Paula Poindexter
Photo by Michael Muller
Associate Professor
Contact Information:
CMA A5.150H
512- 471-1971
ppoin@aol.com
Paula Poindexter, who has worked on the editorial and business sides of the news media, is formerly a manager and executive at the Los Angeles Times, where she conducted editorial research, participated in the development of pioneering electronic publishing projects, and started up and directed regional, national, and international programs to engage young people in the news and increase newspaper readership. Poindexter also worked as a reporter and producer at KPRC-TV, the NBC affiliate TV station in Houston.
Poindexter’s scholarly and teaching interests include news media audiences, news content, diversity in news coverage, news media leadership and management, and research methodologies and ethics. She is the co-editor of Women, Men, and News: Divided and Disconnected in the News Media Landscape (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc./Taylor and Francis, 2008) and co-author with Maxwell McCombs of the textbook, Research in Mass Communication: A Practical Guide (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000).
The following published articles reflect the range of Poindexter’s scholarly interests:
“Diversity in News Coverage” by Paula M. Poindexter in Encyclopedia of Journalism, Christopher H. Sterling and Charles Whitney, editors (Sage Publications, Forthcoming).
“Watchdog or Good Neighbor? The Public's Expectations of Local News” by Paula M. Poindexter, Don Heider, and Maxwell McCombs, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2006;
"Local, Network TV News Shows Significant Gains," Media in an American Crisis: Studies of September 11, 2001," by Paula M. Poindexter and Mike Conway in Elinor Kelley Grusin and Sandra H. Utt, eds. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc. 2005);
"Race and Ethnicity in Local Television News: Framing, Story Assignments, and Source Selections," by Paula M. Poindexter, Laura Smith, and Don Heider, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, December 2003;
"La necesidad de orientacion:una explicacion psicologica de los efectos del agenda-setting" by Paula M. Poindexter, Maxwell E. McCombs y Laura Smith in Agenda-Setting de los Medios de Comunicacion, Maxwell McCombs y Issa Luna Pla, editores, Ciudad de Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2003;
"Revisiting the Civic Duty to Keep Informed in the New Media Environment" by Paula M. Poindexter and Maxwell E. McCombs, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2001.
In 1997, Poindexter won First Place in the "Excellence in Teaching Paper Competition" sponsored by the Teaching Standards Committee of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). A version of her winning paper, which was titled: "A Model for Effective Learning and Rewarding Teaching in the Journalism, Advertising, and Public Relations Research Classrooms," was published in a 1998 issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator.
Poindexter has held a variety of elected and appointed leadership positions in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Poindexter serves on the editorial board of Journalism & Communication Monographs and she has been editor of Book Reviews for Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. In addition to chairing AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Research for two consecutive years, Poindexter has been a member of AEJMC’s Board of Directors and she has served as Head of AEJMC’s Minorities and Communication Division.
While on AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Research, Poindexter led the effort to develop Recommended Ethical Research Guidelines for AEJMC Members.
She also was responsible for the creation of the Tankard Book Award, AEJMC’s first organization-wide book competition, which both recognizes books authored by AEJMC members and honors Dr. James Tankard, Jr., a beloved journalism scholar, dedicated member of AEJMC, long-time University of Texas at Austin journalism professor, and author or co-author of five books, including the internationally recognized theory book, Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses.
An associate professor of journalism and co-graduate advisor for Ph.D. and master’s research and theory students, Poindexter teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses. Her courses include: Intro to Research Methods (J380), Advanced Social Science Methods (J395), Leadership, Management, and Media” (J340C), African Americans and the Media (J340C), and Journalism, Society and the Citizen Journalist, (J349T), a course developed as part of a grant the Carnegie Corp. of New York awarded the School of Journalism as part of its Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.
Through her graduate research courses, advising, and the annual “Showing Our Work” exhibition, which she co-founded for graduate students to present their scholarly and professional work, Poindexter emphasizes presenting and publishing scholarly research. Over the past three years, 25 research papers produced in her back-to-back research and analysis courses, which are required for Ph.D. and research and theory master’s students, have been accepted at AEJMC and ICA national conventions.
In 2006, when the Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Poindexter about her scholarly publishing philosophy as it relates to Ph.D. students and assistant professors, she said: “Doctoral students and new professors should have a ‘one-three-one publishing strategy every year -- one convention paper, three journal manuscripts, one collaboration’." Poindexter added that "it is admirable but not smart to have three convention papers on a program. All those presentations eat up valuable time, delaying publication. If Ph.D. students and assistant professors have three quality papers, they should send two directly to journals and one to the convention".