James Chesebro

James W. Chesebro is Distinguished Professor of Telecommunications in the Department of Telecommunications at Ball State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1972.

Dr. Chesebro has taught at several institutions, including:

• Indiana State University
• North Dakota State University
• Ball State University
• George Mason University
• Queens College of the City University of New York
• University of Puerto Rico
• Temple University
• University of Minnesota
• Concordia College

In the discipline of communication, Dr. Chesebro has specialized in the study of media as symbolic and cognitive systems. Since 1966, he has maintained a sustained focus on dramatistic theory, methods, and criticism with specific applications to television and computer-mediated communication. Since 1981, this orientation has been extended to all media systems, with conceptual attention devoted to media literacy and media technologies as communication and cognitive systems, a perspective reflected in both his teaching and research.

• Editor of the National Communication Association (NCA) online journal Review of Communication (2004-2006)
• Editor of the NCA journal Critical Studies in Media Communication (1999-2001)
• President of the National Communication Association (1996)
• Director of Education Services, National Office of the National Communication Association, July 1989 to July 1992
• Chair of the NCA’s Publications Board (1986-1988)
• Editor of Communication Quarterly (1985-1987)
• President of the Eastern Communication Association (1982-1983)

Dr. Chesebro has published several books, including

• A Century of Transformation: Studies in the Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the ECA (Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Analyzing Media: Communication Technologies as Symbolic and Cognitive Systems (Guilford Press, 1996)
• Communicating Gender and Power (Waveland Press, 2011)
• Computer-Mediated Communication: Human Relationships in a Computerized World (University of Alabama Press, 1989)
• Extensions of the Burkeian System (University of Alabama Press, 2006)
• Gayspeak: Gay Male and Lesbian Communication (Pilgrim Press, 1981)
• Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective (Roxbury, 2007)
• Orientations to Public Communication (Science Research Associates, 1976)
• Public Policy Decision-Making: Systems Analysis and Comparative Advantages Debate (Harper & Row, 1973)

Dr. Chesebro 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.

1985

• NCA’s “Golden Anniversary Award” for the outstanding monograph of the year.

1997

• NCA’s “Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award”

2001

• “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”

Other awards

The Eastern Communication Association has also presented him with its most prestigious awards including its “Everett Lee Hunt Scholarship Award” in 1989 and again in 1997, identified him one its “Distinguished Research Fellows” in 1996 and “Distinguished Teaching Fellows” in 1998. 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 was awarded 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.