Richard J. Schaefer, Associate Professor

Department of Communication and Journalism
University of New Mexico
Communication & Journalism Bldg., Room 235 West
Albuquerque, NM 87131-1171 USA
Phone: 505-277-9556 Email: schaefer@unm.edu

General Information: My teaching and research interests include telecommunication policy and broadcast journalism practices and policies. Before becoming a professor, I worked in the United States as a broadcast journalist and a writer of interactive videodisks. 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 and Policy Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and currently serve 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.

Research Areas: Telecommunications and information technology policy, television journalism production practices, as well as the visual aspects of communication.

Sample Publications:

• 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 Broadcasting & 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.
  

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

Courses Taught: C&J 151 -Writing for the Mass Media I; C&J 340 & 3411 - Broadcast News I & II; C&J 476 - Telecommunication Theory and Technology, and C&J 501 - Fundamentals of Communication Research.

Interests: Tennis--play more than enough of that. Eating--probably too much of that too, but it's even more fun with company. Hiking and cross-country skiing, particularly with family members, JoAnn and Adrian.