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Media Studies

 

Questions about cultural quality are at the center of my academic work. Why do we mistrust the media, and admire the arts? How do we know something is good? Why do people and things and ideas go in and out of style? How do we choose “our” cultural forms? How do we--individually and socially—make wise choices in a mediated world? My scholarly writing focuses on the social role of the arts; hopes and fears we have about media influences; ideas about genre, authenticity and commercialization in country music; and media technologies and culture.

Social Role of the Arts

 

Book:  Is Art Good For Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002

 

Articles:

“Arts, Intellectuals and the Public: The Legacies and Limits of American Cultural Criticism, 1910- 1950,” in American Cultural Studies, Catherine Warren and Mary Douglas Vavrus, editors, University of Illinois Press, 2002.

“Art, the Public, and Deweyan Cultural Criticism,” in American Pragmatism and Communication Research, David K. Perry, editor, Longman’s, 2000.

“Expressive Logic: a new premise in arts advocacy,” Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society. Winter 2003.

“Questioning the Social Powers of Art: Toward a Pragmatic Aesthetics," Critical Studies in Mass Communication, v. 12, no. 4, December 1995, pp. 365-379.

"Democratic Culture and the Arts," Journal of Arts Management, v. 23, no. 2, Summer 1993, pp. 110-120.

Media and Cultural Criticism

Book: Redeeming Modernity: Contradictions in Media Criticism. Sage Publications, Inc., 1990

Textbook:  Media In Society (with Richard Campbell et al.) upper division undergraduate textbook, Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2013.

Articles:

“Popular Culture: Asking the Right Questions,” in Key Concepts in Critical and Cultural Studies, edited by Clifford Christians and Linda Steiner, University of Illinois Press (2010)

“Understanding Recalcitrant Audiences,” in Audiences and the Arts: Communication Perspectives, edited by Lois Foreman-Wernet and Brenda Derviin, Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press (2009)

"Consequences of Vocabularies," in Defining Media Studies: Reflections on the Future of the Field, edited by Mark R. Levy and Michael Gurevitch, Oxford University Press, NY, 1994, pp. 75-82 (reprint of article in Journal of Communication, v. 43, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 67-75).

"Imagining the Audience: Losses and Gains in Cultural Studies," (with John J. Pauly), in Cultural Studies in Question, edited by Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding, Sage, 1997, pp. 155-169.

“An Interpretive Approach to Culture Production," in Interpreting Television: Current Research Perspectives, Willard D. Rowland, Jr. and Bruce Watkins, eds. Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research, v. 12, 1984, pp. 98-118.

“Consequences of Vocabularies," Journal of Communication, v. 43, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 67-75.

“Production de la culture: une critique de la litterature anglo-saxonne sur les medias," Vibrations Musiques, Medias, Societe, no. 3, Summer l986, pp. 99-118. (French translation of "An Interpretive Approach to Culture Production.")

Foreword to: "A Beginner's Guide to Qualitative Research in Mass Communication," Journalism Monographs no. 125, February 1991

Country Music

Book:  The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music. Vanderbilt University Press, 1998.

Articles:

“Becoming a Postage Stamp: Patsy Cline, Visual Image and the Celebrity Process,” in Sweet Dreams: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline, edited by Warren Hofstra, University of Illinois Press, 2013.

“Posthumous Patsy Clines” in Afterlife as Afterimage: Posthumous Reputation in Popular Music, Joli Jensen and Steve Jones, editors, Lang Publications, Inc., 2005.

“Media, Meaning and Posthumous Reputation” in Afterlife as Afterimage: Posthumous Reputation in Popular Music, Joli Jensen and Steve Jones, editors, Lang Publications, Inc., 2005.

“Patsy Cline’s Crossovers: Celebrity, Reputation and Feminine Identity” for A Boy Named Sue, edited by Kris McCusker and Diane Pecknold, University of Mississippi Press, 2005.

“Taking Country Music Seriously: Coverage of the 90s Boom,” in Pop and the Press, Steve Jones, editor, Temple University Press, 2002.

"Walkin' After Midnight: Patsy Cline, Musical Negotiation, and the Nashville Sound," in All That Glitters: Country Music in America, edited by George H. Lewis, Bowling Green Popular Press, 1992, pp. 38-50.

"Honkytonking: Mass Mediated Culture Made Personal," in All That Glitters: Country Music in America, edited by George H. Lewis, Bowling Green Popular Press, 1992, pp. 119-130.

"Genre and Recalcitrance: Country Music's Move Uptown," Tracking: Popular Music Studies, v. 1, no.1, Spring 1988, pp. 30-41. "

"Patsy Cline's Recording Career: the search for a sound," Journal of Country Music v. IX, no. 2, 1982, pp. 34-46.

“Countrypolitan: the Nashville Sound,” for Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume II: Genres, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2004

 

Celebrity and Fandom

Edited Book:  Afterlife as AfterImage: posthumous reputation in popular music  (Steve Jones, co-editor), Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005

“Loving Picasso: Scholars, Mistresses and Fans,” Vancouver Art Gallery invited lecture, Vancouver, Canada, November 2005.

“Fans and Scholars: A Reassessment” in Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles and Practices, edited by Mark Duffett, Routledge 2014.

“Fandom as Pathology: the consequences of characterization” in Reader in Mass Communication Theory, Denis McQuail, editor, 2002 (reprint; originally published 1992).

“Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization,” in Popular Culture: Production and Consumption, C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby, editors, Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

(mis-spelled as Joli Jenson) "Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization," in The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Music, Lisa Lewis, ed., Unwin Hyman, Inc. 1992. [reprinted in McQuail; Harrington and Bielby, above)

“Becoming a Postage Stamp: Patsy Cline, Visual Image and the Celebrity Process,” in Sweet Dreams: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline, edited by Warren Hofstra, University of Illinois Press, 2013.

Media, Technology and Culture

"Technology/Music: Understanding Processual Relationships," Popular Music and Society, v. 14, no. 1, 1990, pp. 7-12.

"Using the Typewriter: Secretaries, Reporters and Authors, 1880-1930," Technology in Society, v. 10, 1988, pp. 255-266.

"Women as Typewriters," Turn-of-the-Century Women, v. III, no. 1, Summer l986, pp. 43-50.

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