Professor Sue Curry Jansen’s research has long been concerned with the relationship between media and democracy.  In her most recent article, “Phantom Conflict: Lippmann, Dewey and the Fate of the Public,” published this month in Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, Dr. Jansen brings historical analysis to bear on a deeply misunderstood but dominant view of the intellectual legacies of John Dewey and Walter Lippmann.  In her abstract, Jansen explains:

Contrary to the prevailing view in media and cultural studies, philosopher John Dewey and journalist Walter Lippmann did not represent different schools of thought. They were not adversaries in a great public debate about the fate of the public in modern democracies in the 1920s. Rather, their exchange about the “phantom” public was reframed as a conflict in the early 1980s, a reframing which has achieved broad interdisciplinary acceptance even though its rests on a casual rhetorical trope, not historical documentation. The reframing provides a salutary but inaccurate origin story for American media and cultural studies, illustrates the hazards of relying on secondary interpretations of historical sources, and deflects attention away from realistic assessment of the problems confronting democracy today. Dismantling this disciplinary folklore is essential to the integrity of the emerging “new history” of media and communication.

Jan Mitchell

Jan Mitchell graduated from Muhlenberg with honors in Media & Communication less than one year ago, and will soon have her name in a set of television credits for the first time. Mitchell works for Boston-based Moore Huntley productions, whose new program, Alaska: Most Extreme, will debut on the Discovery Channel on Thursday, April 16 at 9pm EST.

Dr. McEwan’s paper was on “Modes of Violence in the films of Ram Gopal Varma.” Varma is a director in Mumbai known for his gangster films set in the Mumbai underworld, and the paper explores the ways in which Varma’s films attempt to blend “Bollywood” conventions with genre elements borrowed from Hollywood and Hong Kong films.

Student Filmmakers Eirinn Disbrow and Avivah Furman

Like many students at Muhlenberg, Eirinn Disbrow and Avivah Furman wanted to volunteer to make their world a better place. They quickly realized however, that making a difference was much more difficult than they had thought. Undeterred, they decided to make a documentary about the challenges of volunteerism. The resulting feature, Good Intentions, debuted this past Friday at Muhlenberg’s Recital Hall.

Supported by a competitive summer research grant from Muhlenberg, Disbrow and Furman joined a group of American students who signed up to volunteer in Costa Rica. They documented their own experiences and those of their colleagues, focusing on the students’ eagerness and occasional naivete. The film, completed with assistance from a number of Media & Comm faculty,  is a compelling account of the challenges that stand between good intentions and successful results.

Disbrow is a Media & Communication major and Creative Writing minor from Wilton, CT. Furman is a Media & Communication and Film Studies major from Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. Both are juniors.

Media and Communication Professor Jeff Pooley is away from Muhlenberg’s campus this semester after being appointed as the Annenberg Scholar for Culture and Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pooley’s duties at the Annenberg School of Communication include teaching a course, called “The Consuming Self: From Flappers to Facebook,” and delivering a public lecture in April. Dr. Pooley will resume his regular courses at Muhlenberg in the fall.

Dr. Elizabeth Nathanson is joining the department this semester as a temporary replacement for Dr. Jeff Pooley while he completes a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Nathanson is a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University.  Her research focuses on how contemporary American popular culture represents women’s everyday life, specifically life at home, in the postfeminist context.  She explores how the media as technologies and as cultural forms organize women’s time and depict women’s experiences of the time-crunch and life cycle in the contemporary context.  Her work includes studies of lifestyle television, cooking programs, arts and crafts television shows, depictions of pregnancy and childbirth in popular film, and the impact of new technologies like TiVo and the Internet on cultural constructions of “women’s time.”  Her article on domestic temporal efficiency and the Food Network show 30 Minute Meals will be published by Television and New Media this summer.  Her work has also appeared in Framework.  Before entering graduate school, she worked for the Education Department at the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. She is teaching Popular Culture and Communication, 20th Century Media, and a special topics course called “Media and the Home.”

Anthony Dalton is the a new Media Services technology assistant who will be stationed in Walson Hall to support student and faculty work in the new Digital Cultures space (see below).

Anthony is a recent graduate of Kutztown University, and will be working in Walson 20 hours per week. His hours for this semester are:

Monday Noon – 6pm

Wednesday 9am – 6pm

Friday Noon – 6pm

His office is Walson 106, and he can be reached at x3871.