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“Advertising is creative problem solving,” said Sheets, acknowledging that advertising also has the power to persuade for both positive and negative.

The BYU School of Communications will host Scott Church, assistant professor in the School of Communications, in conjunction with the Raymond E. and Ida Lee Beckham Lecture in Communications Series March 16 at 11:00 a.m. in 321 of the Maeser building. Church will present his lecture, “The Art of Mass Communication: The Sublime, Ineffable, and Spiritual Elements of Memes.” Popular viral content, like memes, are taking over the Internet. The presentation will address how memes strategically use art, symbolism and spirituality to attract attention and to help the audience feel emotion. Church has taught courses in popular culture, business communication, public speaking, public discourse, music and media studies. His research primarily uses critical theory, aesthetics and media ecology as analytic lenses for social media and mediated popular texts. The lectures were established in 1995 in honor of Ray Beckham’s late wife, Ida Lee. Raymond E. Beckham was a leader in education at BYU for 42 years. He was the driving force behind the BYU Evening school program, the BYU Travel Studies program, Aspen Grove, and founded the New York Internship program for Communications majors. INFORMATION Dates: Thursday March 16 Times: 11:00 a.m. Location: 321 Karl G. Maeser Building Admission: Free, no registration required

Newspapers have shifted from strongly favoring Republican candidates in the 1950s to dividing their editorial endorsements almost equally In the 1948 U.S. presidential election, republican presidential candidate and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey was heavily favored and endorsed by more than 80 percent of America’s newspapers. Journalists at the Chicago Tribune were so sure of Dewey’s win that the newspaper printed its morning edition early with the now infamous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” What was predicted to be an easy win for Dewey is now considered to be the greatest election upset in American history as presidential incumbent Harry S. Truman swept the polls. It’s scenarios like the 1948 presidential election that have Journalism Professor Joel Campbell taking a closer look at the effectiveness of editorial endorsements of presidential candidates. “It’s difficult to say if there is any strong correlation between endorsements and how people vote,” Campbell said. “But more often than not, presidential candidates with the largest percentage of newspaper endorsements have won since 1940, the notable exceptions being Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.” According to Campbell’s research published in The 21st Century Voter: Who Votes, How they Vote, and Why They Vote, there was a substantial shift in how the news media endorsed candidates throughout the last 50 years: Newspapers have shifted from strongly favoring Republican candidates in the 1940s and 1950s to dividing their editorial endorsements almost equally between the two major parties. Democratic candidates are about 10 percent more likely to receive an endorsement than Republican candidates six decades earlier. Incumbents today receive an editorial endorsement about 90 percent of the time, up from 60 percent of the time in the 1940s. In the 2012 presidential election, 77 of the top 100 U.S. newspapers endorsed candidates: 41 papers endorsed President Barack Obama, 35 endorsed GOP candidate Mitt Romney and a single paper registered a split decision. Another 23 papers did not endorse any candidates, including the two largest newspapers, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Even though the candidate with the most endorsements has traditionally won the election, Campbell predicts that editorial endorsements won’t make any difference this fall. “In this year's election there is so much information available on so many platforms, any media endorsement is likely to be drowned out by the din of voices,” Campbell said. “In the era of social media, the endorsement of those within one's circle of friends is likely to carry much more weight than that of a news organization.” It’s not just the endorsement and election result relationship that interests Campbell, but also the ethical practice of news media favoring a candidate. As a professor, Campbell teaches his students that journalists are supposed to be objective observers, but the long-standing tradition of editorial endorsements often gets in the way. The Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee encourages editorial pages to promote thoughtful debate and let readers know through endorsements which candidates share the newspaper’s vision, while also taking every opportunity to explain the firewall between news and opinion. But in an era of social media and frequently blurred lines between news and opinion, Campbell urges his fellow journalists to be more careful. “Most people say ‘journalism ethics’ is an oxymoron,” Campbell said. “The distrust of the media and the feeling of bias in the media is greater than ever. Newspapers and news media endorsing candidates probably feeds into that.” The College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences and the Office of Civic Engagement Leadership are partnering with Turbovote to facilitate online voter registration. If you are not registered tovote, but are eligible, or if you wish to obtain an absentee ballot, please visit the booths in and around the Wilkinson Student Center during the week of September 26 to register to vote or to get an absentee ballot. September 26, 2016 | Natalie Tripp

Students create experiential technology to help patients explore outside hospital walls

Each fall semester, the School of Communications presents the Raymond E. and Ida Lee Beckham Lecture in Communications series. The series includes three lectures that explore the interactions between media and society. The final lecture of this year's series is on October 29, 2015 at 11 a.m. in the HBLL auditorium. The speaker will be Kristin Matthews, a professor of English and American Studies here at BYU. Her lecture will be entitled, “New Media for an Old Message: Print Culture, Democracy, and New Left Politics in 1960’s America.” You can also check out the first two lectures on YouTube including “Creating Viral Content: The Science Behind Social Sharing,” by Ryan Elder and “Transforming the Soviet Soul: Labor, Science, and Religion in Gulag Newspapers,” by Jeff Hardy. The lectures were established in 1995 in honor of Ray Beckham’s late wife, Ida Lee. Raymond E. Beckham was a leader in education at BYU for 42 years. He was the driving force behind the BYU Evening school program, the BYU Travel Studies program, Aspen Grove, and founded the New York Internship program for Communications majors.

BYU students often have problems during the wintertime, but soon, for a lucky few, the cold will not be one of them. Next winter semester, during the summer months of the southern hemisphere, about 20 students will travel throughout New Zealand in a new study abroad program that focuses on media and culture, entitled “New Zealand: Global Mass Communication.” In addition to shadowing professionals from several New Zealand media outlets, students will create and publish content that investigates the issues surrounding the Maori, Pasifika and other minority communities in New Zealand. Dr. Clark Callahan, co-faculty director of the program, hopes that students will seize not only the opportunity to grow their portfolios but also to develop an empathetic worldview as they explore different cultures. “My area of interest is how social media affects cultures, so we’ll have a couple of research projects going on. We’ll be interviewing minority populations about how they use social media and what they get out of it. We’ll ask, ‘Does it strengthen or weaken their culture and their cultural perspectives?’” Dr. Callahan said. As part of their research, students will be paired with and embedded in Samoan families for a week. Students will record their experiences in video diaries that will be used to produce a documentary film highlighting the efforts of different organizations to preserve the Maori, Pasifika, and Samoan languages and culture. Steve Thomsen, co-faculty director, believes that New Zealand offers a diverse setting for students to study and create media. “We wanted to create an experience that would be as diverse as possible for students,” said Thomsen. “The objective of the study abroad will be to focus a lot of our efforts on the Pacifica and Maori peoples through the lens of media and the perspective that it if offers,” said Thomsen. The media that students create will be used as programming for the Pacific Media Network and will be published on the student-run website, fightforthefew.org. The latter outlet is currently being developed by the Media Advocacy and Social Change class, which is taught by Dr. Callahan. Hannah Lunt, a senior public relations student in the class, hopes that all these efforts–the class, the website, the study abroad–will help others increase their awareness about minority issues. “I have already seen a difference in how much more aware I am,” said Lunt. “I hope the blog will grow and be a voice to change.” Applications are available through the Kennedy Center’s International Study Programs website, kennedy.byu.edu, and are due Oct. 9 at 5 p.m.

Shaun Parry will be presented with a BYU Alumni Achievement Award on Thursday, Oct. 8. Prior to the award reception, Parry will give a lecture entitled “Impossible Dreams I Didn’t Know Enough To Dream.” The lecture will be held in the Madsen Recital Hall at 11 a.m. Admission is free and the lecture is open to the public.

Each fall semester, the School of Communications presents the Raymond E. and Ida Lee Beckham Lecture in Communication series. There is no charge or registration required for admission. All lectures in the series, will be held in the HBLL auditorium at 11 a.m. and are open to the public. The series includes three lectures that explore the interactions between media and society, including media culture, political economy, media effects and the use of new media. Lecturers are selected from BYU faculty who submit their proposals to the School of Communications. Lecturers Ryan Elder, assistant professor of marketing, researches how sensory experiences affect consumer perceptions and behaviors, as well as how visual cues affect persuasion. His lecture, “Creating Viral Content: The Science Behind Social Sharing,” will be held Sept. 24, 2015. Jeffrey Hardy, assistant professor of history, specializes in the Soviet penal system. His lecture, “Transforming the Soviet Soul: Labor, Science, and Religion in Gulag Newspapers,” will be held Oct. 1. Kristin Matthews is an associate professor of English and Director of the American Studies Program at BYU. Her research focuses on twentieth-century literature and culture with an emphasis on the Cold War. Her lecture, “New Media for an Old Message: Print Culture, Democracy, and New Left Politics in 1960’s America,” will be held Oct. 29. The annual series began in 1995 by Ray Beckham in honor of his late wife Ida Beckham. Ray Beckham is a major contributor to the School of Communications and is a driving force behind the BYU Evening school program, the BYU Travel Studies program and Aspen Grove. Beckham also and founded the New York Internship program for Communications majors. Information Dates: September 24, October 1 & 29, 2015 Times: 11:00 a.m. Location: HBLL auditorium Admission: Free, no registration required

Like her fellow BYU journalism majors, Jane Clayson Johnson brought to her career not only her strong natural abilities, but also the values of BYU. She says she always considered herself a representative of BYU and the Church.