Christopher H. Sterling
Professor of Media and Public Affairs
and of Public Policy and Public Administration

Phone: (202) 994-0363
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: chriss@gwu.edu
Office: MPA 407

Expertise

Electronic Media and Common Carrier History and Policy; Telecommunications Policy Development; Impact of Changes in Telecommunications in Home, Office and School; Federal Law and Regulation; 1996 Telecommunications Act; International and Comparative Telecommunication Systems

Courses Taught

EMDA 100 American Electronic Media
EMDA 180 Electronic Media Policy
EMDA 183 Development of American Electronic Media
SMPA 199 Senior Seminar
SMPA 201 Media Processes and Institutions
TCOM 201 Development of the Telecommunication Industry

Selected Works

Encyclopedia of Radio (editor, three vols., Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003).

Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002, 3rd ed.; with John M. Kittross).

History of Telecommunications Technology: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow, 2000; with George Shiers).

Mass Communication Research Resources: An Annotated Guide (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998; with James K. Bracken).

Focal Encyclopedia of Electronic Media (editor, CD-ROM, Focal Press, 1998).

Background

Born in Washington DC (about a 10-minute walk from the MPA building!), Sterling grew up in Wisconsin. After earning his Ph.D., he taught for one year at the University of Utah (where he began publishing what is now the quarterly Communication Booknotes Quarterly), before moving in 1970 to join the Temple University faculty in Philadelphia. He remained there for a decade, rising to full professor and serving as editor for five years of the research quarterly Journal of Broadcasting. In 1980 he moved to Washington and joined the Federal Communications Commission as a special assistant to Commissioner Anne P. Jones working on media and international telecommunication issues. There he got an "eighth floor" view of telecommunication policymaking at a time of considerable change.

Sterling joined the GW faculty in March 1982, first heading up the Center for Telecommunication Studies, and beginning in 1984 directing the graduate program in telecommunication for a decade. He was acting chair of the Department of Communication from 1989 to 1991 at which point it became part of the National Center for Communication Studies, one of the predecessor organizations to SMPA. He served for seven years (1994-2001) as associate dean for graduate affairs in the Columbian School of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he returned to full time teaching and research, resuming the directorship of the graduate telecommunication program.

Sterling serves on the editorial boards of seven media and telecommunication research journals and is reviews editor for another. He has lectured, given papers, or consulted in, among other places, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Chile, France, Hong Kong, Monaco, and Venezuela. He has traveled to all 50 states and in 1996 traveled around the world. Among his several hobby interests are the history of passenger ships (very evident on the walls of his office), policy and history of commercial aviation, the development of fortification design from castles to coastal defenses, the history of Washington D.C. as a planned city, and the life and works of Sir Winston S. Churchill.

In 1992, Sterling received the Distinguished Education Service Award from the Broadcast Education Association. Most recently, he was named Who's Who in America for 2003 and the 2003 Frank Stanton Fellow by the International Radio and Television Society.

www.ChrisSterling.com

Education

Ph.D, Communication/Radio-Television, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1969

M.S., Communication/Radio-Television, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1967

B.S., Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1965