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Journalism’s Brian J. Bowe wins award in the AEJMC’s Robert L. Stevenson Paper Competition

By Frances Badgett

WWU Communications

Brian J. Bowe, right, with colleague Naheda Makhadmeh, an associate professor of journalism at Yarmouk University in Jordan.

Professor of Journalism and department chair Brian J. Bowe and his co-authors recently won third place in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AMJEC) Robert L. Stevenson Paper Competition.

The paper, “Facebook Community Standards: The New Gatekeeper for Palestinian News Organizations?,” was authored by Nida'a Bassoumi, who conducted this research as a graduate student at the Arab-American University in Jenin, Palestine; Naheda Makhadmeh, who is an associate professor of journalism at Yarmouk University in Jordan; and Bowe. 

Working on this study was part of Bowe’s Fulbright Scholar grant to Yarmouk University last fall. 

"Social media platforms have taken on an ever more important role in disseminating news about Palestine, especially with the challenges international news outlets face in the region," said Bowe. "But Palestinian news organizations have to find ways to navigate the censorship that most of these platforms impose on content. Our results show that news organizations have come up with a variety of strategies to circumvent the suppression of content. This affects the stories they tell — and how they tell them,” said Bowe.

Bowe will be scheduled to present the paper during a highlighted session and the award will be presented during the International Communication Division (ICD) business meeting.

The IDC is a division of the AEJMC.

Bowe’s research interests include journalism curriculum design, media framing and representations of Muslims in news content.

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Frances Badgett covers the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Fine and Performing Arts communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at badgetf@wwu.edu.