Clarkson University Associate Professor of Communication & Media, Jason Schimitt, has been named chair of the Communication & Media Department in the School of Arts & Sciences.
Schmitt concentrates his research on online education impacting a global audience, open access relating to academic publications, and media industry future trends. He has written more than 60 pieces for places like Forbes Asia, the Huffington Post, EdSurge, and Slate.
As a filmmaker, Schmitt recently completed a grant-funded documentary, “Paywall: The Business of Scholarship,” for which he served as producer/director. The film will premiere in Washington, D.C., on September 5 with additional showings scheduled at MIT Media Lab September 7, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on October 9, at the United Nations in New York City on October 23, and has set screenings at over 90 universities around the globe.
Schmitt’s film investigates the economic and societal impact of academic publishing, the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier, and how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google.
In his film, Schmitt leads the audience on an excursion to where academic publishing began in 1665 at The Royal Society of London; illuminates how access to research is often limited for those outside prestigious academic institutions and especially within the Global South; showcases how open access models like arXiv.org have played a strong role in information dissemination in physics, mathematics, and computer science; and tries to make sense of the infamous scholarly pirate research service, Sci-Hub, which houses more than 67 million research papers for free download by interviewing its creator Alexandra Elbakyan who is currently in hiding in Russia.
Schmitt’s prior film career found him as the interviewer/field producer for the documentary, “Louder Than Love,” a film on the historic rock venue The Grande Ballroom and its influence on rock and roll music. The film was awarded an Emmy in 2016 and has been to more than 35 festivals from Detroit to L.A .and London to Australia.
In addition to writing and film, Schmitt is involved in providing insight and leadership toward startup companies in the digital space and in 2016, he judged over 1,000 startup pitches and business models for venture capital funding.
Schmitt has two new textbooks that were released in 2018: Purposeful Communication in the Digital Age and Speaking with a Purpose. Both books are published through Routledge.
Clarkson University launches leaders into the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as a CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world’s pressing issues. Through 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, sciences and the health professions, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and engineering innovation with enterprise.
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[A photograph for media use is available at https://www.clarkson.edu/ sites/default/files/media/ image/2018-05/jason-schmitt. jpg.]
[News directors and editors: For more information, contact Melissa Lindell, Director of Media Relations, at mlindell@clarkson.edu or 315-268-6716.]