 words.
- Include no more than 20 pages, excluding references, tables, charts, and appendices; essays and other approaches may be much shorter in length.
- Use APA style please.
- We welcome your ideas for topics.
Examples
The editors seek research that uses multimedia to demonstrate a case study. For instance, imagine a journalism program that requires a team of four students to document the work of a campus group involved in distributing free books at an area elementary school. A digital video that shows student reporters covering the distribution will help explain one way a journalism program is involved in service learning. Photographs and interviews can be useful too. Since the journal is online, multimedia is a natural presentation style.
Another example of the kind of submission needed could be a round-up of journalism, public relations, advertising and other programs within a department to help readers detect the variety of approaches. In this case, the writer may want to survey professors at three or more institutions. A variation on this approach is to contact a journalism and mass communication program that is doing something novel and provide a kind of news report of the work. Again, multimedia could be valuable in telling the story.
The editors are open to ideas and will work with writers to grow the idea into a suitable article. Please contact us with your ideas. Guest editor Michael Ray Smith may be reached at smithm@campbell.edu or call (910) 893-1528.
Deadline to submit ideas: Oct. 15, 2012.
The final deadline for the publication is March 1, 2013.
The Special Issue on service learning is scheduled to be published during spring/summer of 2013.
“The State of…” in Small Programs
Many have asked what sets our journal apart from others on teaching journalism and mass communication. It can be difficult to articulate that our special interest is teaching in small programs, especially when the interrogator does not teach in a small program. Those of us in the trenches understand how our curricula differ, how sequences might contain fewer courses, and how sequences in an area like magazines might be crammed into one course. There aren’t resources for a stretch of separate courses in magazine writing, magazine production and a course magazine. Small program faculty often have to find ways to do all in one.
The magazine course is just one example of how a small JMC program adapts to the challenge. Starting with the Fall 2012 issue, we will offer articles that focus on the state of various types of courses in the small program. How is the CAR course taught in small programs? What is the status of the Public Relations Campaigns course? How are the core reporting courses related? We envision this as a regular feature that would alternate with the symposium starting with the Fall 2012 issue. Knowing that the fall issue would feature a few researched pieces on the state of the basic reporting class or the feature class will give authors time to prepare work and conduct the kind of surveys or interviews with small program faculty we envision for this section. We are seeking to go beyond the listserv discussions, which, though useful, just give little shards on the matter. For this series we envision more in-depth approaches through surveys and/or systematic examination of a cross-section of courses. We are small programs in different ways; this series would lay out the various paths people are taking. By coordinating with the editors, authors may also collaborate on surveys so that we might move toward an annual survey that could provide data to use for future articles. After fiddling with different approaches and questions about what the journal has that others won’t, articles on the state of the courses we teach, particularly as the ground shakes underneath us, seemed like a unique contribution.
Of course, this can’t work without SPIG members as contributors. Get in touch with me (martinv@ccsu.edu) and Mitzi Lewis (mitzi.lewis@mwsu.edu) with possible ideas. We think this is a good opportunity for people who are intimidated by more formal quantitative research but who would like to try something for the journal. Hope to hear from you soon.
Scholarship of Application
Essays that explore a lesson or course, with some detailed attention to course outline, strategies, challenges and outcomes. When possible, writers are encouraged to utilize the web to illustrate the experience through links and/or multimedia. Query Michael Ray Smith at smithm@campbell.edu or call (910) 893-1528.
Research
Papers should present research on practical teaching and learning issues within journalism and mass communication. All methods (quantitative, qualitative, interpretive, participatory, and theoretical) are welcome. All papers undergo double-blind review. Shoot for no more than 8,000 words, including tables and references, with an abstract of no more than 150 words. Identifying and contact information should be on a separate page from the abstract and article. APA style. Send papers to Michael Ray Smith smithm@campbell.edu.
Columns
800-1,000 words.
Teaching+: issues affecting the professoriate in and out of the classroom.
Industry: commentary on issues in journalism, public relations and other JMC fields of interest to academia.
Query Michael Ray Smith at smithm@campbell.edu or call (910) 893-1528.
Reviews
Books, software, film, apps, web resources.
Contact Reviews Editor Jim Sernoe (jim.sernoe@mwsu.edu).
Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Copyright is retained by authors.