On Promoting Social Justice through Communication Research, communication Professor Larry Frey explains and offers examples of an original perspective that he has articulated, called "communication for social justice scholarship," in which communication scholars intervene collaboratively with marginalized and oppressed communities, and with activist groups and organizations, to promote social justice. This scholarship, thus, strives to make a difference through scholars' research, rather hoping that others will use that research to make such a difference.
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Larry Frey
Lawrence (Larry) R. Frey is a professor in the Department of Communication at CU Boulder, where he teaches graduate courses on applied communication research and qualitative communication research methods, and undergraduate courses on quantitative communication research methods, qualitative communication research methods, and an interpersonal communication senior seminar.
His research (a) advances the original perspective of communication activism for social justice scholarship, which articulates how communication researchers and teachers, working collaboratively with those who are marginalized and oppressed, and with activist groups and organizations, can use their theories, methods, pedagogies, and other practices to intervene into unjust discourses to promote social justice; and (b) studies how participation by people (especially those who are marginalized and oppressed) in collective communicative practices makes a difference in individual and communal lives.
He is the author or editor of 17 books and more than 110 other publications (Google Scholar: 5,887 citations, 37 h-index, 87 i10-index), and a coeditor of the University of California Press series Communication for Social Justice Activism. He has received 25-plus distinguished awards, including, from the National Communication Association, the Distinguished Scholar Award (the highest honor, received by only 107 scholars in the 105 years of the association); Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship; the Applied Communication Division’s Outstanding Scholarly Book Award (seven times); and the Group Communication Division’s Career Achievement Award and Ernest Bormann Research (Book) Award (four times). He is a member of Central States Communication Association’s Hall of Fame, a past president of that association, and a recipient of its Outstanding Young Teacher Award, as well as the Master Teacher Award from the Western States Communication Association’s Communication and Instruction Interest Group.