Richard Schaefer

General Information: I am currently the advisor for UNM’s print and broadcast journalism students. My teaching and research interests include telecommunication policy, broadcast journalism practices and policies and journalistic coverage of immigration.

Before becoming a professor, I worked in the United States as a broadcast journalist, a writer of interactive videodisks and a non-representational film artists. My undergraduate degree was earned at the University of Notre Dame and my master and doctoral degrees are from the University of Utah.

I have chaired the Communication Technology Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and served as the Review and Criticism Editor of the Broadcast Education Association's Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, which is disseminated quarterly to over 2,500 research libraries around the world.

Working in Morelos, Mexico

In 2007 and 2008 small groups of students and I have participated in exchange programs with the Universidad Fray Luca Paccioli in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Mexican students come to New Mexico each April to work with UNM broadcast students. For a month each summer UNM graduate and undergraduate students work with Mexican professors and students to produce “Cross Border Issues” projects relevant to citizens on both sides of the border. In June 2008 students working in Morelos and Chiapas will investigate immigration issues. This program is conducted in Spanish and students may produce radio, television and academic reports.

Sample Publications:

Writing for the Mass Media Notebook (Spring 2008). Notebook to improve media writing with tips on grammar; print, Web and broadcast journalism; public relations; and advertising.

"U.S. public television workers' initial impressions of the DTV transition" (2003, with Gillian Gonda) Southwestern Mass Communication Journal , 19:1. Looks at how the managers and staff of Albuquerque's PTV station struggled to adapt to the conversion to digital TV technologies.
"Whither digital television?" Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (2003) 47:1, 145. A forum that examines regulatory issues surrounding the digital television transition in the United States.
"The Development of CBS News Guidelines during the Salant Years."(1998) Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media , 42:1, 1-20. This analysis describes how CBS News President Richard Salant tried to impose strict journalistic standards during the 1960s and 1970s.
"Editing Strategies in Television News Documentaries."(1997) Journal of Communication , 47:4, 69-88. This study demonstrates the editing strategies used in four prominent CBS documentaries that aired between 1954 and 1983. It critiques those strategies in light of other journalists and policy-makers responses to the programs.
"Audience conceptualizations of Late Night with David Letterman." (1993) Journal of Broadcast & Electronic Media , 37:3, 253-273. This study used qualitative and quantitative techniques to examine audience perceptions of the Letterman program as a cross-genre phenomenon.

Research Areas: Digital technologies and journalistic writing, television production practices. Conducting research on telecommunications and information technology policy and the visual aspects of communication, as well as immigration issues.

Teaching Style: Traditional. A combination of what students sometimes describe as "long lectures" with a practical component of completing a project for most courses.

Courses Taught: C&J 171 -Writing for the Media; C&J 360 and 460 Broadcast News I & II; C&J 501 - Fundamentals of Communication Research; C&J 562: Media Seminar.

Teaching: Broadcast news production classes and telecommunication and media specific theory courses. Graduate-level research methods and mass communication seminars. Director of the introductory mass media writing courses.

Interests: Tennis--play more than enough of that. Butchering, languages that is –Spanish and occasionally Chinese. Eating--probably too much of that too, but it's even more fun with company. Traveling, hiking and cross-country skiing, particularly with family members, JoAnn and Adrian.