Journalism

CSUN Faculty Round-Up

November 20, 2014

Journalism faculty members have been engaged in creative and scholarly work this academic year, including presenting at conferences and earning prestigious honors. Their endeavors include:

Dr. Elizabeth Blakey was awarded an external grant to attend the Reinvigorating Sociolegal Research Workshop at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, VA. The workshop was sponsored by the Consortium of Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs, which funded Blakey's travel and related expenses. Based on the workshop, Blakey completed and filed a grant application with the National Science Foundation. 

Dr. Stephanie Bluestein's article titled "Connecting Student-Faculty Interaction to Academic Dishonesty" was published in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice in September. Based on research she conducted for her doctorate, the article explored how positive student-faculty interaction, including faculty’s classroom demeanor and attitude, can be a deterrent to student cheating by motivating students to try harder, which could reduce the need or desire to commit academic dishonesty.

Prof. David Blumenkrantz’s students from J455 Documentary Photojournalism published a 123-page iBook on iTunes store called, "Displaced: The Face of Homelessness," which is a collection of photographs, video, audio interviews and essays on issues related to urban poverty and homelessness in the Los Angeles area. The iBook is also being promoted as a fundraising tool for the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission, one of the programs covered in the documentary. On Oct. 27, "Displaced" was featured as an example of "project-based learning" at the showcase, CSUN Faculty Celebrate Teaching in the Digital Age. 

Prof. Linda Bowen, department chair, was named to lead the California Journalism Education Coalition, a consortium of journalism educators representing high school, community college and university programs across the state. She’s involved in CSUN’s The Learning Habits Project and will present research from the seven-year longitudinal study, “College Level Reading: How do Students Meet the Challenge?,” at the Evidence-based Teaching and Learning Lilly Conference next February in Newport Beach.

Dr. Bobbie Eisenstock recently published two articles: “Virtually You: 5 Steps to Get REAL! about Digital Eating Disorder Risks” in the Technology, Social Media & Eating Disorders issue of Making Connections, and “Social Science Storytelling and Media Literacy” in the Journal of Media Literacy.  During the summer, she also wrote an e-text, The Student Guide to News Literacy: How to Be a Critical News Consumer,” which is available on the CSUN faculty e-text website.

Eisenstock directs the Get REAL! Project, a service learning and civic engagement collaboration between her students and the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). Last spring, NEDA launched the Get REAL! Digital Media Literacy Toolkit that CSUN students created for its Media Watchdog program. This innovative resource was highlighted on the National Association for Media Literacy Education website.

During the 2014-15 academic year, Eisenstock and her students are partnering with NEDA and faculty from NYU to develop awareness-raising projects about eating disorders and early intervention as part of a new national initiative called Proud2Bme On Campus. The outreach program is in response to a recent NEDA survey that found eating disorders, which are a growing concern at colleges and universities nationwide. Eisenstock’s service-learning students are creating interactive web content to develop media literacy skills around body image messaging that will be featured on the Proud2Bme website.   

Dr. Taehyun Kim presented his research at the Broadcast Education Association conference that took place during April in Las Vegas. In the Refereed Research Paper Session, Kim spoke about “Perfection Re-Imagined: Radio Korea's Next Generation: A Case Study of Cross-ethnic Radio Programming,” in which he analyzed the future of radio broadcasting and introduced a weekly English-Language Korean radio program. The program includes a cross-cultural and cross-ethnic understanding for the next generation of Korean listeners. In addition, the Korean American Scholarship Foundation honored Kim as the first Korean-American journalism professor in California at the 29th Annual Scholarship Award in October in Los Angeles. The foundation gives scholarships to Korean-American university students all around the nation.

Prof. Julio Ortiz was honored with the Mental Health Commission Hope Award at the 15thAnnual Department Mental of Health Awards for the Mental Health Segment Airing in Univision Channel 34 KMEX in Los Angeles last month. He also received the 2014 Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Writer of the Year, the 2014 Golden Mic Writer of the Year and the 2014 Emmy for Best Newscast 6 p.m.

Dr. Melissa Wall was named an International Scholar for Ukraine by the Open Society Foundation for 2014-15.  She has recently published the following journal articles and book chapters: "Embedding content from Syrian citizen journalists: The rise of the collaborative news clip" in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism," and "Syrian Citizen Journalism: A pop-up news ecology in an authoritarian space" in Digital Journalism;  "Pop-Up Newsroom as News Literacy" in Global Citizenship in a Digital World; and "Pop-Up Newsroom: 'We Are Where You Are' " in the Civic Media Reader.

— Negin Daneshfar