Communication - January, 2006
from Jerry Baldasty, chair

Download a Microsoft Word version of the January, 2006 "Communication"

Research

Fearn Banks, Kathleen. Historical Dictionary of African American Television. Scarecrow Press, 2005.

Neff, Gina, Elizabeth Wissinger, and Sharon Zukin. (2005) “Entrepreneurial Labor among Cultural Producers: ‘Cool’ Jobs in ‘Hot’ Industries” Social Semiotics, 15,3 (Dec): 307-334.

Black, L. W. (2005). “Dialogue in the lecture hall: Teacher-student communication and students’ perceptions of their learning.” Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 6, 31-40.

Garrido, Maria & Roman, Raul. “Women Appropriating Information and Communication Technologies for Social Change in Latin America—A Contemporary Snapshot,” in Hafkin & Huyer (eds.) Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in Knowledge Society. Kumarian Press: Connecticut (in press).

Patricia Moy, Edith Manosevitch, Keith Stamm & Kate Dunsmore. (2005). “Linking Dimensions of Internet use and civic engagement.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(3) (forthcoming).

Aiello, Giorgia. (2005). Book review of “Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civic Society in Cyberspace.” (D. Schuler and P. Day, eds.). New Media & Society, 7: 582-584.

Docan, T. (2006). “Using Jenga® to teach system theory.” Communication Teacher, 20, 11-13.

Thurlow, C. & Aiello, G. (2006 forthcoming). “National pride, global capital: A social semiotic analysis of transnational visual branding in the airline industry.” Visual Communication.

Valerie Manusov just completed the Handbook of Nonverbal Communication, which she co-edited with social psychologist, Miles Patterson. Sage will publish it next year.

Domke, David. “Petitioners or prophets? Presidential discourse, God, and the ascendancy of religious conservatives.” Journal of Communication, accepted for publication Aug. 2005 (with former UW graduate student and current University of Illinois doctoral student Kevin Coe).

Domke, David. “Going public as political strategy: The Bush administration, an echoing press, and passage of the U.S.A. Patriot Act,” in press at Political Communication (with former UW graduate students Erica Graham and Kevin Coe, and current UW graduate students Sue Lockett John and Ted Coopman).

Kirsten Foot, Barbara Warnick & Steven M. Schneider. (2005, Oct.). “Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1).

Jun Young (PhD Student) & Kirsten Foot. (2005, Oct.). “Corporate E-Cruiting: The Construction of Work in Fortune 500 Recruiting Web Sites,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1).

Kathleen Fearn Banks is writing the third edition of her text, Crisis Communications: Casebook Approach.

Underwood, Doug. "The Problem with Paul: Seeds of the Culture Wars and the Dilemma for Journalists," accepted by the Journal of Media and Religion (in press); and "The Would-Be Novelist as Disgruntled Journalist: The Relationship between Literary Ambition and Journalists’ Job Satisfaction in the Newsroom," (co-author, Dana Bagwell) accepted by the Newspaper Research Journal. Doug has also had preliminary acceptance from the University of Illinois Press for his book on journalists as literary figures, titled The Truth, Mainly: Journalists as Novelists and the Pursuit of Truth in Fiction.

M. Spratt, C. Bullock, G. Baldasty, F. Clark, A. Halavais, M. McCluskey, and S. Schrenck, “News, Race, and the Status Quo: The Case of Emmett Louis Till,” accepted for publication by The Howard Journal of Communication.

Richard Kielbowicz completed entries on the telegraph and news, and the post office and press, for the Encyclopedia of American Journalism History to be published by Routledge.

Don Wulff recently completed a co-authored chapter with Maresi Nerad, Associate Dean in the Graduate School, on the use of formative evaluation in doctoral education. The chapter will be included in a volume on assessment at the doctoral level to be published by Stylus. Wulff, D. H., & Nerad, M. (In press). “The importance of formative evaluation in successful doctoral education.” In P. L. Maki & N. Borkowski (Eds.), Assessing learning at the doctoral level. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Crispin Thurlow's co-authored book Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Interne (2004, Sage) will be translated into Chinese (complex characters for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao) in 2006. Crispin is currently working on the first of two book projects concerned with understanding tourism and globalization from the unique perspective of language and communication studies. Tourism Discourse (Thurlow, Jaworski & Ylänne-McEwen) is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan for 2006; this will be followed by the more sociolinguistic Language, Tourism and Globalization (Jaworski, Thurlow et al.), contracted with Routledge and due for early 2007.

Milstein, Tema (2005). “Transformation Abroad: Sojourning and the Perceived Enhancement of Self-Efficacy.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations,29 (2), 217-238.

Conferences

Black, L. W. (2005). “Listening to the city: Storytelling, difference, and identity in online discussions about commemorating September 11th.” National Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Gastil, J., Black, L. W., Leighter, J., & Dees, P. (2005). “From group member to citizen: Measuring the impact of jury deliberation on citizen identity and civic norms.” National Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Black, L. W. (2005). “Getting started on your career in industry during graduate school.” Panelist on the Round Table Discussion, "Get Paid to Be a Group Communication Scholar: 15 Experts Evaluate the Health of the Discipline." National Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Moy, Patricia. “Frames and Sources in New York Times Coverage of Abu Ghraid,” with graduate students Andrea Hickerson and Kate Dunsmore. Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research.

Moy, Patricia. “Differential Effects of the Internet on Political Engagement,” with Michael Xenos. Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research.

Native Voices students Jon Tomhave and Rachel Nez have had their films, “Half of Anything,” and “The Border Crossed Us,” screened at festivals and conferences in recent months, including the 2005 IMAGe Nation Film Festival (Vancouver, B.C.), the 30th Annual American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco), and the Aboriginal Film Festival .

Native Voices graduate students Steffany Suttle and Teresa Powers presented papers and their films at the Southeast Native American Symposium at the University of Oklahoma.

Pasch, Tim. “Satellite Broadband in Nunavik as Catalyst for Inuit Web-Commerce.” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States on Nov. 18, 2005, in St. Louis, MO, in the panel entitled “Contemporary Inuit and the Future.”

Dunsmore, Kate. “Banning Canadian cows: A comparative study of US and Canadian news coverage.” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 18th Biennial Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, Nov. 2005.

Native Voices Co-Directors Luana Ross and Daniel Hart presented a paper at the Indigenous Professors Conference at the University of Kansas, entitled “Decolonizing Documentary: Indigenous Research in the Native Voices Center.” Daniel Hart and Native Voices grad Rosemary Gibbons, along with Native Voices graduate students Lyana Patrick, Alicia Woods, Teresa Powers, and Angelo Baca, presented two panels at the National Oral History Association Conference in Portland, OR, entitled “Decolonizing the Documentary: Oral History in UW Native Voices Program.”

Hickerson, Andrea, Patricia Moy & Kate Dunsmore. “Sanctioning torture: Power indexing in the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales.” Presented by Andrea Hickerson at the Midwest Association of Public Opinion Research conference in Chicago, Nov. 2005.

Ceccarelli, Leah. “A Rhetorical Prescription for Democrats,” National Communication Assocation. The paper was part of a panel titled, “Diagnosis Rhetoric: Public Symptoms and Symbolic Cures.” UW alumni on the panel were: James Janack, M. Lane Bruner, John C. Adams, Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp, Danielle Endres, Susan J. Balter-Reitz, Jennifer A. Peeples, and Jeffrey St. John.

Dunsmore, Kate. “Voices of African American Youth: Aspiration and Struggle.” Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association, 2005 Convention, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Oct. 2005.

Aiello, Giorgia & Crispin Thurlow. “Symbolic capitals: the politics of identity and the production of culture in the visual discourse of the European Capital of Culture scheme,” presented at the 6th annual conference of the International Association for Language and Intercultural Communication, Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 9-12, 2005.

Gendelman, Irina & Aiello, Giorgia. “Slow Food as a new social movement: a global resistance to Fast Food culture through symbolic production”. Paper part of the refereed panel session, “Discourse and the politics of resistance.” Critical and Cultural Studies Division, National Communication Association. Boston, MA, Nov. 17-20,2005.

Aiello, Giorgia and Gendelman, Irina. “Narrative Analysis and oral history: an approach to the study of multimodal texts.” Refereed paper, Semiotics and Communication Division, National Communication Association, Boston, MA, Nov. 17-20, 2005.
Warnick, Barbara “Online Credibility as a Field Dependent Construct" in the Human Communication and Technology Division, National Communication Association.

Warnick, Barbara. “Examining Online Public Discourse: Some Modest, Post-Millennial Proposals,” for the Communication as Humanistic Inquiry Initiative Meeting, National Communication Association. Barbara also participated in three other NCA panels.

Andrea Hickerson presented a paper entitled “The Kurds of Southern Kurdistan: Kurdish opinion on American intervention in Iraq,” at the Ethnic Studies panel for the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Oct. 17-19. Her presentation has been nominated for the Charles Davis Award for best conference presentation by a graduate student. (The winner is announced early next year.)

Mary Lynn Veden was awarded the $1000 Golden Outstanding Student Essay in Rhetoric from the Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company and St. Louis University for her paper, “Rewriting Reality, Resisting Authority: A Rhetorical Reading of ‘Realistic Style’ in the 2002 ‘Leaked’ Alberto Gonzales Memorandum to President George W. Bush.” The winning essay was chosen for its contribution to the understanding of rhetorical process and outcomes, for excellence of conception and grounding, for weight of argument, strength of evidence, and eloquence of expression.

Bennett, Lance. “One Step Flow of Communication," presented at a Columbia University conference marking the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Katz & Lazarsfeld's book Personal Influence.

Tony Giffard. "Five Views on Development: How News Agencies Cover the Millennium Development Goals," International Media Seminar, Florence, Italy, Oct. 27-28, 2005. The conference, which drew some 250 representatives of the European Union, United Nations and international non-government organizations, focused on sustainable development programs in the global South. Giffard's paper, co-authored with graduate student Nancy van Leuven and assisted by a team of undergraduate researchers, analyzed coverage of the UN Millennium Development Goals by five international news agencies. The conference session--at which Tony was a keynote speaker—was organized by the Inter Press Service International Support Group with backing of the Italian Directorate General for Development Cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Tuscany Region, and the Municipality of Florence.

Don Wulff participated in two panels on instructional development at the annual conference of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education held in Milwaukee in October. “Faculty Perspectives on the Process of Instructional Change, ” Panel chair, session presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD), Milwaukee, WI, October, 2005. (with D. Burstyn & D. McManus); “Faculty Development: Exploring Possibilities, Engaging Ideas, and Creating the Future,” Panel presented at the 30th annual Conference of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD), Milwaukee, WI, October, 2005. (with A. Austin, T. Cooper, P. Dawkins, M. Reder, M. D. Sorcinelli, P. Weissinger, & A. Wright)

Nancy van Leuven “Perspectives on Urban Ecology: Tribal Casinos and the Nature of Cities.” Society for Literature, Science and Arts, Chicago, Nov. 10-13, 2005.

Garrido, Maria, “Corporations, NGOs and IT Training: Blending private and nonprofit approached to achieving socio-economic outcomes.” World Forum on Information Society – World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Tunis, Tunisia. Co-authors were Chris Coward, Raul Roman, Maria Garrido, Beth Kolko and Andy Gordon.

Gendelman, Irina. “The Romantic and Dangerous Stranger,” presented as a competitively selected paper in the Critical and Cultural Studies Division at NCA in Boston.

Gastil, J., Kahan, D., & Braman, D. (2005, Nov.). “The cultural resonance model: Integrating culture, ideology, partisanship, and knowledge in theories of political communication and public opinion.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the National Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Gastil, J., Leighter, J., Black, L., & Deess, E. P. (2005, Nov.). “From small group member to citizen: Measuring the impact of jury deliberation on citizen identity and civic norms.” Paper to be presented at the annual conference of the National Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Coopman, Ted. “Technologies of Dissent: New Media, Free Media and Parallel Media Infrastructures” and “Revolution or Reform Roundtable: Can we dare to want it all?” both at the Association of Internet Researchers, Chicago, 2005.

Coopman, Ted. “Weak is the New Strong: Weak Ties, Communication Networks, and Collective Action.” National Communication Association, Boston, 2005. Top student paper, Group Communication Division.

Coopman, Ted. “Emergent Infrastructure: Enabling Local Media Insurgencies.” Union for Democratic Communication conference, Boca Raton, 2005.

Kathy Hall presented two papers in autumn quarter. The first paper was titled “Framing the Debate: How Labor and Trade Publications View Occupational Health Policy,” and she presented it at the American Public Health Association meeting (Philadelphia, December). The second paper was “Content Analysis as an Evaluative Tool in Public Involvement,” presented at the International Association for Public Participation (Portland, October).
She also had a poster session at the Portland conference, on “What makes activists tick? A tour of the political communication literature.”

Gustafson, Kristin. “Nellie Francis and the NAACP: Agents for Social Change in 1920,” American Journalism Historians Association, San Antonio, October, 2005.

Don Wulff has been involved in recent efforts to honor the work of two communication scholars who have distinguished themselves in the discipline at the national and international levels. At the November meeting of the National Communication Association in Boston, he chaired a panel honoring Dr. Carolyn Calloway-Thomas of Indiana University. In February, he will participate in a panel at the Western States Communication Association Convention in Palm Springs honoring the contributions of Dr. Jo Sprague of San Jose State University. “Cherishing Our Time with Our Colleagues: Honoring the Work of Jo Sprague.” Panel at the Western States Communication Association, Palm Spring, CA, February, 2006; “Spotlight on Teaching: Carolyn Calloway,” Panel chair, National Communication Association (NCA), Boston, MA, November, 2005. (with C. Dobris, A. Smith, C. Thameling, & Carolyn Calloway-Thomas).

Don has also started a three-year term on the editorial review board for the Western Journal of Communication. (Associate Editor, Editorial Review Board, Western Journal of Communication, Western States Communication Association, 2005–2008.)

Mike Peters presented two papers at the 91st NCA Convention in Boston this month. His first paper, “Message design logic and comforting communication in a chronic illness context: Introducing a message elicitation task and adapted coding scheme,” received a Top Four Paper Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division, a division that attracted 113 competitive paper submissions. His second paper, “Social cognitive skills in socio-emotional and marital adjustment following the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer,” was presented in the Health Communication Division.

David Domke had two papers at the National Communication Association meeing, both in the Political Communication Division. The first – authored with former UW graduate student and current University of Illinois doctoral student Kevin Coe -- was “Petitioners or prophets? Presidential discourse, God, and the ascendancy of religious conservatives.” The paper was named a Top Paper in the Political Communication Division. The second was "Hyper-masculinity as ideology and strategy: George W. Bush, the 'war on terrorism,' and an echoing press." This was co-authored with graduate students Sheryl Cunningham, Nancy van Leuven, and former UW students Meredith Bagley and Kevin Coe. Domke also gave an invited lecture at NCA on "Trends and future opportunities in political communication research."

Docan, T. (2006, February). “Using Jenga® to teach system theory.” Paper to be presented at the Western States Communication Association. Palm Springs, California.

Docan, T. (2006, February). "’Think about it, get anxious about it, and guard against it, or you might die’: An analysis of self-help websites about infidelity.” Paper to be presented at the Western States Communication Association. Palm Springs, California.

Leah Ceccarelli had a paper accepted at the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, which will be in Amsterdam in late June 2006. The paper is titled: "Let Us Not Theorize the Spaces of Contention."

People

Welcome back to Gerry Philipsen, Richard Kielbowicz and Tony Chan – all of whom were on leave during autumn quarter. Welcome back, too, to Mac Parks, who returns to the department from the UW Office of Research.

We also welcome several instructors this quarter: Laura McGarrity, who is teaching Perspectives on Language (COM 374); Shannon Scott, who is teaching Rhetorical Criticism (COM 431); Meredith Li-Vollmer, who is teaching Effects of Mass Communication (COM 343) and Carole Carmichael, who is teaching a journalism course on writing for non- profit organizations (COM 460).

Bon voyage to Tony Giffard and Lisa Coutu, who head to Rome during winter quarter, teaching at the UW Rome Center. In Rome, Tony will teach a course on communications media in the context of changing cultural, economic, political and technological developments in Italy and the European Union. Lisa will teach a course on intercultural communication that will focus on the connection between intercultural theory and students' experiences in Rome. Students also will have 34 lessons in Italian from a local language school. This is the third winter the department has offered the Rome program. Itwill be offered again in Winter Quarter 2007. Any UW student may apply, with Communication majors having priority. More details.

Congratulations to Ralina and James Joseph on the birth of their daughter, Naima. Congratulations to Patty Fortine and her husband, Dan, on the birth of their son, Vaughn.

Jessica Albano, UW communication studies librarian, now offers research help via instant messaging. Students can "im" her at jalbano_UW (Yahoo), commlibrarian (AOL), and jalbano@u.washington.edu (MSN). Or email her jalbano@u.washington.edu

Jessica reports this news from the UW Libraries:

Factiva is now accessible through your office and home computers. This database, previously only available in the Foster Business Library, provides access to global news and business information from sources including Dow Jones, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Sources are from 118 countries in 22 languages.

New York Times (1851-2001) and Times of London (1785-1985): You can access the complete runs of these newspapers from your office and home. Search and view every section of the newspapers including the advertisements and obituaries.

Undergraduates can apply for the Library Research Award: This award that recognizes outstanding examples of undergraduate library research in all disciplines using any media. Jessica writes, “It's time for students in the Department of Communication to take home a cash prize when the awards are given this Spring!” More info available...

Rachel Nez’s film, “The Border Crossed Us,” was shown on November 22 at the Office of Minority Affairs Ethnic Cultural Center. The event was sponsored by MEChA, ASUW La Raza Student Commission, First Nations, and ASUW American Indian Student Commission.

Crispin Thurlow has been named an adjunct faculty member in Linguistics.

Valerie Manusov was named to the first cohort of Leadership Fellows in the College of Arts and Sciences. This new program brings a senior faculty member into the Dean's Office each quarter of the academic year. The program is designed to bring fresh perspectives to College leadership and, in turn, to provide a broadening experience for the fellows who participate.

Tim Pasch received a grant from the Foreign Language and Area Studies program (FLAS) for Inuktitut. This grant is the first to be awarded for the acquisition of an aboriginal language, and the first to be conducted using teleconferencing technology to the Arctic. Pasch was also awarded client-status from the Center for Advanced Research for Technology in the Arts and Humanities (CARTAH), for the development of web content related to an Ainu (Japan)/Inuit (Canada) portal.

Leah Ceccarelli was elected to the Board of Directors for the Rhetoric Society of America Board of Directors. This is a prestigious appointment; Her term in office runs from Jan. 1, 2006 through Dec. 31, 2009. She has also been placed on the editorial board of the journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs.

She also recently gave invited talks at two universities. She gave the Michael Osborn Lecture in Communication at Memphis University on Oct. 14, 2005, and also spoke at the University of Texas at Austin, in the Department of Communication Studies on Nov. 2, 2005. The title of the talk was the same in both places: ‘Exploring the Scientific Frontier Metaphor: Ambivalence about an American Commonplace.’”

Kirsten Foot's students in the Global Communication course in autumn quarter did group presentations based on their 3-week simulation exercise modeled on the World Summit on the Information Society, the UN/ITU conference underway in Tunis this week. Each student represented an organization/entity in one of these categories: business, national governmental, nongovernmental, or intergovernmental.

Ted Coopman was elected a graduate student representative for the Executive Council of the Association of Internet Researchers. He was a Fellow in the Institute on the Public Humanities (sponsored by the Simpson Center and the UW Grad School).

Kate Dunsmore was a Fellow, Connecting with the Community: An Institute on the Public Humanities for Doctoral Students, University of Washington Simpson Center for the Humanities, September, 2005.

Giorgia Aiello was awarded a grant from the Simpson Center for the Humanities Graduate Fund to create a display about the political community mural that she and Irina Gendelman organized in 2004. The project was apart of the Seattle Central Library’s September Project. The display features black and white photographs taken by Giorgia in collaboration with teen photographers from Youth in Focus. The photo-exhibit is currently on display on the second floor of the Communications Building, in the hallway outside the Simpson Center.

Mike Henderson is directing our Legislative Reporting Internship program in Olympia during winter quarter. The students in the program are: Kathy Mahdoubi, a senior, will cover the 2006 Washington legislative session for Bremerton's Kitsap Sun. Manuel Valdes, a senior, is writing for the UW Daily and the Skagit Valley Herald. Blythe Lawerence, a senior, will write for The (Everett) Herald. Karen Johnson, also a senior, is working for The Seattle Times. Lorin T. Smith, a junior, is interning with The (Tacoma) Morning News Tribune. Jason McBride, Seattle Post-Intelligencer intern, has written for the Daily and served as assistant news editor. Tiffany Wan, a junior, will work for the Lewiston Tribune. Kayla Webley, Oregonian intern, has worked at The UW Daily for two years, most notably as the editor-in-chief for one quarter and as features editor for another. Dionne Desiano, a senior, will intern for Olympia’s Daily Olympian.

Doug Underwood has agreed to help with the campaign to get a journalists' shield law passed in the state of Washington.

Daniel Hart’s new HD film, “A Dream for Water,” has been screening in museums throughout the Midwest since summer. Museums showing the film include the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

More than 270 copies of films by Native Voices students have been shipped to libraries and museums around the world in the past six months.

Joel Ballezza served in the student newsroom and developed content for the annual Online News Conference, held at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. During the two-day conference, Ballezza, a first year DMC graduate student, attended panel discussions, interviewed presenters and wrote articles on the legal ramifications of Blogging and the
convergence of technology and art in NYC. He also developed a “Best of the Best” multimedia Flash slide show.

Addresses to his work are listed below:

Art & Tech in Big Apple

Lawyers grapple with sticky blog issues

Best of Best” Multimedia Presentation

Nancy van Leuven presented “Africa: Whose Development Agenda Is It?” along with several graduate students from other departments and visiting fellows from Botswana, Uganda and Zimbabwe at an autumn quarter lecture series in the Jackson School for International Studies.

Irina Gendelman received the Jones Campbell Mortar Board Alumni /Tolo Foundation 2005-2006 for scholarship, leadership and service.

Irina Gendelman, Giorgia Aiello and Tom Dobrowolsky launched the Urban Archives Research Project (www.urbanarchives.org) in partnership with the University of Washington Libraries’ Digital Collections. They published research data that was collected in collaboration with and a team of undergraduate students.

Many thanks to everyone who helped to make the holiday party a great success – including: Julie Homchick, Irina Gendelman, Karen Rathe, Madhavi Murty, John Gastil, Kristin Gustafson, Kate Dunsmore, Dru Williams, Whitney Anspach, Ted Coopman, Taso Lagos, Sara Morgan, Sara Shmuel, Tim Pasch, Robin Brooks. Special thanks to Patricia Humphrey, for her leadership in this event.

Deborah Kaplan, in conjunction with her COM 460 course, Narrative Journalism, edited a reader-interactive, online magazine called Narrative Journalist. She writes:

“The site was designed by Si Wong and Paul Ford…with photography provided by three
additional Journalism students working with me in independent research courses. (The
student photographers are Helen Freund, Matthew Ironside and Jason Siegel-Greenberg). The site allows readers to respond online to the articles.” The students' articles, themed ‘A day in . . .,’ are posted on a new Narrative Journalism website"

Matt McGarrity worked on a project with students that took them out of the classroom and “to the streets.” He writes:

“Students delivered their final speeches on technology issues (the need for media regulation, new threats to privacy, etc.) among throngs of holiday shoppers. On Dec. 14, students delivered their speeches in public downtown--in the public park near the Westlake shopping complex.”

Mike Peters was recently selected to be one of ten faculty members across the UW campus who will participate in a course development seminar on disability studies. The President's Diversity Appraisal Implementation Fund supports this program, and its central purpose is to promote diversity by including disability studies in curriculum design. Mike's participation in the program will result in the creation of a new module on disability for COM 270 (interpersonal communication).

The Graduate School has approved our recommendations that Ralina Joseph, Deborah Kaplan, and Gina Neff be appointed to the graduate faculty.

The Department of Communication was a sponsor of a lecture at Seattle’s Town Hall in October by Professor Donald Crichlow (St. Louis University) titled “How Feminism Helped Revive the Republican Right: The ERA Revisited.” The UW History Department was the organizer of the event.

Gerry Philipsen has been named the recipient of the Paul Boase Prize for 2005. The prize is given annually by the Ohio University School of Communication in honor of the late Paul Boase, a Professor Emeritus at Ohio University, to recognize a career of distinguished scholarship in the study of communication. The award comes with a monetary prize as well as an invitation to present a guest lecture at Ohio University. Philipsen is the third person to receive the Boase Prize since its inception in 2003. He will present a lecture at OU on January 19, 2006, titled “A Modest Proposal toward the Improvement of America’s Conversation about Race and Social Difference.”

Phil Howard gave a reading of his new book, New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen (Cambridge University Press, 2006) at the bookstore on Friday, October 21st. He will give a Danz Humanities Course in Winter 2007, in collaboration with Simon Werrett in History on called "When Technologies are New".

Students in Phil’s COM 300 and COM 407 class during autumn quarter produced public service ads; some of these were aired on KING 5 in December. The public service ads dealt with themes of carpooling, safe sex, and human trafficking, and they were produced by students using their own personal digital technologies. Phil reports, “The assignment was a kind of take-back-the-media exercise, and most used their cell phone cameras and laptop computers to produce ads on issues they cared about. Along the way they practiced script writing, pitched concepts at each other, and developed some new technology skills. Lea Werbel, a graduate student in the department and PSA expert from the Ad Council, managed the whole project. All in all the students produced 63 public service ads. With the help of some alumni experts in television production, we selected the best five with pop, fizzle, and arc.”

The students produced 65 ads, alumni experts chose the best 4, and these 3 had the right technical standards: 1 | 2 | 3

Verena Hess recently defended her dissertation (committee; Baldasty, chair; Rivenburgh, Moy, Kielbowicz, Taylor). In January, Verena starts a job at Microsoft as an Exchange Customer & Market Intelligence Product Manager. Her work involves the management of research addressing: business strategy development; competitive analysis; product planning; and positioning and messaging from pre-launch through in-market activities - all for Exchange Server.

Sanja Tomasevic, a Communication major, is the captain of the UW volleyball team-- and national champions; she is been named an All American player. Congratulations to her and to the entire team.

Gina Neff, Giorgia Aiello, Tim Pasch, Crispin Thurlow, Clifford Tatum, and Jerry Baldasty are participating in the UW’s “Ride in the Rain” program in January as part of the “Commuticators” team. Other team members include Mark Rector (Art), Susan Gaylord (Italian/French) and Cindy Perry (Nursing).

David Domke gave a talk at a pre-conference workshop on “Media, Politics, and Religion,” for the American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting, in Philadelphia. He also presented, “The echoing press, morality, and nation: Republican dominance and Democratic opportunities,” to the Spokane County Democratic Party. He has also delivered workshops with Crispin Thurlow on “Politics, language, identity, and mass media,” in Spokane, WA. Other talks include: “Vision and strategy in American politics,” to the Washington State Democratic Party annual meeting in Moses Lake; “Language and strategy: How to turn good intentions into successful engagement,” at the Covenant Network Conference in Bellevue; “The ascendancy of political fundamentalism," at a community meeting in Seattle; and “The echoing press: A strategic politics perspective on U.S. news media,” at the Oregon State Democratic Party annual meeting. He also delivered the inaugural UW Teaching Academy Lecture, "The echoing press, morality, and nation: The ascendancy of the Republican Party."

Roger Simpson traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi, in mid Dec. as part of a Poynter-Dart team working with journalists from the Mississippi Gulf coast (concurrent with a similar Dart-Poynter workshop with Louisiana journalists in New Orleans). This is a significant effort to provide support for the local and regional journalists who have continued to deal with the hurricanes' aftermath.

Barbara Warnick, will chair the Department of Philosophy Chair Search Committee during winter quarter (serving with Matt Sparke, Geography, and Andrea Woody, Philosophy). The committee has been asked to evaluate briefly the current strengths and weaknesses and future needs of the Dept. of Philosophy, and evaluate possible candidates for the chair's position. Ken Clatterbaugh will end his service as chair on June 30; he will have served 10 years.

The University Book Store sponsored a reading by Jerry Baldasty from his new book Vigilante Newspapers: a Tale of Sex, Religion & Murder in the Northwest (University of Washington Press) on November 22.

During autumn quarter, Jerry was chair of the Committee to Improve the UW Undergraduate Experience; the committee’s report and related documents can be reviewed here.

Jerry presented the committee’s recommendations to several groups including the UW regents, the President’s cabinet, and the board of deans. In January, he’ll be presenting the recommendations to the UW Minority Advisory Committee, and working with other faculty and staff on recommendations for implementing the committee report.

Kathleen Fearn Banks is a member of the advisory board for the Crisis Leadership Certificate program at California State University, Fullerton. The purpose of the certificate is to provide management training in crisis management, communication and leadership.

Gina Neff attended a meeting in Stockholm in December – a working group session sponsored by a Swedish public research center, the National Institute for Working Life, along with the Royal Institute of Technology. The purpose was to compare the internet and new media industrial districts in Stockholm and New York, and the meeting brought together three of the top researchers of New York Internet development with the authors of comprehensive surveys of Swedish Internet and new media development. The project aims to produce a collection of policy papers on regional economic development, political economy, and labor issues in the high technology industries in the two cities. Gina also gave a seminar at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm on the research that she is doing for her book on labor in interactive media, Venture Labor.

Gina also visited MSNBC.com, in Redmond, meeting with Tom Brew, executive editor of MSNBC about the possibilities of establishing an ongoing relationship with the department, including the interest of six MSNBC editors and interactive producers in supporting development and expansion of the new media journalism curriculum in the department.

Jerry Baldasty was a panelist at a meeting of the Seattle chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors, addressing press-director relationships. (Other panelists included Communication Alumnus and Hall of Fame member Neil McReynolds). Jerry also chaired a journalism accreditation review at Auburn University in autumn quarter.

Patricia Moy gave a talk at Shenzhen University, China, on “Opportunities and Challenges to Studying Public Opinion in the U.S.” and another talk at the World Association for Public Opinion Research regional seminar in Hong Kong on “Studying Public Opinion Beyond Opinion Polling.” Patricia will be on sabbatical leave during winter and spring quarters, 2006. John Gastil will serve as graduate program coordinator during Patricia’s leave.

Phil Howard was awarded a small stipend by the Office of Undergraduate Education to develop new material for a class, "Information, Communication, and Development," about how information technologies are used to solve social problems in poor countries. The class will work to publish a report called World Information Inequality by week 9 of winter quarter. The stipend provides fund to produce a good looking report, and will be distributed to international governmental and non-governmental agencies around the world.

Gendelman, Irina is an instructional consultant at the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR). She meets with graduate students and faculty to provide assistance in teaching, to discuss development and innovation in teaching, and to help develop and assess courses and programs.

Kathleen Fearn Banks was interviewed in the November issue of Feuerwehr Magazin, a German publication about emergency response. The subject was the crisis communications and the failure at crisis communications during the Katrina aftermath.

David Domke has been chosen as a participant in the UW faculty dinner series--in which faculty meet with alumni and other UW friends at small dinner parties. The faculty involved are expected to talk about a particular topic (such as politics and media) and then engage the others in conversation. Dave was chosen by Bill and Mimi Gates for a dinner in the spring.

The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, directed by David Silver, has book reviews this month on Literacy in the New Media Age (Gunther Kress) and Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life (Chris Kohler). Avery Alix, a Communication graduate student, is the author of the latter review.

Harry Bruce, who has been the associate dean for research at the Information School, has been named I School dean. His research and teaching focus on human information behavior, information seeking and use and personal information management in networked information environments. Harry's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Library and Museum Studies, the Washington State Library and the Australian Department of Employment Education and Training.

Alumni & Visitors

Alum Tim Egan, Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times reporter and author of The Good Rain, Lasso the Wind and Breaking Blue, guest spoke in Deborah Kaplan’s COM 460 special reporting topics course on Narrative Journalism.

In a recent lecture for John Gastil’s COM 417 course, (Political deliberation) political reformer and deliberation expert Ned Crosby gave a guest lecture on Nov. 10 to discuss his Washington Citizens Initiative Review proposal. Gastil adds:

“On Nov. 29, Sociologist Perry Deess visited from New Jersey to present to the class his research on how the totalitarian government of the former East Germany inadvertently sowed seeds of its own destruction by developing compulsory group discussions in which citizens came to understand just how widespread discontent had become in their country.”

Pedro Gutierrez, of the New Media Division of Microsoft, talked about the integration of advertising and video games in COM 201.

Alums Harold Carr & John Stewart visited Kirsten Foot's COM 322 Global Communication course this autumn.

Chris Bridenbaugh (class of 1972) spoke in Kathleen Fearn Banks’ Public Relations and Society in autumn quarter. Bridenbaugh has her own one-woman agency now, Chris Bridenbaugh Public Relations, but she is known for being in charge of public relations at Nordsrom as it expanded cross country and with helping the company establish the now-famous customer relations program.

Visitors to Mike Henderson’s opinion writing class in autumn quarter included Ryan Blethen, assistant editorial-page editor, The Seattle Times, and alumna Evelyn Iritani, investigative reporter, The Los Angeles Times.

Visitors to Karen Rathe’s Community News Lab (COM 362) during autumn quarter included:

Alum Terry Tazioli, Seattle Times travel editor, who once again brought the house down with his now-infamous retelling of his story on Miss Teenage Missouri.

Alum Evelyn Iritani, former P-I reporter who now writes for the Los Angeles Times, who talked about her coverage of Wal-Mart, which won her the Pulitzer Prize. Iritani also warned students that the industry is definitely changing; in addition to writing for print, she now finds herself learning to shoot digital photos and tape-record interviews for Internet use.

Alum Harold Carr, former Boeing VP, observed the Community News Lab during Evelyn Iritani’s visit; they talked after class (when she was at the PI, she covered business for the P-I and he was with Boeing).

New Yorker magazine humorist Andy Borowitz, who talked about negotiating life in the journalism world, despite his having no formal training in the field. Borowitz attended Harvard, wrote for the campus humor magazine and did stand-up comedy and acting stints during his college years. After 15 years in Hollywood writing television scripts, he returned to New York.

Mikel Ayastaran, an international correspondent who works for a daily newspaper in the Basque region of Spain also visited COM 362. After winning a journalism award that came with some cash, Ayastaran decided to do his own sabbatical for two months to the U.S., specifically, Seattle where he is staying with relatives in the Belltown area. His goal is to put a face on the American news media and get to know student journalists ("the ones who will describe America's future to the world"). He will be in town through the end of Jan. and is very interested in meeting with working journalists as well

Other alumni visiting campus included Brien Lautman (from the Casey Family Foundation), David Mills (John Scott Realty), and John Dresel (president of Tully’s Coffee), all of whom met with students in the Mentor Lunch Series. Other alumni visitors included David Keene (Seattle), Katie King (Washington, D.C.), Cass Book (East Lansing) and Heidi Dahmen (Los Angeles).

Alumni and department friends came to campus to help judge the public service announcements created by Phil Howard’s students in autumn quarter: Don Kraft, Kirsten Lumpkin, Rita Brogan, Meg O'Conor Bannecker.

Jerry Baldasty visited alumni in Los Angeles in early November. Alumnus Robb Weller hosted a reception at his office (Weller Grossman Productions) for about 25 alumni; those attending included: Craig Tomashoff, Evelyn Iritani, Roger Ainsley, Ed Smith, Ann Smith, Czarin Chan, Daniel Werner, Heidi Dahmen, Debbie Brand, Deb Crump, Grace Ching, Ken Baldwin, Tina Kim, Maria Castro, Douglas Marriott, Ashley Marriott, and Steve Leveton.

Jerry also visited several other alumni while in LA: Frank Kelly, Mort Lachman and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Ed Guthman.

Associate chair Nancy Rivenburgh and Jerry Baldasty met with the College’s student telephone callers in late November, providing information on the department for the callers’ efforts to obtain alumni donations.

Other class visitors in autumn quarter included Tom Brew, Executive Editor at MSNBC, and Mary Starman, Lead Manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Unit (both in COM 300).

The Laura Crowell Fund

Faculty and staff set a new record for donations to the Laura Crowell Fund in 2005, contributing $6,062. This is almost $1,000 above last year’s total – and reflects great generosity by faculty and staff. The College’s matching funds will double that amount; all funds are dedicated to support graduate students’ research (primarily by funding travel to present research papers at academic conferences). Many thanks to the contributors to the Crowell Fund in 2005: Lance Bennett, Leah Ceccarelli, Lisa Coutu, Dave Domke, Nancy Dosmann, Kathleen Fearn Banks, Patty Fortine, John Gastil, Tony Giffard, Kathy Gill, Kathy Hall, Mike Henderson, Phil Howard, Richard Kielbowicz, Taso Lagos, Valerie Manusov, Matt McGarrity, Patricia Moy, Jody Nyquist, Mac Parks, Linda Peragine, Gerry Philipsen, Karen Rathe, Nancy Rivenburgh, Carla Rickerson, David Sherman, Roger Simpson, Victoria Sprang, Crispin Thurlow, Barbara Warnick, Don Wulff, Jerry Baldasty, and one anonymous donor. Many thanks, too, to Dean David Hodge, for the College’s generous matching funds. (Some credit card donations are still being processed by UW, so the names of some donors might not appear here. We’ll update the donor list, as needed, in our next issue.)

There were several other significant contributions to the Department late in 2005. These gifts are crucial to the success of the department, so we are very grateful to the alumni and friends who made these donations. The Lockwood Foundation, which has established and manages an endowment for UW journalism, donated $5,000. Alumnus Harold Carr, and his wife, Joyce, have pledged $500,000 to the Department for scholarships for students in journalism, public relations, radio and television. Alumnus (and Hall of Fame member) Robert Merry, and his wife, Susan, donated $5,000 (which will be matched by his company, Congressional Quarterly). Alumnus Ed Smith and his wife, Ann, contributed $2,000 to the Department (including a corporate match); alumnus Frank Wetzel, $2,000; Jane Roller (widow of professor emeritus Reid Roller), $1,000, and alumna Marjorie Alhadeff, $1,000. Another alum completed a pledge to the new Ames Endowment (for graduate student research on diversity/difference), bringing the total in that fund to $53,000.

In the Media

Don Pember recently appeared on a KUOW segment entitled: “Are Talk Shows Political Contributions?”

A Seattle Times article gave the background on Don’s radio interview: “Last Spring when the state legislature passed a gas tax increase, conservative talk show hosts at KVI radio were outraged. They helped organize an initiative campaign to roll back the gas tax increase. In only a month they helped gather 400 thousand signatures to put Initiative 912 on ballot. I-912 lost last Tuesday, but a controversy over the radio hosts' advocacy remains. A judge has ruled that the talk shows be counted as political contributions to the gas tax repeal campaign. The ruling is being appealed to the state Supreme Court. If talk shows are counted as campaign contributions, is free speech inhibited? Or should some programs on the airwaves be tallied as political contributions?”

A recent story in the Seattle Times, on declining newspaper circulation nationwide, quoted Doug Underwood – who said that “Seattle's dailies are not likely to escape the same downward pressure facing the broader industry.” The story, written by Bill Richards, continued:

“Underwood, a former Times reporter and author of books on newspaper economics, said newspapers lost their chance to protect their print circulation by not charging for access to their Internet Web sites. Most newspaper Web sites, including both Seattle papers', do not charge viewers. "When you give the paper away for free on the Internet," said Underwood, "people say, 'Why pay to have the same news land on your front porch in paper form?' "

Irina Gendelman & Tom Dobrowolsky (from the Information School) were featured in The Daily for their work on Urban Archives, an online database that catalogs Seattle’s subversive graphic images in public spaces. The article also mentioned Giorgia Aiello’s work on the project, as well as the course she will offer winter quarter entitled: “Photography: Theoretical Reflections and Ethnographic Applications.” More recently, the Urban Archives Project was the subject of a Dec. 8 article in the Seattle P-I. An excerpt from the P-I article:

Urban Archives is the first live database in the UW digital collection that is all-student collected, said Ann Lally, head of the UW Library's digital initiatives. It's the most contemporary archive in the group, which includes collections of war posters and 19th-century actors.

The Urban Archives images could help historians decades from now ‘take the pulse’ of the city in 2005, said Feliks Banel, deputy director of Seattle's Museum of History and Industry.

Imagine such an archive with pictures from a century ago. Said Banel, ‘The notion of having this from 1905 would be just absolutely priceless.’

Some of the images the students have taken are already historic.”

Download a Microsoft Word version of the January, 2006 "Communication"