Partnered with
Meet Our Hosts
Thomas Roach
Dr. Roach has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and English and Master of Arts degree in English from Northern Illinois University, and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Northwestern University. His dissertation on the American news media received a national Dissertation of the Year Award from the Speech Communication Association in 1994.
Dr. Roach was an assistant editor for Star Publications and managing editor of the Romeoville-Bolingbrook Beacon. He served as Media Coordinator of Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and Corporate Director of Internal Communication for Carson Pirie Scott. Today he is president of Thomas Roach and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in public opinion research, news media strategies, advertising, and employee communication. Former clients include Jones Lang LaSalle, LaSalle Bank, Amoco and the Ford Motor Company. He served as message strategist on several political campaigns, including two congressional races.
Lee Artz
B. Lee Artz (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is a professor of media studies. He teaches courses in mass communication, media theory, pop culture, international communication, and persuasion and social movements. Before coming to Purdue, Dr. Artz taught at Loyola University Chicago, the University of Iowa, and Stanford University. Dr. Artz also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Communication and Creative Arts and the Co-Director of the Center of Global Studies at Purdue University Northwest.
He has written numerous articles on media influence, cultural diversity and democratic communication for leading journals. His edited books include:
Global Entertainment Media (2015); Pink Tide: Public Media and Political Power in Latin America (2017); Marxism and Communication: The Point is to Change It; The Media Globe: Trends in International Communication; Bring ‘Em On! Media and Politics in the Iraq War; The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony; Public Media and the Public Interest, Communication and Democratic Society; and Cultural Hegemony in the United States.
He has received awards in both scholarship and teaching, including the Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence at Loyola, the National Communication Association’s Applied Communication Division’s Distinguished Article Award (with Frey, Pearce, Pollock, and Murphy, 1998), and the First Paper Award at the Global Fusion Conference (2001). He was selected as Outstanding Scholar at Purdue Calumet in 2005 and served as director of Purdue’s Center for Instructional Excellence for four years. Dr. Artz has been an invited lecturer at universities in Turkey, Japan, UK and presenter at international conferences in Sweden, France, Czech Republic, Tunisia, Cuba, UK, Italy, and in the US.
A former machinist and union activist, Artz has been a frequent advisor on communication and education for labor organizations and public and private schools in Illinois and Michigan. He received his B.S. in Education and Black Studies at Wayne State University and his M.A. in Communication at California State University-Hayward.