Elisabeth Fondren

Dr. Elisabeth Fondren is an Assistant Professor of Journalism in the Division of Mass Communication. She received her Ph.D. in Media and Public Affairs from Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication in 2018.

She holds an M.A. in International Journalism from City, University of London with a focus in public affairs reporting (2013) and a B.A. in English and German Philology, Literature and Cultural History from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (2012). She received both degrees with distinction.

She teaches international reporting, journalism history, print/online news reporting, feature writing, and political communication at St. John’s University. Her research focuses on the history of international journalism, government propaganda, military-media relations, and freedom of speech during wartime.

Dr. Fondren is currently working on a monograph and has published her work in leading journals including Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; Journalism & Communication Monographs; American Journalism; Journalism History; Journal of Intelligence History; Journal of Public Affairs; Media History; Preservation, Digital Technology & Culture; TMG Journal for Media History/Transnational Journalism History; Historiography in Mass Communication, and the Southeastern Review of Journalism History.

She is the co-winner of the 2023 Jean Palmegiano Award for Outstanding Paper on International/Transnational Journalism, presented by the American Journalism Historian Association (AJHA).

She is the winner of the 38th annual Covert Award for best mass communication history published in 2021 for her study, “Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda During World War I (1914-1918),” which appeared in Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2021, Vol. 23(4) 256-317.

In 2022, she won the Michael S. Sweeney Award, which recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. Her article is: “The Mirror with a Memory”: The Great War through the Lens of Percy Brown, British Correspondent and Photojournalist (1914-1920).”

She is the recipient of the AJHA's 2021 Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper on Woman's History and the 2021 Jean Palmegiano Award for Outstanding Paper on International/Transnational Journalism.

In 2020, she was awarded a Joseph McKerns Research Grant by the American Journalism Historians Association to support her ongoing research on twentieth century journalism and propaganda history.

She was also named a 2020 Kopenhaver Center Fellow by the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication and AEJMC’s Commission on the Status of Women. Elisabeth's teaching was recognized with the national 2020 Jinx Coleman Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History by the AEJMC’s History Division.

Her dissertation, “‘Breathless Zeal and Careless Confidence’: German Propaganda in World War I (1914-1918)” was selected as an Honorable Mention for the 2019 American Journalism Historians Association Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize. Her study chronicles the inter-governmental discussions and ideas for German propaganda, censorship, and new institutions during the First World War.

She is actively involved in the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) History Division. She was part of the conference coordinating committee for the 2020 Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC) at New York University.

Her professional experiences span from government public relations, print and online journalism, to research communications in Germany, the U.K. and the United States.

Elisabeth is passionate about student research and experiential learning opportunities. During the 2019 Louisiana legislative session, she was the co-director of the LSU Manship School State House Reporting Program, which provided coverage of public affairs news for media outlets (print, online, broadcast) across the state.

She is an editorial board member of Historiography in Mass Communication, Home Front Studies, The Journal of 20th Century Media History, and the Southeastern Review of Journalism History, and serves on the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Board of Directors.


Selected Publications:

(2024) Fondren, E. “'Real News Arrives from Abroad': Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines' War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914-1918)." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ). Online ahead of print, 1-29.

(2023) Fondren, E. “Banned Wherever Truth is Banned’: Allied Airborne Propaganda, Cultural Information Warfare, and Targeting Nazi Germany with ‘News’ from the Sky (1944-1945).” Journal of War & Culture Studies. Online ahead of print, 1-25.

(2023) Fondren, E. “Propaganda and Military-Press Records as Sources for Journalism History.” Historiography in Mass Communication, Volume 9, 3 (2023), 23-34.

(2023) Fondren, E. “The Global Panoply of Propaganda-Press Cultures: Expanding International Journalism History.” American Journalism, Vol. 40, Issue 3, 2023.

(2022) Fondren, E. and Edy, C. “Barred from Firing Line, Harried by Censors, Must Even Have Pass to Leave Town: Leonora Raines and Cecil Dorrian Cover the Great War (1914–1919).” Journalism History (Diversity Issue), 1-5.

(2022) Fondren, E. and Hamilton, J. M. “The Universal Laws of Propaganda: World War I and the Origin of Government Manufacture of Opinion.” Journal of Intelligence History. (Online first).

(2021) Fondren, E. “Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda during World War I (1914-1918).” Journalism & Communication Monographs, Vol. 23 (4), 256-317.

(2021) Coyle, E. and Fondren, E. “Encountering the ‘Other’ by Lifting the Iron Curtain: American Newspaper Editors’ Global Campaigns for Bridges of Understanding, 1961–1970.” TMG Journal for Media History, Vol 24 No (1/2)/2021, 1-27.

(2021) Fondren, E. “'We are Propagandists for Democracy’: The Institute for Propaganda Analysis' Pioneering Media Literacy Efforts to Fight Disinformation (1937-1942).” American Journalism, Vol. 38. No. 3 (2021), 258-291.

(2021) Fondren, E. “Media in Western & Northern Europe,” In Global Journalism: Understanding World Media Systems, ed. Daniela V. Dimitrova (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), 135-148.

(2021) Fondren, E.. Book Review: “An Unladylike Profession: American Women War Correspondents in World War I.” Chris Dubbs, Univ. of Nebraska Press (2020). Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 98, Issue 3, 977–978.

(2021) Fondren, E. "The Mirror with a Memory: The Great War Through the Lens of Percy Brown, British Correspondent and Photojournalist (1914-1920).” Journalism History, Vol. 47. No. 1 (2021), 1-26.

(2021) Fondren, E. “’This is an American Newspaper': Editorial Opinions and the German Immigrant Press in 1917.” Media History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2021), 210-233.

(2020) Coyle, E., Fondren, E., Richard, J. “Advocacy, Editorial Opinion and Agenda Building: How Publicity Friends Fought for Louis D. Brandeis’s 1916 Supreme Court Confirmation.” American Journalism, Vol. 37. No 2, 165-190.

(2020) Klein, T., Fondren, E., & Apcar, L. “News editing and the editorial process.” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

(2019) Fondren, E., Hamilton, JM, and McCune, M. "Parachute Journalism" in International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, Wiley Blackwell, 1-5.

(2019) Fondren, E. “Publicizing Tragedy: The Sinking of the Lusitania as an International News Event.” Southeastern Review of Journalism History. Volume 13, Issue 1.

(2019) Fondren, E. “‘America First and America Only’: German-American Newspapers, Self-Censorship, and Press Freedom in 1917-1918.” Journalism History. First Amendment Essay Series, 2019.

(2019) Fondren, E. Book Review: Fake News, Propaganda and Plain Old Lies, Barclay, Donald A. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Volume 39, 2019 - Issue 2.

(2019) Chon, M., & Fondren, E. “Seeing a Crisis Through Colored Glasses: Exploring Partisan Media and Attribution of Crisis Responsibility on Government Trust in a National Crisis.” Journal of Public Affairs, Vol 19, No 4. DOI 10.1002/pa.1950

(2018) Fondren, E. and McCune, M. “Archiving and Preserving Social Media at the Library of Congress: Institutional and Cultural Challenges to Build a Twitter Archive.” Preservation, Digital Technology, and Culture. Volume 47, Issue 2.

Journalism, Print/Online Reporting, Media History, Political Communication, International Journalism, Media & Public Affairs Reporting, Media Ethics & Social ResponsibilityHistory of Journalism, Media & War, Propaganda, Government information, International Communication, Freedom of Speech

Courses Taught