UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Researchers from the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications will once again play a significant role in the annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference, scheduled Aug. 7-11 in Philadelphia.
Twenty-six members of the Bellisario College, 14 faculty members and 12 graduate students, and numerous alumni will participate in panels, presentations, sessions, workshops and more during the conference.
The researchers will be prominently featured throughout the conference, showcasing the college's extensive expertise in fields such as artificial intelligence, branding, crisis communication, digital media, health communication and sustainability. The Bellisario College has maintained an active membership with AEJMC for many years consistently earning accolades and recognition for its research and participating in the organization’s leadership and committees.
In addition to the panels and presentations, key recognitions include:
- Assistant Professor of Media Studies Chris Skurka, Donald P. Bellisario Professor of Health Communication Jessica Myrick and Bellisario College doctoral alumna Yin Yang received the Article of the Year award from AEJMC’s Communication Science, Health, Environment and Risk division. The award recognized their study, “Fanning the flames or burning out? Testing competing hypotheses about repeated exposure to threatening climate change messages.” Yang is now a faculty member at Florida State University.
- Myrick also was also named the inaugural recipient of the Sharon Dunwoody Excellent Mentor Award, which honors leaders and mentors in the field of science, health, environmental and risk communication.
- Doctoral student Lana Medina’s study “Journalism in Crisis: Pragmatic Objectivity Grounded in Moral Clarity” received the top student paper award from AEJMC’s Media Ethics Division.
- Doctoral alumnus from the University of Iowa Patrick Johnson received the Penn State Davis Ethics Award for his dissertation, “A News Literate Journalism: Building a More Sustainable Future for Journalism Practice and Education with News Literacy.” The award, named after 1942 alumnus Don Davis Jr., recognizes the best ethics-related dissertation successfully defended each year in the fields of communication and media. Johnson is now an assistant professor at Marquette University.
During AEJMC’s preconference on Aug. 7, the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication will hold its annual Research Roundtable. Scholars from universities worldwide will present their research on digital analytics. The projects were funded by the Page Center in 2023. The Page Center, part of the Bellisario College, funds research that promotes ethics and responsibility in public communication and sponsors events during AEJMC’s preconference day.
Next year’s conference will be held Aug. 6-10, 2025, in San Francisco.
AEJMC is a nonprofit organization of more than 3,700 educators, students and practitioners from around the globe. Founded in 1912 by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, the first president (1912-13) of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism, as it was then known, AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level.
AEJMC’s stated mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication, in an effort to achieve better professional practice, a better-informed public and wider human understanding.