41st Annual AJHA Convention
Memphis, Tennessee   |   Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2022

Convention contacts

Convention Coordinator
Caryl Cooper
University of Alabama

Registration Coordinator

Patti Piburn

California Polytechnic State University

Program Coordinator
Tracy Lucht
Iowa State University

Convention hosts

Dianne Bragg

University of Alabama 

Robby Byrd
University of Memphis

Joe Hayden

University of Memphis


Jane Marcellus

Former professor at Middle Tennessee State University

Conference Sponsor



Awards

Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement

AJHA's highest honor, the Kobre Award, recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history.

This year's honoree is Janice Hume, the associate dean for academic affairs in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Hume has earned more than 15 awards and recognitions, including AJHA's President’s Award for Service, National Award for Excellence in Teaching, McKerns Research Grant, and multiple top paper or article awards from both AJHA and the AEJMC History Division. She also has mentored dozens of graduate students and colleagues.

Hume will be recognized during the Awards Lunch at the AJHA conference. Read the news release.

National Award for Excellence in Teaching

Presented at the annual Awards Luncheon, the National Award for Excellence in Teaching honors a college or university teacher who excels at teaching in the areas of journalism and mass communication history, makes a positive impact on student learning, and offers an outstanding example for other educators. An honorarium of $500 accompanies the prize.

This year's winner is Dianne Bragg from the University of Alabama. In nominating Bragg for the honor, colleagues and students noted her hands-on mentorship and engagement with students, as well as her extensive knowledge.

Bragg will be recognized during the Awards Lunch at the AJHA conference. Read the news release.    

AJHA Book of the Year Award 

AJHA's Book of the Year Award recognizes the best book in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year.

This year's winners are Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield for their co-edited book "Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America." The book documents the role of the white press in building white supremacist political economies and social orders in the New South, from the end of Reconstruction through the first decades of the twentieth century. It also examines the critical role of the Black press in fiercely resisting that effort.

Forde is a professor of journalism and associate dean of equity and inclusion in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bedingfield is an associate professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.

Three authors earned honorable mention for their books:

  • Will Mari, Louisiana State University, “The American Newsroom: A History, 1920-1960”
  • Elizabeth Findley Shores, Little Rock journalist, “Shared Secrets: The Queer World of Newbury Medalist Charles J. Finger
  • Kim Todd, University of Minnesota, “Sensational: The Hidden History of America's 'Girl Stunt Reporters'

The award will be presented during the book award panel. Read the news release.

Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize

Since 1997, AJHA has presented the Blanchard Prize for the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history completed during the prior calendar year.

This year's winner is Meghan Menard McCune, who completed her dissertation at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Communication under the direction of John Maxwell Hamilton, was recognized for “‘At the Service of the Government’: American Journalists in the Great War and the Agent Model of Government-Press Relations.”

Honorable Mention for this year’s award went to Bailey Dick for “Historicizing #MeToo: The Systemic Devaluation of First-Person Accounts of Gender-Based Violence by the News Industry,” at Ohio University's EW Scripps School of Journalism under the direction of Aimee Edmondson.

Honorees will discuss their work in a special conference session, Friday, Sept. 30. Read the news release.

American Journalism Rising Scholar Award

Editors of AJHA's quarterly academic journal American Journalism present the Rising Scholar Award at the annual General Business Meeting to recognize the achievements and potential of an untenured scholar whoshows promise in extending her or his research agenda.

This year's winner is Madeleine Liseblad, of California State University, Long Beach, in recognition of her research on radio and television broadcaster Clete Roberts. 

The award comes with $2,000 in research funding. Read the news release.

Best American Journalism Article

The Best Article Award honors research published in American Journalism within the last year that is original, rigorous, and makes an outstanding contribution to developing scholarship in the field of journalism and mass communication history.

This year's winner is Tracy Lucht, associate professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.

Lucht’s study, “Amelia Bloomer, The Lily, and Early Feminist Discourse in the US,” appeared in the Fall 2021 edition of the journal.  The Lily was one of the first U.S. publications dedicated to advancing women’s rights:

The editors of American Journalism will present the award during the annual General Business Meeting.

Joseph McKerns Research Grants

Joseph McKerns Research Grants provide funding of up to $1,250 per person for media history research projects while recognizing and rewarding the winners.

The 2022 winners are Melissa Greene-Blye, University of Kansas; W. Joseph Campbell, American University; Erin Coyle, Temple University; and Keith Greenwood, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Greene-Blye will be looking at Native newspapers at the Sequoyah National Research Center.  Campbell will be researching press coverage of the aftermath of the Battle for Gettysburg. Coyle will be checking the accuracy of the Supreme Court's characterizations of the press.  Greenwood will be studying the photographs in Stars and Stripes. Read the news release. 

    Research Paper Awards

    During the general business meeting on Oct. 1, the AJHA will give out the following research awards for top papers at the Memphis convention.


    Wm. David Sloan Top Faculty Paper 

    Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University

    “Indicting the Black Press: Securing Racial Boundaries During World War II.”


    Honorable mentions:

    Ken J. Ward, Pittsburg State, and Aaron Atkins, Weber State

    J. William Snorgrass Memorial Award for the Outstanding Paper on a Minorities Topic
    Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University


    Honorable mentions:

    George L. Daniels, Alabama

    Maurine Beasley Award For the Outstanding Paper on a Women’s History Topic

    Ashley Walter, Penn State University

    'It Was Time That Turned Me Into a Radical': Newswomen and the Fight for Equality at Time Inc., 1970s."


    Honorable Mentions: 

     Madeleine Liseblad, California State, Long Beach and Thomas A. Mascaro, Bowling Green, retired


    Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Paper on Media and War 

    W. Joseph Campbell, American University

    "'Proto-pack Journalism' in Gettysburg's Aftermath: Parsing the Extravagant Claims of the Confederacy's 'Greatest' War Correspondent."


    Honorable Mention:

    William B. Anderson, Elon


    Robert Lance Memorial Award for Top Grad Student Paper

    Max Fuller, University of Wisconsin 

    "Wielding the Blade: J. Anthony Josey, the Wisconsin Enterprise-Blade and the Construction of a Contemporary Black Political Identity."


    Honorable mention: 

    Ashley Walter, Penn State University



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