Media with a message.

That’s the key component of Fordham’s one-year, 30-credit graduate public media master’s program, according to director Beth Knobel, Ph.D.

“There are other programs that are here in the media capital of the world, but none of them are in a Jesuit school that brings an emphasis on ethics and on serving the world through communication,” said Knobel, associate professor of communication and media studies. “We designed a program that really takes advantage of our location in New York and really speaks to Fordham’s Jesuit mission of creating people for others.”

The program, now in its fourth year, has continued to grow, both in the number of students it serves and the number of partnerships it has formed.

The current cohort includes 30 full-time graduate students and eight accelerated students, who are Fordham undergraduates taking a few graduate-level courses, Knobel said.

Students in the program choose one of two tracks to pursue—multiplatform journalism or strategic communications—and they also can take a class or two as an elective outside of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Despite the separate tracks, all students get exposure to the many aspects of “media in the public interest,” said Garrett Broad, Ph.D., former director of the program and associate professor of communication and media studies.

“[We want them to] think about how can we use these basic principles of storytelling, of understanding contemporary digital media technologies, of understanding basic human psychology and persuasion?” said Broad. “And how do we kind of bring that together?”

Public Media Partners

One of the things that makes the program unique, according to its faculty, is the growing number of partnerships it has with public media companies, nonprofits, and NGOs in New York City and beyond.

All of the major public media organizations in New York City, including WNET, WNYC, and Fordham’s own WFUV, partner with the program. Prior to the pandemic, the audio narrative class was held at WNYC studios, while the video narrative class was taught at WNET. George Bodarky, FCRH ’91, the news and public affairs director at WFUV, also teaches in the program.

This year, WNET—parent company of Channel 13—is supplying two adjunct faculty members: Dana Roberson, executive producer of PBS NewsHour’s Weekend Edition, and Kellie Castruita Specter, chief marketing and engagement officer for WNET.

“[WNET has been] incredibly wonderful to us from the get-go, because they understand that we are trying to create the journalists and the strategic communicators that they and other public television stations need for the future,” Knobel said.

Neal Shapiro, president and chief executive officer at WNET, said Fordham and WNET share “common values” that have led to a natural partnership.

“The idea about how important the mission is, how important working with the community is…we think about who we serve,” he said. “And that’s what makes public media kind of unique.”

Amy Aronson, Ph.D., chair of the communication and media studies department, said that she would like to see the program continue to increase its community impact.

“The public media really seeks to report on a kind of local level, the kind of community stories, the kind of democratic spirit and the democratic values that go back to the earliest traditions in journalism, but aren’t always achieved in our commercial journalism landscape,” she said.

Strategic Communications for Partner Charities in Mississippi

On the strategic communications side, Tim Wood, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, was looking for hands-on opportunities for students just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City. Some of the nonprofits and organizations in the city that he usually worked with were too overwhelmed to work with students, he said.

He reached out to Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning, who put him in touch with a few charity organizations in Vardaman, Mississippi, all of which needed help with strategic communications.

“The aim at the end of the year is to hand them a plan with step-by-step instructions that they can take and use going forward, and then to do as much of the on-the-ground prep work for that as we can,” Wood said.

One of those was the Catholic Charities’ tutoring program. Graduate students Julia Werner, Anne-Sophie Neumeister, Sajani Mantri, and Morgan Thweatt met with the local organizers who at first told the group they needed a website. But after learning more about the community, the team suggested a different approach.

“We learned that they don’t have people that would be able to maintain that website, and maintaining a website and Facebook page can be quite difficult,” Neumeister said, but they liked the idea of a brochure. “It would be easy for them to maintain. They’re already stretched so thin; we didn’t want to add any stress to their plates.”

The group is working on designing a brochure and newsletter template to give to the group, who can update it regularly and print it. Werner said that listening to what the group needed allowed them to provide the right product for them.

“The organization leaders [wanted to]keep parents up to date on what their children are learning, what kind of fun they’re having at the program,” she said. “A lot of them are immigrants and their main language is Spanish. So [we’re] able to give them a piece of paper to show pictures and have English on the front, Spanish on the back. That the parents feel involved with their child’s academic curriculum is really important.”

Thweatt said that experience helped teach her that sometimes scaling back ideas can be beneficial to the client if it fits their needs.

“When we went into it, all of our ideas were huge,” she said. “And as we started doing our research, and talking with them, we realized that our huge ideas, as great as they were, they’re not good for an organization like this.”

Meeting the Moment

Not only is it important to meet organizations where they are, said faculty, it is also important to meet the public where it is. With a growing distrust of media organizations across the country, but also a growing need for information, Knobel and others said that this program is even more essential.

“We see a need to create the next generation of public communicators who act in the public interest, who act in accord with the highest ethical values. So if anything, the media ecosystem today has just made the need for our program more acute and more visible,” Knobel said.

Shapiro said that he sees public media, and in particular the students who go through this program, as essential to restoring trust in both democracy and each other.

“Public media is a place that believes that it’s all about light, not heat—a place where it’s important to understand things in context and take the time to understand them,” he said. “I feel like our job is to try to make sure people understand everything, understand all points of view, without worrying if it’s not necessarily going to be a great 30-second exchange.”

The program is currently accepting applications for its next cohort, which will start in August 2021. For more information, visit their website.

This past May, Fordham took a big step toward embracing this new world, as 14 members of the faculty and administration traveled to Sophia University in Japan as part of the first Fordham Faculty Research Abroad program.

The delegation, which was led by Fordham’s provost, the late Stephen M. Freedman, Ph.D., hailed from fields as varied as political science, economics, biological sciences, education, social service, and art history. The theme of the trip was comparative urban studies.

George Hong, Ph.D., chief research officer and associate vice president for academic affairs, said the trip was the result of Fordham’s Continuous University Strategic Planning (CUSP) process, which the University began in 2015.

In the CUSP process, four areas were given high priority: Interdisciplinary research, sponsored research, global research, and faculty-student research collaborations. This trip fulfilled all of those priorities by bringing Fordham researchers into contact with peers in Japan who are pursuing research on many topics within that field. It also established an exchange program for faculty and students between the two schools.

Collaborating on Food Justice

One of those connections was between Garrett Broad, Ph.D., assistant professor of Communication and Media Studies and James Farrer, Ph.D., a professor of sociology and global studies at Sophia University. Farrer has been researching food entrepreneurship in Tokyo and the role that small vendors play in local economies, a topic of interest to Broad, who penned More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change (University of California Press, 2016).

“We’re talking about setting up a workshop here in New York at some point next year where we bring together a group of scholars who are exploring issues related to food, society, globalization and local food economies,” Broad said.

“The hope for this enterprise is it’s not a one off, where we had this nice trip to Tokyo, made some friends and that’s that. We want to continue and build some partnerships, and since there’s only so much you can do in just a few days, a workshop is a way we can keep the momentum going.”

Broad also took the opportunity to visit and interview scientists at a Tokyo organization that is experimenting with “cellular agriculture.” The technology, which Broad had already been researching for an upcoming project, involves growing meat in a laboratory, negating the need to slaughter animals. To help him overcome language and cultural barriers, he recruited Sophia University undergraduate students to accompany him.

Making Personal Connections in the Field

Annika Hinze, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of Fordham’s urban studies program, came away from the trip deeply affected by potential collaborations. While one group from Fordham was given a tour related to sustainability and environmental issues, she attended a tour centered on social issues that was led by Nanako Inaba, a professor in Sophia’s department of global studies.

Of particular interest to Hinze was a public park that had recently been partially sold to private interests, including Nike. A sizable homeless population still calls the park home, and Hinze interviewed one of them to get a sense of how his presence was actually a form of protest.

“I’m a field researcher first and foremost, and in order to understand places, it’s vital to actually visit them and get to know them a little bit. The initial connections you make with people can be the jumping point for creating meaningful research partnerships,” she said.

“The walking tours were amazing, because they were done by people who are academics who are researching social or sustainability issues and who really know the environment.”

Global Partnerships Critical to Funded Research

Connections such as these are crucial to solving challenges, Hong said. They’re also often a prerequisite for researchers who wants to get their projects funded by some external sources.

“More and more American foundations are requiring global partnership as precondition for applications. If you don’t have an international partner, you are out,” he said.

On that front, the trip was also a success, as Fordham faculty identified 27 researchers in Japan who are ready to collaborate on joint grant proposals, research projects, and research papers. Hong and his team also identified more than 40 funding opportunities to support these research projects. Several faculty members are working on joint proposals, he said, and one has already submitted one. He expects that there will be opportunities for Fordham students to assist in future studies as well.

Hong noted that a byproduct of Fordham faculty traveling together was also an increase in collaborations amongst themselves. Next summer, a group of them will travel to Europe, where the theme will be “digital scholarship.”

“They immediately picked up some ideas and learned from each other. It was the same subject, urban studies, but different disciplines, education, social service, the sciences, history, social sciences, humanities, natural science,” he said.

In addition to prearranged meetings, there were serendipitous meetings at Sophia University as well. Takehiro Watanabe, Ph.D., an associate professor of anthropology at Sophia whose research touches on participatory community environmental processes, led the Fordham contingent on a tour of a river revitalization project and chaired a panel discussion that Broad participated in.

“Afterward, he saw some things in my presentation that connected to some of the subjects that he’s interested in, such as participatory science and citizen science,” Broad said.

“The more time you’re able to spend, and the more people you’re able to meet, you realize you have more in common.”

Plant-Based Meat. Garrett Broad, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies and author, More Than Just Food (University of California Press, 2016)

There has been tremendous growth in the plant-based food sector over the last several years, and there are a number of reasons why 2018 could be the biggest year yet for this emerging market. First and foremost, concerns about health, the environment, and animal welfare have led to increased public demand for plant-based alternatives to meat and animal products that are tasty, affordable, and convenient. At the same time, there has been an explosion of entrepreneurial initiative and innovation, as well as organizing and advocacy, in an effort to get these products in stores, restaurants, and other food service locations across the country and around the world. The meat industry has certainly taken notice—some companies are concerned about the threat that plant-based products represent to their bottom line, but others are actually investing in plant-based foods to get in on the action at this early stage.

Protest Demonstrations. Heather Gautney, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology and budget committee advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

In 2018, look for large-scale demonstrations and targeted protest activity outside the White House and in the halls of the U.S. Capitol, especially over immigrants’ rights. Following last year’s Women’s March, there remains a core group of women activists who continue to organize. A few months ago they put on a large-scale conference, and have an ongoing, committed project of movement-building around women’s issues.

[And] there are lots of ways for people to protest besides tens of thousands of people assembling in the street. On immigration round-ups and the issue of sanctuary cities, I think there may be widespread local demonstrations and acts of mass disobedience—protecting people from being taken away. There are all sorts of micro forms of resistance that can take place within communities. When the health care debates were happening in Washington D.C., when demonstrators where showing up at town hall meetings and shaming their congressmen and senators, I think that made a substantial impact on what happened to the outcome.

Internet Service. Olivier Sylvain, associate professor of law and director, McGannon Center for Communications Research

Now that the Federal Communications Commission has repealed “network neutrality” regulations that prohibited internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon from privileging some content over others, we will all want to closely monitor the quality of our internet service.  The FCC Chairman claims that the prior rules made it difficult for providers to invest in novel new services.  Those rules, however, barred service providers from exploiting their coveted gatekeeping market position to discriminate against disruptive competitors; they prohibited, for example, providers from making it costlier for then-emergent start-ups–with names like Amazon and Netflix–to become market-makers in video distribution.

Now that network neutrality is gone, we should keep our eyes on the quality of video on Amazon and Netflix.  We should also watch for subscription fees increases for those services.

Mergers and Acquisitions. Sris Chatterjee, Ph.D., professor and chair of global security analysis finance and business economics, Gabelli School of Business

2017 has been a very good year for M&A. With the economy continuing to show strong fundamentals and the new tax law, 2018 is most likely to continue this upward trend in merger activity.

FinTech and digital technology represent a major disruptive force that will shape many mergers in 2018. We have already started to see this trend in 2017 when many companies across different industries outside the tech-sector acquired firms with the desired digital capabilities. This trend will also continue in 2018. Acquisition of American or European companies with an established brand name and market by firms in China, India and other non-Western countries has been another feature of M&A activity in recent times. This is also likely to continue.

These positive aspects of a stronger M&A outlook in 2018 need to be balanced against other factors that may have a restraining effect. The first factor that comes to mind is the effect of the U.S. government’s decision to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger. AT&T is fighting this decision in court and the outcome will have an important effect on M&A activity in 2018. The second factor to consider is that market multiples are already high, perhaps too high in light of meager growth. This, coupled with the high average premium that we witnessed in 2017, means that deals, on average, are going to be pricey.

Vatican Fashion. J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and department chair

Of late, the fashion world has been demonstrating increasing interest in things religious: consider, for instance, Alexander Wang’s 2016 show at St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue. But the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will take this trend a step further with its 2018 exhibition, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” The exhibition pairs liturgical and ceremonial vestments and artworks from the Met collection with designer garments inspired in some way by Catholicism. Traditionalist Catholic groups have sometimes responded with alarm to artistic displays that appear to mock or satirize their faith. The new Met exhibit (which opens in May) may encounter resistance from such quarters, but local Catholic leaders were consulted in the planning process. And the Vatican itself loaned more than 50 of the pieces that will be on display. In the end, the Met may more than anything else showcase the manifold ways in which the Catholic tradition continues to inspire artists of all stripes.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Shannon Waite, Ed.D., clinical assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education

In 2018, I predict that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) will become more diverse and that the conversation will broaden from being focused on race and ethnicity to include socio-economic status.  I would pay attention to how the cuts to programs and initiatives that indirectly support HBCU’s and/or the students they serve impact the student’s access to higher education. I also expect the conversation about whether these institutions can continue to fulfill the role they have historically played and remain viable options for the demographic of students they traditionally serve to become more prominent.  I expect questions about whether HBCUs still have a place in our society today to become a part of the conversation that will spark a national debate.  Finally, I would pay attention to how the current administration responds to the criticism that the commitment made to bolster HBUCs has not been honored.

Bitcoin. Giacomo Santangelo, Ph.D., senior lecturer of economics

Much like international currencies, people trade Bitcoin to exploit arbitrage opportunities (buy low, sell high) in the market. However, today the bitcoin has more in common with Beanie Babies from the 1990s than with international currencies. The market for Bitcoin is being driven by speculation, not investment. Speculators buy an asset, often taking huge risks, in the hopes of making ’a quick buck.’ It would have been ill-advised to invest your retirement in Beanie Babies or Pokemon cards in the 1990s; although, at the time, you could make fast money buying/selling on eBay . . . until you couldn’t. Whether Bitcoin will eventually settle at $20k, $1 Million, or $1, the volatility of the recent weeks indicates that when speculators lose interest in Bitcoin, the bubble will burst. The bitcoin will only continue to have ‘value’ if people continue to believe it has value. At the moment, people have no rational reason to do so. It is unlikely Bitcoin will continue a meteoric rise, uninterrupted, in 2018.

Helicopter Parenting and Hovering. Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and head of Fordham’s Pediatric Psychology & Health Behaviors group

We are in an era where parenting styles—such as helicopter, or hovering— are raising concerns about our children’s ability to develop independence and advocate for themselves. Indeed, in the medical community during the last decade there has been a push for adolescents to learn early how to self-manage their special health care needs.

My colleagues and I have been studying this process among a large sample of adolescents from around the country. We found that adolescents who say they are self-managing (versus those having more parental involvement) and those who say they are doing more than their parents think they are, have worse outcomes. This includes difficulty managing their medications. These findings perhaps signal that for some adolescents, it is critical to work with their parents rather than move them into the background. So [going forward]maybe a little hovering is okay.

Real Estate’s Downward and Upward Trends. Hugh F. Kelly, Ph.D., special advisor to Fordham’s Real Estate Institute in the School for Professional and Continuing Studies

The 2018 outlook for commercial properties in New York is mixed. Tenant demand for office space is strengthening on the basis of strong job growth in finance and business/professional services. These job gains are timely, as a new generation of offices is coming to market in significant volume. Lateral movement amongst corporate users should continue, creating vacancy in some older buildings. But high prices and low cap rates will keep overall transactions on a downward trend.

In retailing, especially storefront properties on high-traffic avenues, vacancy is quite high, as asking rents have tended to exceed the price that can be economically supported by stores sales. I’d expect capitulation from landlords if that trend intensifies; low returns are better than no returns.

The residential market is sorting out an excess of luxury development while dealing with the ongoing crisis of affordability. As a result, multifamily construction in the outer boroughs may be 2018’s most significant trend.

(Patrick Verel, Tom Stoelker, and Tanisia Morris contributed to the article.)

Fordham’s Garrett Broad, an assistant professor of communications and media studies, penned a new piece for The Huffington Post about the importance of the Black Panther Party’s anti-hunger initiatives during its heyday. His piece critiques the absence of this story from mainstream history and the mainstream food movement, and describes the role it plays in shaping the actions of food justice activists.

Broad, the author of the recently released More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change (University of California Press, 2016), says the food justice aspect of the Black Panthers Party is a “story that often goes untold, both in media narratives about the Panthers and throughout the food movement itself.

“Setting the BPP’s flaws aside – the truth is that at a moment when Black Americans were suffering from widespread hunger, sickness, unemployment, and police violence, the Black Panther Party was there to try to fill the gaps that institutional racism and government negligence had created. The late 1960s saw the Panthers develop a host of community-based initiatives, with chapters across the country shifting their focus away from armed militancy and toward the development of “survival programs” — survival pending revolution, of course,” he writes.

Read his entire piece here, and then read our story on Broad’s new book.

(Top photo: Charles Bursey hands a plate of food to a child seated at a Free Breakfast Program. Photograph via Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch/National Geographic)

Unfortunately, if you belong to the wrong demographic, then it’s unlikely you have benefitted from this cornucopia of healthful options, says Garrett Broad, PhD, an assistant professor of communications and media studies.

In his new book, More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change (University of California Press, 2016), Broad takes a comprehensive look at the food crisis facing marginalized communities and how the industrial food system has exacerbated the problem.

“Lower income communities have grocery stores that are more expensive and lower quality,” Broad said. “But the issue is about more than food… Inequity in the food system is not isolated from other inequities.”

Broad explained that there is an ever-widening food gap, as wealthier citizens enjoy a bounty of food options while historically marginalized communities are left to forage in “food deserts,” areas that lack access to affordable, high-quality food.

This disparity is no accident, Broad said. At the heart of food injustice is structural racism and socioeconomic inequality.

“Food is an entry point into a larger conversation about various social and political changes that can increase the health of our society. For instance, if we had better rent control, then people wouldn’t have to spend 65 percent of their income on housing and would instead have more disposable income to think about food quality rather than just low prices.”

Some groups, particularly large corporations seeking to “give back” to the community, have attempted to solve the problem by building more grocery stores or planting gardens in urban and underserved areas—a fix that Broad calls a “magic carrot approach” to solving community food access and nutrition problems.

“You can’t just plop a grocery store into a neighborhood without connecting it to other education strategies that reflect the food cultures of those local communities—especially if that store is too expensive,” Broad said.

The aim of More Than Just Food is threefold. First, Broad unpacks this complex issue and argues that it is rooted in systemic inequities and fueled by misinformation. Second, in doing so, he challenges “over-simplified and victim-blaming” narratives that fault marginalized communities for the diet-related health issues that disproportionately affect them, such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and metabolic disorders.

Finally, Broad offers suggestions about how to tackle the situation using a community-based approach. He offers the example of Community Services Unlimited, a South Los Angeles organization that began in the 1970s as the nonprofit arm of the Southern California Black Panther Party and has made significant strides in promoting urban agriculture and nutrition education.

“The conversation has to be about more than food. If all we’re talking about is food and nutrition and not race, class, and cultural knowledge… then all of this is just going to be window dressing.”

Broad’s book comes out today.