Professor Sue Robinson will receive the 2019 Tankard Book Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at its August meeting in Toronto. The award is given to work that breaks new ground in the field of journalism and mass communication research.
Robinson’s book, Networked News, Racial Divides: How Power and Privilege Shape Public Discourse in Progressive Cities, published by Cambridge University Press, is an ethnographic network analysis supplemented with five deep case studies examining the obstacles to pubic dialogs about racial inequality and opportunities for better discourse in mid-sized liberal cities, such as Madison. Robinson applies Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to help uncover and understand media ecologies and whose voices get privileged and whose are ignored in conversations about social justice.
The Tankard Book Award was conceived as a way to both honor the late Dr. James W. Tankard, Jr.of the University of Texas-Austin, who was admired for his journalism scholarship, creativity, and character, and to celebrate the best of the books written by AEJMC members.