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Vol 25, No. 3 
December 2020
Published three times annually by the Mass Communication Division of NCA.
Publications/Web Editor - Emory Daniel, Appalachian State University

Sponsored by:

In this issue:

Welcome from the Chair Editor's Note Announcements Gatekeeper Scholar Chat NCA MCD Officers (2019-2020)

 

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Welcome from the Chair

University Park IL - I write this today with the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election voting over, but the counting of votes and outcome still influx. I want to thank all of you that voted, if you were able, and supported democracy. Thank you to the mass communication scholars who are doing the rhetorical, visual, and analytical research work to better understand mass communication'92s role in U.S. elections and its democracy.

November is the time to bring our division together. I want to encourage all of you to attend the 2020 NCA Mass Communication Division business meeting on Saturday, November 7th at 3:00pm ET/12 noon PT. You will be able to access the meeting by logging in to NCA Convention Central. All business meetings this year are being held before the regularly scheduled convention dates. Please support the MCD by attending the business meeting and celebrating with our Division Award and Top Paper winners. You will also want to attend if you are interested in being a part of future leadership in the division. We will be taking nominations from the floor on Saturday. This is an excellent service and networking opportunity.

After the business meeting, I hope you will make sure to attend our great schedule of events and activities once the regular convention dates begin November 19-22. There are scores of excellent mass communication papers and panels. This promises to be an amazing time of learning though we will not be physically together in Indianapolis.

I hope all of you are managing well during this fall term. As we move forward, our media world gets ever more complex. Media use in teaching is evolving. Media as a platform for information and disinformation and connection is evolving. Media as a tool to help citizens track and contract trace covid-19 has also emerged this year. The research potential for us to help our world better understand how we use media to communicate in our world is immense. I am thrilled for all of you doing that work, presenting it at the Convention, and preparing it for future outlets.

As always, I certainly welcome any feedback you have on making the MCD a valuable and engaging home for more scholars. Please contact me at drhea@govst.edu.

Thank you for your contributions to advance the knowledge of mass communication in all you do. Stay safe. 

Sincerely,

Dr. David Rhea
Chair, Mass Communication Division
Governors State University
drhea@govst.edu

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Boone, NC -- Please enjoy reading through the last issue of my second year with The Gatekeeper. I have enjoyed being your web editor for this division, as it marks the final of my three-years as publications and web editor. Below you will find announcements converning call for some exciting projects published by our members. Please feel free to reach out with any news you'd like to share at danieles@appstate.edu

Further down you'll find this issue's Gatekeeper Scholar Chat with Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian from Texas A & M in College Station, TX . She currently is the founder of the Difficult Dialogues Project, an Affiliated Faculty of Women's & Gender Studies, and the Executive Director of Media Rise (a nonprofit for meaningful media). Her scholarship addresses pressing contemporary global issues relating to media, diversity, and social justice.

In closing, I hope everyone is well and staying safe.  

All the Best,

Dr. Emory Daniel Jr.
Publications and Web Editor, The Gatekeeper
Appalachian State University
danieles@appstate.edu

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Announcements

Publications 

The Journalism Breakdown by Shane Tilton

Please congratulate our own Shane Tilton on his newest book:  The Journalism Breakdown: Writing Multimedia Journalism Content in an Era of Changing Media Systems & Economic Models

One of the issues facing journalists is a lack of training that focuses on creating editorial content with the changes to media platforms, economic models, and the mode of communicating with their audience. There is a lack of guidance on how to apply their storytelling style and lessons from college with newer content management systems and fragmented journalism workflows. There is a need for journalists to gain mastery in performing the "series of non-routine tasks" that will face them in the future. Journalists entering the job market must have a level of social intelligence to understand the changing nature of audiences and their news consumption habits. New journalists must also apply critical thinking practices and creative problem-solving skills toward the complex news-gathering process.The Journalism Breakdown integrates praxis and research from journalism, social psychology, computer science, and visual communication along with the best practices from media organizations to provide skills and techniques to apply essential journalism practices to the dynamic and often chaotic world of the newsroom. Parts of the lessons from this book will teach the reader how to use flexible thinking, a growth mindset, solution-focused thinking, audience awareness, and community engagement to craft stories worth reading now and the future.

Binge and Bingeability by Arienne Ferchaud

Please congratulate our own Arienne Ferchaud on her newest book: Binge and Bingeability: The Antecedents and Consequences of Binge Watching Behavior

 Binge and Bingeability: The Antecedents and Consequences of Binge Watching Behavior examines how the television industry has transformed over time to create the circumstances in which binge watching as a mass behavior can emerge, and what role audiences have played in the rising prevalence of this behavior. Arienne Ferchaud, recognizing that this behavior did not spring, fully formed, from streaming services, ties cultural approaches to binge watching with media psychology-oriented theories, including the concept of '93bingeability'94'97the likelihood that a specific sow will be binge watched'97alongside the psychological impacts binge watching may have on viewers over time. Scholars of media studies, television studies, sociology, cultural studies, and psychology will find this book particularly useful.

Critical Media Effects Framework by Dr. Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian

Please congratulate our very own Srivi Ramasubramanian for her new theory published in the Journal of Communication: Critical Media Effects Framework: Bridging Critical Cultural Communication and Media Effects through Power, Intersectionality, Context, and Agency

 In this essay, we advance the Critical Media Effects (CME) framework as a way of bridging two major subfields of communication that seldom speak to one another: media effects scholarship and critical cultural communication. Critical Media Effects is situated within the dominant mode of social scientific theorizing within media effects scholarship and draws on four key interrelated concepts from critical cultural communication: power, intersectionality, context, and agency. Critical Media Effects advocates for greater reflexivity, rigor, and nuance in theorizing about media effects to better respond to the complexity and dynamicity of emerging global sociopolitical mediated contexts. Recommendations, salient examples, and future directions for co-creating a shared research roadmap for CME are discussed. Through this work of bridging, we hope to promote more collaborative partnerships, productive engagement, and mutual solidarity across these two important subfields to address the most pressing social issues and challenges of the world today.

Other News

Legislative Assembly Report   

 The LA met remotely on November 18, 2020 from 12 -2:25 pm. LA Reps for MCD included: David Rhea (Chair), Lissa Behm-Morawitz (Immediate Past Chair), and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey (LA Rep)

Highlights from NCA Sub-Committees  

Diversity Council: Established in 2019 in reaction to the Distinguished Scholars Award controversy, 2020 marked the second year the Diversity Council sponsored programming slots at NCA. In recognition of the council'92s expanding goals, the council proposed changing their name to the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Council. That motion was approved.

 Publications Council: This will be a big year for recruiting incoming editors for NCA journals. NCA is looking for editors for the following: Communication Monographs, Communication Teacher, Critical Studies in Media Communication, First Amendment Studies, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Review of Communication. If you would like to be considered, or if you would like MCD to nominate someone to any of these journals, please let David Rhea know (DRhea@govst.edu).

 Research Council: A new grant program, called Research Cultivation Grants, will be of interest to many MCD members. The program is designed for first-time grant seekers '96 look for the call next spring.

 Teaching and Learning Council: The council has put together an excellent resource page for online teaching. https://www.natcom.org/academic-professional-resources/teaching-and-learning/classroom/online-learning-resources.

 Financial Report: The NCA budget will be slightly lower than last year, from $3.1 million in 2020 to $2.9 million in 2021, mostly in response to not collecting convention registration fees. But no changes to fee structures or expenditures were introduced.

New Business: 

 The major item of new business was the proposal to establish an Indigenous Caucus for Indigenous individuals, allies of Indigenous individuals, and researchers of Indigenous issues and communities. The proposal was approved with MCD reps voting in favor. NCA now has an Indigenous Caucus.

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Dr. Srividya Ramasubramanian

College Station, TX --  Dr. Srividya '93Srivi'94 Ramasubramanian is Presidential Impact Fellow and Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University, where she is also the Founding Director of the Difficult Dialogues Project.

 She is also Co-Founder of Media Rise, a nonprofit for meaningful media that brings together media educators with industry professionals, activists, policymakers, and community leaders.

GK: First and foremost, congratulations on your new theory! Can you tell us about it?

SR: Thank you! The new theory is the Critical Media Effects Framework, which was published in the Journal of Communication with my co-author Dr. Omotayo Banjo. Against the backdrop of rising fascism, anti-Black racism, political polarization, and intergroup violence, I felt that media effects scholarship needs to take a more critical and social justice orientation. As an immigrant women of color social scientist, traditional media effects theories did not fully speak to my experiences within the discipline. As a part of the #CommunicationSoWhite movement, I felt inspired to bring in critical concepts such as power, intersectionality, context, and agency into media effects research. More on the story behind the theory is here in my blog.

GK:  We also heard that you have a new book coming out soon? What is it about?

SR: We are excited about our new book. It'92s now available for pre-ordering. If you teach research methods, please consider getting an inspection copy. It'92s called '93Quantitative Research Methods in Communication: The Power of Numbers for Social Justice,'94 by Dr. Erica Scharrer and I, published by Routledge. This textbook is for advanced undergraduate courses or grad courses on methods. It has all the nuts and bolts of usual methods books such as research design, measurement, sampling, statistical analyses, how to use SPSS, and so on. However, it incorporates a more critical perspective from social justice scholarship. For example, we also include information on best practices for more inclusive sampling, ways to build partnerships and community-based research initiatives, action-based research, intervention research, cross-cultural surveys, and mixed methods that combine quantitative research with qualitative approaches such as ethnography, textual analysis, focus groups, and arts-based research.

GK: Black Lives Matter has been an incredibly powerful and important message, how does your research incorporate into the narrative?

SR: To me Black Lives Matter. This is reflected in all my research, mentoring, teaching, and community engagement. Beyond hashtagging #BLM in social media, we need structural changes within our institutions, discipline, and professional organizations to make the lives of Black faculty, students, and staff matter. I have curated readings and resources on this topic through my blog and also through the Difficult Dialogue initiative.

GK: Some of your research focuses on Islamophobia and media, can you expand on this?

SR: Religion and spirituality are under-studied areas within mass communication. Given my own positionality as a religious minority beyond being an immigrant and a woman of color in the academe, this gap was obvious to me. Therefore, I have been writing recently about not just Muslims and Islamophobia, but more broadly about critical religious perspectives by drawing on mindfulness, yoga, Buddhism, and other faith systems to connect that to media content, use, and effects.

GK: Per your research, you mention goal-based approaches on dialogues to combat racism, what can we do as scholars to better facilitate this important message?

SR: That'92s right. As a response to a racist incident on my campus in early 2016, I founded the Difficult Dialogues Project, through which I have now conducted close to 30 antiracism workshops. We use a small group, facilitated conversation format to discuss about racial microaggressions and ways to combat them. It is open to any student, faculty, or staff at our campus.

GK: How can we utilize things like media literacy to further facilitate things like civic engagement?

SR: Media literacy is often seen as skill development in the U.S., especially in formal learning environments. Taking a more critical approach, media literacy can be powerful in civic engagement, public scholarship, and community-based initiatives for social good. This should be emphasized and inculcated in formal and informal learning spaces.

GK: I like the conversation about media literacy. Where do you see this field going with adolescents being better educated about media patterns?

SR: We need to equip adolescents with media literacy skills to be able to pause, question, and analyze media content that they consume, share, and create. Online spaces make it easy to bully, harass, alienate, and '93Other'94 some kids. At the same time, they can also create a sense of community and belongingness. If diversity, inclusion, empathy, and civic engagement are not integrated with media literacy, then we will end up exacerbating existing social inequalities.

GK: Any projects in the upcoming future you are excited about?

SR: I am excited for the future of our discipline. All my research involves junior faculty and grad students from minoritized groups. I am working with two dozen research teams on various topics related to media, diversity and social justice around the world. I am currently working on an international grant project with the National Association for Media Literacy Education. I have also recently started my new role as Associate Editor for the Psychology of Popular Media. As for my non-profit, Media Rise, this summer I curated an online blog series called '93Quarantined Across Borders'94 and am co-editing a special online issue for the Journal of Applied Comm from this collection. I am also excited to be an affiliate with the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies as well as continuing with the Media & Diversity Center.

GK: Any last notes you'92d like to talk about that has not been covered?

SR: I am grateful to the Mass Comm Division for giving me the opportunity to serve NCA for almost two decades now in various roles from nominations committee to Research Chair to Division Chair and Legislative Assembly Representative. Even as I am now involved in nine editorial boards, various other divisions, and have taken on broader leadership roles at NCA, ICA and at SACA, the Mass Comm Division will always remain my home at NCA.

GK: Will do! Thank you for your time! 

SR : Thank you!

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NCA MCD OFFICERS

2020-2021 MCD Officers Chair Laramie Taylor University of California - Davis Communication Department 396 Ker Hall  Davis, CA 95616  lartaylor@ucdavis.edu Vice-Chair Valerie Kretz St. Norbert College  Department of Communication 100 Grand Street, Boyle Hall 332, De Per, WI 54115  valerie.kretz@snc.edu Vice Chair-Elect / Ad-Hoc Awards Veronica Hefner   St. Mary's College - California School of Liberal Arts - Communication  105J Sichel, Moraga, CA 94575 vh10@stmarys-ca.edu Past Chair David Rhea  Governors State University Communication Program One University Parkway, University Park, IL 60484 drhea@govst.edu Secretary Ashton Speno Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville Department of Mass Communication 1017 Dunham Hall Edwardsville, IL 62025 aspeno@suie.edu Secretary-Elect Kristin Drogos  University of Michigan - Ann Arbor LSA Communication & Media 7415F North Quad, 105 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 kdro@umich.edu Publications & Web Editor (Position through 2019-2021) Emory S. Daniel Jr. Appalachian State University Department of Communication 121 Bodenheimer Dr. Boone, NC 28607 danieles@appstate.edu Graduate Student Rep. Lindsay Roberts University of Califonia - Davis Communication Department 469 Ker Hall Davis, CA 95616 laroberts@ucdavis.edu Ad-Hoc Appointment - Group Parliamentarian Shane Tilton Ohio Northern University Department of Communication Freed PAC 137 Ada, OH 45810 s-tilton@onu.edu Graduate Student Rep. - Elect Lauren Taylor University of California - Davis Communication Department 469 Ker Hall Davis, CA 95616 lautaylor@ucdavis.edu Research Committee Committee Chair Lisa Glebatis Perks  Merrimack College 315 Turnpike St. Cushing Building North Andover, MA 01845   perksl@merrimack.edu  First Vice-Chair Joseph Hoffswell  Wetern Kentucky University Department of Communication FAC 145 Bowling Green, KY 42101 joseph.hoffswell@wku.edu  Second Vice-Chair Arienne Ferchaud  Florida State University College of Communication & Information 4100 University Center, Building C Talahassee, FL 32306  aferchaud@fsu.edu  Second Vice-Chair - Elect David Stamps  Louisiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication 252 Hodges Hall Baton Rouge, LA 70803  dstamps@lsu.edu  Nominations Committee Committee Chair Hillary Gamble  Auburn Universiy - Montgomery Communication & Theatre 7430 East Drive Montgomery, AL 36117 hgamable@aum.edu  Vice Chair Colin Kearney  Bellarmine University Department of Communication 2001 Newburg Rd  Lousiville, KY 40205   ckearney@bellarmine.edu  Vice Chair-Elect Benjamin K. Smith  California State University - East Bay Department of Communication 3011 Meiklejohn Hall  Hayward, CA 94542   benjamin.smith@csueastbay.edu  Nominations Committee - Representitive Jeanette Ruiz University of California - Davis Communication Department 364 Kerr Hall, 1 Shields Ave, Davis CA 95616 jbruiz@ucdavis.edu Representatives to NCA General Assembly Legislative Assembly (Position through 2019-2020)   Stan Tickton Norfolk State University Mass Communication/Journalism 700 Park Ave., Unit 3249 Norfolk, Virginia 23504 sdtickton@hotmail.com Legislative Assembly (Position through 2020-2021) Jennifer Stevens Aubrey The University of Arizona College of Human & Behavioral Sciences  Communication 218 Tuscan, AZ 85721 jlsa@arizona.edu  <<back to top>>