After serving as the associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, Sherry Baker returned from a short leave with a vision for BYU’s first Mormon Media Studies Symposium to explore issues relating to Latter-day Saints and mass media.

Baker, an associate professor of communications, had seen much attention paid in the media to Mormons, particularly with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, the rise of Glenn Beck as a popular talk-show host and various Mormons in reality shows and televised competitions. In addition, PBS, in 2007, broadcast a documentary called “The Mormons,” and Baker said it just seemed like this was a bit of a “Mormon moment,” as a journalist at the Boston Globe called it.

“It was time for scholars that are looking at this from a scholarly perspective to have a forum to get together and discuss their work and interest,” Baker said.