Richard Schaefer

General Information: I currently advise broadcast and multimedia undergrads, as well as communication graduate students. My teaching and research interests include immigration issues, broadcast journalism and journalistic policies and visual communication.
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 on Cross-Border Issues
Since 2007 I have worked with small groups of U.S. students and Mexican journalism students from institutions such as Universidad Fray Luca Paccioli and Tec de Monterrey. We have studied immigration issues by going to immigration hot spots in Central America, on both Mexican borders and throughout Mexico. Carolyn Gonzales, who is pictured above holding the water bottle, and UFLP’s Arturo López Durán and I founded the Cross-Border Issues Group program to study and facilitate student exchanges around in-depth studies of immigration and indigenous issues. The immigration program has the goal of informing students and citizens to the realities of current immigration policies, and encourage appropriate reforms. We generally work in Spanish.

Talk Radio News Service
For the last few years, I have been the UNM faculty director for the Talk Radio News Service internship for UNM students in Washington, D.C. Each spring semester about half a dozen students work for TRNS, which provides reports to more than 300 radio stations across the nation. Interns receive housing and travel support from the New Mexico Broadcasters Association.

Sample Publications:

Schaefer, Richard J. (2010). Writing for the Media. A digital online textbook published by the GreatRiver Technologies, Dubuque, IA.

Schaefer, Richard J., Gonzales, Carolyn, and Schaefer, JoAnn (2010). Casa de Migrante: Lecheria Albergue. A competitive paper delivered to the Latin American Crises and Opportunities Conference in Riverside, CA, on April 24, 2010.

Schaefer, Richard J. & Martinez, T. J. (2009). "Trends in network news editing strategies from 1969 through 2005." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53:3, 347-364.

Cross-Border Issues Group (2008, Nov. 23.). Schaefer, Richard J., executive producer and reporter, and Carolyn Gonzales, producer and reporter, of one-hour radio documentary entitled “Perspectives on Mexican Immigration” about Mexican and indigenous perspectives on migration. Reporters Jennifer Vieth, Christina Lovato and Maggie Ybarra also produced material for the Cross-Border Issues Group documentary. (Aired on KUNM-FM and the public radio exchange. Winner New Mexico Press Women best radio documentary for 2008 and runner-up in National Press Association long-format radio reporting competition for 2008.)

Schaefer, Richard J. (2003). "Whither digital television?" Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47:1, 145

Schaefer, Richard J. & Gonda, Gillian K. (2003). "U.S. public television workers’ initial impressions of the DTV transition." Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 19:1.

Schaefer, Richard J. (1998). "The development of CBS News Guidelines during the Salant years." Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 42:1, 1-20

Richard J. Schaefer (1996, Feb.). Annotated Synopsis of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A synopsis of new legislation that was electronically published through the Communication Technology and Policy Division Web page. (www.unm.edu/~aejmcctp/ctphome.htm and http://excellent.com.utk.edu/CTP/telcom96.html)

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.