James William Tankard Jr. (June 20, 1941 – August 12, 2005), communication scholar, author of ''The Statistical Pioneers'' and coauthor of ''Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses'' (issued in five editions and translated into six languages).

Academic career and degrees

At the time of his death, Tankard was Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, where he served on the faculty for 32 years and held the Jesse H. Jones Professorship in Journalism. Prior to joining the Texas faculty in 1972, he served on the journalism faculties of Temple University and the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Tankard earned a general science B.S. from

Virginia Polytechnic Institute Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

and an M.A. in Journalism from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. After working for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

and the ''

Raleigh Times The ''Raleigh Times'' was the afternoon newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina. The history of the paper dates back to the ''Evening Visitor'', first published in 1879. The ''Visitor'' later bought out other rival afternoon papers, the ''Daily Pres ...

'', he earned his Ph.D. from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

with a dissertation on eye contact as a communication channel.

Academic publications

During his years in academia, Tankard authored or co-authored six books and more than fifty research articles and book chapters. His six books reflect the breadth of his interests and contributions: * Michael Ryan and James W. Tankard Jr., ''Basic News Reporting'' Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield, 1977. * James W. Tankard Jr., ''The Statistical Pioneers'' Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Books, 1984. * T.M. Pasqua, J.K. Buckalew, R.E. Rayfield and James W. Tankard Jr., ''Mass Media in the Information Age'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. * Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard Jr., ''Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses in the Mass Media'' 5th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001. * Pamela J. Shoemaker, James William Tankard Jr., Dominic L. Lasorsa, ''How To Build Social Science Theories'' Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2004. * Michael Ryan and James W. Tankard Jr., ''Writing for Print and Digital Media'' New York: McGraw-Hill: 2005. Tankard also served as the editor of ''Journalism Monographs'' from 1988 to 1994.

Posthumous honors

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the national association of journalism and mass communication scholars and media professionals to which Tankard devoted much of his professional life, posthumously honored him as the 2006 recipient of the Eleanor Blum Distinguished Service to Research Award. This award, created in 1980 to recognize a person who has devoted a substantial part of his or her career to promoting research in mass communication, is so selective that it has only been given ten times during the past 25 years. AEJMC's board of directors also established the James W. Tankard Jr. Book Award, an annual book competition, to honor him and recognize books published by AEJMC members. The winner of the inaugural (2007) Tankard Book Award wa
African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom''
by Patrick S. Washburn and published by Northwestern University Press.
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Notes

References

Obituary listing at Memorial Obituaries

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tankard, James W. Jr. University of Texas at Austin faculty 1941 births 2005 deaths Communication theorists 20th-century American non-fiction writers