About Updates
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Author of the "media" and "advertising" entries for Routledge's 1996 Encyclopedic Dictionary of Ethics and Society, Phelan has addressed media systems in the context of ethics, political economy, and literary criticism in all his major books: Apartheid Media: Disinformation and Dissent in South Africa (1987), done in association with the Yale-Wesleyan Southern Africa Research Program; Disenchantment: Meaning and Morality in the Media (1980); and Mediaworld: Programming the Public (1977). His work has won the public praise of scholars such as Herbert Schiller, James Carey, Leonard Thompson, and Leonard Doob and of activists such as Robert McChesney and the late Michael Harrington. His Ph.D. in Communications was earned under Charles Siepmann at NYU and he was Research Affiliate for post-doc work at Yale's Center for International Studies. At Forham College Phelan has served as Senior Evaluator of the Values Program and as Seminar Director for the Honors Program for almost a decade. At various times he has initiated and offered the Public Communications Ethics Seminar; Senior Values Seminars in Dissent, in Censorship, in New Media Politics and undergraduate Honors Seminars in Mass Opinion. Since the renewal ratification of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Phelan has instituted an on-site Seminar in NGO Communications at the United Nations. This has led to further courses on Think Tank Lobbying.
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Founding Director of both the Graduate Program and
of the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center, currently
Professor of Communications and Media Studies as well as Associate
Chair for Outreach and Development, Phelan came to Fordham as
Chairman of the then Communications Department to redesign the
curriculum in 1968 when Marshall McLuhan was Schweitzer Professor
of Communications. He later designed and established the graduate
program in Public [Interest] Communications. An activist among
many public interest groups, Phelan has addressed the UN NGO
Committee for Disarmament at the UN Non-Proliferation Renewal
Treaty Conference, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs during
the anti-apartheid hearings, and the Biennial Congress of the
American Civil Liberties Union, as well as international conferences
on communications and politics in London, Madrid, Dubrovnik and
elsewhere. He has appeared on CNN's International Hour as well
as local cable political affairs programs and was the writer
and talent for WFUV's Politics of Media series during the Gulf
War and the presidential elections of 1988 and 1992.