Adjunct Professor Keith Quesenberry, ADV, had an article published in the December 2010 issue of the American Academy of Advertising Newsletter. “The Ad Age Is Over: A Call For Interdisciplinary Instruction” talks about the latest trends in the marketing and communications industry and leads up to call for a pre-conference program at the 2011 AAA’s conference on April 7 in Phoenix. There, Quesenberry will host and present the pre-conference program. Professor Michael Maynard, ADV, will also be one of the presenters. In addition, Quesenberry will be a panelist for a special topics session during the regular conference discussing integrating interactive, digital and social media into the advertising curriculum.
Category Archives: Faculty News
Assistant Professor Tharps publishes new novel
Lori Tharps (photo by John Barone)
Assistant Professor Lori Tharps, JOUR, has published her most recent novel, “Substitute Me” (Atria Books).
Prior to joining Temple’s School of Communications and Theater, Tharps was a staff writer for Vibe magazine and a correspondent for Entertainment Weekly. She continues to write and has appeared in publications such as Glamour, Essence and Vogue Black. She has authored three books.
Synopsis: “Zora Anderson, an African American 30-year-old college dropout with wanderlust, leaves her accidental au pair position in Paris and returns to her hometown of Ann Arbor with no life plan in mind and no real goals on the horizon. With pressure mounting from her well-educated, upper-middle class parents to do something useful with her life and with her own self-doubt growing, Zora decides to start over in New York and sublets a small Fort Greene studio apartment from a friend who is attending college in Massachusetts. After combing the newspaper classifieds and finding a want ad for a “substitute me,” Zora lands a job in Park Slope with a WASP-y professional couple in their 30s, Kate and Brad Carter, to look after their young son, Oliver. Although Zora’s primary goal is to merely keep the rent money coming in to pay for her sublet, she soon becomes attached to Oliver, a baby with a sweet disposition who is adored by his parents. But as happy as she is with the Carters, Zora keeps her job a secret from her parents whom she is certain will view her position as demeaning and not much different than one of servitude. While Oliver’s mother, Kate, initially feels ambivalent about returning to work after her maternity leave, she soon adjusts to being back in the office and spends long hours there as she keeps a close eye on a competitive colleague who wants her job. With Kate’s new long hours, Zora begins working overtime to accommodate her employer’s hectic schedule and becomes a true substitute in the Carter household in ways she never would have imagined.”
Visit Tharps’ website.
Professor Hobbs: Digital, media literacy are essential life skills
The Knight Commission has released “Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action,” a new policy paper by Professor Renee Hobbs, BTMM, and founder of the Media Education Lab. In it, a detailed plan positions digital and media literacy as essential life skills and outlines steps that policymakers, educators and community advocates can take to help Americans thrive in the digital age.
Coming the day after U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released the National Education Technology Plan, “Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action” provides four broad strategies and 10 specific recommendations on how to provide students and adults with the knowledge and critical thinking skills to sort through the overwhelming amount of digital information they receive every day in our media-saturated society.
“Full participation in contemporary culture requires not just consuming messages, but also creating and sharing them,” writes Hobbs. “To fulfill the promise of digital citizenship, Americans must acquire multimedia communication skills and know how to use these skills to engage in the civic life of their communities.”
This is why the commission recommended that digital and media literacy be integrated as critical elements for education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state and local education officials, and that public libraries and other community institutions be funded and supported as centers of digital and media training.
The paper focuses on steps to ensure that citizens are equipped with the analytical and communications skills they need to be successful in the 21st century. It also proposes the integration of digital and media literacy into advocacy campaigns, education curricula, and community-based initiatives. From parents concerned with online safety issues, to students searching for information online at home, schools and libraries, to everyday citizens looking for accurate and relevant health care and government resources, all Americans can benefit from learning how to access, analyze and create digital and media content with thoughtfulness and social responsibility.
(The Knight Commission press release)
Virtual art show features Associate Professor Drury
Associate Professor Sarah Drury, FMA, is showing in the Virtual Public Art Project show, based at the Esther Klein Gallery. The VPAP is a series of eight augmented reality pieces, which are virtual public art pieces that can be accessed with a smartphone at particular locations around Philadelphia. VPAP is sponsored by the Breadboard Initiative of the University City Science Center.
Assistant Professor Morrow to publish book
Assistant Professor Dustin Morrow signed a contract with Elsevier and Focal Press to author a book on new media production. It will be published in 2012.
FMA chair appointed to art museum committee
Chair Nora M. Alter was appointed to the committee of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Additionally, she gave the following Public Invited Lectures: “The Essay Film,” Center for Humanities at Temple University, Philadelphia, (October 2010); “National Performances” Live Cinema/In the Round: Contemporary Art from the East Mediterranean, Newark, Delaware, (September 2010); “Between Art and Documentary,” Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, (September 2010).
Assistant Professor Evans holds several screenings for latest film
Assistant Professor Rodney Evans, FMA, will screened his new narrative short film, Billy and Aaron, at the MIX Experimental Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Nov. 10 in New York City. The film also screen in Amsterdam on Nov. 5 to 7 at the Africa In the Picture Film Festival and in Johannesburg and Capetown in South Africa in the Out in Africa Film Festival. Billy and Aaron chronicles the personal and professional experiences of jazz composer, Billy Strayhorn. It premiered in April at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
Associate Professor Klotz records Von Trapp performance
Associate Professor Jack Klotz, BTMM, recorded Americana – New Voices for a New Century with The Von Trapp Family Singers with the Raleigh Symphony in Cary, N.C. The show featured world premiere performances of pieces by Phil Feo, Vincent Leonard, Sofi Von Trapp and Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz. Editing and mixing of the show are underway.
Interim Dean Jacobson earns NSF grant
The decision-making process can be complex, especially for a governmental body whose choices directly impact the public it serves.
Interim Dean Thomas Jacobson is currently conducting research, with a $195,844 grant from the National Science Foundation, that examines how communication might change how an agency makes a decision that satisfies the public’s demands. In many cases, an agency will include public dialogue in a decision-making process and incorporate the input into its conclusion.
“While there is much advice from conflict resolution and public participation practitioners on how to do this well, there is little scientific understanding of how people judge the quality of these dialogues and how those judgments, in turn, affect the acceptance of decisions,” according to the project overview.
Jacobson and a team of researchers, led by Thomas Webler of the Social and Environmental Research Institute, are focusing on a series of public discussions led by the California Department of Fish and Game as it formulates a plan to comply with the Marine Life Protection Act and its requirement to redesign California’s system of protected marine areas.
The research team hopes to offer insight into how an agency can make decisions with “higher democratic legitimacy.”
PhIJI welcomes Philadelphia’s newest publisher to campus
Greg Osberg discusses his plans for philly.com.
Journalism students and faculty members in the School of Communications and Theater are constantly trying to peer into the future of their trade to determine how to best prepare for what lies ahead.
They’re in good company. Greg Osberg, the new publisher and CEO of Philadelphia Media Network, which consists of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com, is doing the same thing.
Osberg was welcomed to Temple University Nov. 2 by the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation (PhIJI), a program sponsored by the Journalism Department.
On his official first day on the job Oct. 11 (he was hired by the ownership group approximately a year prior to that), Osberg was greeted with several staggering figures. In recent years, the company has lost 25 percent of its circulation, 50 percent of its advertising revenue and 90 percent of its profitability.
“I knew on day one that we had some big challenges,” he said.
Osberg has set the bar high for improvement. His goal is to evolve Philadelphia Media Network into “the most successful regional media company in the United States.”
What makes his objective even more challenging is that there is no proven business model to follow – it has to be created from scratch.
Osberg has already made some significant changes. He no longer wants philly.com to be viewed as a separate entity from the print products. The philly.com staff has moved back into the company’s main office and advertising representatives have been charged with selling ads across both platforms. In the newsroom, reporters are being encouraged to think about reporting for both the web and the newspaper. Osberg said he plans on providing reporters the tools to write and submit their stories from the field.
In January, the company will begin an “incubator” program in which they will house a start-up media company (rent-free) whose product can benefit the website.
“I want us to find the next Foursquare and house them at philly.com,” he said.
Greg Osberg speaks one-on-one with a student following his presentation.
Osberg also wants to establish content-sharing relationships with other media companies across the region to increase its suburban coverage and forge strong ties with the region’s business and academic communities.
It is the students’ generation, Osberg said, that has sparked the need to overhaul the media industry. But it’s also this next generation of journalists who will help get the industry back on its feet. In the future, the company’s reporters will focus on long-form investigative journalism and bringing the local angle on national stories to their readers.
“We don’t know the new editorial mission [of the newspapers] yet, but I can guarantee you that it is going to be different than today,” Osberg said.
Osberg started his career at Chilton Publishing Co. and then moved on to a trade publication before assuming leadership positions at Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report and Buzzwire. He advised students to take any position in the industry they’re offered. “Don’t get discouraged with the brand that you start in. Just get your foot in the door.”
He also encouraged the students to continuously broaden their skill sets: “I wouldn’t advise being a specialist in today’s world.” For under Osberg’s plan, reporters with diverse skills will be the ones who find the most success.