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News 

Celis and Castañeda named School of Journalism associate directors

 

School of Journalism director Geneva Overholser announced that professor Bill Celis (pictured, above left) and assistant director Laura Castañeda (below right) will be the associate directors of the School of Journalism, effective August of 2011.

They will replace associate director Pat Dean, who announced she will be stepping down after being in her position since 2003. Dean will continue in her role until August while Castañeda and Celis transition into their new roles.

"We're terribly excited that Laura and Bill are taking on a bigger leadership role at the school," Overholser said. "It's a challenge to
replace Pat, who knows the school so well. But Bill's and Laura's skills, knowledge and dedication to journalism are tremendous. I am very much looking forward to working with them."

Celis, an award-winning teacher and author, is a former education correspondent for The New York Times and a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. His work on education and school reform policy over two decades has appeared in the American Prospect magazine, The Boston Sunday Globe, The New York Times Week in Review, Teacher magazine, Columbia University’s Teachers College Record and Voices in Urban Education, a quarterly produced by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, and a number of other general-interest publications. 

Castañeda, also the director for distance learning at USC Annenberg, has been a staff writer, editor and columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and The Associated Press in San Francisco, New York and Mexico. Her freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, BusinessWeek Online, Hispanic Business, Latina, Online Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review and American Journalism Review magazines, among others. She is the co-editor of "News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity," which was published by Sage Publications in October 2005.

FOX Sports West sees a winner in USC Annenberg students’ marketing campaigns

 

By Gretchen Parker

FOX Sports West is developing a new campaign to promote its website with the help of a USC Annenberg communication management class that worked through the fall semester to conduct in-depth research and pitch proposals aimed at boosting the network's Web traffic.

 

New Report: Are Parents Souring on the Internet?

 A recently released study from USC Annenberg's Center for the Digital Future finds that, in the eyes of Mom and Dad, time on the Internet is the same as time spent in front of the TV.

If you think similarities in the Internet and television are growing, parents may be inclined to agree with you. Parents are rapidly coming to view TV and the web in similar ways, applying supervisory approaches to both mediums, according to a new survey by USC Annenberg's Center for the Digital Future.

The Center also reports in its 2010 survey that an increasing percentage of parents say Internet access at home is reducing their children's in-person time with friends.

Researchers at the Center report parents are now limiting their children's Internet access and television use in nearly identical ways. Three in five American households restrict television use as a punishment, a figure that's hardly budged over the past decade. Meanwhile, restricting children's Internet use as a form of punishment has steadily increased over the years and is now a practice in 57 percent of the nation's homes with children under 18.

The new survey also shows, however, that parents are still more comfortable about the amount of time their children spend on the Internet versus television, with 69 percent saying it was just about right (versus 57 percent for television); only 28 percent thought their children spent too much time on the Internet, against 41 percent who thought television time was excessive.

Michael Gilbert, author of The Disposable Male and a senior fellow at the Center, also points to a steady increase over the years in parental reports of (their) children spending less time in person with friends since gaining access to the Internet. Seven percent of households with children under 18 registered this concern when the Center's surveys began in 2000, a figure that increased to 11 percent a decade later.

Its most recent surveys also confirm the Center's earlier report of a sharp drop off in family face-to-face time in Internet-connected households, starting in 2007. From an average of 26 hours per week during the first half of the decade, family face time had fallen to just under 18 hours per week by 2010.

Gilbert, whose work at the Center is focused on gender and family issues, believes online community involvements are playing a significant role in reducing family time. He points to Center surveys which, since 2006, indicate roughly half of those involved with an online community value it as highly as their real world ones.

"With all the digital diversions out there, it's hard to pin this on any one thing" Gilbert said. But he believes Americans' growing attachment to social networks and the increased time they often demand has clearly begun to displace family face time. "We need to make sure families are reinforced rather than weakened in the digital future."

Dr. Jeffrey Cole, the Center's director, says recent expressions of parental disenchantment with the Internet confirm the Center's earlier predictions. He notes that, while families have traditionally turned technological advances, such as the telephone and television, to their advantage, the interactive demands of digital technologies and social networking threaten to put inordinate stress on the modern family.

The Center for the Digital Future telephone and web-based survey of 1,926 Americans over the age of 12 was conducted in April 2010 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Center for the Digital Future

 

Undergrad Schweitzer named one of top 10 winners for Hearst Journalism Award

Callie Schweitzer (B.A. Print and Digital Journalism ’11) was named among the top ten winners in the opinion writing category of the Hearst Journalism Awards Program for her piece, "100 Days Of Jerry Brown's Relative Silence. “

The piece details Neon Tommy's 100-day effort to speak with Brown about his position on public education.

 "Education is an issue that affects everyone. There should be no Democratic side and no Republican side--the issue should be a place where the politicking ends, and we all meet in the middle to guarantee the best future for generations to come,” wrote Schweitzer in the piece.  

This is the second time Schweitzer has won a Hearst Journalism Award. She came in ninth out of over 100 students from 61 schools who participated in the competition.

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2011 Online Community Health Training & $2,000 stipend presented by USC Annenberg and Online News Association 

USC Annenberg and the Online News Association invite California bloggers and editors/founders of California online news sites to apply for an all-expenses-paid program that combines seminars on how to chronicle local  community and civic “health” with six months of coaching to improve the "health" and sustainability of your site. 

Offered by Annenberg's California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, with SF State’s Renaissance Journalism Center, the Los Angeles-based program provides $2,000 stipends and technical support to help competitively-selected fellows to complete an ambitious community health news or storytelling project.  Fellows attend two 3-day training sessions in Los Angeles in April and June. For more information, visit ReportingonHealth.org or contact Martha Shirk at Cahealth@usc.edu. The deadline is Feb. 7, 2011.

 

USC Annenberg announces stipend competition for domestic reporting on religion

The Knight Program in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg announced this week that applications will be accepted in spring 2011 for stipends to report on religion and social issues in the United States. An application and more information about the program will be available online in March.

The stipends will support coverage of stories that illuminate how religion engages contemporary domestic social justice issues such as poverty, health care, sexuality, immigration, labor practices, racial profiling and civil rights. The stipends of up to $20,000 will subsidize travel, living and miscellaneous costs. They will be awarded through an application process overseen by the Knight Program in Media and Religion, and are made possible through the generous support of the Ford Foundation.

Staff reporters, affiliated freelancers and self-employed web journalists, working in the U.S. and who cover politics, social and cultural issues as well as generalists and religion specialists will be encouraged to apply.

"We're looking for coverage that shows how religion engages with social issues. Sometimes it seems to help; other times it appears to hinder. Either way it's a key factor," said Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg. "If we get great stories, maybe we can encourage media outlets to follow suit."

Within the six-month period following their award, stipend recipients will report stories that reflect the grant's theme: how religion engages contemporary domestic social justice issues — from debates on family and marriage to conflicts over health care coverage to questions about the role of religious social service providers. Stories will be developed for delivery on multiple platforms -- print, radio, TV, online.

At the completion of their projects, several stipend recipients will spend three days in residence at USC to present their work, hold master classes for journalism students, and give public lectures for the USC community.

Support for domestic reporting on religion and social issues is the second funding program that the Knight Program has established. The Knight Luce Fellowship for global reporting on religion will announce its first group of fellows in early 2011.

 

Published and Presented

 

Wang edits book on China's public diplomacy through communication 

By Jackson DeMos

Associate professor Jian "Jay" Wang (pictured, below right) edited a recently released book titled "Soft Power in China: Public Diplomacy through Communication" (Palgrave Macmillan).

"Soft Power in China" describes and explains the scope of the country’s pursuit of soft power through public diplomacy and international communication.

“Based on the authors' intimate knowledge of the changing dynamics in China's society, this book shows the picture of a government that is learning fast in the field of international communication, and that is equally confronted with fundamental soft power challenges," said Jan Melissen, head of the Diplomatic Studies Programme at the Clingendael Institute of International Relations in The Netherlands. "This collection of essays greatly improves our understanding of China's public diplomacy as a project under construction.” 

Wang said he hopes readers will take away several key arguments from the book.

"First, it is crucial that we take into account China's historical experience when attempting to make sense of the intensions and actions in contemporary Chinese public diplomacy," he said. "Second, although China's image-building project remains largely a state-centric endeavor, non-state actors are increasingly getting involved, echoing the shifting dynamics in state-society relationship. I would also like to call attention to the domestic dimension of public diplomacy in the case of China."

Wang stated China's rapid rise in global prominence has captured much attention and imagination, and perhaps nowhere else has the idea of soft power been as widely discussed, embraced and appropriated as in China.

"Although there is no shortage of commentary and analysis on China's soft power, robust inquiries into its specific communication programs and practices remain conspicuously absent. So this is our modest attempt to fill the void,” he said. “Of course, like in many other projects such as this one, some worthy topics are not covered or accorded sufficient attention in the book for a variety of reasons. I hope the volume lays the groundwork for further inquiry into this area."

"Soft Power in China: Public Diplomacy through Communication"
More on Jian "Jay" Wang  

The IJPC Journal (Volume 2, Fall 2010) now available online

The Annenberg Press announces that The IJPC Journal, an online academic journal on the image of the journalist in popular culture that adheres to the highest standards of peer review, has published its second volume, Fall 2010. It is available here.

The 185-page issue was produced by co-founding editors Joe Saltzman (pictured) of the University of Southern California, Matthew C. Ehrlich of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Sammye Johnson of Trinity University. The editors point out that The IJPC Journal is an outgrowth of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture Project, whose stated mission is to investigate and analyze, through research and publication, the conflicting images of the journalist in film, television, radio, fiction (novels, short stories, plays, poetry), commercials, cartoons, comic books, video games, music, art, and other aspects of popular culture.”

In their “Welcome from the Editors” introduction to Volume Two, they write: “We are pleased to present more research that broadens our understanding of journalism’s popular image beyond that of the reporter in Hollywood films (a subject that has received the brunt of scholarly attention to date).”

Included in the new The IJPC Journal is “N is for News: The Image of the Journalist on Sesame Street, an article written by Ashley Ragovin, who received her Master of Arts degree in Journalism from USC Annenberg. “N is for News” focuses on Kermit the Frog’s “News Flash” segments on television’s Sesame Street. She demonstrates how the segments both reinforce and contradict the predominant image of journalists in popular culture.

Two other of the issue’s articles examine journalism’s portrayal in media targeted predominantly at young people. Combining qualitative content analysis with survey research, Daxton R. Stewart’s “Harry Potter and the Exploitative Jackals” studies how the negative depiction of journalists in the hugely popular Potter books may affect young readers’ perceptions of the news media. Existing long before Harry Potter and Sesame Street, comic books offered archetypes for youngsters to admire. Paulette Kilmer’s “The Shared Mission of Journalists and Comic Book Heroes” looks at three classic superheroes — Superman, the Fox, and Spider-Man — and shows how they embody journalism’s noblest aspirations.

The editors had issued a special call for manuscripts on the gay journalist in popular culture — GLBT characters have been surprisingly common in popular depictions of the media over the decades. They have also have been inviting manuscripts that focus on the public relations profession and its practitioners. Carol Ames’s “Queer Eye for the PR Guy in American Films 1937-2009” looks at both of those research areas. She draws upon queer theory in examining how the portrayal of implicitly or explicitly gay PR practitioners has evolved from the era of the Hollywood Production Code to the present.

In The IJPC Journal’s Features section, IJPC Journal co-editor Saltzman takes us back to the days of the ancient Greeks in “Herodotus as an Ancient Journalist.” Ancient historians have been accused of not worrying much about what was true or false, making up quotes, frequently relying on legend rather than fact, and often accepting idle rumor, malicious gossip, and hearsay as fact. That makes them sound more like tabloid journalists than historians. Saltzman reimagines Herodotus as the “father of journalism” rather than Cicero’s appellation, “the father of history,” in examining how Herodotus reported, researched, and wrote his Histories.

The editors are now open to receiving manuscripts for the Third Volume. You can submit manuscripts or questions by e-mail to one of the three founding editors: Matthew C. Ehrlich mehrlich@illinois.edu Sammye Johnson sjohnson@trinity.edu or Joe Saltzman saltzman@usc.edu

The IJPC Journal’s editorial Board members are: Maurine H. Beasley, University of Maryland; Bonnie S. Brennen, Temple University; Mary-Lou Galician, Arizona State University; Howard Good, SUNY New Paltz; Loren Ghiglione, Northwestern University; Norma Fay Green, Columbia College Chicago; Richard R. Ness, Western Illinois University; Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University; Karen Miller Russell, The University of Georgia; and Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania.

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Gross pens articles on gay rights in government, entertainment industry

School of Communication Director Larry Gross wrote a Dec. 22 article titled “‘Don’t Ask’: Not Quite Fa La La Just Yet” for Truthdig.

“According to the mainstream media and the Obama administration, it would appear that all us gay folks should don our gay apparel and go caroling from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to the Capitol, thanking our elected representatives for finally giving us the right to kill and be killed without simultaneously hiding in the closet. Progress, no doubt, in the sense that any denial of our civil rights is a denial of our basic right to full citizenship—but not a cause for unalloyed celebration,” he wrote.

“Consider that President Obama campaigned on a menu of promises to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks, and I very much doubt that most of us would have put repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ at the top of that list,” he wrote.

Gross also wrote a Dec. 30 article titled "Is Congress More Progressive Than Hollywood?" for Truthdig.

"Who would have thought that the political capital of Washington would be ahead of the entertainment capital of Hollywood when it comes to allowing gay folks to serve openly? Just as Congress votes to repeal 'don’t ask, don’t tell,' finally permitting lesbians and gay soldiers to live their lives without hiding—well, finally, once the Pentagon actually begins implementing the newly enacted policy—Hollywood reminds its own recruits—young up-and-coming actors—that the closet is still the safest place for them if they aspire to A-list success," he wrote.

Gross also penned "Larry's List" on Dec. 17, featuring a round-up on recent news. The column is titled "Facebook Finds Your Face." Read it here.

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Kaplan to present “What’s New at the Norman Lear Center?”

Director of the Norman Lear Center Martin Kaplan penned a Jan. 8 article titled “The ‘Lock and Load’ Rhetoric of American Politics Isn’t Just a Metaphor” for the Huffington Post.

“But I am saying that the ‘lock and load’/ ’take up your arms’  rhetoric of American politics isn't just an overheated metaphor. For years, the language of sports has dominated political journalism, and discourse about hardball and the horserace and the rest of the macho athletic lexicon has been a factor in the trivialization of our public sphere. This has helped dumb down democracy, making a serious national discussion about anything important too wonky for words,” he wrote.

He also wrote a Jan. 9 article for the Jewish Journal titled “The vitriol vitriol.”

“What threatened the right the most was losing control of the national political narrative.  Until the slayings in the Safeway parking lot, the master story had been the triumphant G.O.P. sweeping into Congress to repeal ‘the job-killing health care bill.’  But as of Saturday, the new story connected the dots between the inflammatory rhetoric of McCain/Palin events in 2008, the ugly confrontations at congressional town halls in the summer of 2009, the ‘lock and load’ cackling of the 2010 campaign – and the cultural climate of the Tucson murders,” he wrote.

 Kaplan will also give a presentation titled “What’s New at the Norman Lear Center?” on Jan. 26 as part of the 13^th Annual Orange County Distinguished Speaker Series hosted by the USC Alumni Association.

Kaplan will begin the 2011 lecture series by featuring the Norman Lear Center in his discussion. The series helps fulfill the Alumni Club’s mission of “providing a home to engage and enrich the Trojan family in Newport Beach and Irvine.”

On Dec. 20, Kaplan penned an article titled “The Senators who Dissed Baby Jesus” for the Huffington Post.

“What do you call it when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) blasted Democrats as ‘sacrilegious’ for wanting the Senate to take up an arms control treaty and a spending bill ‘right before... the most sacred holiday for Christians’? “ he wrote.

“Not ‘chutzpah.’ Chutzpah is Newt Gingrich and incoming House speaker John Boehner (R-Ill.) hammering Democrats in 2010 for the effrontery of convening a lame-duck session of Congress, even though then lame-duck House speaker Gingrich called a lame-duck session the week before Christmas 1998 so that he and Boehner could vote to impeach President Bill Clinton,” he wrote.

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Overholser participates in discussion on NPR at 40

Director of the School of Journalism Geneva Overholser participated in a Jan. 11 discussion on "NPR at 40: What is the Future of Public Radio?"

Overholser and NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg discussed how public radio will look in the future. They discussed how it will adapt to all of the changes in the current journalism media landscape. KPCC reporter Leslie Berestein Rojas moderated the talk, which took place at Mark Taper Auditiorium in Downtown L.A.

Pocast and Photos
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Reeves pens op-ed on Obama’s future legacy

Journalism professor Richard Reeves wrote a Dec. 21 op-ed for Truthdig titled “The B-Plus President.”

“There is no doubt that what we have seen over the past three or four years has been more than a cyclical recession. The United States and the rest of the world, too, are going through an economic restructuring. There must be days when Obama feels like a cork bouncing on top of waves of statistics, most of them bad for him,” he wrote.

“There’s little doubt that the 44th president was dealt a bad hand: The first four cards were economic chaos, even collapse, a widening gap between the rich and everyone else crippling the middle classes, and two mismanaged wars in Asia and the Middle East. It does not get much worse than that. But then, again except in Afghanistan, things may be looking up now. Obama has said he would rather have two good years than eight lousy ones. That may happen: History will decide,” he wrote.

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Seib writes book review The Return: Russia's Journey From Gorbachev to Medvedev by Daniel Treisman

Director of the Center on Public Diplomacy Philip Seib wrote a Jan. 2 book review for the Dallas Morning News on the book The Return: Russia's Journey From Gorbachev to Medvedev by Daniel Treisman.

"Russia's history during the past century has been mostly horrific. Stalin's crimes were staggering, and many years passed before later governments somewhat loosened the grip of repression. Countries under Soviet control led miserable existences. At home, the failures of communism have left many Russians living in poverty even while a new and venal capitalism enriches a relative few. Meanwhile, the rest of the world must remain watchful because Russia's nuclear arsenal makes it too powerful to ignore," he wrote.

"On some issues – such as the state of press freedom in Russia – Treisman may be too generous in his judgments of Russia's progress, but the comprehensiveness and clarity of The Return make it a valuable resource for anyone trying to make sense of the puzzle that is Russia," he wrote.

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Sigal pens article “No compromise for old men”

Professor emeritus Clancy Sigal wrote a Jan. 9 article for the Guardian UK titled “No compromise for old men.”

“Recently, on separate occasions, I met with old pals, mainly guys, who like me have gone through the sixties sex-dope-'n'-rock'n'roll scene and its street-fighting politics. Once, we marched, fought neo-Nazis hand to hand and hurled ball-bearings at police horses riding us down,” he wrote.

“We're middle-class, now; some comfortable, some not so. But what strikes me, painfully, is how, with age, several have moved to the right, grown conservative or war-hawkish or both. They've matured, while I seem to be stuck in the same old boring groove,” he wrote.

“The so-called aging process, plus a steadier income, which wised them up, just makes me dig in my heels. I'm still way too in touch with the irresponsible teenager I used to be – who ran around with Crayola scrawling on the windows of St Agatha's church and B'nai Shalom Israel synagogue and Chicago Tribune, "BANISH CAPITALISTS FROM THE EARTH AND GODS FROM THE SKIES!" he wrote.

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Suro writes op-ed on the Dream Act

Journalism professor Roberto Suro penned an op-ed titled “The defeat of the Dream Act and out lost decade on immigration reform” for the Washington Post.

“The United States is in the midst of a wave of immigration as substantial as any ever experienced. Millions of people from abroad have settled here peacefully and prosperously, a boon to the nation. Nonetheless, frustration with policy sours the mood,” he wrote.

“More than a quarter of the foreign-born are here without authorization. Meanwhile, getting here legally can be a long, costly wrangle. And communities feel that they have little say over sudden changes in their populations. People know that their world is being transformed, yet Washington has not enacted a major overhaul of immigration law since 1965. To move forward, we need at least three fundamental changes in the way the issue is handled,” he wrote.

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Alumna Ahearn’s documentary airs nationally

Ashley Ahearn (M.A. Specialized Journalism '10) recently produced a radio documentary that aired nationally on Living on Earth over the weekend of Jan. 7.  

Ahearn's story took a close look at how endocrine-disrupting chemicals may be affecting human reproductive health and even sexual identity.  Listen to the story here.

 

 

Quoted

Castells on the electronic media exposing government actions, on Bill Mitchell (O Globo- Brazil, Big Think)

Adjunct Catania quoted on Patch (LA Times)

Jeffrey Cole on social media privacy (Sydney Morning Herald)

Cull and Seib mentioned as speaking at public diplomacy conference (The Hindu)

Gross on gay and lesbians characters coming out on TV shows(LA Times)

Hollihan on Giffords shooting (LA Times)

Jenkins cited as leading authority on media consumer behavior (The Toronto Star)

Kaplan on senate democrats taking on filibuster reform, mentioned in a book review, article featured, on cable news and violence, on public figures and language, Giffords shooting  (KPCC, Huffington Post, Variety, The Wrap, Philadelphia Inquirer, AZ Republic)

Kun on ‘The Corrido of LA’ project, consumers spending money on concerts  (KPCC, LA Times)

Overholser on NPR host Williams’ firing (KPCC)

Page on wintry music (NPR music)

Reeves on Giffords shooting, book Portraits of Camelot featured (KPCC, Sign on San Diego)

Scheer featured as winner of SPJ/LA’s New Media Prize (Truthdig)

Seib mentioned as a speaker for recent public diplomacy conference (LiveMint)

Suro on the 14th amendment (KPCC)

Williams’ study of video games as virtual labs featured (MSNBC)

Winston on teaching religion in public schools, Christmas wars, media keeping stories alive  (To the Point, KPCC, Washington Post)

Undergrad  Dave’s Neon Tommy article mentioned (The Atlantic)

Undergrad  Schweitzer’s Neon Tommy article mentioned (Poynter, Fishbowl LA)

Annenberg Innovation Lab mentioned (LA Times)

Center for the Digital Future study on parents restricting children from internet featured (AP, ABC, NY Post, U.S. News & World Report)

Annenberg’s News 21 featured (MediaShift)

Reporting on Health project featured (Bangor Daily News)