John L Sullivan Professor, Media & Communication |
Education
Teaching Interests
I teach courses that encourage students to think broadly about media structures and systems and how those systems enable or constrain democratic participation. My courses cover the historical formation of media, the political economy of audiences, media research methods and media effects. Recently, I have begun teaching courses that explore debates of online media and copyright, focusing on free, open source software (F/OSS), the formation of Creative Commons licenses, and the free culture movement. I also encourage students to think about the creative and political potentialities associated with media by considering the ways in which citizen groups and activists have advocated for media reform beginning in the late 19th century and continuing until today. I teach a number of required courses in the media and communication major, such as our introductory course, media and society, as well as our upper-level courses, media theory and methods and the CUE seminar.
Since I graduated from a liberal arts institution, I am excited to work in an environment that fosters student participation and intellectual growth via direct access to professors. Muhlenberg College is also rare in that it has one of the largest and most well-regarded media and communication programs in the country.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
My research explores the links between media industries and systems of social and economic power. More specifically, my work focuses on the constructions of audiences within media organizations, the implementation of U.S. media policies and on the political economy of cultural production. Recently, I have begun a longer-term project to study the formalization of podcasting as a cultural industry. I have also authored a textbook for undergraduates entitled Media Audiences (Sage, 2013), which explores the history and current debates about audiences for broadcast and online media.