Tag: Cox International Center

Murrow Fellows discuss misinformation during visit with Cox International Center

Posted on by Sarah Freeman

Conversations about the effect of 24-hour news, social media and misinformation during elections around the world were a few of the topics discussed when 17 international journalists visited Grady College on Nov. 9, 2022.

The group was part of the Murrow Fellow program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and Poynter and hosted for the day by the Cox International Center. The Murrow Fellows program invited journalists to the United States from around the world including Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, just to name a few. The journalists are selected to tour the U.S. and learn about journalistic practices over a three-week period. The journalists were selected by embassies in their home countries.

“This Fellowship is one of the most prestigious media programs funded by the Department of State and we are honored by again be selected to work with these visitors, who are very senior journalists in their home countries,” said Tudor Vlad, executive director of the Cox International Center.

Several former heads of state, including Tony Blair, have been Murrow Fellows in the past.

The international journalists heard from Dean Charles Davis, Jonathan Peters who spoke about media law and Amanda Bright who talked about fact-checking tools used in the United States. All of the discussions focused on this year’s theme, “Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation for the Indo-Pacific.”

Tudor Vlad listens to an international journalist during the panel discussion.
Tudor Vlad listens to an international journalist during the panel discussion.

The journalists participated in a panel discussion with students and members of the Communication and Media Fellows Program (formerly the Business and Public Communication Fellows Program), talking about media in their own countries and how disinformation is handled.

Several panelists discussed topics like reporting in collaboration with journalists in other countries since they can’t cover certain topics in their own country. Panelists also talked about the amount of misinformation that is spread during elections in their home country and commented that they were eager to see how elections are treated in the United States.

“It was fun to see cheering and dancing related to the elections yesterday,” commented Nyamdari Baigalmaa, a journalist working with Mongol Content from Mongolia, about the celebrations at campaign headquarters.

There was also a discussion about the effect of 24-hour news channels which the United States has but many of the countries represented in the program do not have.

Lucy Cormack, a state political reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Australia wondered if some of the misinformation in the U.S. comes from the need to fill a 24-hour news vacuum.

“I am acutely aware of the media freedoms you enjoy,” Cormack said, “but there is such a need to feed this hungry beast 24 hours a day and that need might spawn misinformation.”

She added that she is not sure if errors are intentional in some 24-hour operations or if it’s because they are understaffed, but she noted it’s always better to wait to report a story and be second, than to be wrong.

“It’s so important to confirm stories and be right,” Cormack emphasized.

A question about the role of social media in journalism was asked to the visiting journalists. Although some journalists use social media channels like What’s App or Signal, most have not advanced that far due to security issues with different platforms.

Vlad wrapped up the panel discussion commenting on what he learns from these discussions.

“I always feel like I am cheating because I learn more than I offer,” Vlad said.

Murrow Fellows pose with a group from the Communication and Media Fellows (formerly the BPC Fellows)
Seventeen Murrow Fellows visited Grady College and were hosted by the Cox International Center Nov. 9, 2022. The Murrow Fellows were joined by the Communication and Media Fellows (formerly the BPC Fellows)
For more pictures of the visit with the Murrow Fellows, please see the Murrow Fellows Flickr album.

 

Cox International Center welcomes group of journalists from Sri Lanka

Posted on by Jackson Schroeder

On July 14, 2022, the James M. Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research welcomed seven journalists from Sri Lanka to Grady College, where they spent the day touring College facilities and taking classes on digital media and journalism in the United States. 

The visit to Grady was as a part of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program’s Media in a Democracy Project.

Amanda Bright speaks in front of the journalists visiting from Sri Lanka.
Amanda Bright speaks with the visiting journalists about key concepts in news literacy. (Photo: Jackson Schroeder)

While at Grady, the group of Sri Lankan journalists listened to lectures and participated in discussions led by Tudor Vlad, director of the Cox International Center, Amanda Bright, director of the Cox Institute Journalism Innovation Lab, Janice Hume, the Carolyn McKenzie and Don E. Carter Chair for Excellence in Journalism and incoming associate dean of academic affairs, and David Hazinski, professor emeritus. 

“We were pleased and honored to put together a training program for the Sri Lankan journalists here at Grady College,” said Vlad. “This is an extraordinary time for Sri Lanka, and all my colleagues who contributed to the sessions were aware of the turmoil that the country is going through and by the important role that journalists will play in the following weeks.” 

The Grady faculty members led discussions about the responsibility of the media, the need to inform citizens while avoiding incitement, and about the opportunities for journalists to contribute to the process of democratization, Vlad explained. 

The visitors, who are managers, editors and producers of newspapers, television stations, radio stations and news websites in Sri Lanka, were also led on a tour through the College, making stops by the Grady Newsource facilities, the Social Media Engagement and Evaluation Suite and elsewhere.

Tudor Vlad gives Sri Lankan visitors a tour of Grady Newsource.
Before lunch, Tudor Vlad (left) walked the visitors through a tour of Grady Newsource, the SEE Suite and elsewhere.

“The topics are not new to us, but the technologies and the approach are. So, it’s really good for us and helps us think differently,” one visiting Sri Lankan journalist explained. “The University and the media school, we don’t have these types of facilities in Sri Lanka, but I’m hoping that younger Sri Lankan students can come here and get this experience.”  

 

Jooyoung Kim named director of Cox International Center

Posted on by Sarah Freeman

Jooyoung Kim, the Dan Magill Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Sports Communication, has been named director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research.

Tudor Vlad, the current Cox International Center director, will assume a new role as executive director. Vlad has led dozens of international training missions and welcomed hundreds of visiting journalists from around the world to UGA over many years of service to the college.

“Dr. Kim brings a highly successful international program, the Business and Public Communication Fellows Program, under the Cox International Center, marshalling the college’s international training center and its resources,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. “I’m excited to see the Cox Center continue enriching media operations around the world through its training and international research.”

Kim is grateful for the opportunity to work with the Cox Center and continue its mission.

“Through interdisciplinary collaborations with Grady faculty and other excellent units at UGA as well as external experts and organizations worldwide, I hope to continue to build the Cox Center as a global hub for mass communication knowledge production and training,” Kim said.

Kim is the founder and director the Business and Public Communication Fellows Program, a program inviting experienced communication professionals from different countries to study for one year at Grady College. The program, founded in 2010, operates in conjunction with the Cox International Center and has graduated more than 100 students.

“Now under the Cox International Center, the program will flourish even more by attracting international scholars in a wide range of disciplines related to mass communication,” Kim said.

Kim is a professor of advertising and specializes in research on the roles of advertising in branding context and perception. His research also examines advertising and brand communication in the sports context. Kim also directs the Advertising and Branding Insights Studio at UGA to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations that focus on research-driven insights in advertising and branding using various scientific approaches. Kim serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Interactive Advertising and was secretary last year of the American Academy of Advertising, an organization dedicated to advertising science and research. He is the co-founder and current vice president of the Korean American Faculty Association at UGA, an organization committed to increasing the visibility of its members and mentoring the Korean and Korean American students on campus.

The James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research began operations in 1985 and is dedicated to conducting media training programs involving countries all over the world, and conducting and publishing research reports on a variety of topics related to the practice of journalism around the world.

Among the activities in the past year that the Cox Center has directed are the development of a series of civic and media management courses for the African Civic Engagement Academy and hosting a group of 21 journalists from the country Georgia for training in digital media.

The Cox Center is named for the late James M. Cox, Jr., chairman of the board of Cox Enterprises and a major figure in the communications industry in the United States in the twentieth century.

Editor’s Note: For more information, please read this April 2022 profile about Jooyoung Kim. 

 

Journalists from North Africa and the Near East visit Grady College

Posted on by admin

Updated Nov. 22, 2016

For the eighth consecutive year, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication was selected to host international journalists who were participating in the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists.  This year’s program included 16 journalists representing 12 North African and Near East countries.

As in the past, the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research—housed at the college—organized and managed the program.

“Only seven schools across the country were selected out of about 480 journalism programs, so the fact that our college has been recognized and chosen year after year reflects the merit of our program,” said Tudor Vlad, associate director of the Cox International Center.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, this year’s Murrow Program brought journalists from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia to participate in a three-week visit. The program was designed as an exchange of best practices, an overview of free press in a democracy and the opportunity for the Murrow journalists to gain insight into the social economic and political structures of the U.S.

The journalists arrived in Athens on Nov. 3 and stayed through Nov. 9. They spent the first part of their visit in Atlanta meeting with editors from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN.  They also toured the Athens area and neighboring Oconee County.

While on UGA’s campus Nov. 7-8, the Murrow journalists met with Grady College Dean Charles Davis and Murrow Student Hosts.  Designating student hosts was an innovation in the program last year. This year, 12 students served as hosts, one for each of the 12 countries represented by the Murrow delegation.

“Over the past few years, we’ve increased the number of opportunities students have to interact with the journalists and learn from them,” said Lee B. Becker, director of the Cox International Center. “We found that the journalists have enjoyed the chance to spend more one-on-one time with students and the in-depth discussions that have resulted. We’ve had a lot of success, so much so that the State Department has asked that other universities do the same.”

The Murrow Journalists and Murrow Student Hosts participated in discussions about the principles of health communication and the goals of health and medical journalism, and U.S. journalism and mass communication education.

“This was a great opportunity for people from a part of the world that is very important to us, but that we know far less about than we should, to talk to our students, and for our students to share with them their experiences here at Grady College,” Becker said. “The students enjoyed and learned a lot from meeting with the journalists, who seemed very pleased as well.”

Taylor Cromwell, a senior journalism and international affairs double major, served as one of the student hosts.

“It was so eye-opening to hear the personal stories of all of these journalists,” Cromwell said. “I found out that we have so much more in common as journalists, even though we all came from very different backgrounds, and I think that everyone could learn from this experience.”

The visiting journalists also had the opportunity to observe the college’s digital and broadcast journalism majors in the newsroom of Grady Newsource on Election Day, and visit the Red & Black and Flagpole.

The following students were selected to represent Grady College and participate in the program as Murrow Student Hosts:

•       Dori Butler

•       Taylor Cromwell

•       Shelby Duffy

•       Emily Haney

•       Ja’Leia Johnson

•       Thomas McNeill Jordan

•       Noelle Lashley

•       Christina Matacotta

•       Martha Michael

•       Keion Pitts

•       Mollie Simon

•       Sarah Warui

For more information about the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists, visit https://eca.state.gov/highlight/edward-r-murrow-program-journalists.

Grady College hosts sixth annual Media and the Public Sphere International Conference

Posted on by admin

Updated Nov. 22, 2016

The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication hosted the Thomas C. Dowden International Conference Media and the Public Sphere: Empowered Audiences in the Digital Age Oct. 20-22, 2016.

“We were thrilled to welcome to Grady some of the nation’s leading experts on media analytics,” said Ann Hollifield, Thomas C. Dowden Professor in Media Research at Grady College. “Our panelists discussed the challenges of understanding audiences and advertisers in this digital age and how that impacts media content decisions, audiences and the media’s role in the public sphere.”

Panelists included Eric Bruce, research director, WSB-TV, Atlanta; Billy McDowell, vice president of research, Raycom Media Inc.; Howard Shimmel, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting; Steve Walsh, executive vice president, Local Television, comScore Inc.; and Reid Williams, senior director for analytics, Gannett.


Tom and Wendy Dowden

More than 50 scholars from UGA, the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Romania, the University of Florida, University of Tennessee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, among others, presented papers and discussed their research. “The focus of the discussions was the media’s changing role in society in an era when technologies enable audiences to choose, produce or avoid media as they wish,” Hollifield said.

In addition to the researchers and industry experts who came to UGA to present papers, several dozen graduate and undergraduate students in the Grady College sat in on the conference’s plenary panel discussions of media analytics as well as on some of the research paper presentations.

The James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research—an outreach unit of the Grady College—partnered with the Institute of Communication at University Lyon 2, France, and the Center for Communication Research at the National University for Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania, in organizing the conference. It was the sixth annual conference on the topic of Media and the Public Sphere.

This year’s conference honored Thomas C. Dowden, a Grady College and UGA alumnus (ABJ ‘62; MA ‘64 in political science) and a pioneer in the cable industry.   Dowden has been a generous supporter of the college, and has been committed to the development of the graduate Media Industry Research program, with its focus on audience research and media innovation.

“Our conference theme this year—Empowered Audiences in the Digital Age— both honors and reflects the contributions Tom Dowden has made throughout his career in expanding the opportunities for public dialog by expanding the number and range of the channels of communication through which that dialog takes place,” Hollifield said in her opening remarks for the conference.

Grady College hosted Media and the Public Sphere: Examining the Challenges in the New Communication Landscape in 2013.