MAC members,
I'm sure many of you have been paying special attention to the breaking news this weekend from the Sports world involving race and politics.. With the NFL player demonstrations today in response to President Trump's tweets, the decision of the Golden State Warriors to not go to the White House, the "dis-invitation" by President Trump after Steph Curry's comments, the tweet by LeBron James. There are DOZENS Of panel proposals that we ought to be generating as a Minorities and Communication division.
How do we introduce the discussion in the classroom? For those us who are preparing sports journalists, what do we suggest to our students when covering these types of stories? Just as interesting to me-- how do we develop research agendas around some of these issues?
I've already devoted half a class to unpacking Jemele Hill's comments about President Trump and the organizational/corporate response -- a media management and a public relations issue.
I would like to at least have 2-3 STRONG proposals that we might offer to the Sports Communication Interest Group, the Political Communication Division, the Public Relations Division, Radio-TV Journalism division on some of these recent stories.
Let me hear from you!
Even if these aren't your area of interest-- please send along your ideas for the DC Conference. We want to initiate some great panels and programming on Minorities and Communication, in addition to responding to requests from other units to co-sponsor programming.
And let's think of unconventional/unusual ways to do programs. Since we meet in DC every five years, we ought to take advantage of that venue for doing things that are different.
Here's the message that Mia included in her message last week--
Message from AEJMC MACD Vice Head George Daniels
How Should Minorities and Communication Be Represented at our next AEJMC Conference
August 6-9, 2018 may be 11 long months away. But, when it comes to planning a first-rate academic conference like we’re accustomed to having at AEJMC, it’s not nearly as long as you think.
Washington, DC is probably the most frequent location for our annual conference. We were just there in 2013, less than five years ago. But, it is the media capitol of the world. Best of all, it is where lots of issues and topics related to diversifying our field and media profession get decided. The FCC, which originally, played a huge role in influencing the presence of racial minorities in broadcasting and the ASNE, which set the diversity goals for the nation’s newspapers are both based in Washington area.
As a proud Howard University alumnus, I am partial to Washington because it’s where I got my start in media as a student in what is now the Cathy Hughes School of Communications. I covered stories on Capitol Hill and interviewed for internships at Washington, DC media outlets. I sat in on editorial meetings at The Washington Post and visited The White House press room multiple times.
This place is full of ideas for AEJMC programming that will advance not only our work as journalism and mass communication professors, but also our research agendas as media scholars.
As the new vice head and program chair for the Minorities and Communication Division, I want us to look back at some of our most successful panels and programs the last few years—including our 2013 conference in Washington and ask—WHAT DO WE NEED TO REVISIT, UPDATE or BUILD ON in 2018? That will be one platform for building some top-notch programming.
But, we still need your ideas. Please e-mail me directly at
[log in to unmask] your suggestions for panel or programming topics, Possible Panelists and Co-sponsoring AEJMC Divisions. We need to have some solid programs in place by the end of September so that we can communicate these to other units as the convention program grid gets filled in this fall.
Let me hear from EACH OF YOU by September 25, 2017. I promise to follow up on each
e-mail.
Thanks to all who submitted program ideas while we were at this year’s conference in Chicago.
I have already started developing some of those and will be contacting many of you for help.
--
George L. Daniels, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Journalism and Creative Media
The University of Alabama
Box 870172
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172