David M. Cheshier directs the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII). CMII was formed in 2014 to strengthen connections between arts and media students and the region’s creative industries. The key aim is to better position Georgia State to support Atlanta’s aspirations to emerge as a global creative content capital. Institute work is focused on preparing students for high technology careers in the creative industries, developing a national model for media entrepreneurship training and organizing creative industries research partnerships. A $22.8 million Woodruff Foundation gift made in 2014, the largest gift in Georgia State history, is enabling the quick launch of these programs and the renovation of a three-story facility at the heart of campus into a creative media/arts center.
Cheshier earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa in 1996. At Georgia State he directed debate activities for seven years and chaired for eight more the Department of Communication, where he holds an associate professor faculty appointment. His academic scholarship focuses on the dynamics of American public deliberation given mass mediation and the ways emotion intersect with collective patterns of social argumentation. Cheshier’s research has received the NCA Miller Dissertation Award and the AFA Rohrer Research Prize, the latter given to the best annual research essay in argumentation studies.