Communication - March, 2005
from Jerry Baldasty, chair

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Save the Date

March 10-11. Visit by Dr. Lisa Flores. March 10, 3:30 to 5 p.m., Colloquium, Room 126. “California’s Racial Privacy Initiative and the Shifting Grounds of Racial Politics”

March 14-15. Visit by Dr. Radhika Parameswaran. March 14, 3:30 to 5 p.m., Colloquium, Room 126. "Global Queens, National Celebrities: Tales of Feminine Empowerment in Post-Liberalization India"

April 4. Mavin Foundation: Generation Mix National Awareness Tour. Department of Communication co-sponsor of UW campus kickoff.

April 13. 3:30 p.m. Colloquium by Professor Gina Neff. Room 126 Communications.

April 13. 5:30 p.m. Dart Professorship inauguration. Walker-Ames Room, Kane Hall.

April 20. Danz Lecture: Noam Chomsky. Reception 5:30-7p.m., with alumni, friends. Short presentations by Lance Bennett and Crispin Thurlow. Room 126 Communications.

April 22. “Back to the Future” – Alumni event in the Department of Communication, 5-8 p.m., including three major activities: “Speed Lectures” by faculty and alumni, Alumni Networking, and a Daily reunion.

May 2. Walker Ames Lecture: Jose van Dijck. Reception 5:30-7p.m., with alumni, friends. Short presentation by Leah Ceccarelli. Room 126 Communications.

May 5. Scheidel Lecture. Professor Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania. 5:30 p.m.

May 14. Laura Crowell Fund Run at Green Lake.

May 17. College of Arts and Sciences. Celebration of Distinction.

May 26. Department Scholarship Award Ceremony. 3 to 5 p.m., University of Washington Club.

June 2. Excellence in Communication, 7-9 p.m., Kane 210. Nyquist and Pioneer Newspapers Awards.

June 9. Graduate Student Recognition. 3:30 to 4:30, Communications 126.

June 10. Department Graduation, HUB Ballroom, 12:30 to 3 p.m. Assunta Ng, Distinguished Alumna, keynote speaker.

June 10. Book event at University Book Store. Alumnus Robert Merry, president and publisher of Congressional Quarterly, will read from his new book, Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy and the Hazards of Global Ambition. 7 p.m.

Laura Crowell Fund

Faculty and staff contributed $4,065 to the Crowell Fund in Autumn 2005; with the generous match from the College, we raised $8,130 for graduate student travel and research. Many thanks to all who contributed; these contributions provide vital support for our graduate students. Contributors included: Lance Bennett, Leah Ceccarelli, Lisa Coutu, Nancy Dosmann, Kathleen Fearn Banks, Patty Fortine, Tony Giffard, Mike Henderson, Deborah Kaplan, Richard Kielbowicz, Valerie Manusov, Patricia Moy, Gerry Philipsen, Karen Rathe, Roger Simpson, Victoria Sprang, Crispin Thurlow, Barbara Warnick and Jerry Baldasty.

The next Crowell event is the Fun Run on Saturday May 14. Please plan to join us then. The event planning team includes graduate student April Peterson and undergraduates Cristina Brendicke, Dana Love. Dylan King, Sarah Lippman and Stephany Rochon.

Cressey Professorship

Dean David Hodge has appointed, and the Provost has approved, Patricia Moy as the first Christy Cressey Professor in Communication. The inauguration of the professorship, with a lecture and reception, will occur in Autumn Quarter, 2005.

The Cressey professorship, donated to the Department by UW alumni Christy and Bryan Cressey, is designed to honor faulty who “have demonstrated, through professional activities, expertise in the field of Communication.”

Patricia Moy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. Since joining the UW faculty in 1998, she has taught undergraduate and graduate classes in public opinion, media effects, communication theory, and methodology and statistics.

A political communication scholar whose work is recognized nationally and internationally, Moy conducts research that underscores the centrality of communication in a democratic system. She examines how the mass media affect public opinion and political attitudes, influence citizens’ ways of thinking and deliberating about issues, and shape their political and civic behavior. She has studied communication phenomena in numerous social and political contexts, including the World Trade Organization protests, Y2K, crime policy proposals, religion, affirmative action, and a labor union strike. Moy’s research has appeared in leading communication journals, including Communication Research, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Political Communication. Her book, With Malice Toward All? The Media and Public Confidence in Democratic Institutions (Praeger, 2000, with Michael Pfau), investigates the role that traditional and nontraditional news sources (such as political talk radio and late-night comedy) play in shaping audience members’ trust in government.

Moy is an active member in the field’s professional organizations. She currently is Vice-Chair of the International Communication Association’s Political Communication Division. She has served on the Executive Councils of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the World Association for Public Opinion Research, and as head of the Communication Theory and Methodology Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Moy sits on the editorial boards of Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Mass Communication & Society, and Public Opinion Quarterly (as Book Reviews Editor). She also has served as Book Reviews Editor for the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

Moy earned her Ph.D. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her B.S. and M.S. in Communication at Cornell University. From 1991 to 1994, she worked as an analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, studying media and public opinion in the former Soviet Union.

Christy Cressey studied French and Editorial Journalism at the University of Washington, earning her a Bachelor of Arts in 1977. Her journalistic career involved weekly newspapers, aside from short stints in advertising and public relations. Her work involved reporting, photojournalism, and proofreading for The Winchester Star in Winchester, Massachusetts. In Illinois, she wrote as a staff writer for the Pioneer Press newspapers. Her responsibilities were primarily with the Elm Leaves, the Forest Leaves, and the Oak Leaves, serving the communities of Elmwood Park, River Forest, and Oak Park respectively. She also worked as a stringer for the Lerner Newspapers in Chicago.

In addition to spending two and a half years renovating a Chicago 1894 Victorian single-family cottage, located 525 feet from Wrigley Field’s home plate, Christy chaired the No Lights in Wrigley Field Campaign, euphemistically named C.U.B.S. (Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine). As part of that civic effort, she was also actively involved in East Lake View Neighbors and Lake View Citizens Council.

After moving to the Barrington Hills countryside to raise their three daughters, Monique, Charlotte, and Alicia, Christy and Bryan took up land conservation. They currently reside at Cresswood Farm. Through the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Christy has served as a trustee for Episcopal Charities and has played an active role with Cathedral Shelter, an agency on Chicago’s near west side providing housing and other support to those wishing help with addictions. She also serves as a member of the Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She and Bryan served as Co-chairs of the Parents Council at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Other news

The Seattle Times (February 18, 2005) carried an article “Seattle’s packed with Wi-Fi spots” featuring Phil Howard and his class. According to the Times, Phil “sent his class of 100 students downtown recently to map the city’s wireless landscape by locating as many Internet access points as possible. What they found was a city practically oozing with geekiness. Within two square miles of Seattle’s downtown core, they located thousands of wireless networks. Their work helped produce a map showing the details of 5,225 networks in the city.”

Kristi Heim, a Times business reporter, wrote:
“Howard says his month-long project was aimed at giving students hands-experience learning about the role of new media technologies. It also revealed some interesting details about the culture of wireless activity in Seattle. Besides illustrating the general explosion in wireless networks, students found that more than half of the networks in the city were open, meaning people paying for them didn’t bother to restrict their access with a password or deliberately kept them open.

“There’s clearly a lot of people who’ve decided to share their connection, even if it’s just 100 meters outside their living room window,” Howard said. “Enough of these overlapping access points creates a very wired city.

“Students found that a number of Seattle residents seemed to want to share their Internet connections but discourage malicious activity. They changed the names of their wireless networks to phrases like ‘Open to share, no porn please’ or ‘free access, be nice.’”

The Department is a supporter of the First Nations at the UW Annual Spring Powwow.

Gerry Philipsen has received honorable mention – for the second consecutive year – from the Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award selection committee. Congratulations, Gerry.

Olympia Legislative Reporting Internship

We asked Mike Henderson to report on the Olympia program. He writes:

The Department of Communication Olympia Legislature Reporting Program is in its fourth decade and it continues to flourish. Many past participants are working for various news organizations around the world. Students who participate in the program live in Olympia during Winter Quarter and work fulltime for their newspapers. Participating papers typically are among the largest and most influential in the Northwest. For some of them, the UW intern is the only reporter covering the Legislature.

During my four years as supervisor of the program, there have been as few as five participants and as many as nine, which is the number this year. Students must have at least taken our advanced-reporting course in order to qualify, but most students also will have taken our beyond-advanced required course called News Lab/Community Journalism. For the latter course, students produce stories that appear in community papers in and around Seattle.

Participants this year are:

Kyle Arnold, who has been a mainstay for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. On Feb. 23, for example, Arnold had a page-one P-I piece about weather-related problems in the Northwest. He also has covered legislative higher-education issues.

Christina Siderius, who will be Editor in Chief of the UW Daily next quarter, has been very active with The Seattle Times, producing a number of in-depth stories this quarter.

Lara Bain is the reporter assigned to The Herald (Everett). Her editors like her work so much that they have offered her paid full-time summer employment. She will graduate next quarter after having been the Department of Communication Spring Quarter intern with The Seattle Times (an exchange program in which the Times also sends us working professionals to help teach our skills courses).

Brian Turner also has impressed his Oregonian editors enough so that they have gotten him to stay on after the quarter to cover more legislative activity.

Amy Rolph has perhaps the most demanding assignment: The Olympian newspaper of Olympia, the state capitol. Amy is obliged to produce news stories virtually every weekday of the 10-week quarter, and her editors say she has risen to the challenge.

Garrett McCulloch (Bremerton Sun) has been getting a lot of bylines, many of them on page one.

Those working for papers farther away face the challenges of keeping apprised of issues that concern and interest their readers. Travis Hay (The Spokane Spokesman-Review), Phillip Thomas-Smith (The Skagit Valley Herald) and Jason Siegel (The Lewiston Tribune) all have responded well to their editors’ needs.

Already I have heard from a number of our journalism majors about their interest in next year’s program. My greatest challenge is trying to make sure we attract the same number of qualified students as the number of host newspapers. Fortunately this has been the case the past four years.

Foreign Intrigue Journalism Scholarship

The first recipient of the Foreign Intrigue Journalism Scholarship is Karen Johnson. Karen is a double major in Communication (Journalism) and International Studies (with an emphasis on foreign policy, diplomacy, peace and security). Karen will be working at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh for two months this summer.

Established by a UW Journalism alum, the Foreign Intrigue Journalism Scholarship provides financial support for a journalism student to work as a intern reporter at a foreign newspaper and to travel after the internship. The donor’s goal is to give journalism students an exposure to another culture and a more thorough understanding of journalism and culture.

Karen, a graduate of Bethel High School (where she became interested in journalism and served as editor of the SPJ award-winning newspaper, Brave Talk), is interested in journalism and political and economic theory. She plans to work at a foreign newspaper for a year or two after graduation (Spring, '06), then hopes to attend graduate school to continue her journalism studies. She has written for The Daily, the Department of Sociology newsletter and for Columns (The UW alumni magazine), The Northwest Asian Weekly, The Ballard News Tribune, The North Seattle Herald Outlook, and The Beacon Hill and South Seattle Journal. She is a member of Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. Her personal interests include snowboarding, music, cinema, literature, learning the Korean language and travel.

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