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The 19th Annual Walter and Leonore Annenberg Distinguished Lecture in Communication
"Bringing Communication to the Center: Reconciling Rigor and Relevance in the Communication Field"
presented by
Ernest J. Wilson, III, Ph.D., Dean and Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA
March 21st, 2011
About the talk
"How well is the field of communication meeting the daunting challenges and exciting opportunities of the transition from an industrial to a knowledge society? Thus far, it earns a B-. Despite the excitement of our stakeholders, students and citizens seeking greater knowledge about communication and media; and the growing appetite among other scholars and media practitioners, we are significantly underperforming in the face of unprecedented opportunities. This address will offer a heuristic analytic framework called “Communication at the Center” to frame these conditions and suggest concrete activities that communication scholars can undertake to enhance the field. I point to four communication paradoxes: to become more rigorous, the field must recognize the practical pressures it faces; to become more practical and helpful to practitioners, it must become more rigorous; and to meet its vaunted commitment to interdisciplinarity, it must embrace, enhance and effectively articulate its disciplinary core. The final paradox is that the field whose domain is communication has not effectively communicated its own uniqueness and value." - Ernest J. Wilson, III, Ph.D.
About the Lecture
Established in 1992 to honor Ambassadors Walter and Leonore Annenberg, this event
brings alumni, faculty, and graduate students together to hear from a leader in
the academy or in the professional world.
Past speakers:
The Honorable Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress Emeritus
“The Rise of Public Discovery”
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1992
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Haynes Johnson, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, best-selling
author, television commentator, and Annenberg Professional-in-Residence
“America and the Crisis of Change in the ‘90s”
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1993
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Anne W. Branscomb, Harvard University Professor of Information
Resource Policy and Annenberg Scholar-in-Residence [Deceased]
“Roadblocks on the Global Infobahn”
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1994
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Professor Mary Douglas, Anthropologist
“Up, Down and Sideways: Space as Medium and as Message”
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1995
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Professor Jaroslav Pelikan, Historian
“Rhetoric and Beyond: Learning from the Greeks”
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1996
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Sir Jeremy Isaacs, Documentary Filmmaker, Television Producer
“Television and History”
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1997
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Dr. David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Secretary for Health and
Surgeon General of the United States, U.S.Dept. of Health & Human Services
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1998
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Duncan Kenworthy, Annenberg School Alumni (MA ’73), Filmmaker,
Producer
(Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill)
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1999
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Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
“The Role of Philanthropy in the Nation”
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2000
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Cass R. Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Dist. Service Professor of
Jurisprudence, University of Chicago Law School, Dept. of Political Science and
the College
“Why Groups Go To Extremes”
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2001
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Rebecca W. Rimel, President, The Pew Charitable Trusts
“Philosophy, Philanthropy and Philadelphia”
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2002
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Michael Delli Carpini, Dean, The Annenberg School for Communication
“What’s the Difference Between Dan Rather and Bill Maher? Informing the Public in
the New Media Environment”
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2003
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Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania, Professor of
Political Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences and the Annenberg School
“Deliberation in Education and the Media: Rising to the Challenge?”
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2004
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Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. , Herbert I. Schiller Professor of Communication
The Annenberg School
“If it weren’t for bad luck…”
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2005
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Shashi Tharoor, Librarian of Congress Emeritus
“The Rise of Public Discovery”
“The Information Revolution: Where Do We Go From Here?”
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2006
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Paul Steiger, , Editor-in-chief, President and Chief Executive
of ProPublica.org, and
former Managing Editor, The Wall Street Journal
“Journalism’s Rocky Path to the Future”
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2008
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Andrew Kohut, , Pesident, Pew Research Center, Washington D.C.
“American Pubilc Opinion in a Time of Crisis and Political Change”
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2009
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David Remnik , Editor, The New Yorker
“The Joshua Generation: Race and the Campaign of Barack Obama”
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2010
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