National Communication Association
Mass Communication Division Newsletter
Spring, 1997
Introduction Including the
"Non-Contest to name this newsletter"
Notes from the Division Chair
Spotlight On . . . Eric
Rothenbuhler By Larry Mullen
On Teaching the Large Lecture
Class. (Part 1 of 2.) By Michael Porter.
From the Membership: Comments,
Suggestions, Questions, and More
Web page update: New links, new
possibilities
Chicago 1997: Convention Paper &
Panel Submission Update
Call for participation in the
Division
The search for correct email
addresses...
Who ya gonna call? The 1997 SCA
Mass Communication Division Officers
Introduction
Including the "Non-Contest to name this newsletter"
This issue of the Mass Comm Division's Electronic
Newsletter was prepared in March 1997 by Rebecca Ann
Lind, 1997 Publications Committee. The electronic
newsletter supplements the traditional hard-copy
newsletter, which you'll still receive before and
after the Convention each year. As we mentioned in
the first edition, we'll try for about 4 times per
year to start, and hope to move to about bi-monthly.
Make sure SCA headquarters has your correct e- mail
address, and you won't miss a thing. (If you haven't
received the first newsletter, you can find it on
our web page.)
THE NON-CONTEST: Am I the only one who thinks the
title "Mass Communication Division Electronic
Newsletter" is somewhat less than compelling? I'd
love to have a contest to come up with a new name
for this newsletter, and offer stupendous prizes
such as trips around the world and brand new
cars,...but without any prizes, let's have a
NON-CONTEST TO NAME THIS ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER. Your
reward will be our eternal gratitude and the legacy
of your superb efforts. Any and all ideas are
welcome, from the simple to the extreme. Send your
ideas to
Rebecca@uic.edu -- and thank you!
In this issue of the electronic newsletter, we
are implementing several new features highlighting
contributions from division members. Larry Mullen
has written a "Spotlight On . . . " column on Eric
Rothenbuhler, and will continue to focus on division
members in future electronic newsletters. Michael
Porter has prepared a list of "16 lessons learned
from observing how others teach large lecture
classes," and his "lessons" begin in this newsletter
(stay tuned for the next newsletter for the rest of
his article). Other Mass Comm Division members also
have information to share, or requests to make, and
these are included herein.
These contributions are sincerely welcomed, and
others are eagerly encouraged. We want this to be a
valuable and interesting newsletter, but a very
large part of its success rests with you. We need
your help and contributions. We'll be happy to share
any suggestions, comments, advice, or other
information regarding teaching, research, or just
about anything else that would interest the members
of the Mass Communication Division. Please contact
Rebecca Ann Lind at
rebecca@uic.edu. Let us know what you're up to,
and let us know what other kinds of features you'd
like to see in the electronic newsletter.
The next electronic newsletter should be coming
your way in June, so please make sure I get all your
contributions by June 15.
Notes from the
Division Chair
By William Christ
Building on past work in the Division and current
needs, five main initiatives have been identified
for the Division this year:
- Nominate someone for the SCA's second vice
president's position. Gretchen Barbatsis, who
was a past chair of the division, was given the
task of identifying and recommending for
nomination a candidate for the second vice
president position of the SCA. The Mass
Communication Division leadership wanted someone
who would be an excellent president while
understanding the complexities and diversity of
the communication field. In terms of possible
candidates, one name kept being mentioned as the
obvious choice: Bob Avery. The feeling was that
Bob was the most qualified candidate we could
ask for this important position. I am very
pleased to announce that Robert Avery
(University of Utah) has agreed to be a
candidate. As the election gets closer, we will
be sending more information about Dr. Avery.
- Develop closer ties with the National office
in terms of its media literacy initiatives. I
have appointed a Media Literacy Task Force that
will be working with the national office as
guidelines and competencies are developed for
the SCA Media Literacy Standards. The Task Force
includes (in alphabetical order)James Anderson
(University of Utah), Gretchen Barbatsis
(Michigan State University), Jennings Bryant
(University of Alabama), Caren Deming
(University of Arizona), Renee Hobbs (Clark
University), Robert Kubey (Rutgers University),
Mary Larson (Northern Illinois University),
Rebecca Ann Lind (University of Illinois at
Chicago), Mary Beth Oliver (Virginia Tech),
James Potter (University of California-Santa
Barbara), and Ellen Wartella (University of
Texas-Austin).
- Create an electronic newsletter. The
Division sees the electronic newsletter as an
important way for us to communicate with each
other. Rebecca Lind is our first editor and is
responsible for the creation you see before you.
Her hard work has helped us to become the first
SCA division to have an electronic newsletter.
- Continue to develop the Mass Communication
Webpage. Mary Beth Oliver has done an excellent
job in creating our web site. We are expanding
the "page" and any ideas should be sent to her
directly at
Olivermb@Vt.edu.
- Re-write the "job" descriptions for the
officers of the division. Now that we have added
a web "wizard" and an electronic newsletter
editor, the division leadership will be
re-visiting the "job" descriptions of the
division.
We have a full agenda. However, there is always
room for more initiatives. Feel free to contact me
directly at
Wchrist@trinity.edu.
Best wishes, William Christ
Spotlight On
. . . Eric Rothenbuhler
By Larry Mullen
Eric Rothenbuhler is Associate
Professor of Communication Studies at the University
of Iowa's Communication Studies Department. Eric
studies the sociological aspects of communication
and culture. His research includes such topics as
media institutions, audiences, social structure,
communication and community, the commercial
production of culture, and general problems of
communication theory.
He earned his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Annenberg
School of Communication at USC. His M.A. and B.A.
are from the Department of Communication at Ohio
State University in Columbus. He studied with
several dynamic and powerful teachers, each of whom
left their mark on Eric's thinking, the way he
conducts his career, and how he teaches his own
students. His most influential mentors include Keith
Brooks, John Dimmick, Bill Hodge, Jeff Alexander,
Elihu Katz, Daniel Dayan, Peter Clarke, and Susan
Evans.
Eric is a very active scholar. He is currently
working in the areas of ritual and ceremonial
communication, media events, processes of community
attachment, and the history of American popular
music as a product of changing technology, business
practices, and media. Eric is working on a book that
is an extended theoretical essay on ritual as a
concept for communication theory. It treats ritual
as communication and communication as ritual. The
book reviews the body of ritual studies literature
for students of communication and reviews the uses
of the concept "ritual" in the communication studies
literature. He also has a piece with John Peters
coming out in Musical Quarterly on phonography as a
media form, the shape it gives to music listening
experiences and the social reality of music. Recent
publications include articles appearing in Media,
Culture, and Society, Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, and a chapter on "The
Recorded Music Industry" with John Streck in a book
on media economics. Eric is also the Review and
Criticism Editor for Journal of Communication.
Eric is an award-winning teacher. He teaches
undergraduate courses in American Broadcasting, a
Senior Seminar on Radio, Records, and Popular Music,
and Radio Production Workshops. He is the proud
faculty-advisor to the student radio station. His
graduate courses include Communication and
Community, Ritual and Communication, and seminars on
various issues concerning music and communication.
He was Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for
Advanced Study in Telecommunication at Ohio State
University from January to March, 1992 and was
visiting professor at the University of Kansas in
June, 1992.
Eric is a product of a long line of preachers and
teachers on both sides of the family. His dad is
from the southern Ohio hills--a region called
"Little Switzerland." His mom is from northern Ohio.
His parents met in college and were the first of the
Rothenbuhler clan to leave country life for school.
His father was a biology professor and his mother
taught chemistry at Ohio State University.
Being an Ohio native, Eric is a Cleveland Indians
fan (he is also very upset about the Browns moving
to Baltimore, so don't ever mention the Browns
around him). He loves going to minor league games
around the midwest during the summer months. When he
isn't at the ball park, you might find him tooling
around town on his Harley. Eric rides a 1986 FXRS
Harley-Davidson motorcycle, better known as a Low
Rider. For the past ten years, he has been keeping a
journal, doing interviews, taking photos, and
collecting memorabilia and historical information on
American bikers. When the time is right, Eric plans
to write a book on this topic.
Eric is a self-proclaimed audiophile. In fact, he
has marked out the "sweet spot" in his livingroom
from which optimum sound from his stereo's speakers
can be perceived by the human ear. His guests are
often asked to sit in the sweet spot and compare
sounds from various sources--album verses CD, one
tuner versus another, and various permutations of
music technology manipulation. He collects vintage
albums and has taken up the guitar again after a
15-year hiatus. He also hosts "American Rhythms," a
weekly radio show covering American popular music
from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Eric and his wife Jane Martin live in Iowa City
within walking distance to the University of Iowa's
Sam Becker Communication Studies Building where you
will often find him in his office with the door
open. -----------
For your information, SPOTLIGHT ON . . . is a
feature by Larry Mullen, who will profile one of our
Division members in each issue of the newsletter.
Who do you think we should turn the spotlight on
next? Send your suggestions to Larry at
mullen.nevada.edu
On Teaching
the Large Lecture Class. (Part 1 of 2.)
"Sixteen Lessons Learned from observing how
others teach large lecture classes"
By Michael Porter, University of
Missouri-Columbia.
In the Winter of 1995 I had the privilege of
receiving a Wakonse Fellowship which provided me the
opportunity to engage in some non-traditional
research -- observing how others teach large lecture
classes. Upon completion of the semester, I sat down
to gather my thoughts. I discovered that my concerns
focused on both good communication skills and
pedagogical strategies and techniques. Together,
they comprise 16 lessons.
- Increase your energy level.
- Show them you're interested. The first two
are interrelated. Some teachers were
demonstrative and energetic, using their voices
and bodies to communicate, others did not. We
must learn how to project our voices and our
actions for the student sitting in the last row.
- Use your voice. Recognize the amazing vocal
instrument you have. Our voice is the most under
used teaching instrument. Learn to play it
softer, louder, slower, lower.
- Pause more. Consider the pause the "white
space" found on the page of a manuscript or an
advertisement in a magazine. One teacher I
observed was a master at using the pregnant
pause. It provided catch-up time for the
students and created anticipation for what the
instructor was going to say next.
- Don't stand in one place. Get away from the
lectern. Move around the room. Don't let the
microphone tether you to an outlet. Switch to a
cordless microphone.
- Get closer to your students. I became most
engaged with those teachers who invaded their
students' space. They did so by walking up and
down the aisles while lecturing. This works best
when the teacher is on the same level as the
students; my suggestion is to get off the stage
and walk among the class.
- Write legibly. Students cannot learn if they
can't read the material. Some instructors wrote
so illegibly their markings were indecipherable.
Visual reinforcement is critical to focus
attention and reinforce key ideas. They need not
be elaborate or high-tech, but they must be
legible.
- Tell them where you're going. If we tell our
students where we're going in the lecture,
they'll have an easier time of getting there.
Some instructors did a great job of providing
these "advanced organizers" or hooks to draw the
student into the lecture.
- Cover less material. I tend to cover too
much material in my lectures. Where I would have
squeezed in more material, the instructors I
observed explained the material at a slower,
more deliberate pace, providing many more
examples, and asking questions of the students
to make sure they understood the main points.
. . . To be continued.... Part Two of Michael
Porter's "16 Lessons Learned" will appear in the
next edition of the electronic newsletter, in
June.
From the
Membership: Comments, Suggestions, Questions, and
More
Michael Prosser, Kern Professor in Communications
at RIT, sent along this call for submissions to the
Rochester Institute of Technology's Conference on
"Communication, Technology, and Cultural Values."
The deadline is coming up shortly, so if you're
interested, you'll want to move quickly. Here is the
call Michael sent: March 29 Abstract Deadline The
RIT Conference on "Communication, Technology, and
Cultural Values" July 10-13 is accepting abstracts
on any topics relating to the conference theme. The
deadline is March 29, but abstracts will continue to
be considered for a short time after the initial
deadline. My co-chair, K.S. Sitaram
(Radio-Television, SIU-Carbondale) and I are
interested in papers relating to the theme from the
areas of interracial, intercultural, ethnocultural,
multicultural, international, and global
communication, including mass media and cybernetics.
Awards are given for the outstanding student and
outstanding conference papers, selected by an
independent faculty jury. It is likely that the best
papers will be published in a coedited volume with
the same name as the conference by Ablex Publishing
Co., under our editorship. For selected abstracts,
final papers will be due June 5. Abtracts of 250
words, (with an additional 40 word abstract, and 40
word biography) can be sent to:
Michael Prosser
RIT
92 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, N.Y., 14623-5604
Fax 716-475-7732
email MHPGPT@RIT.EDU
Phone number: 716-475-2804
The conference will be held at the Rochester
Institute of Technoloy and the Radisson Inn in
Rochester, N.Y. Fees for the conference (including
conference materials, two luncheons, and two
receptions) are $130 or for full time students $90
until June 5; and after that date $160 or for full
time students $110.
Joel Wiggins, a Ph.D. candidate at The University
of Texas at Austin, is searching for division
members with shared research interests. Joel writes:
"I would like to know how to link up with the
research some of the division's scholar-members are
doing. My particular interest lies at the
intersection of television, medicine, and
ethics-morals. I am also interested in television
programming as it relates to religious themes or
portrayals (i.e., angels, spirituality, etc.)." You
can contact Joel at: jwiggins@mail.utexas.edu.
Joe Bridges, of Malone College in Canton Ohio, is
looking for suggestions regarding which websites
division members find useful. Joe writes: "I am
interested in a list of current websites of interest
to mass comm faculty and their students. I published
a book titled "A guide to the Internet for Mass
Communication Students" and part of my contract with
the publisher Brown & Benchmark is to develop and
moderate a web site to accompany the book. Any
contributions would be appreciated, by me and by
those faculty who adopt the book for their classes.
Thanks." You can contact Joe at:
bjoe@imperium.net
330-877-1480
P.O. BOX 808
Hartville, OH 44632
What are you up to? What would you like to say?
What would you like to know? Send your comments,
suggestions, questions, and more to Rebecca Ann Lind
at rebecca.uic.edu.
Web page update:
New links, new possibilities
The Mass Communication Division has a web page,
and we'd like you to visit it -- whether for the
first time, or just to see what's new. Created by
Mary Beth Oliver (Virginia Tech), the web page
address is: http://www.comm.vt.edu/masscomm/.
Currently the web page contains information about
officers, notes from the business meeting at the
last annual convention, and electronic versions of
the newsletter. When applicable, this web page also
features calls for papers, requests for reviewers,
and information about the annual convention.
In addition, the web site contains two pages of
links to additional web sites of interest; one page
has links to general mass communication sites, and
another page has links to teaching and
teaching-related links for mass communication (e.g.,
syllabi, bibliographies, etc.). These pages allow
for visitors to the site to add additional links by
filling out a simple on-line form. Division members
are encouraged to visit the web page, to add
additional links to these sites, and to offer any
suggestions for changes, for additional information,
or for new features. Our web page will grow as a
result of your input!
Chicago 1997:
Convention Paper & Panel Submission Update
According to Rob Bellamy, Chair of the Research
Committee, 61 competitive papers were received by
the Mass Communication Division. All papers were
read by at least 3 reviewers (37 reviewers were
used). The research committee submitted 40 papers
(65.6% acceptance rate) proposed as eight
competitive thematic panels (4 papers each) and one
interactive session (8 papers).
Rob is waiting to hear of official acceptance
before notifying authors. All authors will receive
copies of ratings sheets and comments from blind
reviewers. Accepted papers will be automatically
forwarded to respondents unless authors request
otherwise.
According to Mary Larson, Division Vice Chair, 12
competitive program proposals were submitted, and 9
of these were forwarded for consideration to the
convention planner. Again, program proposers will be
notified after the division has word on official
acceptance.
Call for
participation in the Division
Are you interested in serving the division, as an
officer? The Mass Communication Division Nominations
Committee is seeking self- nominations for division
officer positions for 1997-98. If you or someone you
know is interested in serving, please contact Jim
Walker at Walker@sxu.edu, or call (312) 298-3373.
The search for
correct email addresses...
The following people have not received the
electronic newsletters because we have incorrect
email addresses. Do you know any of their correct
addresses? If so, please email Rebecca Lind at
Rebecca@uic.edu. (They are welcome to browse through
earlier issues of the electronic newsletter by
visiting the division's web site.)
Lisa Anderson, John Baker III, Jack Banks,
Charles Bartow, Renee Bhatti, Kurt Billmeyer, Thomas
Boyle, Robert Cathcart, David Davis, Travis Dixon,
Samuel Ebersole, Morris Granklin, Rita Gonzales,
Georgia Gotsis, Natalie Grayson, Jeff Hannah,
Kingsley Harbor, W. Dale Harrison, Sara Hassenflow,
Melissa Johnson, Jong Kang, Richard Katula, Alicia
Kemmitt, Dirk Larsen, Kwng-Suk Lee, David Linton,
Kelly Marsh, Jeremy Mebane, Virgil Moberg, Andrew
Moemeka, Yoshimi Nishino, Eugenia Peck, William
Petkanas, Gregory Porter, T. Potts, John Reffue,
Rivka Ribak, Thomas Roch, Shinichi Saito, Keith
Semmel, Marinette Soberano, Charles Soukup, Juliet
Stantz, Karly Stoehr, Lyn Tan, Paul Traudt, David
Tschida, Howard Voland, Douglas Williams, lan
Winegarden.
Who ya gonna
call? The 1997 SCA Mass Communication Division
Officers
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