Journalism 792

Seminar in Public Journalism

Spring Quarter 1999

CN: 03752

Frank E. Fee Jr.

Office Hours:
Scripps 104
T,Th 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. & by appointment
Drop-ins Always Welcome
Phone:
593-9851 (o) 594-5251 (h)
E-mail:
feef@ohiou.edu
Attendance Policy Course Objectives Schedule
Class Reports, Abstracts Grading Texts
Class Listserv Honor Code Useful Links
Course Description Prerequisites Web site

Course Objective:

This course has several related objectives. Students will:
Course Description:
This course examines Public Journalism in a practical project incorporating multimedia journalism. From this perspective, the course offers experience that emphasizes the convergence of media techniques and skills in the 21st century.
Through selected readings, students will examine the theory and practice of Public Journalism, analyze the debate surrounding Public Journalism, and apply their understanding to a Public Journalism project in the Ohio University community. Students also will gain experience and knowledge of in-depth coverage of a community issue through print, broadcast and Web journalism.
The class will meet twice weekly to discuss readings in the theory of public journalism, discuss case studies, and analyze the debate over Public Journalism. Guest speakers from area media will discuss relevant issues. Class time also will include advancing the class project in Public Journalism, although much of that project will be developed outside the classroom.
Project: Teamwork will be stressed in this course as students undertake a community assessment in support of a Public Journalism project, report and edit material for publication on a project Web site and for broadcast on the interACTV-7 programming of ACTV-7 and other possible broadcast outlets. The Web component will include basic information delivery as well as promoting interactive community participation, such as through a listserve, chat room or news group. The emphasis will be on creating community discussion and judgment about an issue central to its members' lives.
Who Should Take This Course?
This course is designed for students who are interested in print journalism (newspaper and magazine), broadcast journalism (radio and TV), Web journalism, photojournalism, infographics, public relations, advertising, ethics, media theory and criticism, or political science.
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites but coursework or experience in print, broadcast or Web journalism is desirable.
Grading
Grades in this course will be based upon the quality of your:
Attendance
Missing a single class is costly to your understanding of the material. Moreover, a significant amount of this course involves a team project in which the effectiveness of others depends on your performance. Therefore, no unexcused absences are permitted.

Honor Code
Students in in this seminar must adhere to the university honor code.
Schedule
Week 1
Tuesday (3/30): Intro to course. Civic Journalism video.
Assignment: Public listening. Object: Community Assessment -- Each class member goes into the OU community. Talk with 20 people -- 10 students, 5 faculty, 3 staff/admin people and 2 non-OU people (e.g., merchants). Be sure we don't double-team anyone. Find out what's on their minds, what they're concerned about in the OU community. Briefly list their ideas and send the list to me by e-mail list by Monday a.m. (4/6). I'll synthesize the list and post it to this Web page in time for Tuesday's class.
Thursday (4/1)
Topics: Discuss term projects, readings.

Readings:
  • Fee, "Public Journalism and Democracy: Scope of the Debate and Agenda for Research." On reserve at Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • Tapping Civic Life: How to Report First, and Best, What's Happening in Your Community.
  • Browse "What Is Civic Journalism?"
  • Browse Pew Center projects.

    • Week 2
    Tuesday (4/6): Discuss the community assessment. Convergence of newspapers, radio, TV, Web. Who are the stakeholders in our project? Discuss Merritt in context of personal experience, observation of media.

    Readings:
    Merritt, complete.
    Thursday (4/8):
    Topics: Book report: Habermas/Jay Cohen.
    Readings:
  • With the People ... A Toolbox for Getting Readers and Viewers Involved.
  • "Civic Journalism: A New Approach to Citizenship"
    • "Civil Toward Civil Journalism" in "The Role of Journalism," ASNE The Newspaper Journalists of the '90s report.

    Week 3
    Tuesday (4/13): Book report: Putnam/Hanne Hojberg. Framing, Agenda Setting and Other Relevant Theory.
    Readings:
  • Charity, complete.
    • Thursday (4/15):
    Topics: News frames, media effects, media and citizens.

    Readings:
  • Robert M.Entman. "Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm." Journal of Communication 43 (Fall 1993): 51-58. On reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • Sharon Hartin Iorio and Susan Schultz Huxman, "Media Coverage of Political Issues and the Framing of Personal Concerns." Journal of Communication 46 (Fall 1996): 97-115. On reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • Scott London. "How the Media Frame Political Issues."


    • Week 4
    Tuesday (4/20): Book report: Yankelovich/Sarah Wigdalski.

    Readings:
  • Rosen.
  • James Carey, "The Decline of Democratic Institutions."
  • Robert Putnam, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America";
  • Herbert J. Gans, "Bystanders as Opinion Makers -- A Bottoms-Up Perspective," in Media & Public Life, Everette E. Dennis and Robert W. Snyder, eds. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997). On reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.

    • Thursday (4/22):
    Civic Mapping: Guest speaker, Kathryn B. Campbell, University of Wisconsin-Madison.



    Week 5
    Tuesday (4/27): Who's promoting public journalism? The Hutchins Commission fulfilled? Discussion of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, Poynter Institute initiatives, among others. Book report: Etzioni/Chiffon Staebler.
    Readings:
  • "Press Coverage: How Pew's Civic Journalism Projects Put Newspapers, Radio, and Television Stations on the Payroll."
  • Richard A. Oppel, "Three Steps to Improve Public Journalism." The American Editor, January-February 1997: 12. Magazine available in Lasher Learning Center; articles on reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • Ed Fouhy, "Pew Center Is About Listening, Not Handouts." The American Editor, January-February 1997: 13. Magazine available in Lasher Learning Center; articles on reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • "One of the Most Influential Forces in American Journalism."

    • Thursday (4/29):
    Journalism Day / No Class



    Week 6
    Tuesday (5/4): Critiques of Public Journalism.
    Readings:
  • Phil Meyer, "Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity"
  • "Old Wine in a New Bottle: Public journalism movement in the United States and the erstwhile NWICO debate"
  • Columbia Journalism Review: "Civic Journalism Update"
    • Mike Hoyt. "Are you now or will you ever be a civic journalist?"
  • "The Case For and Against Public Journalism"
    • Thursday (5/6):
    Book report: Fukuyama/Chris Vance

     

     

    Week 7
    Tuesday (5/11): "Ethics of Public Journalism." Book report: Ethics Package/Erin Martin

    Thursday (5/13):

    •  

     
     

    Week 8
    Tuesday (5/18): Book report: Fallows/Chris Tyree. Assessing Public Journalism.

    Readings:
  • Peter Parisi, "Toward a 'Philosophy of Framing': News Narratives for Public Journalism." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 74 (Winter 1997): 673-686. Journal available in Lasher Learning Center; articles on reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
  • Hanno Hardt, "The Quest for Public Journalism." Journal of Communication 47 (Summer 1997): 102-109. On reserve in Alden Library, Lasher Learning Center.
    • Thursday (5/20): Book report: Anderson, Dardenne & Killenberg/Jim Staebler.
    Readings TBA.


    Week 9
    Tuesday (5/25): "Is Public Journalism really different? Historical antecedents of Public Journalism."
    Reserve readings TBA.

     
    Thursday (5/27): Book report: Lambeth, Meyer & Thorson/Liz Sidoti.
    Readings TBA.


    Week 10
    Tuesday (6/1): "The Future of Public Journalism." Readings TBA.
    Book report: Fuller/Matt Trem


    Thursday (6/3):

    Course post-mortem. Readings TBA.

     
    Texts
  • Charity, Arthur. Doing Public Journalism. New York: Guilford Publications, 1995.
  • Harwood, Richard. Tapping Civic Life: How to Report First, and Best, What's Happening in Your Community. Washington, D.C.: Pew Center for Civic Journalism, 1996. (Note: This booklet is available online. Copies have been placed on reserve at Lasher Learning Center and Alden Library as well.)
  • Merritt, Davis. Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News Is Not Enough. 2d ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998.
  • Rosen, Jay. Getting the Connections Right: Public Journalism and the Troubles in the Press. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1996. Excerpts available online.
  • Schaffer, Jan, and Edward D. Miller, eds. With the People ... A Toolbox for Getting Readers and Viewers Involved. Washington, D.C.: Pew Center for Civic Journalism, 1997. (Note: This booklet is available online. Copies have been placed on reserve at Lasher Learning Center and Alden Library as well.)
    • In addition, readings will be placed on reserve at Lasher Learning Center and Alden Library, and links to online readings will be available from this Web page. All readings must be done by the class for which they are assigned.
    Class Reports and Abstracts
    Each student is to select one book from this list and teach it to the class. Along with the classroom presentation, which should take about 30 minutes, the student will prepare an abstract for distribution -- no later than the day before the class -- to each member of the class. The presentation will include leading a discussion of the author's main points and relating them to the field of journalism, and to the class project in particular.


    Anderson, Rob, Robert Dardenne, and George M. Killenberg. The Conversation of Journalism: Communication, Community, and News. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.

    Black, Jay, ed. Mixed News: The Public/Civic/Communitarian Journalism Debate. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.

    Christians, Clifford G., John P. Ferre and P. Mark Fackler. Good News: Social Ethics and the Press. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

    Etzioni, Amitai. The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda. New York: Crown Publishers, 1993.

    Fallows, James. Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. New York: Pantheon, 1996. (Excerpts from Breaking the News can be found at a PBS site that also includes an online forum with Fallows, plus the transcript of a Fallows conversation with David Gergen. The Introduction to Breaking the News is found at the Fallows Central site.)

    Fukuyama, Francis. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press, 1995.

    Fuller, Jack. News Values: Ideas for an Information Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

    Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen, trans. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1990.

    Lambeth, Edmund B., Philip E. Meyer, and Esther Thorson, eds. Assessing Public Journalism. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.

    Lauterer, Jock. Community Journalism. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1995.

    Putnam, Robert. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

    Yankelovich, Daniel. Coming to Public Judgment: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.

    Stamm, Keith R. Newspaper Use and Community Ties: Toward a Dynamic Theory. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1985.


    Case Study Projects
    The object of this mini-project is to analyze some of the public journalism projects that have been undertaken by newspapers and broadcasters, particularly with attention to interactivity and use of Web-based technologies. Working in teams of two or three, students will prepare brief oral presentations that analyze one of the following: (1) Goals and accomplishments, measurement of results, possible improvements, and departure from traditional journalistic approaches. (2) Use of Web sites for innovation in interactive communication in a public journalism project. (3) The visual component of public journalism projects. (4) Broadcast innovation in public journalism. (5) Non-traditional newspapering in public journalism. (6) Any interesting idea your team comes up with. Teams should meet with the instructor to discuss initial approaches to their analyses. Reports will be scheduled later in the quarter.
    Useful Links
    Kettering Foundation
    Pew Center for Civic Journalism
    Poynter Institute's Public Journalism Bibliography.
    "Tips for improving the quality of community journalism"
    American News Service Online Newsroom
    Civic Practices Network's journalism page
    Dr. Brian L. Massey, who teaches at the School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has put together an interesting and very helpful page devoted to Civic Journalism.
    Last revised:
    Tuesday, April 14, 1999
    Questions, comments: Frank E. Fee Jr.