Faculty Archives - Page 2 of 11

Grady College professor publishes LinkedIn Learning videos

Posted on August 31, 2022September 7, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Sabrena Deal’s first social media jumpstart happened the same way as a lot of viral content — it was accidental.

Since then, Deal has turned her expertise into a way to educate others on the popular platform LinkedIn Learning through two courses: her initial course, Designing a Resume in InDesign, and a new course, Creating Inclusive Content. The latest course premiered August 30, 2022.

“It wasn’t intentional at all,” said Deal, a senior lecturer at Grady College, of the first viral video.

Sabrena Deal created audio recordings of her latest course over the summer. (Photo: courtesy of Sabrena Deal)

Deal explains that creating LinkedIn Learning courses started when the company reached out to her because they noticed YouTube videos that she had created for her students several years ago had generated a lot of views. The videos focused on designing resumes and LinkedIn invited her to create a course using similar content. When the first course was successful, LinkedIn reached out to ask what other ideas she had for courses, which is when the idea for a course for inclusive communications came to mind.

“I have always had a true appreciation to connect barriers,” Deal explained, “and when they asked about what topics I care about, I told them I have a lot of training and education about how to make quality online education. A big piece of that is recognizing the personal perspectives of students and learners and really anyone reading or viewing any kind of content from a different perspective.”

Deal, who teaches lecture classes in graphic design though the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, knows the value of LinkedIn Learning courses. She often assigns certification courses to students to reinforce design skills in InDesign and Photoshop.

Although she teaches graphics courses, Deal notes that this new inclusive communication course is not just for graphic communications professionals, but for anyone who communicates with diverse audiences — which is a broad audience.

Her interest in this inclusive communication was sparked when she was a student in a session about accessible course design. One of the topics discussed was adapting coursework to learners from different perspectives, along with best practices for publishing electronic resources.

“I thought there are ways that we can design things with those audiences in mind that will improve the reach of our content and also include people who are often disregarded or just not even thought of,” Deal said of this light-bulb moment.

The LinkedIn Learning course, itself, is inclusive, covering a variety of scenarios: choosing fonts for multilingual content, using inclusive images, awareness of what colors mean in different cultures, writing inclusive copy, designing websites for adaptive technology and inclusive video publishing, just to name a few.

Deal designed the course to include changes that would make a significant impact but that don’t require highly technical skills.

Each of the seven chapters begins with an explanation about who benefits from the efforts explained in the chapter and provides case study personas about what their challenges consuming content might be. Exercises for each concept are also included.

“I wanted to bring a more human perspective to it,” she continues. “That is the hook for me personally because I am wanting to give dignity and respect and invitation to people and to include them. And, the amazing thing is that these changes are very small — they don’t cost thousands of dollars. It’s really nice to know that small, easy, attainable changes make a big difference.”

Deal is excited about where these LinkedIn Learning courses will go from here. While she does not have another course planned, she is open to exploring more topics and is considering some in-person workshops about inclusive content so others can learn. She even envisions a potential class on the subject in the future.

“I really see this as a tool for ways of opening up conversations with my students about their experiences and about barriers that they have had to accessing content and information that also for them to go into the field and to have an easy to apply list of guidelines,” she concludes. “After all, when you make things better — when you think about diverse audiences — everyone benefits.”

Deal’s Designing a Resume in InDesign course was released in December 2021 and includes basic resume guidelines, formatting instructions, discussions about color and information about printing the resume. As of late August 2002, it has received more than 4,000 views.

UGA students, faculty and staff have access to premium LinkedIn Learning through UGA’s membership.

Glen Nowak co-investigator on grant to forecast novel pandemics

Posted on August 11, 2022August 11, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

What if public health officials had a way to forecast pandemics the way meteorologists forecast the weather?

An interdisciplinary team of scientists with the University of Georgia Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases has been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to find a way to do exactly that.

Glen Nowak, Grady College’s associate dean for research and graduate studies and co-director of the Center for Health & Risk Communication is a co-investigator for the project.

The researchers, led by Regents’ Professor John Drake of the Odum School of Ecology, will use the grant to build systems for infectious disease intelligence that could predict—and ultimately help prevent—novel pandemics like COVID-19.

The goal of the project is to enable public health authorities and other decision-makers to understand in real time where and how spillover—when a disease jumps from wildlife or livestock to humans—may occur, how an outbreak begins to spread and how information can be used to encourage different groups of people to adopt behaviors to keep them and their communities safe.

“I have studied the dynamics of infectious diseases for over 15 years, and I believe that infectious disease models can be developed for real-time interpretation of disease spread anywhere on the planet,” said Drake, who is Director of the CEID. “I am inspired by the success of atmospheric models for weather prediction, which have become increasingly sophisticated over the past seventy years. We need the same for infectious diseases. This grant will help us realize infectious disease technologies and methodologies that don’t yet exist.”

The team, which includes several faculty members from UGA as well as researchers from the University of Michigan and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, has 18 months to prove that their technological innovations can help global industries, governments, nonprofits and societies handle the next infectious disease spillover event or outbreak.

The researchers will follow an approach pioneered to solve complex engineering problems, collaborating on six demonstration projects that are based upon their core expertise. Each project will be modeled on highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), but lessons learned are expected to be transferable to other pathogens, including those emerging diseases that have yet to be identified.

This approach has not previously been used in infectious disease modeling, said Nowak.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread throughout the globe and the United States, many organizations quickly conducted surveys and polls to learn more about what people were thinking and doing when it came to reducing the spread of the virus and preventing serious illness,” he said. “Traditionally, very little of that information has been used to inform infectious disease models and forecasts, even though human beliefs and behaviors greatly affect how severe and how long a pandemic will last. I am excited about this project because the information not only can inform public health messages, but it can help us identify the beliefs and behaviors that should be public health communication priorities.”

The demonstration projects will target different aspects and stages of spillover events, outbreaks, and control efforts. They include developing artificial intelligence platforms that can predict how the environmental interactions between humans and wild animals lead to the transmission of pathogens that cause infectious disease outbreaks, surveys to capture how different human populations are influenced by disease prevention and vaccine acceptance messaging, determining the underlying processes that impact HPAI dynamics and determining which HPAI viruses have pandemic potential through the study of molecular virology and immunology.

“Highly pathogenic flu is an ideal pathogen to model,” said team member Pejman Rohani, Regents’ Professor in the Odum School and the College of Veterinary Medicine department of infectious diseases. “Like SARS-CoV-2, HPAI is a highly transmissible respiratory virus, and it has a similar pathology. Although our attention is still on COVID-19, a pandemic created by the spillover of HPAI remains an ever-present concern among epidemiologists and public health officials. Much of what we have learned during COVID-19—how people have behaved, the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as wearing a facemask, vaccine hesitancy, and the biology of pathogen transmission—can be directly applied to HPAI.”

Individual demonstration projects are designed so that the outputs of each one feed into the others; the resulting synthesis of information will be much more robust than that of any one project on its own.

Drake and his colleagues must submit the results of their research by January 2024. Within the next two years, the National Science Foundation is expected to publish a call for Phase II grant proposals to develop a Center for Pandemic Prediction and Prevention. A Center of this magnitude could propel the University of Georgia into a global leader in Infectious Disease Intelligence research and forecasting.

Along with Drake, Rohani and Nowak, the grant’s co-investigators are Justin Bahl of the UGA Colleges of Public Health and Veterinary Medicine, Bogdan Epureanu of the University of Michigan School of Engineering, and Barbara Han of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

“I have extensively worked with all of these scientists who have different professional backgrounds and experiences,” said Drake. “I am excited about the advances that we are going to add to the burgeoning field of infectious disease intelligence.”

Grady College faculty and graduate students share research at AEJMC 2022 conference

Posted on August 2, 2022August 4, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Faculty and graduate students from Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication will chair committees, present research and network with educators at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference. The 2022 conference takes place in Detroit Aug. 3 – 6, 2022.

Among the highlights for Grady faculty and graduate students this year are several awards, including Solyee Kim (PhD ’22), who will receive the top student paper award in the Public Relations division. Kim’s paper, “Social Identity Signaling in Public Relations: Recruitment of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Practitioners,” will be presented during a session called “Referred Top Student Papers,” at 9:30 a.m. on Sat, Aug. 6. She will be recognized for her honor at the end of a session called “Referred Top Open Papers,” starting at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 5.

Jonathan Peters of our faculty, along with Leslie Klein, a Ph.D. student, will accept the award for Top Faculty paper of the Scholastic Journalism Division. The topic of their paper is “Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. and Regulating Off-Campus Student Expression: The Good News For College Student Journalists.”

Several faculty hold leadership positions at AEJMC, as well. At the conclusion of this year’s conference Karin Assmann will assume her role as vice head of the Cultural and Critical Studies Division. Jonathan Peters serves as research chair of the Law and Policy Division, and Yan Jin is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Relations Research (JPRR).

The Karen Russell Award of Most Downloaded Article in 2021 at Journal of Public Relations Research will be presented by the Public Relations Division. This year’s award will be presented to Nneka Logan of the School of Communication at Virginia Tech.

The following provides a listing of presentations and panels by College faculty:

Wednesday, Aug. 3

8:30 to 10 a.m. Kyser Lough is the discussant for the “Consumers, Identification and Social Media” refereed paper session in the Visual Communication Division.

8:30 to 10 a.m. Ja Kyung Seo and Yan Jin present “Mask-wearing as an unspoken statement of one’s identity during the COVID-19 pandemic” as part of the Scholar-to-Scholar Session, Topic IX: COVID-19, Identity, and the Self.

12:30 to 2 p.m. Kyser Lough leads “Exploring the Photo Bill of Rights,” a Professional Freedom & Responsibility panel, co-sponsored by the Visual Communication and Law and Policy divisions.

12:30 to 2 p.m. Karin Assmann and Alexander Pfeuffer serve on a panel co-sponsored by the Advertising Division and the Newspaper and Online News Division, “Pushing Fuzzy Boundaries: Advertising, Journalism Ethics and Professional Identities in Branded Newsrooms.”

2:30 to 4 p.m., Michael Cacciatore‘s research will be presented during a poster session. The presenter will be Henry Allen of the University of Utah.

Thursday, Aug. 4

7 a.m. Journal of Public Relations Research (JPRR) Editorial Board Meeting. Yan Jin serves on the editorial board.

10:30 a.m. Karin Assmann is moderator and panelist for “Change Comes from the Top: Bringing Diversity into Newsroom Leadership” co-sponsored with the Divisions Mass Communication and Society and Media Management and Entrepreneurship.

12:15 p.m., Glen Nowak and Yan Jin are panelists for the Public Relations Division Graduate Student Luncheon. They will talk about “Cross-National, Cross-Disciplinary, and Cross-Institutional Collaboration.” The event takes place at Andiamo Detroit Riverfront Restaurant and is sponsored by Grady College.

12:30 – 2 p.m. Karin Assmann is moderating a high-density paper panel sponsored by the International Communication Division.

2:30 – 4 p.m. Karin Assmann and Alexander Pfeuffer are presenting their poster “Fuzzy Boundaries: Journalists Telling Branded Stories” as part of the Advertising Division’s session titled “Advertising Innovations: Influencers, ASMR, Gamification, Story Telling, and Nation Branding”

2:30 – 4 p.m. Karin Assmann is moderating a research paper session co-sponsored by the Communication Technology and Political Communication Divisions with the theme “Politics of Content Moderation: Deplatforming Right-Wing Users and the Emergence of Alternative Social Media.”

Friday, Aug. 5

8:30-10 a.m. Location to be determined. Glen Nowak is a panelist for a session titled “Addressing Sensitive and Controversial Topics in Class,” which is focus on efforts and strategies for effectively discussing sensitive and controversial issues in class without stigmatization and discrimination.

2-3:30 p.m. Carlo Finlay serves on a panel called “Capitalizing on NIL: Feministic perspectives on Name, Image and Likeness,” presented by the Commission on the Status of Women and Law and Policy Division.

4 p.m. William Newlin (MA ’22) and Karin Assmann are presenting their paper “From Liberal Bias to Fake News” about Sean Hannity’s anti-press rhetoric during Presidential election seasons from 2012-2020 during a session sponsored by the Political Communication Division.

5 to 5: 30 p.m.: Leslie Klein and Jonathan Peters, “Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. and Regulating Off-Campus Student Expression: The Good News For College Student Journalists,” Scholastic Journalism Division. This paper is the winner of the Top Faculty Paper Award.

6 to 8 p.m.: Solyee Kim accepts her Top Student Paper Award at the end of the “Referred Top Student Papers” presentation.

6 to 8 p.m.: Jonathan Peters moderates a Top Paper Panel for the Law and Policy Division.

Saturday, Aug. 6

9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.: Refereed Top Student Papers: Solyee Kim will present her paper, which is the winner of Top Student Paper Award in the Public Relations division. Her paper was titled “Social Identity Signaling in Public Relations: Recruitment of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Practitioners.”

9.30 a.m. Karin Assmann is moderating the Cultural and Critical Studies Division refereed paper session “Critical Studies in Journalism”

Bryan Reber retires from Department of Advertising and Public Relations

Posted on August 1, 2022August 1, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Known for his unflappable personality, crisis communication acumen and commitment to helping students, Bryan Reber retires as head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations effective Aug. 1, 2022.

Charles Davis and Bryan Reber pose for a picture — Charles Davis and Bryan Reber in April 2022.

“Bryan Reber possesses all the qualities that make a great department chair: he’s reasonable, flexible, embraces ambiguity and works for the greater good,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “But, he’s also one of the most innately likable colleagues, an encouraging voice in the room and a rare leader who always, always tries to get to ‘yes.’”

Reber has served as head of the department or assistant head for the past 12 years, helping to lead many growth initiatives including the development of the Crisis Communication Think Tank, Crisis Communication Coalition, AdPR Executive Advisory Board, AdPR Academy, 4+1+1 program, Talking Dog, certificate programs like the Strategic Health and Risk Communication, and several labs including the Brain, Body and Media (BBAM), SEE Suite, Virtual Environments Room and Gaming Experience (VERGE) and Games and Virtual Environments Lab (GAVEL).

Reber has long been a prolific researcher, including several years as a co-author of the North American Communication Monitor sponsored by The Plank Center, and has helped lead the department during a time when it was recognized as the top US institution in AdPR research productivity.

He has a national reputation for his expertise in crisis communication and was named the C. Richard Yarbrough Professor in Crisis Communication Leadership in 2014. Through this role, he was frequently quoted in national media covering corporate crisis and he initiated the Crisis Communication Think Tank, bringing together industry professionals and scholars to collaborate on crisis issues.

Dick Yarbrough talks into a microphone as Bryan Reber looks on. — Dick Yarbrough speaks at the Sports Media Consortium, “Atlanta, 20 Years Later: Lessons in Sports Media from the Last American Summer Olympic Games,” in 2014 as Bryan Reber looks on.

“I had great expectations for the professorship at its inception,” said Dick Yarbrough (ABJ ’59), “and, Bryan Reber exceeded them. Thanks to his efforts, Grady College is turning out a new generation of relevant crisis communications professionals while making Grady a respected leader in the field with practitioners across the globe. I could not be more pleased or proud.”

Karen King, professor emeritus who retired in 2020, worked alongside Reber since he came to Grady College in 2004 from the University of Alabama.

“Bryan has contributed to the department in so many ways,” King noted. “He understands the importance of

Three faculty members and one alumnus pose for a picture in a grove of trees in Cannes, France. — Joe Phua, Jason Kreher (ABJ ’00), Karen King and Bryan Reber outside the Cannes Lions Festival, one of the special study away opportunities AdPR offers for its students in the summer. (Photo: courtesy of Karen King)

culture in an academic department and was generous with his time, talent, support, and even his personal funds. This allowed the department to continue to have a pleasant environment for faculty, students, and alums alike.”

Reber is the author of several books, including the text book, “Gaining Influence in Public Relations: The Role of Resistance in Practice” which he co-authored with Bruce K. Berger, and his most recent book, “Advancing Crisis Communication Effectiveness,” which he co-edited with Glen Nowak and Yan Jin of the Grady faculty.

In all that he has accomplished in shaping the department, building bridges through partnerships, raising money to benefit student experiences and contributing to the betterment of the industry through his work on boards like the Plank Center or induction into industry leadership organizations like the Arthur Page Society, Reber’s key motivator is guiding his students to productive, impactful careers. Whether he is working with undergraduate students serving as Yarbrough Crisis Communication Fellows or graduate students whose goals are to teach, he is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of professionals.

Nicholas Browning (MA ’10, PhD ’15) worked closely with Reber who served as his committee chair for his master’s thesis and later for his doctoral dissertation.

Nicholas Browning and Bryan Reber after Browning's graduation in 2010 — Bryan Reber (right) served on Nicholas Brownings master’s thesis committee and as his dissertation chair. This picture was taken following Browning’s master’s degree graduation in 2010. “He gave students the opportunity—or perhaps “forced students” is the better phrasing—to forge their own paths, to articulate their own visions, and to grow into their own unique careers,” Browning said of Reber. (Photo: courtesy of Nick Browning)

“Bryan is a brilliant scholar and prolific in virtually every facet of academia: research, teaching, service, whatever—he does it all, and he does it all well,” Browning said. “I owe Bryan Reber a lot, and though I can never repay it, I try to pay it forward in the mentorship role I now find myself in. I consider myself fortunate to have been his student, privileged to be his colleague, and honored to be his friend.”

Isn’t that the most any professor can hope for?

Reber plans to enjoy time vacationing with his wife, Sharon, and gardening in his retirement.

Juan Meng assumes the role as AdPR department head effective Aug. 1.

Janice Hume earns Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Journalism Historians Association

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Janice Hume, the Carolyn McKenzie and Don E. Carter Chair for Excellence in Journalism and incoming associate dean of academic affairs at Grady College, is the recipient of the 2022 Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement by the American Journalism Historians Association. It is AJHA’s highest honor.

The chair of the Service Awards Committee, Professor Emeritus Thomas A. Mascaro of Bowling Green State University, announced the decision.

“The nominating and support letters for Dr. Janice Hume reflect widespread admiration and appreciation for Janice’s excellence, mentorship, teaching and research contributions,” Mascaro said, “and for reflecting the tradition of this esteemed award.”

The rich number of tributes from support letters speak to the sweep of Hume’s record of achievement during a lifetime of service to journalism history.

“Dr. Hume most deserves recognition because she has mentored dozens upon dozens of graduate students, colleagues, and friends,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “It’s the quiet counsel, often unheralded and unheard by others, that gives a graduate student the confidence to move forward.”

Hume has “an exemplary record of sustained achievements through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history,” said award committee member Carolyn Kitch of Temple University. “She has contributed to the field in all of these categories, and in a very sustained way for decades. Her own scholarship importantly situates journalism history within American cultural history. And she has steadily worked to mentor and support other journalism historians’ research and teaching, expanding her impact on the field’s present and future.”

Erika Pribanic-Smith of the University of Texas Arlington praised Hume’s stalwart participation as an AJHA and AEJMC History Division member, and credited her with “amassing a record of teaching, research, and service that makes her more than worthy of AJHA’s highest honor.”

Jason Lee Guthrie (PhD ’18) of Clayton State University was one of several scholars who thanked Hume for her mentorship.

“I gravitated toward history first and foremost because of who Dr. Hume is as a person, her kindness and her generosity,” he said.

Alexia “Lexie” C. Little (MA ’21) of Vanderbilt University said Hume “approaches our field with a ferocious curiosity made apparent by her wide and readily accessible internal archive of scholarship read, networks fostered, mistakes made, achievements earned, topics explored, and mentor guidance committed to heart.”

Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas noted that Hume is known for her research on collective memory and obituaries. “She was interviewed on NPR about her research into 8,000 obituaries, and her commentary was fascinating,” said Finneman.

Hume has earned more than 15 awards and recognitions, including AJHA’s President’s Award for Service, National Award for Excellence in Teaching, the McKerns Research Grant, and multiple top paper or article awards from both AJHA and the AEJMC History Division. She was named a Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program Fellow and to the Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy, and has provided leadership as a long-time department chair within the Department of Journalism at Grady College.

“The award’s namesake, Sidney Kobre, fused his love of journalism and history to make an enduring legacy within the field of history,” said M. Cayce Myers (MA ’06, Ph.D. ’14) of Virginia Tech. “Janice Hume’s career is in that same tradition.”

Hume studied at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, earning her Bachelor’s in Journalism as a magazine major, a Master of Arts in Journalism, writing about characteristics of heroic women in magazines, and a doctorate in Journalism.

Janice Hume holds copies of her book, "Popular Media and the American Revolution." — Janice Hume displays copies of her most recent book, “Popular Media and the American Revolution” when it was published in 2014.

She has authored three books, including her most recent, “Popular Media and the American Revolution: Shaping Collective Memory.”

Hume’s dissertation, “Private Lives, Public Virtues: Historic Newspaper Obituaries in a Changing American Culture,” launched her lifelong research agenda. She taught at Kansas State University before going to the University of Georgia in 2001. Prior to entering academe, Hume worked at the Mobile (Alabama) Register and Florence (Alabama) Times, Tri-Cities Daily.

Founded in 1981, the American Journalism Historians Association seeks to advance education and research in mass communication history. Members work to raise historical standards and ensure that all scholars and students recognize the vast importance of media history and apply this knowledge to the advancement of society.

Jooyoung Kim named director of Cox International Center

Posted on July 11, 2022 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.

Age may rival politics in COVID-19 vaccine debate

Posted on July 6, 2022July 7, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

New research from the University of Georgia suggests age and risk perception may have as much of an effect on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance as party affiliation.

“There’s been a lot of attention to political ideology as a barrier to COVID-19 vaccination acceptance,” said Glen Nowak, corresponding author of the study and professor in Grady College. “What we found in our survey was that’s not so much true as people get older. Current CDC coverage data affirms this. People who are 65 and older are almost universally vaccinated, particularly as you start getting to 75 and older.”

The nationally representative survey of more than 1,000 people examined how demographic characteristics—such as age and sex, political ideology and news source preference—related to views on COVID-19 and vaccine intent.

Respondents who were age 50 or older considered themselves more at risk for severe illness from the coronavirus. And they were more concerned that catching the virus would negatively impact their daily lives.

Younger Americans were less likely to consider themselves at risk of severe illness. They’re also less likely to worry about contracting the virus and less likely to keep themselves up to date on the latest COVID-related news.

“Looking at 18- to 29-year-olds, it’s not surprising that they are the group with the lowest overall COVID vaccination rates because they’re not a group that is suffering serious illness and death from COVID,” said Nowak, who also serves as co-director of UGA’s Center for Health and Risk Communication. “Are there instances of that? Absolutely. But it’s relatively rare. I think many people in that age group understand that.”

Glen Nowak talks with WSET about COVID-19 vaccination research findings.

More COVID-19 information isn’t always better

Published in the International Journal of Strategic Communication, the study found that political affiliation and where participants got their news were the most consistent predictors of how an individual felt about their COVID-19 risk level and their vaccine intent.

Liberals in the study viewed the virus as a bigger threat to their daily lives than conservatives. They worried about becoming ill, believed symptoms would be severe and expressed concern that they could pass the disease to others. They were also more likely to accept the vaccine and trust authority figures like the CDC and FDA.

Both liberals and moderates believed medical care and treatment would be more difficult to access than conservatives.

Surprisingly, people who said they get their COVID-19 news from a variety of sources, both conservative and liberal, were more likely to be vaccine hesitant than those who stuck to partisan news sources.

“If you had asked us before we this study, we would have said pretty confidently that people who were looking at a wide array of information would be much more likely to be vaccinated and have much more confidence in the vaccine,” Nowak said. “What this suggested was the opposite in many instances. Many people who tried or said that they looked at a broad spectrum of information sources came away less confident and more uncertain about the vaccine and its value.”

Public health should tailor messages to the right audiences

The differences between participants on the right, left or middle highlight the need to tailor COVID-19 messaging to different populations, Nowak said.

Those who aren’t in a high-risk category, like young adults, quickly realize that they’re unlikely to get really sick from the coronavirus and largely tune out public health education efforts.

Communications to these populations should focus on more realistic situations for them, Nowak said. For example, emphasize that there aren’t great treatments available to treat patients if they are one of the few who do need hospitalization.

“This data shows you can’t assume interest and attention from younger people and those who are less affected by COVID-19,” Nowak said. “It’s a good reminder that we can’t just blast, ‘Everybody should be afraid of getting severe COVID.’ That’s not an effective communication strategy.”

This study was co-authored by Michael Cacciatore, an associate professor in the Grady College and co-director of the Center for Health and Risk Communications.

Editor’s Note: This release was originally posted on the UGA News website.

Vicki Michaelis receives Association for Women in Sports Media award

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Vicki Michaelis, the John Huland Carmical Chair in Sports Journalism & Society and director of the John Huland Carmical Sports Media Institute, is the recipient of the 2022 Ann Miller Service Award by Association for Women in Sports Media. It is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to the organization.

Michaelis has worked at Grady College since 2012, and has been the faculty adviser for the AWSM student chapter at the University of Georgia and she regularly participates in conventions as a moderator or panelist.

Before joining UGA, she spent more than two decades as a sports journalist, including at USA Today as the lead Olympics reporter and Denver bureau sportswriter covering professional and college sports. She also was a reporter for The Denver Post and The Palm Beach Post.

“Getting an award named for Ann Miller? Priceless to me,” Michaelis said. “She isn’t just part of AWSM’s foundation. She’s part of its soul. That soul, that community, has meant so much to me and my career — as both a journalist and a professor. I am truly honored.”

Michaelis is a former president and chair of the board who has played a role in several AWSM endeavors. She was a regional coordinator, helping plan and host events in the Denver area, and took on treasurer responsibilities during her time as chair.

“Vicki’s involvement and support of AWSM long after serving on the board embodies what the Ann Miller Service Award is all about,” AWSM president Ashley Colley said. “She has helped so many women at both the student and professional level. I’ve witnessed her contributions on both fronts, working with student chapters and giving advice to many of our members seeking guidance from a veteran woman in this industry. We thank Vicki for always making time to give back to AWSM.”

Established in 2013, AWSM’s service award is named in honor of Ann Miller, a longtime Hawaii-based sports reporter who was the organization’s treasurer for its first 10 years, served as board chair and has attended nearly every convention despite the long travel distance.

Editor’s Note: The above was edited from a feature written by AWSM. An original copy of this feature can be found on the AWSM website.

Vicki Michaelis provides input to students in an outdoor class of Multi-platform Storytelling in Sports in April 2022. (Photo: Sarah E. Freeman)

The camera eats first: Q&A with Kyser Lough

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Assistant Professor Kyser Lough teaches in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications’ photojournalism program and studies visual communication, with an emphasis on photojournalism, as well as solutions journalism. In this interview, Lough discusses the continuing role of photojournalists in an age of ubiquitous imagery, and how he teaches his students to navigate that landscape. Read more about his research here.

How do you describe photojournalism research?

You can think of it several different ways, and the first is looking at the images themselves: What are the images telling us? How are they chosen? What’s being left out? Who is in the image? What kind of effects do these images have on people? That’s a big question surrounding conflict photography especially—we need these photos to see what’s going on, but what kind of toll is it taking on us to constantly see images of conflict?

What we often forget about is there’s a person behind the camera making these pictures, and that person has to physically be there. During the pandemic a lot of reporters were stuck at home; they were calling their sources and having Zoom meetings. The photographers had to go to these places to make these photos. So there are a lot of questions surrounding access and embodiment when it comes to being a photojournalist—how they have to use their bodies in the act of photography, not just to maneuver to make photos but also in negotiating for access to where they need to be.

It’s also fascinating to dig into photographers’ minds and ask about their process. How do they look for things to photograph? How do they decide what, who and when to photograph? When you combine that with talking about access and embodiment, it gives us a deeper look into the images.

As a visual communicator, what your thoughts about how the media world we live in has changed over the last two or three decades?

It’s definitely changed how we think of images. We toggle back and forth between seeing images as pure, unadulterated reality or pure, unadulterated fiction. It’s something we have to consider when we think about modern-day news literacy. In being worried about misinformation and disinformation, we need to really look at images. Part of that is putting the focus back on the image creator and the image owner. Just like we try and vet news sources, we also need to vet image sources and understand that many different things could have happened between an image being captured and us seeing it.

With deep fake video technology and ever more sophisticated photo-editing software, how are we going to determine the truth of an image in the future?

There is fascinating work being done on this right now. Part of it is news literacy and training us to have a healthy dose of skepticism when consuming news. But on the other end, there are computer scientists developing algorithms to analyze and detect alteration in images and video.

From the professional side, there are organizations and people working to prevent it on the creation end. So instead of trying to detect a fake image, it’s about providing a certificate of authenticity: “This image is real.” The Content Authenticity Initiative is probably the biggest one right now, where they are working with Adobe and other folks to essentially create a uneditable chain of edits and history on a photo. You can see the date and time the image was taken, but also see that it was loaded into Photoshop and these different edits were made. If that’s widely adopted—and the problem is it has to be adopted—then we can use that to vet images before they are out there and manipulated.

Dr. Kyser Lough Assistant Professor, Journalism — “We toggle back and forth between seeing images as pure, unadulterated reality or pure, unadulterated fiction. It’s something we have to consider when we think about modern-day news literacy,” Lough said. “Just like we try and vet news sources, we also need to vet image sources and understand that many different things could have happened between an image being captured and us seeing it.” (Photo by Jason Thrasher)

On a more positive note, all this changing technology and media affords a lot more possibilities to photojournalists in how they create and publish and share their work. What do you teach your students about how to leverage that to their advantage?

We start with the core foundation that storytelling matters, first and foremost. It has to be a good story. It has to be a good moment. We have to be people-focused. We start there, and then we can think about the platforms we use to tell this story. It’s so easy to get lost in the shiny new thing and forget we have to start as good journalists and good storytellers.

Now that everyone has a camera in their pocket, do we still need photojournalists?

That’s such a great question. In 2009, an airplane landed in the Hudson River in New York, and one of the first images to spread from that was not taken by a photojournalist—it was taken by a man on a ferry with a cell phone. He uploaded it to Twitter, and within minutes it was all over the place. Of course, now that’s commonplace. We know when something’s happening, and we’re not just seeing pictures posted—we’re seeing people livestreaming from their phones.

It’s very important for society to have that ability, for us to be able to witness and surveil as private citizens. On the other side of it, however, I firmly believe it’s still important to have photojournalists and trained storytellers out there because of the ethics and sensitivity surrounding a lot of the stories we’re trying to tell.

Journalism should be independent. There should be no conflict of interest; the journalist covering the story should not be involved in the story. The journalist’s images, while not being completely objective, are still representative of an independent observer who has been trained in how to be fair and how to cover the story and how to skillfully use the equipment. We still need journalists to tell these stories and uncover instances where power is being abused, and especially to protect the vulnerable.

Are your students more sophisticated about visual communications, having grown up with Instagram and Twitter and all of these new media?

I like to think so. It’s hard to think back to a time when we didn’t have a camera in our pocket, although it hasn’t been that long when you think about it. The biggest shift has been in the visual literacy students have in how the cell phone camera has allowed them to regularly observe and document their daily life. Once on a study abroad program we sat down to dinner, and the students brought out their phones and took pictures of the food. The phrase they taught me was: “Phone eats first.” And I love it. There’s no shame in it. I mean, when else in history has it been this easy to just snag a picture of anything and then go back and use the photo as a memory device?

What’s the best photo you’ve ever taken?

Recently I haven’t been able to do as much photography as I have in the past, because my priorities are research and teaching. But we take our students out into the world as much as possible to get experiential learning, so I like to try and turn the camera around on them and those have been my favorite recent photos—the pictures of my students photographing. I’ve really enjoyed documenting the process as they grab their cameras and go out and do things. When I’ve taught study abroad, I took pictures of them photographing, and at the end of the program I wrote them a note and gave each one pictures of them out making photos.

The other answer to that question would be the times that I haven’t taken a picture. This is something that I usually wrap my photo classes with, this idea that just because we can doesn’t mean we should, especially in the day and age when we all have a camera in our pocket. I challenge my students to think about when to take a picture and when to simply use your five senses to really sit in that moment. Not everything has to be photographed.

The above feature was originally written and posted by UGA Research, and can also be round on the UGA Research website.

Jonathan Peters named Department of Journalism Head

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Sarah Freeman

Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication proudly announces Jonathan Peters as the new head of the Department of Journalism.

“I am delighted that Jon is joining the leadership team,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “Jon is a Russell Award-winning teacher and an internationally renowned First Amendment scholar, making him a well-rounded choice to lead our journalism department faculty and curriculum.”

Jonathan Peters talks with a student at his Teacher of the Year reception in 2019. (Photo: Sarah E. Freeman)

Peters, an associate professor who holds an affiliate faculty position in the UGA School of Law, specializes in communication law and policy. His research focuses on internet companies and decisions made about content they host. Peters also studies how economic, political and technological changes affect modern journalism.

His published research has appeared in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, the Harvard Law and Policy Review, and the Federal Communications Law Journal, among others.

“It’s an honor to be entrusted to serve the department and I am grateful for the opportunity,” Peters said. “I’m thankful, too, to have such a terrific model in Dr. Janice Hume. She has been an outstanding chair, and I’m relieved she’ll be just down the hallway to answer the dozens of questions I’ll have (and that’ll be only the first day).”

Peters assumes leadership for the Department of Journalism on August 1 when Hume assumes the role of associate dean for academic affairs for the College.

In addition to his teaching and research, Peters serves as the press freedom correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review. He has written about legal issues for Esquire, The Atlantic, Slate, Wired, NBC News, and CNN, and has been interviewed on related topics by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and NPR, among others.

Peters is a volunteer First Amendment lawyer for the Student Press Law Center and the ACLU. He has also testified in litigation as an expert witness on media law, and he has conducted legal seminars for dozens of news organizations, including the radio program “This American Life” and the podcast “Serial.” In 2020, Peters consulted with the Uzbekistan government as part of a United Nations program focusing on how the government can strengthen public access to the nation’s judiciary as well as public trust in it.

In 2021, Peters was honored as the Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, UGA’s highest early-career teaching honor, and was recognized in 2019 as the Journalism Teacher of the Year at Grady College.

“My colleagues are the absolute best,” Peters continues. “Every one of them has helped me—in different ways—become a better teacher, researcher, and human being. And our students are phenomenal. They’re smart and conscientious, and they’re so creative and curious. They demand your A-game as an instructor and advisor. All of which is why I’m excited about my new role.”

Peters has a B.S. in journalism from Ohio University, a J.D. from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Missouri.