A Boston University professor has won a prestigious award for academic career achievement for his pioneering work in the field of mass communication, BU announced last week.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will present Melvin DeFleur with the 2003 Paul J. Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research at the AEJMC’s annual convention in Kansas City Missouri this summer.
‘I’m very pleased and honored,’ said DeFleur, who teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in mass communication theory in the College of Communication.
DeFleur has long been regarded as a pioneer in mass communication theory, and studies he has conducted have garnered worldwide attention. The AEJMC honored DeFleur last year by naming his book Theories of Mass Communication as one of the most important books of the 20th century.
‘I’m very pleased [DeFleur’s] getting it,’ said T. Barton Carter, the Mass Communications Department Chair at BU. ‘He’s one of the most renowned communications theory experts in the world. If you’re in the field of communications, you have to know of his work.’
‘He has been a highly productive and original researcher, a person who has advanced theoretical constructs and enhanced methodology, while also being willing to engage in a synthetic activity that honors and respects other researchers,’ the AEJMC said in a press release of DeFleur when he was nominated for the award.
DeFleur joked that the award comes with only ‘a smile and a slap on the back,’ saying there is no monetary reward.
A BU professor for the past eight years, DeFleur’s most recent study surveyed 1,300 teenagers from 12 different countries about their attitudes toward the United States. The study, which DeFleur conducted with his wife and fellow COM professor Margaret DeFleur, has attracted a great deal of media coverage.
The DeFleurs found that most international teens had a negative opinion of the United States after viewing it solely through American movies, music and television.
DeFleur said he got the idea for the study after discussing with his international graduate students the effects America’s exported pop culture has on its image.
‘Take a kid in Saudi Arabia: he doesn’t know anything about America, he doesn’t know any of us, he’s never been here, but he goes to the movies and he watches TV,’ DeFleur said. ‘He sees crime, a great deal of violence and sexual activities that absolutely would not be tolerated in their countries.’
But the project was solely because the subject was interesting, not for press acclaim.
‘It just seemed like kind of a fun project,’ DeFleur said. ‘We didn’t do it to attract media attention.’
DeFleur said his experiences teaching at BU have been ‘very positive,’ in large part due to the university’s large international community.
‘We have very bright students,’ he said. ‘We have students from a number of different countries who are charming, delightful people who are very fun to teach.’
In his 40-year academic career, DeFleur has written over a dozen books on communication and come up with theories and concepts on the field that are taught around the world.
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