On most classes during the semester, one or two students will present an "author overview" to the class. In a roughly 12 minute presentation, you will provide a broad overview of the work of a major media scholar, selected from the list below. (If there’s someone not on the list that you’d like to discuss; talk to me.) The presentation should not just be a listing of what books and articles the author has published, or what you think of them. Good overviews require distinguishing between your reaction to a scholar’s work and what it actually argues. This is one of the most important skills you need to get to do real scholarship. It makes your work both easier and more credible. Accurately summarizing a body of work is an essential task not only for producing academic work, but for being a responsible, informed intellectual. It’s sorta like being a good listener who doesn’t constantly distort, judge, react to, or put words in the mouth of your friends in conversation. It’s fine to also talk about your reactions, but do so separately. Saying what you like about scholar, or how they will relate to your research paper, is not what an overview is for. Being able to find some things that are wrong, contradictory, or offensive about an author’s work is NOT the same thing as being able to summarize the author’s arguments.
Specifically, you should provide a clear picture of:
- Why other scholars think this researcher is interesting and important.
- What kinds of questions and concerns this scholar brings to his or her research.
- What kinds of methods, theories and/or approaches does this scholar use.
- How this scholar relates to other scholarship, both in terms of who and what traditions the scholar draws on in his/her work, and also in terms of who the author is arguing with.
How to prepare: To do this assignment, you'll need to:
- Research the author's work and the work of others who frequently cite your author.
- Develop answers to questions 1-4 above.
- Prepare a clear and concise presentation. (Practicing the presentation out loud is highly recommended.)
Professor Streeter will distribute a sign-up sheet for Author Overviews to the class. Authors and dates will be the following:
| Date | Author | Reviewer |
| 2/1: | Laurie Ouellette | Streeter |
| 2/8: | Stuart Hall (Cultural Studies, race, and media) | |
| 2/15: | Sherry Turkle (social psychologist of online life) | |
| 2/22: | Joseph Turow (internet, marketing and society) | |
| 3/1: | Whitney Phillips (expert on the sociology of internet trolling) | |
| 3/8: | Robert McChesney (critic of media monopolies) | |
| 3/22: | Daniel Kreiss (online technology and political movements) | |
| 3/29: | Susan Douglas (radio history, feminism and media) | |
| 4/5: | Lawrence Lessig (law professor and critic of copyright laws) | |
| 4/12: | Gina Neff (labor and new technologies) | |
| 4/19: | Melissa Gregg (new technologies and gender) |