Communication - April, 2004
from Jerry Baldasty, chair

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Upcoming Events

Wednesday, April 21.
Walker Ames Lecturer Michael Schudson,
“The Ideal of ‘the Informed Citizen’ –- Why the Founders Didn’t Encourage It, Why the Progressive Era Did, and Why We Should Move Beyond It If We Dare.”

7 p.m., Kane Hall 120.

The Department is the lead sponsor for this lecturer. Thanks to Patricia Moy for her work in organizing Professor Schudson’s visit.

Friday and Saturday, April 23 and 24.
Voice and Citizenship: Re-thinking Theory and Practice in Political Communication.

The Department is sponsoring a two-day conference in political communication, with generous support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Earl and Edna Stice Lectureship in Social Science. Our guests include some of the leading political communication scholars in the country – including Michael Schudson, Vincent Price, Shanto Iyengar, Dhavan Shah, Jarol Manheim and Dietram Scheufele. Many thanks to our colleagues who have worked so hard on organizing the conference – Patricia Moy, John Gastil, Phil Howard, Lance Bennett, Kirsten Foot and particularly Dave Domke. Thanks, too, to Victoria Sprang, Eunice Yang and Nancy Dosmann for their support.

Saturday, May 15.
Laura Crowell Fund Run
Please join faculty, students, staff and friends for the annual Laura Crowell Fund Run on Saturday May 15.

Faculty and graduate student research
-- conference papers for spring 2004

International Communication Association

Kirsten Foot, “Web Sphere Analysis: An Approach for Studying Online Action” with Steven M. Schneider

Phil Howard, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World: Lessons from Three Projects
Patricia Moy, “Political effects of infotainment: Priming the last-night audience”

Giorgia Aiello, “The MEDIA Programme and the construction of a Unitary European Audiovisual Identity” and “Seattle’s Pike Place Market (de)constructed. An analysis of tourist narratives about a public space” with Irina Gendelman

Ted Coopman, “In Search of Dissentworks: Charting Emergent Resistance Networks”
“Obey Little, Resist Much; Dissent Networks and Distributed Resistance”

Natalie Debray, “French or Foe? Media Routines and the Fueling of Anti-French Sentiment”

Meghan Dougherty, “Collective constructions of Campaign Web Sites: Adapting content Analysis for Understanding the Structure of the Web”

Irina Gendelman, “Communication and Broken Windows: Graffiti Debates” “Seattle’s Pike Place Market (de) constructed: An analysis of tourist narratives about a public space” with Giorgia Aiello

Erica Graham, “The Policy Web: Construction: Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, and Justification Rhetoric of the Bush Administration”

Verena Hess, “Political effects of Infotainment: Priming the late night audience” with Patricia Moy and Mike Xenos

Sue Lockett John, “From September to Saddam: George W. Bush, strategic Communications, and the War on Terrorism”

Adrienne Massanari, “I hate my teachers”: Freedom of expression and public school students’ Websites”

Melissa Meade, “Broadcasting Femininity: The ‘All-Girl Radio’ of WHER-AM”

Clifford Tatum, “Comparative Spatiality: Underground Art in Cyberspace” and a High Density Panel: “Is there a there here? Cultural Resistance in Cyberspace”

Rhetoric Society of America

Leah Ceccarelli, “Celeste Condit and the Rhetoric of Discursive Formations”
“Applying Theory to Criticism”

WAPOR/AAPOR (World Association for Public Opinion Research/American Association for Public Opinion Research)

Patricia Moy, “Communication and citizenship: Mapping the terrain of political communication effects (with Verena Hess and Mike Xenos).

Save the Date
– Thursday, May 6.

Professor Bob McChesney – an alumnus of the department and now a professor at the University of Illinois – will speak on campus on Thursday, May 6 at 2:30 or 3:30. Room and exact time to be announced later.

Bob is founder, President and board chair of Free Press (www.mediareform.net) and author or editor of nine books including the ward-winning Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle For the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy, and, with Edward S. Herman, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. McChesney's most recent books are the newly released The Problem of The Media, multiple award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times and, with John Nichols, Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic and capitalist societies. McChesney is presently at work on his ninth and tenth books including The Big Picture: Understanding Media Through Political Economy, written with John Bellamy Foster to be published in 2003 by Monthly Review Press.

People, Programs

Melissa Meade has accepted a position as assistant professor of humanities at Colby-Sawyer College (in New Hampshire). She describes the school as “a progressive liberal arts school.”

The Dart Center has received a grant to support its second seminar on "Teaching about Emotions" from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, of Oklahoma City, Okla. The journalism department at University of Central Oklahoma, chaired by Terry Clark, has offered to co-host the meeting with the Dart Center. The seminar is tentatively planned for September on the Edmond, OK, campus. The Center will again offer travel and housing subsidy up to $500 for interested U.S. journalism educators. Congratulations to Dart Center Director Roger Simpson and our colleagues at the center.

The Dart Center is also sponsoring a program in New York City on April 14. The $10,000 Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence will be awarded to the Providence, Rhode Island, Journal for its article called "Rape in a Small Town." Both the Providence paper and the honorable mention Seattle Post-Intelligencer will be represented. The awards will be followed by a panel on the impact of violent images in media on society, both here and abroad. Panelists include: Mary Anne Golon, picture editor, Time magazine; Abderrahim Foukara, UN Correspondent, Al Jazeera; Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, psychiatrist and author; David Gelber, executive producer at CBS; John Hockenberry, correspondent, Dateline NBC (moderator).The panel is at 6:30-8 p.m., April 14, at City University of New York, Graduate Center Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York.

University Relations and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, sponsored a reception April 2 at Gerberding Hall’s first floor lobby in honor of a new showcase of Recognition Award recipients. Photos of the 2003 award recipients have been on display – including Communication faculty member Lisa Coutu (a winner of the 2003 Distinguished Teaching Award) and Communication Adjunct Faculty member Rick Bonus (from American Ethnic Studies, also a Distinguished Teaching Award winner).

The Rhetoric and Critical Studies Reading Group is now two years old. It started in Summer of 2002 because a few graduate students wanted to read and discuss works by Michel Foucault and Kenneth Burke. That summer the group, including 4-5 graduate students and 1-2 professors, read two books by Burke and one by Foucault. At the end of the summer they decided to continue the group, but shift our focus to reading journal articles.

The group’s goals: to keep up with current journal articles, read about topics that interest group members, and explore the area of rhetoric and critical studies outside of the classroom setting. The group includes graduate students and professors and ranges from 5-12 participants each meeting. The group meets a few times each quarter (as many as once a month). Reading selections rotate through the group. Because of group membership, the focus has been more on rhetorical studies, but group members have indicated that they would be very happy to expand to discuss other critical studies. A few past topics include: a forum on the rhetoric of evil, feminist criticism, comparing rhetorical and critical approaches in two articles, and presidential rhetoric. For more information, contact Danielle Endres (dendres@u.washington.edu)

The September Project (TSP) continues to move along; David Silver has been productively engaged in building this project. He has met with numerous potential partners and supporters -- including Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com, the software that, among other things, is credited with Howard Dean’s early success in fostering support groups around the country. He has agreed to be a partner and has offered the project 16,000 meetup programs, the number of public libraries in the US. David is in communication with Ian Rowe, a VP at MTV in the public affairs area. David and his colleagues on TSP are eager to work with MTV’s Rock the Vote in order to tailor our voter registration efforts to, among other groups, youth. Nancy Mickley, a manager at the Gates Foundation and a member of the TSP National Board, has offered to personally contact all 50 state librarians about the project, and has offered introductions and help spreading the word to countless librarians across the country. Another National Board member, Nancy Pearl, is working tirelessly to offer suggestions on the project, introductions to important library people, and enthusiastically spreading the word through library channels, such as state conferences.

David also reports that there’s a new TSP web site: www.theseptemberproject.org It has many features, including a digitized map of all participating libraries that will visually represent momentum.

David and his colleagues recently submitted a Public Humanities: Engaging the Community grant. He states, “If awarded, the grant will allow us to do four things on a local level: 1) Organize UW faculty, staff, and graduate students to participate on September 10th, 11th, and 12th in a series of events distributed across 63 Seattle Public and King County Libraries; 2) With help from Native Voices, document – through film, web streaming, and other digital means – a portion of the events; 3) Design a media strategy that places participants and their ideas and perspectives into media discourse; and 4) Sponsor at least two major thinkers for a speaker series sponsored by the Seattle Public Libraries and taking place at the Central Library.”

A coordinating committee for The September Project – Santa Cruz will meet April 26, 2004. The following groups will be represented: Santa Cruz Central Library, UCSC libraries, Cabrillo Community College, the ACLU-Santa Cruz, Barrio Unidos, members of the city council, the former mayor, firefighters, local news journalists, the NAACP, the Resource Center for Non-Violence, and the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom-Santa Cruz (and national chapter). Sarah and I will be in attendance.

Please see David for further updates; the project is growing quickly. David is eager for advice, too, from faculty and graduate students – so please see him if you would like to discuss TSP further.

Dave Domke gave a lecture March 18 at Seattle’s Town Hall as part of the UW Alumni Association/College of Arts and Sciences’ lecture series on politics. Dave’s talk was “God Willing? Religious Fundamentalism, the ‘War on Terror’ and an Echoing Press.”

Jerry Baldasty, a member of the GO-MAP faculty/student advisory board, appeared on Friday, April 9, on KUOW Radio (with Graduate School Associate Dean Johnnella Butler) to promote diversity in graduate education. Jerry is also serving on two new committees --- the UW Alumni Association’s new advisory committee on diversity and alumni publications and on the fifth-year review for the Dean of the UW School of Nursing.

[Download a Microsoft Word version of the April, 2004 "Communication"]