Post-Grant Reports

Title

Sabbatical Leave Report

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

1-14-2018

Disciplines

Broadcast and Video Studies | Film and Media Studies | Mass Communication | Military History

Abstract

During this sabbatical leave, research and media production activities were undertaken for the creation of an interactive multimedia project based on Waiting for Peace: The Journals and Correspondence of a World War II Combat Medic by Karen Berkey Huntsberger (2015). The memoir recounts the wartime experiences of Cpl. Richard James Berkey, who was drafted in 1942 while he was a third-year pre-med student at the University of Indiana. Berkey served in the 68th Armored Infantry Battalion through the end of the war in Europe. The multimedia documentary brings together historic texts and documents, period audio, historic and contemporary photos, video, and graphic materials to create an interactive educational experience for online audiences interested in the experience of an enlisted soldier, his family, and friends during this momentous period in 20th century history. The production will be completed in the spring of 2018 and made available through online channels, including the college’s digital repository, DigitalCommons@Linfield, and through the Massmediax.org and Waitingforpeace.com websites. Research and production methods and outcomes will be shared with students in research and production courses of the Mass Communication department.

For reasons related to financing and personal health, planned research and production activities at sites in the United States, France, and Germany associated with the events in the book had to be set aside. Within the limits imposed by locally-available locations and assets, the project made progress on media acquisition, asset preparation, and script development. These activities included gathering and scanning primary sources already in hand; acquiring graphic and photographic materials from third parties; assessing user interface designs and coding web pages using Adobe Muse, HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript; acquiring, preparing, and editing photo and video content using Adobe Creative Cloud applications; editing primary text sources and entering text into script documents; assessing ownership arrangements and negotiating terms of use; developing tools to track and manage media assets; and meeting regularly with student associate producers for content development and historical research. The activities undertaken by students were funded under a Student Faculty Collaborative Research Grant awarded in the spring of 2016.

In addition to the research and production activities described in the application, during my sabbatical I completed a manuscript for a symposium issue of the Journal of Radio & Audio Media. “Politics and poster children: A historical assessment of radio outcomes in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967” investigates decisions made during and immediately after the passage of the act, and the consequences of those decisions for American college and community radio stations over the following half century. The article was published in volume 24, issue 2. Subsequently, I was invited to present the research at The Politics of Public Media, the 2017 Jim Joyce Symposium on Political Communication, sponsored by the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Comments

This research was conducted as part of a sabbatical leave in 2017.

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