Teaching Mass Communication: A Guide to Better Instruction

This unique volume brings together original essays by well-known mass communication experts--master teachers--who provide practical information on teaching the communication and journalism courses in which they specialize. The authors make recommendations for practical/applied, theoretical, and advanced courses, representing every area of the mass communications curriculum. Its contributors include eminent specialists such as Maurine H. Beasley, who offers advice to teachers of media history; Dan Nimmo (political communication); Roy L. Moore (media law); Jay Black (media ethics); and John De Mott (media management). Chapter authors suggest course outlines, teaching strategies, and methods of testing, and provide reviews of current texts and supplementary materials such as films and other audio-visual aids.

Chapter topics in part I, The Introductory Course, include The Beginning Course in Mass Communication, and introductory courses to broadcasting, public relations, the film course, and internship programs. Part II, Applied Coursework, includes chapters on writing news for print and broadcast, reporting, advertising campaigns, audio and video production, and teaching research methods. Part III, which deals with advanced coursework, includes chapters on courses in mass communication law, mass media management, and history, mass media and politics, media criticism, and media ethics. Teaching Mass Communication will prove vitally important to faculty with new preparations for mass communication courses (including senior faculty keeping up with changes), media professionals, and new faculty preparing their teaching assignments.

MICHAEL D. MURRAY is Director of Mass Communications and Acting Chairman of the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. He is a former president of the American Journalism Historians Association and was recently awarded the Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Educator Award from the Radio-Television Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications and the Missouri Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is the co-editor (with Anthony J. Ferri) of Teaching Mass Communication (Praeger, 1992).


MICHAEL D. MURRAY is professor and chairman of the Department of Communication, University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a former president of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) and currently a member of the Board of Governors of the Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). Murray has received several awards, including the Dr. Frank N. Stanton Fellowship from the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS) and the Distinguished Broadcast Educator Award. He is author of The Political Performers: CBS Broadcasts in the Public Interest, and currently is corresponding editor for Journalism History.