About: Dan Schaefer

Dr. Dan Schaefer is a journalism professor based in Denver, Colorado, known for his work in both journalism education and new media. He has been a journalism professor with the Community College of Denver (CCD) since 2015. His portfolio focuses on his visual storytelling work in Virtual Reality, gaussian splatting and 360-degree videography.  It spans a wide range of disciplines from Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Geology, and Communication.

Schaefer’s journalism education work focuses on the subject area of community journalism. As the Faculty Adviser for CCD’s Talon Magazine, he encourages journalism students across Colorado to write about what is happening in “their neck of the woods”. Reporting what is happening in their community is the most accessible way young journalists start a long and storied career in journalism or public relations.

As a result, the Talon Magazine has won numerous regional and national awards in the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Council of Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR).

Students have produced work that have covered impactful stories including: CCD Presidents, an exclusive insider account of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the personal account of a U.S. Army Jumpmaster blown up in Afghanistan during a search for a prison of war, a look back at Rocky Flats after the Marshall Fire, float tanks, a U.S. Marine fighting in Ukraine, a circus near campus, an exclusive insider account from Senator Hickenlooper’s senate page, a Punk Rock Celebrity’s basement studio, the harrowing journey of a Mexican and her baby riding the Beast cargo train from Mexico and then fording the Rio Grande into the U.S., food banks, a pole dancer encouraging empowerment through exercise and pole dancing, a return to Camp Amache, restaurant reviews of Denver old standards, the Colorado Rapids, the Denver Nuggets, music venues and record stores.

His passion for teaching community journalism was influenced by the incredible gaps in journalism education further complicated by changing media technology, the fall of newspapers and the rise of algorithmic “if it bleeds, it leads” viral style social media news coverage of national and international stories.

Schaefer’s research agenda has always centered on the affordances of the Internet medium. His dissertation explored the changing nature of work found in the tension between professionals and amateurs online. He studied professional journalists use of crowdsourcing in traditional newsrooms along the Front Range as they increasingly leveraged their audience and the mechanisms of the Internet and social media to do work.

Throughout his career, Schaefer has emphasized the immersive nature of visual storytelling as the means of helping an audience make sense of this mad, mad world.