All Invited to JCOM Research Colloquium Feb. 19

Undergraduate and graduate students and professors will present research papers and posters at the third annual Journalism and Communication Research Colloquium Wednesday, Feb. 19 at Utah State University in Logan. The colloquium is sponsored by the Department of Journalism and Communication.  

Colloquium participants will display and explain their posters in the atrium of the Albrecht Agricultural Sciences Building from noon-2 p.m. Two research panel presentations will be held in Old Main 115 from 2:30-3:45 p.m. and 4-5:15 p.m. The colloquium is free and open to the entire USU and Cache Valley communities. 

 “We're really excited by this opportunity for a forum for students to gain experience presenting to an audience and sharing their research,” said Meredith Wang, colloquium committee member and JCOM postdoctoral teaching fellow. 

Dale Cressman, a former USU journalism professor, provides the keynote “News in Lights: The Unlikely Journey of a Journal Article,” at 5:30 p.m. in Old Main, room 115, followed by a question and answer session. Cressman is an associate professor and associate director of the School of Communications at Brigham Young University, Provo. 

“We’re honored to have someone of Dr. Cressman’s accomplishment and stature speak to us, especially one with USU connections,” noted Thomas Terry, journalism and communication professor and colloquium chair. “His speech will provide fascinating and invaluable insights into the world of research and academic publishing that many find mystifying, including those in the midst of it.”

Colloquium topics include sexual harassment at the Howl, a multilayered analysis of the animated series Steins;Gate, college students’ perception of pornography, offensive content on social media and the impact of gender and conflict behavior on executive approval. 

In addition, the colloquium will feature research by famed agenda setting scholar Donald L. Shaw of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, presented by his co-author, Terry. The research explores a predictive historical model based on newspaper coverage. 

Cressman won an Emmy for the 1995 documentary, “Russia: Hidden Memory.” He has won several awards for his scholarship, most recently the inaugural Michael S. Sweeney award for the best article of journalism history award of the year, presented by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. He worked as broadcast journalist in Vermont, Texas, Wisconsin and Utah and was an editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His wife Rebecca is a Salt Lake City broadcaster.