Jorge Reina Schement

Ph.D.: Stanford University
Master's degree: University of Illinois

Distinguished Professor Jorge Reina Schement also serves as co-director of the Institute for Information Policy, which is hosted by both the College of Communications and the School of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State.

His research interests focus on the social and policy consequences of the production and consumption of information. A Latino from South Texas, he maintains a special interest in policy as it relates to ethnic minorities, and is author of the telecommunications policy agenda for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Markle Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Walter Kaitz Foundation, Schumann Foundation, Rainbow Coalition, Port Authority of NY/NJ, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, National Science Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Bell Atlantic, PacTel, Lockheed-Martin, and Bush Industries Inc. He has received awards for his scholarship from the International Communication Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pace University, the University of Kentucky, and UCLA. Schement has served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals, and has edited the Annual Review of Technology for the Aspen Institute. He is editor-in-chief of the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Communication and Information.

His policy research contributed to the Supreme Court's decision in Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. F. C. C. et al. In 1994, he served, at the invitation of the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as director of the Information Policy Project and conducted the original research that led to recognition of the Digital Divide.

He introduced the idea of Universal Service as an evolving concept, a view adopted in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He has served on advisory and steering committees for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and the Centers for Disease Control.

He is chairman of the board of directors of TPRC Inc., and sits on the boards of the Media Access Project, Libraries for the Future, and the Benton Foundation. He is also a member of advisory boards to the Advertising Council, Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, Center for Media Education, Internet Policy Institute, and the Open Society Institute, as well as an advisor to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and member of the Minority Media Telecommunications Council.

His book credits include, Global Networks (1999), Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age (1995), Toward an Information Bill of Rights and Responsibilities (1995), Between Communication and Information (1993), Competing Visions, Complex Realities: Social Aspects of the Information Society (1988), The International Flow of Television Programs (1984), Telecommunications Policy Handbook (1982), and Spanish-Language Radio in the Southwestern United States (1979).

He annually leads seminars at the Aspen Institute. His interest in the history of printing led him to discover a discrepancy in chapter and line numbers between the 1667 and 1674 editions of Paradise Lost. as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary. He reads histories of World War II, and information technologies.

Jorge Schement Distinguished Professor; Co-Director of the Institute for Information Policy

In the News:
Op-Ed: Text Messaging the Death of Cursive
(Appeared in Hartford Courant and Centre Daily Times)