JMS Welcomes a New Staff Member
 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.
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 Attend Democratic National Convention
Four undergraduate students represented the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media studies at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, August 25 to 28.
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Faculty on the Move
By Michael Sears
Three faculty members from the Greenspun School of Journalism will spend some time working away from UNLV either this summer or next fall.
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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.
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KLAS-TV gives Gift to JMS
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.
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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.
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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.
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Rob Curley Addresses JMS Students and Faculty
Newspapers have larger newsrooms, more journalists and better resources than most television stations.
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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.
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UNLV Breaks Ground on Greenspun Hall
Click here to view groundbreaking video(WMV)
JMS ANNOUNCEMENTS
Article by Stephen Bates in Publication
Stephen Bates’ article, The Day the TV Died, appears in the spring Wilson Quarterly.
The article examines the 2009 shift to digital TV in the context of technology and politics of the past--specifically, the debates over black-and-white TV standards in the 1930s, FM radio standards in the 1940s, and color TV standards in the 1950s.
Notes on the New American Media Project
By Michael Sears and Paul Traudt
New American Media (NAM) is the country's first and largest collaboration of ethnic news media organizations. Essentially, NAM is going across the country, from city to city, trying to uncover all ethnic media outlets. The goal is to organize all these outlets in to a large directory where anyone (from advertisers to government officials) can look up local ethnic media outlets. NAM also sponsors an event where the staffs of the ethnic media outlets can all get together and meet face to face.
Paul Traudt and graduate student Michael Sears met with Wendy Sefsaf of New American Media in March to discuss the possibility of UNLV, specifically the JMS School, assisting NAM in the identification of ethnic media outlets in the Las Vegas and Reno metropolitan areas. Right now, Sears is busy contacting the many outlets so that a directory can be organized. Furthermore, there are plans to host an event (as described above) sometime this fall.
Traudt provided the following insight on the project:
We hear a lot these days about media conglomeration, about how so much of the print and electronic media world is controlled by so few corporations, and how homogenization of media content is the norm. We see it everyday.
However, one of the wonderful and perhaps unexpected outcomes of digital communications is increased opportunities for the production and dissemination of media content by and for previously unrepresented ethnic and religious groups.
We've seen this happen in a big way with ethnic media in Southern Nevada. The last time I checked there were at least 8 locally-owned ethnic or religious newspapers, 7 terrestrial radio, 5 terrestrial television, and over 100 cable or satellite television channels serving at least 7 different ethnic groups in the Las Vegas area.
Today's ethnic media serve to maintain one's sense of identity with their home culture. This wasn't the case 100 years ago, when most immigrant groups who came to this country assimilated into the dominant culture, a transition fueled at least in part by the major English-language media of the day. As such, it's no surprise that many of today's ethnic groups adopt a kind of dualism position when it comes to cultural identity. They pick between mainstream and ethnic media sources and, correspondingly, adapt to some aspects of their new country's culture while at the same time maintaining very strong ties with their homeland.
Ethnic media contribute to that important function in our evolving, mediated society. The New American Media (NAM) project is important because it first serves to recognizing the growth of ethnic media in this country. It helps to link often disparate ethnic media groups so that they can network and share all kinds of resources to better promote their larger cause. The NAM project also provides opportunities for ethnic media to link in consortium efforts and make themselves known to advertisers increasingly intent on targeting their promotional dollars as wisely as possible.
Want to help?
Here are a few ways to get involved. Contact Launa Wilson for more information. |
