Keith Kenney
Associate Professor
Visual Communications Sequence

B.J., University of Texas at Austin
M.S., East Texas State University
Ph.D., Michigan State University

Dr. Kenney currently is the project director of a $750,000 grant from the Department of State for partnering with the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management (CSJMM) in Tbilisi, Georgia. Between 2010 and 2014, six USC faculty members will teach at CSJMM and three faculty members from CSJMM will pursue a doctorate degree at USC. Kenney is also a member of the EU-US Atlantis Program, supported by a $70,000 grant from FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education). The program will bring together educators and journalists from three countries in order to develop strategies and share best practices for multimedia journalism.

His prior international experience includes a Fulbright grant to teach at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he developed a graphic design program. At the end of his stay, the American Embassy hosted an exhibition and reception for potential employers of Uganda’s first graphic artists. In 1985-87, he developed the new photojournalism program at Xiamen University in China. He designed the darkroom facilities, ordered cameras and installed the darkroom equipment, and taught photography courses to students and a Xiamen teacher who continued the classes. Dr. Kenney has also taught courses and conducted workshops in Rwanda (1997), Greece (1998), India (2000), Italy (2005), Botswana (2007), and Jamaica (2009-2011).

Dr. Kenney does research in the field of visual communications. He is currently working on a book called Twentieth Century Philosophers of Communication for Wiley-Blackwell. His book, Visual Communication Research Methods, was published by Routledge in 2009. Dr. Kenney also was an editor of The Handbook of Visual Communication, published by Lawrence Erlbaum in 2005. He is the founding editor of Visual Communication Quarterly, a refereed research journal, which is now in its 17th year and currently published by Routledge. He has written articles for journals such as Journalism Quarterly, Gazette, and Visual Anthropology. He was a guest editor of Journal of Visual Literacy for a special issue on visual communication theory.

In addition to his work as a scholar, Dr. Kenney continues to work as a photographer and videographer. "A Collective Portrait of Xiamen, China," an exhibition of 100 black-and-white photographs was held in 1987; “Black Pearls: Portraits of Uganda” an exhibition of 60 photographs appeared in 1998; and “Travel Photography,” was exhibited in 2006 and 2008. His CD-ROM, Traditional Shikoku Pilgrimage in the Modern Context, was published by Sofusha in 2000.

Dr. Keith Kenney has taught at USC for 22 years. At the undergraduate level, he teaches photography and international communication. At the graduate level, he teaches communication theory, literature reviews, and visual communication research. Dr. Kenney serves the photography profession as a contest judge and he serves academia as a member of the editorial board for Visual Communication Quarterly.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he worked as a newspaper photographer at The Sherman Democrat, a daily in northern Texas, for two years. Kenney earned his doctorate degree from Michigan State University, and he joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina in 1988. While at USC, Dr. Kenney taught advanced photojournalism to U.S. Army soldiers over the course of seven summers as part of contracts with the Department of Defense worth $530,000.

E-mail: kkenney@sc.edu

Office:
Phone: 803.777-3302
Fax: 803.777.4103
Room: Coliseum 4027B

Hours:
M-F: 12 - 2:00 p.m.

Syllabi:
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