Jacoway is distinguished by the Emmy Award he received for Final Edition: Journalism According to Jack and Jim Knight, the story of two Akron brothers who founded Knight-Ridder Newspapers Inc. Jacoway’s interest in local media history — and its modern relevance — is central to this project and as-yet uncompleted project about U.S. Rep. John Seiberling, another historic figure from Akron.

Jacoway seeks to create documentaries about subjects that people — even young people — care about. His goals help to answer a central question he wants to ask: How are documentaries relevant to news and journalism today? During the film-making process, Jacoway searches for specific primary sources, such as audio clips of subjects’ recorded speech, that will help his audience get to know historic figures about whom they may have little prior knowledge.

Jacoway’s film-making interests span all stages of the process, from writing and research to filming and editing the final piece. In fact, he prefers to individually create his projects from start to finish and maintain creative control of the results.

Written by new MS student Kerry Kubilius.

While working as a journalist and editor (Morning Post and Tianjin Daily) in Tianjin, near Beijing, she posed as a patient at a drug rehab center as a way to gain an understanding of the patients’ state of mind during their treatment to uncover psychological elements of drug addiction.

But the above is only one example of Zhang’s fearlessness. When traveling in China, she was determined to visit a village inaccessible by motor vehicles. Undaunted, she mounted a horse and rode to the village. Another trip, this one to Tibet, landed her in the hospital for altitude sickness, but Zhang recounts this setback with a smile.

Zhang’s appreciation for the value of the nature and the environment were central in her recent responsibilities for Greenpeace China, to which she lent her communication expertise in her position as a media officer. There she helped to develop communication strategies and involve the media from the start of campaigns to ensure adequate exposure of issues. Her experience with Greenpeace has given her inspiration for research focus: how NGOs use communication strategies to promote social movements. After she completes her degree at Scripps, she hopes to teach and benefit from the intellectual energy the university environment offers.

Zhang counts travel among her favorite hobbies. Though she often travels alone, she’s open to making friends along the way. One of these friends has inspired her to take up photography so she’ll be able to capture the sights the next time she rides into unexplored territory.

— Written by Scripps MS student Kerry Kubilius

Carnifax will present her paper, “Candid Conversations: A Content Analysis of the Subjects of the Playboy Interview,” at the AEJMC convention in August in St. Louis.

She based the paper on research she conducted during Dr. Joseph Bernt’s content analysis class in winter quarter 2011.

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The papers underwent double-blind review, competing successfully against the work of not only other universities’ graduate students, but also papers written by university professors throughout the world.

“Fourteen — that’s a big, big number,” said Scripps Graduate Director Mike Sweeney. “Our students ‘done good’ this year.”

The AEJMC conference will be in August in St. Louis.

The students and their papers, in alphabetical order, are:

• Ashley Carnifax, master’s student from Melbourne, Fla. “Candid Conversations: A Content Analysis of the Subjects of the Playboy Interview,” Magazine Division.

• Clay Carey, master’s student from Lebanon, Tenn. Paper No. 1: “Community Journalism in a Secret City: The Oak Ridge Journal, 1943-1948,” History Division, third place winnter, top student paper competition in the division. Paper 2: “A Study of the Urbanization of News Content: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Columbus Dispatch, 2006-2010,” Newspaper Division.

• Sally Ann Cruikshank, PhD student from Ivydale, W.V. “Globalization in Guyana: An Exploratory Study on Pirated Television,” International Communication Division.

• Ashley Furrow, PhD student from Sarasota, Fla. Paper No. 1: “Advertising Images of Gender and Race Portrayed in Sports Illustrated Kids, 2000-2009,” Advertising Division. Paper No. 2: “Gender and Race of Sources in Sports Illustrated Kids, 2000-2009,” Sports Communication Interest Group.

• Chen Lou, master’s student from China. Paper No. 1, co-authored with Professors Hong Cheng and Carson B. Wagner: “News Framing of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Leak and the 2010 BP Oil Spill,” Newspaper Division. Paper No. 2: Sole author, “HIV/AIDS Coverage in Chinese Media: A Case Study of the ‘Girl With AIDS,’” Graduate Education Interest Group.

• Deanna Pogorelc, master’s student from Fort Wayne, Ind. “The Gendering of Weight-Loss Advertisements in the Beginning of the Obesity Age,” Commission on the Status of Women.

• Jeffrey Kyle Riley, master’s student from Tavares, Fla. “Examining the Local Sections of Three South Florida Newspapers Before and After a Content-Sharing Agreement,” Newspaper Division.

• Bill Schulte, PhD student from Cincinnati, and Professor Joseph Bernt (co-authored). “Social Construction, Influence, and News Work: A Study of the ‘Reality’ of Newspaper Journalism Today,” Newspaper Division.

• Peter Shooner, master’s student from Cincinnati. “The Conflict and Balance of History and Drama in 20th Century-Fox’s The Longest Day,” History Division.

• Edgar Simpson, PhD student from Athens, Ohio. “What Is Free? Cooperation, Collaboration, and the Essential Dilemma of the Fourth Estate,” Critical and Cultural Studies Division.

• Molly Yanity, PhD student from Seattle. “Identifying Ethical Challenges and Solutions in the Online Coverage of Recruiting High School Athletes,” Ethics Division.

In addition, Cruikshank had a second paper accepted to the conference of the International Communication Association, and an OU Media Arts and Studies student, Brian Hough, had a paper that he wrote for Dr. Joseph Bernt’s content analysis class accepted to AEJMC’s Mass Communication and Society Division. Cruikshank’s paper is “The Battle for Arab Hearts and Minds: The Bush Administration’s Conflict with Al Jazeera During the War on Terror, 2001-2003.” Hough’s is “Great Planes: National Media’s Understanding of America’s ‘Flyover Country.’”

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Dr. Srivastava’s purpose was to promote and support communications research at the graduate level in the Scripps J-school.

The group had four active members through the winter quarter, resulting in the completion of a research project called “Brutal habitat: Newspaper and broadcast Websites in a converging industry.”

The project used the theories of media ecology and niche, under the umbrella theory of the firm, to examine the possible presence and type of media convergence.

Overall, says PhD student and group member Ed Simpson, “We did find a rather remarkable level of convergence, with the Websites using multimedia in similar ways and establishing a similar heirarchy in how they presented the news.”

A key difference, he says: the newspaper Websites displayed advertising more often and more prominently.

“Dr. S. devoted many hours and patiently talked the group through the project,” Simpson says. “I believe it was a positive experience for all; I know it was for me, especially aspects of both collaborative research and working with groups whose members have various levels of experience and expertise.”

Schulte’s paper, “Visual Evolution: A Look at Graphic Elements on the Front Page of Elite Newspapers over 30 Years,” has been accepted for presentation at the 9th International Symposium on Communication in the Millennium at San Diego State University..

Schulte’s paper is a content analysis, informed by the theory of social construction of reality and framing. It examined the ways in which graphic elements were used to frame information over time at several elite newspapers in the United States. The study looked at the years when USA Today’s bold visual style was meeting success (1978-2008).

To track the trend of graphic elements in elite newspapers this study looked at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chicago Tribune.

The analysis revealed that these newspapers saw value in visual change, however, though these were distinct and dynamic changes, they did not conform to the bold visual style indicative of USA Today during these years. The elite newspapers favored index information and logos rather that infographics in the 1980s and middle 1990s and these elements became less prominent over time.

This suggested that graphics are not a strong operational norm and are not seen as a consistent tool for newsrooms to frame reality.

Her paper is “The Battle for Arab Hearts and Minds: The Bush Administration’s Conflict with Al Jazeera During the War on Terror, 2001-2003.”

When a U.S. bomb in Iraq killed an Al Jazeera journalist on April 8, 2003, many questioned if the Al Jazeera office had been deliberately targeted by the U.S. as the culmination of a contentious relationship between the Bush Administration and the station.

Cruikshank’s paper examined the clash between the Bush administration and Al Jazeera in the days following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, until April 9, 2003, the day after the journalist’s death and when U.S. forces entered the center of Baghdad. The conflict between the United States and Al Jazeera was particularly important because it was during this time, at the start of the “War on Terror,” that the Bush administration was battling for the hearts and minds of the Arab world.

The Top Student Paper award includes a $500 prize.

Furrow, a former newspaper and Web journalist from Florida, expands upon her master’s thesis research in the two studies, which examine the gender and race of news sources and people in advertisements in the magazine. The regional conference of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication presents blind-reviewed original research by students and professors.

In “Gender and Race of Sources in Sports Illustrated Kids, 2000-2009,” Furrow found that women continue to be vastly underrepresented within the magazine’s pages as dominant subjects and sources. Articles using men as sources vastly outnumber those using women as sources by a ratio of more than 5 to 1.

In “Advertising Images of Gender and Race Portrayed in Sports Illustrated Kids, 2000-2009,” Furrow found similar numbers for photographs in ads: Men outnumbered women by nearly 4 to 1.

That’s significant, she argues, because of the magazine’s large readership among young women. They find a skewed representation of the sports world, which likely affects their attitudes toward sports and gender roles.