A project of the Manship School of Mass Communication, LSU
Who We Are
Adviser
Tina Harris
Professor, Louisiana State University
Dr. Harris is Douglas L. Manship Sr.-Dori Maynard Race, Media, and Cultural Literacy Endowed Chair at LSU's Manship School of Mass Communication. Dr. Harris is an internationally renowned interracial communication scholar with particular interests in race, media representations, and racial social justice. Her pedagogy, research, and service at LSU are driven by her desire to empower others with the communication and critical thinking skills necessary for becoming global citizens. The end goal of these efforts is to equip students to use an applied approach where theory leads to practice in a world where racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity are a welcome inevitably.
Forum's Editors & Contributors
Masudul (Mas) Biswas
Site Editor & Web Developer
Associate Professor, Loyola University Maryland
Dr. Biswas conducts research in the intersections of diversity, media and politics/public affairs. Additionally, in his research, he examines how diversity is taught in Journalism and Communication programs. He gathers and edits content for the Media Diversity Forum's website. He also develops and maintains the Forum's website.
Dorothy Bland
Co-Editor, African American Issues and Diversity
Professor, University of North Texas
Dr. Bland is a journalism professor at the University of North Texas. She is a former dean, and UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism earned AEJMC’s Equity and Diversity Award under her leadership in 2016. Bland worked 25 years in the news industry, including USA Today. She is an award-winning journalist and earned three Gannett rings for outstanding performance as a publisher. Diversity is among her research interests, and she teaches “Race, Gender and Media.” She earned her M.B.A. from George Washington University, and her B.S. in journalism from Arkansas State University.
Dane Claussen
Co-Editor, GLBTQ Issues
Dr. Claussen is a lecturer of strategic communication at University of Idaho. He is also Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editor of Nonprofit Sector News. He is the former James Pedas Professor and chair, Department of Media, Communication and Public Relations, at Thiel College; former Editors of Newspaper Research Journal and Journalism & Mass Communication Educator; former executive director, ACLU of Nevada; and former professor/faculty chair, School of Communication, Point Park University. He is author of Anti-intellectualism in American Media; and editor/co-author of Sex, Religion, Media and two other books.
Victoria LaPoe
Editor, Indigenous Issues
Associate professor, Ohio University.
Dr. LaPoe's research interests include construction of reality within television news, how it affects groups such as American Indians, political science, science communication, and emerging media. She is a co-author in an upcoming book by the University Press of Mississippi on the Media Lessons of Two Gulf Disasters – Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
Victoria is an award winning journalist who worked in television news for thirteen years.
Nam Young Kim
Editor, Asian American Issues
Associate Professor, Sam Houston State University
Dr. Kim is an associate professor in the mass communication department at Sam
Houston State University. Her research interests focus on the effects of new
media technologies on persuasion.
Shauntae Brown White
Co-Editor, Gender and Religion
Professor, North Carolina Central University
Dr. Shauntae Brown White is a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at North Carolina Central University where she also serves as the coordinator of the Women’s & Gender Studies program. She has written several academic articles and book chapters and is the author of upcoming book The First Lady: African American Pastors’ Wives in Their Own Words. Dr. Shauntae has a passion for women and is known for her engaging workshops in which she challenges audiences to apply learned knowledge to their everyday lives.
Former Content Editors
Jinx Broussard
Co-Editor, African American Issues
Professor, Louisiana State University
Dr. Broussard held numerous academic and professional positions before joining LSU’s faculty, where she focuses on public relations courses. She taught and served in a variety of positions at Dillard University, including co-chair of the Mass Communication Department from 2004 – 2006. She was the coordinator of a unique collaboration between Dillard University and the Manship School of Mass Communication. Broussard is a facilitator/ faculty member for the New York Times Summer Journalism Institute. As owner and president of Jinx Broussard Consulting and Public Relations, Inc., which she established in 1994, Broussard worked with a variety of businesses and organizations in New Orleans and beyond. She worked as the Louisiana Press Secretary for the Clinton-Gore Campaign in 1992 and served as press secretary to Mayor Sidney J. Barthelemy in New Orleans for seven years. She began her career as a reporter. Broussard was the first African-American to earn an undergraduate degree in journalism from LSU. She also earned her M.A. from LSU, where she completed a thesis entitled ‘Establishment of a Public Information Program for the City of New Orleans."More info
TRACY EVERBACH
Managing Editor
Associate Professor, University of North Texas
Dr. Everbach is an associate professor of journalism at the University of North Texas and a former newspaper reporter. Her research interests focus on gender in media, including newsroom management, media coverage and sports. She worked as a newspaper reporter for 14 years, 12 on the Metro desk of The Dallas Morning News and two at the Boston Herald. She also is the 2012-2013 head of the Commission on the Status of Women for AEJMC. Dr. Everbach was formerly the assistant editor for the Media Diversity Forum's gender studies.
ROSLYN SATCHEL
Co-Editor, African American Issues
Associate Professor, Pepperdine University
Dr. Satchel is Associate Professor of Communication and an affiliate faculty member in the Social Action & Justice Colloquium at Pepperdine University. She is also an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. For more than 20 years, Dr. Satchel's global work as a human rights advocate for victims of violence and indigent/imprisoned women & children has distinguished her as an activist, scholar, and community organizer. She earned a PhD in Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University, a JD and a MDiv at Emory University, and a BA in Communication at Howard University. Dr. Satchel's recently released book, What Movies Teach about Race: Exceptionalism, Erasure and Entitlement brings her communication, legal, and theology backgrounds together to examine media systems and representations of race, gender, class, and other intersectional identities.
CRISTINA AZOCAR
Co-Editor, American Indian Issues
Department Chair and Associate Professor, San Francisco State University
In 2001, Cristina Azocar completed her doctorate in Communication Studies at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, joining a miniscule number of Native American PhDs in mass communication. Her research explores news coverage of people of color and its impact on public perception.
JAIME LOKE
Editor, Gender Studies
Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University
Dr. Loke is a member of the journalism faculty at Texas Christian University. Her research interests rest on the intersection of women and minorities, mass media and the new online public spaces. Additionally, her scholarly work relies on critical media and cultural studies theory in accompaniment to the more traditional journalism research.
GARY HICKS
Co-Editor, GLBTQ Issues
Department Chair and Professor, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Dr. Gary Hicks is chair of the Department of Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. In his research, Dr. Hicks focuses on the impact of media on society's marginalized communities. He has done qualitative studies of media portrayals of lesbians and gay men, immigrants, and the disabled. His current research focuses on media portrayals of those suffering mental illness. His framework for studying these groups includes ethical theory, as well as critical and cultural theories. Because of his background as a newspaper reporter and as an associate producer in the southwest bureau of The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, he works to make his research relevant and applicable to the real-world work of media practitioners.
MARIA LEN-RIOS
Co-Editor, Hispanic/Latino issues
Associate Professor, University of Georgia
Dr. Len-Ríos’ research focuses on inequalities in public relations and health communication. Together with colleagues and doctoral students, she has earned more than 9 Top Paper awards in national and international academic conferences across multiple areas - public relations, health and science communication, mass communication & society, popular culture and magazine research.
Dr. Len-Ríos has taught courses in cross-cultural journalism, public relations, public relations writing, strategic campaigns, master's thesis seminar, quantitative methods, mass media seminar and doctoral seminar courses. Click here for more information.
MELITA GARZA
Co-Editor, Hispanic/Latino Issues
Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University
Melita M. Garza, Ph.D. is a media historian and qualitative researcher focusing on journalism as an agent of democracy and citizenship, including its role in constructing a social reality of what it means to be an American. For instance, her book, They Came to Toil: Newspaper Representations of Mexicans and Immigrants in the Great Depression (University of Texas Press, 2018) analyzes how English- and Spanish-language media constructed identities of Mexicans and Mexican Americans as either invaluable contributors to the US economy or disposable, deportable labor. Prior to receiving her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Garza was an award-winning journalist for more than two decades for the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg News, the Milwaukee Journal, and the Los Angeles Times.
DEBRA MASON
Editor, Religion
Professor & Director, Center on Religion & the Professions, The University of Missouri
Dr. Mason brings more than 25 years of professional reporting, research, and teaching experience to her position. Her major religion and media research work includes a content audit of religion news spanning 50 years and the largest telephone survey of religion journalists. She edited the recently published Religion Reporting: A Guide to Journalism’s Best Beat, and co-edited Readings in Religion as News, a collection of religion news from the colonial era to the present. Mason also serves on the editorial board and is book review editor for the Journal of Media and Religion.