Jo Ellen Fair to Deliver 2010 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture

Jo Ellen Fair, professor of journalism  and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will give this year’s Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Lecture at Gustavus Adolphus College. The lecture is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8 in Wallenberg Auditorium, located in the Alfred Nobel Hall of Science.

Fair’s lecture is titled “Not a simple story: Mass media and mass violence, the African case,” and will address American media images of conflict in Africa. Much of Fair’s research has focused on how American notions of race shaped the telling of African conflicts and catastrophes.

Fair has also explored the ways that African media influence popular culture to create new social realities for Africans. She has examined television culture in Senegal and has challenged the simple linkages made between hate media and violence in the Rwandan genocide. In 2001, Fair was invited to Ghana to develop a training protocol for Ghanaian journalists preparing to report on the proceedings of the country’s National Reconciliation Commission, charged with uncovering abuses of past authoritarian governments. Fair has facilitated journalism-training workshops in Zambia and Namibia, and was involved in curriculum development for the media studies program at the University of Namibia.

Fair holds a B.A. in mass communication from Purdue University and an M.A. in journalism and a Ph.D. in mass communication from Indiana University. She is editor of the academic journal African Issues and on the editorial board of several African studies journals and communication journals. She has also served as research chair and president of the International Communication division for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Lecture was established at Gustavus in 1983 and honors the heroism and legacy of Raoul Wallenberg whose support of persecuted Jews during World War II saved the lives of many. The lecture is sponsored by the Peace Studies Program at Gustavus.

For more information about the annual Wallenberg Lecture, contact Associate Professor of Political Science Mimi Gerstbauer at mgerstba@gustavus.edu or 507-933-7421.