University of Tennessee Doctoral Hooding Ceremony at Thompson-Boling Arena with Dr. Bonnie Riechert.
Dr. Riechert hooded me as Dr. Miller could not attend. (Photo by Leroy Sitton)

The Value of an Education

Jimmy and the Doctors — Mark Miller, Albert Einstein and James Dean congratulate Ron Sitton on his successful defense in 2003. Sitton used Miller's VBPro for his dissertation. (Photo by Dorothy Bowles)

Sitton graduated from the University of Tennessee with his doctorate of philosophy in communication on May 7, 2004. This followed a successful dissertation defense one year prior, and a bunch of revisions to his work, "Framing by Media and Social Movement Organizations: Cross-Cultural Prestige Press Coverage of the Kyoto Protocol."

Framing can be understood as both a tactic, i.e. a function of elevating the perception of the most important facts within an issue, and a product, i.e. the organization of experience. Sitton's committee included the venerable Dr. Mark Miller, Dr. Bonnie Riechert and Dr. David Sachsman, all of the communications discipline, and Dr. Sherry Cable of environmental sociology. A copy of the dissertation can be found here.

At one time, Sitton really had to think about the value of an education. Sitton received his bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from The University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a minor in criminal justice. Through the guidance of Dr. Luther W. "Sonny" Sanders and Bill Rutherford, he knew he wanted to either become a reporter or teach journalism. Yet after receiving his master's degree in Journalism in 1996, he still couldn't find a job that would pay better than the bartending jobs that put him through school.

1999 Graduate Student Association — (l. to. r.) John Moore, Rob Power, secretary Doug Chatham (standing), Ron Sitton, President Kadesha Washington, Anne Pemberton, Vice-President Fred Coulter and Seth Rayman discuss issues affecting graduate students at the GSA's mid-winter meeting. This picture appeared in The Daily Beacon.

It was then Sitton realized the Communication field is one you enter for the love of it - not for the money. There are always the Tom Brokaw's of this world who make enough to send us all back through school. However, many journalists make enough to cover food and shelter, and that's about it. Sitton's first job with a bachelor's degree paid $11,000 a year - not even quite poverty level back in 1992.

But it's at such jobs that you learn what's really happening in the world. You can stick with it and hope to catch on with a better paper with higher salaries. You can switch to public relations (still not the best of salaries). Sitton decided to go back to school.

Education doesn't always pay the bills. In some cases the bills add up even higher. But you never meet an uninteresting person in the college environment. You never can be satisfied with just grazing the top of a subject. Education is beautiful because it forces you to look at the world through a wide lens.

Members of the Graduate Student Association hold a sign celebrating the "Love Your Library" 5K in 1998. While mostly apathetic at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Ron (top right) stayed involved at the University of Tennessee.

So why did he decide to continue his education in 1997 when at that point he could have been making money in the "real" world and generally having a good time instead of gaining astronomical loans? Part of it was his plan for a future, part of it was being a bachelor without any strings, but primarily Sitton did it for the opportunity to continually learn. To help pay some of the bills, he worked as a Graduate Teaching Associate for the College of Communication at the University of Tennessee while taking classes.

From 2002-2003, Sitton served as an Instructor of Journalism at Muskingum College, where he also advised the Black & Magenta. During this time he worked on his dissertation; Dr. Donna Edsall said at the time that she didn't know anyone who finished their dissertation in a year while also teaching classes. Perhaps he had a mission.

Who knows - maybe one day he'll find the answer to all the problems of the world and come up with the comprehensive Theory of Everything. Even if he doesn't, education taught him to respect Everyman's take on the world even when he doesn't agree with it at all. Education is your friend. ;o)

Tattau's toon described my frantic pace while trying to finish the dissertation. Writing and revisions took up a good three years.

Projects that make people itch:

Dissertation: "Framing by Media and Social Movement Organizations: Cross-Cultural Prestige Press Coverage of the Kyoto Protocol." This dissertation examines the effects of news values and media routines on the framing of societal issues, with emphasis on cross-cultural prestige press coverage of the Kyoto Protocol. To find evidence of these processes, a computerized content analysis using Dr. M. Mark Miller's VBPro suite of programs examined 421 American prestige press articles, 721 British prestige press articles, 112 news releases and 443 opinion pieces appearing from January 1997 to Sept. 11, 2001. The dissertation provides a synthesis of communications and sociological literature, and a cross-cultural comparison of an international environmental issue. Methodologically, VBPro was shown to quantify master frames for the first time. The dissertation also provides a practical explanation to journalists and stakeholders in government, science, business, and social movement organizations of how news values and media routines lead to the acceptance or rejection of issue frames, as well as the possible de-legitimization of sources outside the media routine.

MAPOR Conference Paper: Voting Green: The Environment Factor and Media Use in the 1996 Presidential Election. Authors: Ronald Sitton and Dr. M. Mark Miller. This paper analyzed the 1996 National Election Studies panel data to determine which presidential candidate voters chose as the best candidate to protect the environment. It was presented at the 25th annual meeting of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, Nov. 17-19, 2000. This paper is a updated version of a project written in Spring 1998 to satisfy the requirements of Dr. M. Mark Miller's Risk Communication class.

Sociology: Erving Manual Goffman. This paper fulfilled the requirements of Robert Perrin's sociology course in Fall 1999.

1976 -- Ronny gets ready to raise his hand to ask a question in Mrs. Williams' first grade class at Landmark Elementary . An Andrews at that time, he never attended kindergarten.

UT Symposium Paper: The UPS Strike of 1997: A Case Study Using Web-Based Content Analysis. Authors: Glynn R. Wilson, Ron Sitton, Dr. Robert Gwynne, Kendra Jones, Gene Costain. This paper used a computerized content analysis of UPS strike coverage in major American newspapers from August 1 through September 1997. It was presented at the Twenty-First Annual University of Tennessee Communications Research Symposium and can be found in Volume 19 of the proceedings.

Communication Theory II: The Framing Umbrella: Enhancing the Boundaries of a Theory. This paper fulfilled the requirements for Dr. Benjamin Bates' course, and ultimately led to the theoretical portion of my dissertation.

Sociology: Robert Ezra Park. This paper fulfilled the requirements of Robert Perrin's sociology course in Fall 1999.

Ronny at Aaron's UALR graduation in 1974.
Education: Teaching Mass Communication Writing: A Contrast of Technique (28K). This paper provides the guidelines and ideas I used in developing my first class. It was written in Summer 1998 to satisfy the requirements of Dr. James Crook's Communication Education class.

Public Opinion: The Marijuana Question. This paper attempts to decipher public opinion concerning marijuana legalization. This paper was written in Spring 1998 to satisfy the requirements of Dr. M. Mark Miller's Public Opinion class. Personally, I believe everything on God's green earth has a meaningful use, some we handle very well while others we abuse.

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