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Professor Stephen Bates wins Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) 2008 Award for Excellence in Technology Journalism JMS Senior Applies Classroom Skills in Ghana UNLV Alumna Wins Emmy JMS alumna Lindsay Johnson was recently awarded an Emmy for her work on the Fox5 production of "Speedway Saturday Night." Full Story Here Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies Director Named 2009-2010 Fulbright Scholar Dr. Ardyth Broadrick Sohn, director of the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies, will be on leave 2009-2010 as a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar in Latvia supported by funds appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress, partner countries and the private sector. She joins a prestigious group of Fulbright participants who include heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, university presidents as well as 39 Nobel Prize winners. The program is dedicated to developing international understanding and long-term cooperative relationships in educational, political, economic, social and cultural lives of citizens around the world. Dr. Sohn’s research project is titled, “Latvia Connections to Digital Global Media Development: Managing Media in Today’s International Digital Climate.” Her work connects to prior research projects with new and emerging media in Eastern Europe including Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Poland and Hungary. Her work in the Baltic region will include collaboration with Scandinavian researchers working on similar projects. Dr. Sohn will be affiliated with the Univiersity of Latvia in Riga where she also will teach a seminar for doctoral students.
This is Sohn’s second Fulbright Award, which may only be granted twice to any one person. Visiting Scholar Joins UNLV faculty Meiyu Guo, from Central University for Nationalities in the School of Literature, Journalism and Communications in China will be joining the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies Feb. 1. The China Scholarship Council is sponsoring her visit to the United States where she will be working with faculty and students. Her teaching interests are in Visual Culture Communication, Basic Graphic Design, Creative Advertising and Computer Graphic Design. Her research interests are based in visual communication theories and approaches to the study of images in advertising and the media as well as cross-cultural advertising especially on how international brands launch their cross-cultural advertising campaigns. Professor Guo will be working most closely with Professor Larry Mullen who helped facilitate her visit and shares research interests in visual communication. RISK COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
Journalism Professors Promoted Congratulations to Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies professors Lawrence Mullen, Anthony Ferri, Gregory Borchard and John Naccarato. The four were notified last week that all will be promoted in July. Mullen and Ferri will be promoted to Full Professor; Borchard will be promoted to Associate Professor and Naccarato will be promoted to Associate Affiliate. Director Ardyth Sohn says she is proud of their contributions and pleased that their work is valued by the university.
Greenspun Hall Dedication
UNLV President David Ashley formally thanked the Greenspun family for their generosity and commitment to higher education as part of the Greenspun Hall dedication ceremony in early December. View the story and find out what people are saying about our new home.
Kappa Tau Alpha Initiates new Members Professor Emeritus Barbara Cloud announced the initiation of thirteen new members to the UNLV chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha, the only national honor society for scholars in journalism and media studies. KTA initiates are in the top ten percent of their class and have completed at least three professional courses in journalism or mass communication. 2008 Initiates are: Lisa Eastham, Chase Brown, April Corbin, Kenthea Fogenay, Danielle Gillcrist, Audrey Greene, Crecia Page, Jochabel Reese, Christine Richards, Hannah Rickards, Jennifer Spraul, Jessica Tripp and Denitsa Yotova-Green. Books published by JMS Faculty in the past year.
Research Articles and Conference Presentations
Alien no longer
“I even put my hand over my heart when reciting the pledge of allegiance, “ Tony said, adding “ Of course I don’t know the words to the pledge. I just faked it.” After the pledge, Tony registered to vote and debated whether to wait in yet another long line to apply for his American passport. He promises to vote early and often in the upcoming election, just like Uncle Al used to say.
JMS will sponsor lecture by film critic David Thomson
Thomson is the author of several books including the Biographical Dictionary of Film, Showman: the Life of David O’Selznick and Rosebud: the Story of Orson Welles. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, the New York Times and the New Republic. The lecture is free and open to the public but seating is limited. For more information, contact Stephen Bates at 895-5118.
JMS Alumni Association Event Set The Journalism and Media Studies Alumni Association and the College of Urban Affairs Alumni Association will host a social event on Thursday, October 17, 6-8 p.m., on the Greenspun Hall plaza. The event will feature free food and drink, an opportunity to mingle with faculty and students and tours of the building. For more information, contact Dan Grimes 895-0735.
JMS moves to Greenspun Hall
JMS faculty and staff moved from the central desert complex to Greenspun Hall on Thursday, September 11. The School is located on the first and second floors of the east wing of the building. Classes will be offered in three of the four teaching laboratories in the Spring semester with the remainder of the building slated for completion in June 2009.
JMS Welcomes a New Staff Member
Prior to coming to UNLV, Piper was employed as the IT/Team Lead for the Bureau of Reclamation in Boulder City, Nevada. He holds a bachelor of science degree in geography from the University of California, Los Angeles and an executive MBA degree from UNLV. Piper says he looks forward to helping the School transition to a high-definition digital platform. “I was impressed by the goals the School has set for itself and I’ll do my best to help the School become one of the best journalism programs in the country.” Piper said. “We have a lot of work in front of us but I’m confident we have the talent and drive to meet our goals.” The media facility in Greenspun Hall is scheduled to be completed in April, 2009.
JMS Welcomes Visitors from Tsuda College Professors Takeshi Suzuki and Kaori Sakagami of Tsuda College in Tokoyo, Japan visited with JMS faculty and spoke to students during a recent whirlwind visit to UNLV. Tsuda and UNLV faculty discussed potential collaborations and the possibility of a student exchange program.
Students to Attend Democratic National Convention Four undergraduate students will represent the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media studies at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, August 25 to 28. Ariel Gove, Sandra Hernandez, Reid Geary and Denitsa Yotova will interview Nevada elected officials, prepare daily video news packages and collect footage for a mini-documentary depicting their experience at the convention. “Our plans are ambitious but we couldn’t pass up the chance to attend this historic event, “said Journalism and Media Studies Director Ardyth Sohn. The students will use both traditional and new media equipment to cover the convention. Four Nokia N95 smartphones, on loan from the Nokia Corporation, will enable the students to stream live video and commentary from the convention. Students will also prepare daily video stories for distribution electronically to this website and the KLAS TV website, Las Vegas Now. “Another important goal of ours is to connect the East Paradise neighborhood surrounding UNLV with elected officials at the convention, “Sohn said. Resident profiles and questions and the responses of the elected officials will be posted on the East Paradise website coming soon. While the students are at the convention, other UNLV staff and students will be coordinating the distribution of media to various web sites. Graduate student Michael Sears and undergraduate student Rob Ponte will organize the East Paradise neighborhood project and UNLV TV staff members Mike Piper and Dan Grimes will coordinate the distribution of media to various news outlets. Convention coverage will begin Monday, August 25. Click on UNLV students at DNC to watch their reports.
Faculty on the Move Three faculty members from the Greenspun School of Journalism will spend some time working away from UNLV either this summer or next fall. Paul Traudt has been invited for the second time to serve as a visiting professor in the Institut für Angewandte Medienforschung (Institute for Applied Media Research), at the Universität Lüneburg, in Lüneburg, Germany. Lüneburg is a university town of about 70,000 located about a half hour south of Hamburg in Northern Germany. “I will be joining the faculty there about midway into their 2008 spring/summer semester,” Traudt said. “Three years ago I taught mostly American students enrolled in a special international program at Uni-Lüneburg, but this time I will be working exclusively with German undergraduate students enrolled in the university.” Traudt said he will be teaching two courses to undergraduates at Uni-Lüneburg that are nearly identical to two of the courses he teaches here at UNLV: 1) Mass Media and Society; and 2) Global Media. He said German and American media studies professors are not that different in terms of graduate training and research. “We very often share common theories and research literatures and teach many of the same kinds of courses. However, German and American professors often differ significantly in terms of approaches to teaching pedagogy,” said Traudt. As part of a larger project designed to provide both prerecorded and real-time global media resource materials for courses here at UNLV, Traudt will also be conducting a series of videotaped interviews with German university colleagues and regional media professionals. “This is another part of the School's efforts to network globally in terms of academic teaching and research,” he said. Lawrence Mullen will be attending the International Association for Media and Communication Research in Stockholm at the University of Stockholm from July 20-25. According to the website, it's a symposium of world-renowned researchers and experts as well as a unique opportunity to learn and form contacts. Mullen said he will be presenting research related to virtual communities. Using visual data and interviews with simulation developers and online players, his study attempts to tease out the thoughts, ideas, concepts and opinions about virtual communities, such as Second Life.
IDC President Reichmann (third from left) Former Friend of Hank Greenspun, welcomes IDC and JMS Faculties JMS Faculty begin work on Global Democratic Dialogue Partnership
Larry Mullen, Susanna Priest and Ardyth Sohn spent the week before classes began visiting with faculty members of the IDC Sammy Ofer School of Communication in Israel to begin work on the Global Democratic Dialogue project—a collaborative research effort between JMS and the IDC. “The purpose of the partnership is to explore global democratic discussions in different forums.” Sohn said. “We have a hunch, although not a lot of data to support it, that virtual worlds could stimulate debate about serious issues such as global warming. Collaborating with faculty at the Sammy Ofer School broadens our perspective and allows us to design truly global projects.” Among the events scheduled during the five-day visit was a daylong workshop on virtual worlds. Mullen discussed visual explorations in Second Life and Priest gave a talk on virtual environments and public debate. Other presenters included representatives from IBM Software Group, the Holon Institute of Technology and Metaverse Labs. Priest said the trip very successful. “We developed four different project ideas that we hope to pursue with our IDC colleagues, some of which will involve other JMS faculty as well.” Mullen and IDC professor Doron Friedman are encouraging students to interact with one another in Second Life as part of their collaborative ethnographic study of Second Life participants and are talking about purchasing a robot or ‘bot” to collect information from avatars. “This is a new form of data collection and the goal is to see if information collected by “bots” is substantially different than information collected avatar to avatar.” Sohn explains.
Other potential research projects include an examination of copyright issues and challenges in an international context and exploring Second Life as a communication medium from a social science perspective. Priest says she and Mullen are busy writing research presentation proposals involving both JMS and IDC faculty for submittal to the International Association for Media and Communication Research meeting scheduled in Stockholm later this year. Although the focus Democratic Dialogue Project research is on virtual worlds, Mullen said one of the most meaningful parts of the journey was getting to know the faculty at IDC. “The tour of Israel was great too. It really opened my eyes to the land and people of Israel.” The School plans to invite IDC faculty to UNLV in early 2009.
The School of Journalism and Media Studies received a $50,000 gift from KLAS-TV Channel 8 in support of the School’s civic journalism program. Director Ardyth Sohn says the funds will be used to buy video and audio equipment for student journalists. “Our students will use this equipment to capture the thoughts, concerns and needs of local residents.” Sohn said. “The point of civic journalism is to reach out to the public, learn what people think and feel and then use this information to enrich news stories.” Students began using the equipment in the Fall semester to explore the neighborhood immediately surrounding UNLV. Students wrote about community efforts to provide after-school activities for children, concerns about health care availability and the wealth of cultural diversity among people living in the geographic area bounded by Twain and Hacienda Avenues and Eastern and Maryland Parkway. A number of similar civic journalism projects are planned for Spring journalism classes. The most compelling stories highlighting a community need or identifying local concerns will be featured on the KLAS TV website. JMS Students Initiated to Kappa Tau Alpha
Professor Emeritus and Founding KTA advisor Barbara Cloud formally welcomed new members to Kappa Tau Alpha, a national honor society recognizing excellence in journalism and mass communication. Initiates included: Brian Ahern, Nanelle Fellows, Thomas Foley, Kelly Todd Frost, Meghan Furtado, Nurulain Kausar, Katie Mayorga, Shannon Onstot, Derek Schoen, Justin Shearin, Natasha Shepherd, Lindsay Sheman, Sean Skottey, Elise Timothy, Brittany Warnock, Erika Bayer-Polak, Jen Shymansky, Rachel Wax, Rob Ponte, Sarah Hodges, Asmeret Asghedom, Noel Navarro and faculty members Ardyth Sohn and Anthony Ferri. Alan Feldman, Senior Vice-President for Public Affairs, MGM Mirage, congratulated the new members and encouraged them to “honor the profession of journalism by focusing their efforts on stories that improve lives and better society.” View a slide show of the KTA ceremony. Yahoo Design Manager Visits JMS Classrooms
Guy Schackman, Design Manager for Yahoo News and JMS Alumnus, talked to journalism and media studies students last week about the challenges of designing for Yahoo and staying abreast of changing technology. Schackman discussed some of the more interesting projects he’d worked on this year, including the Democratic Candidate Mashup (http://debates.news.yahoo.com) and told students to “find something that interests you and then immerse yourself in the tools.”
Rob Curley Addresses JMS Students and Faculty Newspapers have larger newsrooms, more journalists and better resources than most television stations. But if you’re one of the millions who prefer to find news online, chances are you’re not looking at your local newspaper website. And that’s bad news for local newspapers, according to Rob Curley, Vice-President of Product Development for the Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive. Curley challenged an audience of JMS faculty and students to rethink how news is developed for the Internet during a workshop on campus last week. A Topping Off at Greenspun Hall
Brian and Myra Greenspun, UNLV President David Ashley, Dean Martha Watson and a host of hardworking men and women celebrated the halfway mark in the construction of Greenspun Hall with a traditional pouring of the last foot of concrete into the building’s foundation. Greenspun thanked the construction workers for the more than 30,000 man hours put into the building since the groundbreaking. The building is expected to be completed by Fall, 2008.
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© 2008 University of Nevada, Las Vegas | College of Urban Affairs
Tony Ferri, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, is now an American citizen and a registered voter. On October 3, Tony reluctantly surrendered his green card and his beloved expired Canadian passport and then recited the oath of citizenship in front of Judge Llyod D. George. 
Film critic and scholar David Thomson will discuss his new book, Have You Seen....A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, in the Greenspun Hall Auditorium on Wednesday, October 15, at 7:00 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the School of Journalism and Media Studies and the Department of Film as part of the School’s entertainment studies initiative. 
The School of Journalism and Media Studies is pleased to introduce Mike Piper as the new media network engineer for Greenspun Hall. Piper’s responsibilities include managing and administering the media network in Greenspun Hall, working with students and faculty to access and store digital assets and securing the network from outside threats. 
