Dr. Pete Smith

Overview

Summary:

Pete Smith is an associate professor and coordinator of the communication and media studies concentration in the Department of Communication, Media & Theatre. A native Mississippian and proud graduate of the state’s public school and university systems, Dr. Smith's research focus and class time is spent exploring the intersection between gender, media history, and southern culture and politics. To that end, his published pieces have examined the journalism careers of Carolyn Bennett Patterson, a native Mississippian who went on to a distinguished career as an editor at National Geographic magazine, and Norma Fields, who covered the state capitol beat for the Tupelo Daily Journal (now the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal) for almost two decades in the 1970s and 1980s. He has also studied how local and state media framed the political campaigns of Evelyn Gandy, the first woman to win election to multiple statewide offices (including Lieutenant Governor).

Dr. Smith is the author of two books: Something on My Own: Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929-1956 (Syracuse University Press, 2007) and Birddogs and Tough Old Broads: Women Journalists of Mississippi and a Century of State Politics, 1880s-1980s (Lexington Books, 2024). He is working on a third book manuscript: "No Way Out": The Controversial Life and Death of Philip Loeb, Papa Goldberg of The Goldbergs, Television's First Situation Comedy.

In 2022, MSU's Institute for the Humanities awarded Dr. Smith one of two inaugural Faculty Fellowships for his humanities-focused research. A year later, the MSU College of Arts & Sciences named him the 2023 Humanities Teacher of the Year, an award sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. He is a former president of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).

Pete holds an undergraduate degree in communication studies from Mississippi State University, a master’s degree in communication from the School of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University, and a Ph.D. in mass communication (with an emphasis on mass communication history) from the School of Media and Communication at The University of Southern Mississippi.

Education:

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Communication, University of Southern Mississippi, 2004
• Master of Arts (M.A.), Communication, Auburn University, 1995
• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Communication, Mississippi State University, 1993

Research interests:

southern politics
20th century broadcasting and print history
biography
American cultural myths