Four College of Journalism and Mass Communications faculty members were selected to be a part of this year’s Nebraska Governance and Technology Center Faculty Fellows Program; professors of broadcasting Barney McCoy and Laurie Lee, professor of advertising and public relations and sports media and communication Frauke Hachtmann and associate professor of advertising and public relations Valerie Jones.
The Nebraska Governance and Technology Center studies the ever-changing relationship between law and technology, how the law can regulate technology and how new technologies affect what the law can do. The center consists of an interdisciplinary team of faculty, students and researchers across the university, housed at UNL’s College of Law and working in partnership with Nebraska’s College of Business, College of Engineering and College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
The goal of the annual fellows program is to develop a cohort of academics who are able to understand technology challenges in interdisciplinary terms: engineers who can talk supply chain management and the role of public engagement in federal regulation; journalists who can speak fluently with entrepreneurs and critically interrogate lawyers advocating for preferred policies; entrepreneurs who can ground technologists in the reality of what can be and push lawyers past their focus on what can’t be; and other permutations involving the law, humanities, sciences, and other fields.
This year’s fellows will attend biweekly in-person workshops that align with the capstone Technology Governance course taught by NGTC faculty. The workshops will host guest scholars who will present their current work, following that they’ll lead a discussion.
Hachtmann, Jones, Lee and McCoy will join other fellows from across the center’s partner colleges for the 2022-2023 academic year. They’ll further scholarship and conversation on law and technology by hosting workshops, joining NGTC for an episode of their podcast Tech Refactored or being interviewed for their new explainer video series that’s being produced by students in the emerging media arts program.
