James W. Chesebro - An Overview
Since the Fall of 2005, Dr. James W. Chesebro has been Distinguished Professor of Telecommunications and Director of the Master of Arts (Digital Storytelling) in the Department of Telecommunication at Ball State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1972. He has taught at Indiana State University, North Dakota State University, Ball State University (as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Communication Studies from Fall 2002 through Spring 2004), George Mason University, Queens College of the City University of New York, University of Puerto Rico, Temple University, University of Minnesota, and Concordia College.
Specialization Chesebro has specialized in the study of communication technologies as symbolic and cognitive systems. Since 1966, he has maintained a sustained focus on dramatistic analysis of television. In 1989, he published Computer-Mediated Communication: Human Relationships in a Computerized World, and since that time, he has also maintained a specialized focus on the social meanings and social consequences of computer-human communication. Subsequently, this orientation has been extended to the study and comparison of all major kinds of media technologies.
Professional Service Chesebro was the 2004-2006 Editor of the National Communication Association (NCA) online journal Review of Communication. From 1999 through 2001, Dr. Chesebro served as Editor of the NCA journal Critical Studies in Mass Communication. In 1996, Dr. Chesebro served as President of NCA and has served on the NCA Administrative Committee and Legislative Council for sixteen years. From 1989 through 1992, he was the Director of Education Services in the National Office of NCA in Annandale, Virginia. From 1986 through 1988, he chaired NCA’s Publications Board. He was the Editor of Communication Quarterly from 1985 through 1987 and President of the Eastern Communication Association in 1982-1983.
Books Chesebro has published several books, including Analyzing Media: Communication Technologies as Symbolic and Cognitive Systems, Extensions of the Burkeian System, Computer-Mediated Communication, Public Policy Decision-Making, Orientations to Public Communication, and coedited the third edition of Methods of Rhetorical Criticism. He is the editor of the forthcoming From 20th Century Beginnings to 21st Century Advances: Developing and Evolving from a Century of Transformation, Studies in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Eastern Communication Association, to be published by Oxford University Press and distributed for the first time at the ECA 100th anniversary convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 22-26, 2009.
Articles He has published over 100 articles in communication journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Communication Monographs, Communication Education, and Text and Performance Quarterly as well as the Journal of Popular Culture and the computer science journal Intel’s Innovator.
Research Productivity Dr. Chesebro is ranked as one of the most “active scholars,” “in the top 1%” of the “most prolific scholars” in the discipline of communication, with a specific ranking of 40th of the 15,228 authors listed in the Index to Journals in Communication.
Awards In 1985, Dr. Chesebro received NCA’s “Golden Anniversary Award” for the outstanding monograph of the year. In 1997, he received the NCA’s “Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award” and its “Robert J. Kibler Memorial Award” for “demonstrated dedicated to excellence, commitment to the profession, concern for others, visions of what could be, acceptance of diversity, and forthrightness” in 2001. The Eastern Communication Association presented him with its “Distinguished Service Award” in 1989, its “Everett Lee Hunt Scholarship Award” in 1989 and again in 1997, identified him one its “Distinguished Research Fellows” in 1996, “Distinguished Teaching Fellows” in 1998, and its Donald H. Ecroyd and Caroline Drummond Ecroyd Teaching Excellence Award” in May 2008. In 1993, he received the National Kenneth Burke Society’s Distinguished Service Award and its National Kenneth Burke Society’s “Life-Time Achievement Award” 1999. At Indiana State University, he received the President’s Medal for “exemplary performance as a faculty member” in 1999 and was identified as the 2001 Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences. At Ball State University, he received the College of Communication, Information, and Media “Researcher of the Year” award in Spring 2008.
Read more about James W. Chesebro: Chesebro Autobiographic Essay from Review of Communication
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