What is Dan’s story?

Dan’s primary research interests focus on social and cultural approaches to the study of news, particularly news narratives, collective memory, professional boundary work and the media/terrorism interface.

Dan’s professional career included working as an information representative for the Department of Environmental Quality, McKenzie-Willamette Hospital and Associated Oregon Loggers, all located in Oregon. His responsibilities with those organizations included media relations, publications and special events. He also spent time as a radio announcer and as a freelance writer for magazines such as Editor’s Workshop Newsletter, Ragan Report, Communication World, Guitar Player, and Premiere Guitar. He has taught in Thailand, Jamaica (on a Fulbright), and Israel. Dan has advised 24 doctoral students and 42 master’s students, including graduate students from more than 25 countries.

Dan joined the School in 1988, and has taught public relations, computer-assisted reporting, research methods, sociology of news and media & terrorism. In 2007, Dan split his position between the School and as Associate Dean in the University of Iowa Graduate College. In 2015, he rejoined the School full time as a professor and the Associate Director for Academic Graduate Studies.

Publications

• Social Meanings of News: A Text-Reader (Sage Publications, 1997)
• Cultural Meanings of News: A Text- Reader (Sage Publications, 2010)
• Fifty book chapters and journal articles (appearing in Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, Journalism Practice, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Memory Studies, and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media). Author or co-author of 65 papers presented at national and international conferences.

Awards

• Recipient of 7 top paper awards at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication and the International Communication Association.
• Fulbright Senior Specialist awardee, at Caribbean Institute for Media and Communication, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, 2004.