David L. Jaffe B.A., M.S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

David Jaffe

Professional profile

David Jaffe's professional career has a nearly equal balance between "on air" work in the radio, television and film industries and university teaching and research. He has held positions as a radio disc-jockey in various popular radio and classical music formats, reporter, political commentator, war correspondent, news director and radio and TV talk show host. His academic career includes faculty appointments at several universities and a 25-year tenure at the University of Oklahoma, where he is professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication. He joined Lynn University in September 2001.

Although Jaffe's background gives him the perspective of a mass media and broadcasting "generalist", his professional and research focus is the adoption and impact of emerging technologies on the mass media. He helped establish the first cable television origination station in the U.S. in 1967 and in Israel in 1980. Between those years he served as a cable television franchise consultant to numerous cities and municipalities. In 1985, he received a grant from the federal government to conduct research on a telephone-based broadcast delivery system that paved the way for Internet radio and television streaming. From 1997 to 2001, Jaffe worked in Israel's high tech industry as a consultant to publishing companies developing audio and video streaming services. He built the first Internet radio station that produced original news programming and assisted in establishing the first Internet radio station operated by a daily newspaper (The Jerusalem Post). He is also a veteran World Wide Web designer and served as webmaster for several international mass media companies.

Education

  • B.A., Albright College
  • M.S., Temple University
  • Ph.D., University of Iowa

Teaching philosophy

The teaching philosophy David Jaffe follows is essentially a holistic one that contributes to a learning Gestalt in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Using learning theory derived from the social sciences and more recent advances in fMRI studies, Jaffe's goal is to create lifelong learners who have developed the fundamental skill sets of critical and creative thinking that can be paired with a properly balanced menu of communication and media theory and practice. The product then is a college graduate who has a unique combination of assimilated knowledge and advanced skills to critically assess the application of that knowledge in a creative fashion.

Teaching specialties

  • Internet media Multimedia journalism Radio and television Film

Areas of scholarship

  • Emergent technologies and their application to contemporary media
  • Internet media
  • Multimedia journalism
  • Radio and television
  • Film

Awards and honors

  • President' Innovation Award, Music for Student Filmmakers, June 2007
  • Professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication, University of Oklahoma