To celebrate a hundred years of radio broadcasting, the Journal of Radio & Audio Media will be publishing a special symposium issue on the last century of radio.  The century has been marked by technological, social, cultural, political, and regulatory change. Internationally, radio has assumed commercial, public, local, and a mixture of frameworks. Terrestrial and digital radio now compete for listeners’ ears. Radio has been instrumental in the development of cultural identities across the globe, and it has functioned as a key mode of cultural representation.

Well, we’re at that time of the year based on the standard academic calendars where we should be getting very focused on making good things happen in the coming year.  For me, as BEA president, here are some ideas on my mind. I’ll keep the list brief, because I am also, with this President’s Corner, asking you to brainstorm a bit and offer some ideas, because we are at our best when all our membership is engaged and has their voices heard. Read More…

Dr. Patricia Moy, an esteemed scholar of political communication at the University of Washington, will be taking the lead on BEA’s 2020 Research Symposium, “Political Communication, Culture, and Society.”

“Many people tend to associate political communication with elections, voting, and institutions. But the concept infuses all corners of society – think political with a lower-case p. Many ostensibly nonpolitical issues and phenomena — science, entertainment content, race, gender, to name a few – intersect with politics in very meaningful ways,” Dr. Moy added. “I hope the research symposium attracts scholars who will show how political communication, culture, and society influence each other.” Read More…

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into digital media technologies has provided additional affordances and altered the nature of user experience, providing new audience engagement and gratification opportunities that meet human needs for information, communication and entertainment in a variety of innovative ways.

These AI-driven smart media have helped usher in a new media environment where social bots are used to spread false information, a 360-degree view provides a panoramic look of a natural disaster event – and augmented reality is used to aid strategic communication objectives – including both commercial and prosocial campaigns. Likewise, from personalized movie offerings on Amazon and Netflix to digital virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa, a number of new AI-based tools, mobile apps and devices have changed the nature of our media consumption and habits. Learn More…