Elliot King, Ph.D., a professor of communication at Loyola College in Maryland, recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a “journalism history hub.” The $48,370 grant extends for 15 months beginning in September 2009. 

“The study of journalism cuts across a variety of academic disciplines, including communication and journalism, English, history, American studies, law, and more,” said King. “Because of the way academic communities are organized in disciplinary silos, scholars focusing on the history of journalism often have no means of sharing their work or networking with each other. This journalism history hub will provide a technological infrastructure for approximately a dozen separate specialized conferences. It is a particularly appropriate initiative for Loyola, where our Jesuit heritage embraces interdisciplinary learning and pragmatic problem solving.”

The project, titled “The Journalism History Hub: Developing a Research-based Interdisciplinary Social Network and Metaconference in Journalism History,” uses Web 2.0 technology to establish and provide an ongoing framework for scholarly communication in the field of journalism history. Participants will be able to access pre-prints and post-prints of conference papers and abstracts, scholarly articles, and conference programs. They will also be able to comment on archived research and connect with scholars working on similar issues across different disciplines. King expects a prototype of the hub to be completed in fall 2010.

Ronnie Gunnerson, affiliate assistant professor of communication at Loyola, and John Breitmeyer, research and instruction librarian at the Loyola/Notre Dame Library, are also part of the team working on the project.