UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.— The expertise and insights of researchers from the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications will once again be a major part of the annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. This year’s conference runs from Aug. 7-10 in Washington, D.C.
Thirteen Bellisario College faculty members and 18 graduate students, as well as numerous alumni of the program, will take part in panels, presentations, sessions, workshops and more during the four-day conference.
Members of the researchers appear throughout the event’s agenda showcasing the Bellisario College’s breadth of expertise in a wide range of topics, including advocacy; artificial intelligence; digital media; education; ethics; health, political and science communication; privacy; social issues and more. Penn State and the Bellisario College have a long history with AEJMC and have been active members for many years.
Benjamin Cramer, teaching professor of telecommunications and media industries, received a second place faculty paper award for AEJMC's Law & Policy Division. Cramer's paper is called "Polluters anonymous: How exemptions to the freedom of information act contradict American environmental law."
Stephanie Madden, assistant professor of advertising/public relations, received a second place award from AEJMC's Public Relations Division that recognizes exceptional teaching and work in the classroom.
Holly Overton, associate professor of advertising/public relations, is the head of AEJMC’s Public Relations Division. She has served in leadership roles for the division since 2014. Last year, she was named a Jennifer H. McGill Fellow, which is part of AEJMC’s Institute for Diverse Leadership.
A research paper by a team of Bellisario College alumni and faculty members received first-place designation from ComSHER: Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk; a division within AEJMC. The study, “Re-routing persuasion: How conversion messages boost attitudes and reduce resistance among holdouts unvaccinated for COVID-19,” was written by Bellisario College doctoral alumni Jeff Conlin, assistant professor at the University of Kansas, and Sushma Kumble, assistant professor at Towson University; and faculty members Michelle Baker, assistant teaching professor, and Fuyuan Shen, professor of advertising/public relations.
Lana Medina, a doctoral student in the Bellisario College, received the Carol Burnett Award for Graduate Students. Her study, “Moral imagination in journalistic narratives: A question of moral obligation,” won second place. The Carol Burnett Award supports and promotes graduate students that have an interest in media ethics.
Doctoral student Ryan Wang's study, titled "The geography of newspaper circulations: A spatial taxonomy of 'news(paper) deserts' in the United States," received first place from the AEJMC Newspaper and Online News Division's MacDougall Student Paper Award.
Yin Yang, doctoral student, received the Diversity and Inclusion Development Fellowship from AEJMC’s Mass Communication and Society Division. Doctoral student Cassandra Troy is on the graduate student committee of the ComSHER division.
During AEJMC’s preconference on Aug. 6, the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication will hold its annual Research Roundtable. Scholars from universities around the world will gather to present their research on sustainability communication, which was funded by the Page Center in 2022. The Page Center is a research center in the Bellisario College and its primary objective is funding research that promotes ethics and responsibility in public communication. The Page Center is sponsoring AEJMC’s day of preconference events, which are being held throughout the day at Howard University.
The Page Center is also partnering with the Crisis Communication Think Tank at the University of Georgia. The effort, which will kick-off during AEJMC conference week, will support collaborative student research between the Page Center’s Graduate Student Lab Group and CCTT’s Crisis Insights & Analytics Lab.
Next year’s conference will be held Aug. 7-11, 2024, in Philadelphia.
AEJMC is a nonprofit organization of more than 3,700 educators, students and practitioners from around the globe. Founded in 1912 by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, the first president (1912-13) of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism, as it was then known, AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level.
AEJMC’s stated mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication, in an effort to achieve better professional practice, a better-informed public and wider human understanding.