Head: Chiung Hwang Chen (Brigham Young University Hawaii)
Warm aloha,
It was very nice seeing many of you in Montreal. We had a great convention. I especially would like to thank all who participated in the program. Your great work contributed much to the success of RMIG panels.
It is unusual for almost the entire team from last year to continue serve in this coming year. I personally feel extremely honored for the opportunity. Welcome Rick, Mariam, and Robbie to the team. We set some goals (see the annual report below) for this year and will strive to achieve them with your help.
Attached is the list of the RMIG officers and their contact information. Let us know if you have ideas for joint panels (see below for the call) or suggestions on how we can better serve our members. We always welcome contributions to the RMIG newsletter, especially ideas or experiences on teaching, research, or PF&R (Professional Fairness and Responsibility) related issues.
Mahalo for your support and have a fruitful year!
Vice Head: Myna German (Delaware State University)
Dr. Myna German, chair of the Department of Mass Communication at Delaware State University, has recently returned from Portugal, where she presented a symposium on topics relating to her co-published book Migration, Technology and Transculturation (via Delaware State University).
Membership Chair: Daniel Stout (Brigham Young University Hawaii)
Daniel Stout is a professor of international cultural studies at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. He is currently co-editor of the Journal of Media and Religion. He brings an impressive research publication record with him including three edited books, over two dozen book chapters and scholarly/professional articles. He is an internationally known expert on religion and the mass media. His professional experience is in advertising at the Houston Chronicle. He holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, an M.A. from the University of Georgia and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.
Teaching Chair: Rick Moore (Boise State University)
Rick C. Moore earned his doctorate from the University of Oregon and has taught at Boise State since 1994. He loves teaching a wide variety of courses in communication theory, research, and criticism. Though occasionally dabbling in other “contexts” of communication, he mainly teaches courses related to mass communication. Dr. Moore’s research interests are in the area of mass communication and ideology. Much of his writing has investigated media portrayal of religious and environmental issues. Another key area of study is the social thought of Jacques Ellul, a French theorist/theologian who asked challenging questions about the role of technology in our lives. Writing under his full name of Rick Clifton Moore, Dr. Moore has published articles in: The Journal of Communication; Mass Media & Society; The Journal of Media and Religion; The Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society; Advertising and Society Review;The Ellul Forum; and The Journal for Peace and Justice Studies. When not in his office, in the classroom, or the library, Rick enjoys spending time with his wife Kim and his children Emily and Danny. He also has a fondness for old houses (the Moore’s version being a perpetual work-in-progress) and occasionally gets to spend time wading in Idaho’s beautiful mountain streams.
Research Co-chair: Joel Campbell (Brigham Young University) & Julia Duin (University of Memphis)
Dr. Joel Campbell, RMIG research chair, is an associate professor in journalism in Brigham Young University Department of Communications. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University. Previously, he worked for nearly 20 years as a reporter and editor for newspapers in Salt Lake City. He teaches media writing, journalism principles, media and religion, media ethics and research courses. His new-found research interest is media and religion, but has also been active in First Amendment and Freedom of Information research and advocacy. He has presented or published papers on media coverage of the Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, Artemus Ward’s 19th Century “Among the Mormons” show, media coverage of Mormons’ posthumous baptism of Jews, “The Mormon” newspaper in New York City from 1850-1857, and Marie Ogden’s New Age “Home of Truth” colony in southeast Utah.
Julia Duin currently serves as the ninth visiting Snedden Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Chair and associated Snedden Lecture series brings distinguished journalists to campus for visits as short as three days on up to Duin’s year-long faculty appointment (through spring 2015) within UAF’s College of Liberal Arts.
The program was funded through a generous $2.6 million endowment established by the late Helen Snedden. That gift, honoring the legacy of her husband, longtime News-Miner Publisher C.W. Snedden, has enlivened classrooms and community forums with perspectives of more than a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, photographers and editors since 2005.
Duin earned her BA in English from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., then began her career in journalism covering police and municipalities for small newspapers in Oregon and South Florida. In 1986, she landed a job with the Houston Chronicle as a full-time religion writer. She received a MA in religion at a seminary in western Pennsylvania in 1992. She then worked as a city editor for the Daily Times in Farmington NM before moving to Washington DC in 1995 to be an assistant national editor with the Washington Times.
She spent more than 14 years with the Times and published several books, including Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do About It and Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community.
Duin has won numerous awards for her work, which spans everything from a five-part series on America’s clergy to “female feticide” (gender-selective abortions) in India. Other notable assignments include reporting on Kurds in northern Iraq and the 2005 election of Pope Benedict.
In recent years she has written extensively for the Washington Post Sunday magazine and Style section, as well as the Economist, CNN.com and the Wall Street Journal. Her latest book project involves 20-something Pentecostal serpent handlers in Appalachia who use Facebook to spread their beliefs. In December, she expects to receive a second MA (in journalism) with the University of Memphis.
PF&R Chair: Robbie Morganfield (University of Maryland)
Robbie R. Morganfield, a Ph.D. candidate in Public Communication at the University of Maryland, expects to defend his dissertation in fall 2014. His topic: Mainstream and Alternative Newspaper Framing of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Primary Campaign. Morganfield aspires to become a department chair and has interest in teaching across disciplines, especially media, communication and religion. Morganfield has a broad-based background as an award-winning journalist who served as a reporter, editor, columnist and staff development director at major metropolitan daily newspapers; a feted college classroom journalism and communication instructor and workshop presenter; and effective administrator in the para-professional and religious nonprofit sectors. His research interests include journalism history, ethics, intercultural communication, and religion and media. Morganfield holds a bachelor degree in journalism (Ole Miss), a master degree in public affairs journalism with a minor in educational policy and leadership (The Ohio State University), and a master of divinity degree (Texas Christian University). He has taught reporting, editing, ethics and mass communication survey courses, as well as intercultural communication and communication for academic success. He developed curriculum, taught modules and served as executive director of a Freedom Forum institute that trained and placed midcareer professionals from other fields in jobs at about 80 newspapers. He directed an online newsroom, developed a digital communication training curriculum and developed workshops and negotiated internships for students from historically black colleges and universities. He coached editors and publishers on diversity matters and served as a frequent workshop presenter at conferences across the nation. He also is a Methodist Church pastor.
Newsletter Co-editor: Greg Perreault (University of Missouri) & Mariam Alkazemi (University of Florida)
Gregory P. Perreault is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Missouri School of Journalism. His dissertation “Sacred Space Evaders: Protestant Normativity in Digital Game Journalism” explores the latent protestant values in digital game journalism. He holds an M.A. in Communication, Culture & Technology from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Palm Beach Atlantic University in South Florida. His peer-reviewed research has appeared in the Journal of Media and Religion and the Journal of Contemporary Religion. He worked for several years in newspapers in South Florida and has had work published in USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald and The Huffington Post.
Mariam Alkazemi is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. Although she identifies as a Muslim, she enjoys learning about various religions. Over the years, she has visited a church, a synagogue, a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple in addition to a mosque. She is fascinated by the aspects of religion that are unique to certain religious traditions and those that are universal. Her personal interest in religion has fueled her professional research interests focusing on religion and the media. Fluent in the English and Arabic languages, she hopes to produce research that may serve as a cultural bridge between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world. Her peer-reviewed publications appear in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism and Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture. At Florida she has taught four classes: Journalism Studies, Mass Media and You, World Communication Systems, and Applied Fact-Finding. She is currently serving as the co-editor of the Religion and Media Interest Group’s newsletter.