Professor Sylvie Adds a Twist to a Truism

Story by Seth C. Lewis

George Sylvie's career path-- from newspaper columnist and editor to media management scholar, from Austin to Sweden and back again-- has added a twist to a truism: It's about who you know, to be sure; he's the first to acknowledge the help of friends and colleagues. But it's also about what you know, and finding when you can put that knowledge to good use.

"I happen to be at the right time with the right qualifications," said Dr. Sylvie, an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas.

That was certainly true of his recent fellowship in Sweden.

Appointed the Fall 2006 Dean's Fellowship/Visiting Scholar, Dr. Sylvie spent a semester at the International Business School of Jönköping University in Jönköping (pronounced "yun-sher-ping"), Sweden. He was a visiting researcher at the school's Media Management & Transformation Centre, known as Europe's premier center on media business issues.

The setting allowed Dr. Sylvie to apply his research specialty-- the study of decision-making by newspaper editors-- in an international context. Previously, Dr. Sylvie conducted a national survey of mid-level U.S. editors that uncovered five style predictors: gender, experience, social values, journalistic values and organizational values-- suggesting possible tools that newspapers can use in implementing newsroom change.

Applying his study to Nordic newspapers, Dr. Sylvie crisscrossed the region by plane and train, visiting a dozen newsrooms in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. He interviewed some two dozen newspaper editors about their decision-making values.

"Traveling gives you great appreciation for people," Dr. Sylvie said. "The editors gave me insights into newsroom management that never occurred to me before. It's gotten decidedly tougher to do the job, no doubt."

Dr. Sylvie's travels allowed him to converse with an array of scholars. He met with researchers representing World Association of Newspapers (Paris), the Norwegian Union of Journalist, University of Drammen (Norway), University of Tampere (Finland), University of Helsinki (Finland), Orenbro University (Sweden), and Halmstad Univeristy (Sweden).

Dr. Sylvie called his fellowship "a much-needed and much-appreciated opportunity of a lifetime."

But as sabbaticals go, it was hardly a restful one.

Besides studying newspaper editors, Dr. Sylvie helped teach a reporting class, advised doctoral students, attended conferences and lectures on economics and media management, and gave a presentation on newspapers' organizational change at the Organizing Media Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. He enjoyed one-on-one study with his mentor: pre-eminent media economics scholar Robert Picard.

He also stayed busy with projects from home. Dr. Sylvie wrote a chapter for the Media Management & Transformation Centre's forthcoming book Innovation and Media: Managing Changes in Technology, Products, and Processes. He finished the manuscript for the fourth edition of the leading media management textbook, Media Management: A Casebook Approach, of which he is the lead author. He also continued working on a study of the viability of long-distance, online advertising for electronic newspapers.

Early Career

For Dr. Sylvie, his qualifications for researching and writing about journalists begin with experience, as well as a dose of empathy--he knows what it's like on the other side.

After earning a B.A. in communications at Louisiana State University-Shreveport and an M.A. in journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Dr. Sylvie became an education reporter for The Shreveport Journal in 1978. He became an assistant city editor in 1981--and later a columnist and editorial writer at The Journal--only to find frustration in management.

"I quit my job as an assistant city editor/columnist because I felt I didn't know what I was doing and there didn't seem to be any room for learning and/or promotion at the time," Dr. Sylvie said. "So I initially thought I would study management and return to the newsroom (which I did part-time for three years), but I discovered I liked teaching and research better than routine journalism. As you can guess, I'm more interested in how managers approach their job and what influences that process."

Sylvie began his research pursuit by pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Texas. Here he met and worked with mentors (and future colleagues) such as Wayne Danielson, the retired legendary UT professor who "will always be a source of inspiration." Sylvie also credits the late James Tankard and Mike Quinn, as well as current colleagues Gene Burd and Max McCombs. He added: " Paula Poindexter is like a big sister and an example of perseverance and attention to doing a job right. Lorraine Branham has taught me so much about myself and managing."

When Sylvie finished his coursework in 1987, he became an assistant professor at LSU-Shreveport--but he had yet to write and defend his dissertation. It's a backward route he doesn't recommend to graduate students.

"It was not easy. I had to have my doctorate by the end of my first year there, so I just worked mostly on the dissertation my first six months. Fortunately, all my data collection was over and all I had to do was write, which wasn't as hard as it was a matter of precise, academic language. So I just did a lot of writing. As to others who want to do that, make sure that you have tunnel vision, can organize your time, and that your significant other gives you plenty of time and space to think. My wife, Mary, was my rock during the process."

If Sylvie beat the odds by taking his first job ABD (all but dissertation) and surviving, he really beat the odds when, four years later, and after a stint at Kent State University, he was offered a position on the UT-Austin faculty. It's a rarity to be hired back to the school where you do your doctoral work and that isn't lost on him: "It happens about once in a generation. I was lucky enough to be looking to move from Kent State at the time the openings came up."

At The University of Texas

At UT, Dr. Sylvie has emerged as a media management scholar. Building off his background, he's principally interested in newspapers-- the technology, changes, and decision-making that drive their operation, in print and on the Internet. In articles for journals such as The International Journal of Media Management and The Journal of Media Economics, Dr. Sylvie has written about the Jayson Blair incident's impact on newspaper management, the market for long-distance advertising on local newspaper websites, and the market forces influencing interdepartmental newspaper cooperation, among other topics. He co-authored Time, Change and the American Newspaper, as well as Media Management: A Casebook Approach.

Sylvie said he likes to stay open-minded about research, in terms of topics and direction. Often he'll study a subject because a student is interested in that area, or because, in Danielson's "Isn't that interesting?" style, he'll become curious, just like a journalist.

" Research is personal, meaning you're always--like a reporter-- on the quest for the next project, the next thing that fascinates you," Sylvie said. "More often than not, your own research points toward those new questions. Sometimes, though, just reading an interesting newspaper article (especially in The Wall Street Journal or New York Times) will set off mental sparks."

By way of advice to graduate students, Sylvie said, " Be true to your own ideas but be willing to seek and accept advice and new knowledge. Have something to say. Specifically, that means latching onto professors, asking questions, co-authoring, asking questions, reading journals from other disciplines as well, asking questions, going to lunch with professors, asking questions, watching professors teach and research, asking questions. Did I say 'asking question' ?"

Perhaps the Sylvie philosophy could be summed up this way: In academia, it's not just who you know, or even what you know; it's what you ask.