The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division is an organization of nearly 300 journalism historians, primarily in the United States. The division seeks to promote scholarship and teaching in journalism/mass communication history. This is understood to include not just the history of people and institutions of journalism, but also the various roles and functions of journalism in society and the impact of society on journalism. The division is also committed to making journalists more sensitive to the idea and importance of history. The head of the division for 1985-6 is Owen V. Johnson of Indiana University.
Each summer the division devotes AEJMC convention sessions to research, service, and teaching. Research papers are selected on the basis of competitive evaluation. This year, thirteen out of forty-five papers were accepted.
The author of the outstanding student paper each year receives the $200 Warren Price Award. This year the award was given to Nancy Baker Jones, a doctoral student at Texas.
Presented at the convention for the first time this year was the Cathy Covert Award for the outstanding published essay contributing to knowledge in the history of mass communication. The $600 prize was awarded to David Paul Nord of Indiana University for “The Business Values of American Newspapers: The 19th Century Watershed in Chicago,” published in Journalism Quarterly.
Division member Richard Kielbowicz won the AEJMC award for the best mass communications dissertation completed in 1984. His work, “News in the Mails, 1690-1863: The Technology, Policy and Politics of a Communication Channel,” was completed at the University of Minnesota.
The division also holds several regional meetings each spring. In 1986, they will be held at Michigan, San Francisco, and Buffalo State.
For further information, contact division secretary Jeffrey Smith, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242.
