College will have record-setting presence at upcoming conference

Thanks to the topical and timely research of faculty members and graduate students, the College of Communications at Penn State will have a record-setting presence at the upcoming convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Penn State presenters have had a school-record 37 papers accepted for presentation at the annual gathering.

Overall, the College of Communications contingent for the four-day event, held Aug. 5-8 in Boston, includes 22 faculty members and 25 graduate students. Their combined total of 37 paper presentations is 76 percent higher than in 2006, when Penn Staters presented 21 papers at the convention.

The amount of papers this year ranks sixth among all universities at the convention, and marks the eighth consecutive year Penn State has ranked in the top 10 at the event.

One Penn State graduate student, doctoral candidate Erin Whiteside, has been selected as the recipient of the Mary Gardner Award for Graduate Student Research by the AEJMC's Commission on the Status of Women.

Whiteside's work, titled "Power Relations Under the Glass Ceiling: Gender, Sexuality and Identity in Sports Information," earned abundant praise from judges as well as a monetary award. Specifically, judges cited the paper for its focus as "a great new area of research," and for its format. "I particularly like that your project design allows for interviewing the women and getting their thoughts in their words," said one judge, referring to Whiteside's project, which involved interviews with women in sports information.

The award is named for Mary Gardner, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in mass communications from the University of Minnesota and a longtime faculty member at Michigan State University.

"Mary was a real trailblazer for women in communications scholarship and it is a real honor for one of our students to win an award in her name," said John S. Nichols, associate dean for graduate studies and research in the College of Communications.

In addition, five faculty papers were selected as top-three award winners in their respective divisions at the convention. Those honorees are:

-- George Anghelcev, an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, for "Motivating Crowding and Word of Mouth Advertising: Why Extrinsic Incentives Could Make People Less Likely to Buzz," honored in the Advertising Division.

-- Denise Bortree, an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, for "New Dimensions in Relationship Management: Exploring Gender and Inclusion in the Nonprofit Organization-Volunteer Relationship," honored in the Public Relations Division.

-- Rob Frieden, the Pioneers Chair and professor of telecommunications and law, for "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics: Developing a Clearer Assessment of Market Penetration and Broadband Competition in the United States," honored in the Law and Policy Division.

-- Matt McAllister, a professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies, for "Commodity Fetishism in the Digital Age," honored in the Cultural-Critical Division.

-- Mary Beth Oliver, a professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies, for "Do ‘Sad’ People Like ‘Sad Entertainment?' Meaningfulness as a Mediator of Affective Predictors of Entertainment Choice and Desired Affective Responses," honored by the Entertainment Studies Interest Group. Oliver’s paper is co-authored with graduate students Julia Woolley, Anthony Limperos, Daniel Tamul, Keunmin Bae and Marlena Freeman.

Along with paper presentations, numerous faculty members are serving as moderators of panels and special sections during the convention. Those assignments range from topics such as the use of real-world experts in public relations classes to workshops addressing teaching, research and public service matters.

Other graduate students will also be honored at the convention. Master’s student Erin Ash received a top-paper award from the Minorities and Communication Division of AEJMC for her co-authored research on news coverage of former Big Ten Conference football player Maurice Clarett. Ash also won a top student paper award from the Newspaper Division for her paper with doctoral students Kirstie Hettinga and Daniel Halpern, "Effects of a Trend: Influence of User Comments on Readers’ Perceptions of Online Newspapers."

The AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level.