User:Mjbugeja

Michael Bugeja, director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, is author of 19 books, including Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age (Oxford Univ. Press),which won the Clifford G. Christians award for research in media ethics. He also is author of Living Ethics Across Media Platforms (Oxford Univ. Press),[http://www.interpersonal-divide.org/ Bugeja’s creative and nonfiction works have appeared in Harper’s, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, Journalism Quarterly, Journalism Educator, New Media and Society, Serials Librarian, Iowa Communication Journal, Diversity Exchange Magazine, The Education Digest, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, and New England Review,'' among others. He is a frequent source on ethics and mediated communication for such outlets as Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, Newsday, Editor & Publisher, Quill and major metro newspapers.

Bugeja also is a respected poet, essayist and teacher. He was the recipient of two outstanding "University Professor" teaching awards (chosen by the student body of Ohio University); an AMOCO Outstanding Teacher Award (chosen by the student body of Oklahoma State University); and fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Ohio Arts Council. He has a Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University, a master’s in mass communication from South Dakota State University, and a bachelor’s in German from Saint Peter’s College. Before entering academe Bugeja worked as a reporter, correspondent and state editor for United Press International. He became the director of the Greenlee School in July 2003.

Bugeja, along with several other authors and writers, is responsible for opening up a critical dialogue about technology use in academe. He writes regularly for The Chronicle of Higher Education. His professional experience in mass communication and academic background in journalism account for almost 30 years' dealing with technology innovation and vendors thereof, from 25-pound "Gemini" portable computers in the 1970s to the feather-weight laptops of today.

His stated intent is to safeguard the investment in technology rather than use it unthinkingly through the frame of mega-conglomerates rather than pedagogy. He writes, "Never before in the our history has communication technology been as powerful, global and mobile. Never before has our economy relied substantially on commercialization of technology. As such, these devices represent a power that many students, in particular, have not earned, especially in journalism schools, where we have spent too much time focusing on presentation and too little on fact-gathering." Bugeja believes that when traditional media fail to provide fact, "opinion prevails, and it is cheaper in corporate journalism to disseminate opinion rather than gather fact. Moreover, a news company can earn more revenue by targeting opinion to clusters of audience. As such, people hear only what they want to hear; they are affirmed rather than challenged or informed." As a keynote speaker in journalism and communication conventions, Bugeja advocates for required courses in "interpersonal intelligence," or the ability to know when, where and for what purpose technology is appropriate or inappropriate. "We need to remember why we purchased technology and then ascertain how we are using it. If we have to ask and answer that question, marketing will."

Although Bugeja's doctorate is associated with writing, his literature specialties were medieval through Restoration drama. This, combined with his journalism degree and experience, frames much of his thinking about proper use of technology. "The printing press allowed professors like Martin Luther to assert that truth is greater than authority 218 years before we came to that conclusion in Colonial America in the John Peter Zenger case," he states. "The Internet will not reach its full potential unless we revise research and scholar methods and stabilize links and citations."

Bugeja's scholarly research investigates how Internet is a dynamic but unstable medium which, if not understood, can jeopardize the scientific method (based still on the printing press, especially with respect to footnotes). Bugeja and research partners at Iowa State University are working to stablize the Internet so that digital citations do not lapse. They advocate for a universally accessible, inclusive and comprehensive archiving system as a repository for citations. They have submitted National Science Foundation grant applications and have published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including New Media and Society and The Serials Librarian. In explaining his concern about stabilzation of Internet-based citations, Bugeja often makes the connection between manipulating books in the library vs. the Internet. See: "It is a crime, literally, to manipulate books and journals in a library--to cut, mark up and paste. This is what the computer does best. Unless we stabilize the Internet, it cannot reach its full research and educational potential."