SSCA Mass Communication Division

Business Meeting

April 5, 2008 in Savannah, GA

2007-2008 Officers

Chair: Melissa M. Smith, Mississippi State University

Vice Chair: Wendy Hajjar

Secretary: Myleea D. Hill, Arkansas State University

Immediate Past-Chair: Tony DeMars, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Web Editor: Barry P. Smith, Mississippi University for Women

Signed in: Brian C. Brantley, Tony DeMars, Janis Edwards, Dedria Gives-Carroll, Wendy Hajjar, Myleea Hill, Alison Miller, Amber Narro, Darrell Roe, Barry P. Smith, Melissa Smith, Melanie Stone

The meeting was called to order at 5:30 p.m. by Melissa Smith, Chair.

The 2007 meeting minutes were accepted unanimously as presented in the Fall 2007 Mass Communication newsletter and posted on the division’s Web site.

Myleea Hill, Secretary, reported that a Fall 2007 newsletter was distributed via email and U.S. postal service and that the Spring 2008 newsletter was distributed via email. A call for papers for the 2008 SSCA Mass Communication division was included in the Fall 2007 newsletter.

The Vice-Chair report was presented by Wendy Hajjar (who stepped in to serve as program planner when the person elected to serve two years ago dropped out without resigning his role). Hajjar reported that she put out a call for papers in the Fall and communicated a number of times with Smith and past-Chair Tony DeMars regarding protocol. All submissions were received electronically. There were 27 completed competitive papers submitted, as well as three abstracts, and 12 panel and workshop submissions. Fifteen volunteer reviewers were employed for blind review. Hajjar also read all submissions, so that each submission had at least three readers. Each reviewer was asked to rank and rate each submission as well as provide feedback as to whether the paper should be accepted, should be accepted if there was available space, or should be rejected. (If we had accepted them all there would have been 18 or 19 Mass Communication sessions in the schedule.) Hajjar asked SSCA for nine sessions, 10 counting the business meeting. All acceptable competitive papers were paneled into five sessions. The four additional panel sessions included only the panel submissions where evaluators ranked and rated them the highest categories. Hajjar reported that she requested the SSCA program planner, Jerry Hale, to add additional panels if room was available. Hale granted a session for a business meeting, but Hajjar not request a session for a media showcase as there were no submissions this year. She also noted that the research meeting the division traditionally held had been “retired.”

The top student paper award was presented to Daniel H. Kim (North Carolina State University) for his paper, Tranferring the Agenda: An Examination of Stability Across Media. The top faculty paper was presented to Janis L. Edwards and Laura Ware (University of Alabama) for their paper, Mediated Depictions of Transgression Against the Common Good: An Analysis of Editorial Cartoons on Religion.

Hajjar also reported that she requested the Mass Communication business meeting not conflict with Popular Communication, Political Communication, or Public Relations.

Hajjar raised concerns about the blind-review process for electronic submissions, stating that clear directions need to be posted in the call for papers on how to disable identifying information in Microsoft Word files, and how to clearly separate identifiers in a cover page saved as another file. Other problems included people submitting papers more than once (in one case with two different titles) and quite a bit of “bounce back,” where the email address given in submissions could not be used to contact authors. Hajjar recommended all submissions should include telephone and “snail-mail” address as well.

The Chair’s report was presented by Melissa Smith. She asked Barry Smith to report on his efforts to study the Mass Communication Division By-laws to bring them into consistency with SSCA’s Constitution and to enhance the Division’s operating practices. In conjunction with the presentation, the Mass Communication Division unanimously amended two sections of the By-laws as follows: 1) The Immediate Past- Chair of the Mass Communication Division shall serve as the Division’s representative to the SSCA Nominating Committee; and 2) Those members of the Mass Communication Division in attendance at the annual business meeting shall constitute a quorum. The updated By-laws were to be posted on the Division Web site.

An additional issue discussed was that the By-laws require nominations from the floor, which at times resulted in a lack of candidates. Barry Smith agreed to draft a message to send to members about the possibility of establishing a Nominating Committee. Additionally, suggestions were made to promote nominations in the Spring newsletter and for officers to be active in promoting attendance at the business meeting and to seek out possible incoming officers.

Melissa Smith provided reports from the SSCA Executive Council. A qualitative journal has been approved for a test publication. The Division’s membership is 108, which is a more than 50% increase since 2006. (Smith and Hajjar cautioned that conference attendance and thus membership are often contingent upon location and competing conferences, and that membership should be viewed in 10-year cycles.) The increase resulted in Mass Communication being the fifth largest SSCA Division, which can provide credibility for the number of panels. Smith reported that SSCA is accepting nominations for Executive Director and Representative to the Legislative Council. San Antonio was reported as the site of the 2012 SSCA convention.

Under new business, Smith sought comments on the production showcase, clarifying from Hajjar that there were inquiries but no submissions. Smith asked the Division to consider two questions: 1) Is there a need for a showcase; and 2) How should entries be solicited and submitted? Smith read comments from Mary Pitts, who cited the showcase as being an important outlet for faculty members to build their vitas with creative scholarship.

Smith appointed Tony DeMars, past Chair, and Alison Miller, incoming Secretary, to be in charge of the production showcase for the 2009 conference. In an effort to increase submissions, a separate call will be made for the showcase in addition to the call for papers. Smith recommended and the group agreed that getting together for a social activity would be beneficial. The group decided to get together on Friday night during next year’s conference.

Alison Miller of the University of Louisiana-Monroe was elected Secretary.