The American Journalism Historians Association announced Dr. Matthew Pressman as the winner of the annual Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize.
Pressman, an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University, completed his dissertation at Boston University under the direction of Dr. Bruce J. Schulman.
Pressman’s dissertation, “Remaking the News: The Transformation of American Journalism, 1960-1980,” focused on the evolution of the journalistic concepts of newsworthiness, objectivity, and the role of media in relation to the empowered.
“I’m greatly honored that the scholars on the Blanchard Prize committee selected my dissertation as the winner,” Pressman said. “As a relative newcomer to academia, it’s extremely gratifying to have senior scholars in the journalism-history field recognize my work. I’m currently adapting my dissertation into a book (to be published in 2018 by Harvard University Press), and winning this award gives me further inspiration to make that book as good as it can possibly be.”
Pressman and three honorable mention recipients will present their research at the AJHA’s 2017 National Convention in Little Rock, Arkansas, this October.
Those earning honorable mention were:
- Dr. Lorraine Ahearn of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for “Narrative Paths of Native American Resistance: Agency and Commemoration in Journalism Texts in Eastern North Carolina, 1872-1988” (Chaired by Dr. Barbara Friedman).
- Dr. Denise Hill of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for “Public Relations, Racial Injustice, and the 1958 North Carolina Kissing Case” (Chaired by Friedman).
- Dr. Rianne Subijanto of the University of Colorado at Boulder for “Media of Resistance: A Communication History of Anti-Colonial Movements in the Dutch East Indies, 1920-1926” (Chaired by Dr. Janice Peck).
The Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize, given for the first time in 1997, is awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history. An honorarium of $500 accompanies the prize, and a $200 honorarium is awarded to each honorable mention.
