Journal Public Culture in For Some Changes

Read about changes in store for the prominent cultural studies journal Public Culture in the May 13th Chronicle of Higher Education. The journal, under new editorship, plans to aim for a broader audience. Sociologist and public intellectual Eric Klinenberg, one of the new editorial board members, explains that "the remade Public Culture will place greater emphasis on 'imaginative social theory' and 'vivid ethnographic writing.' It will also emphasize contemporary issues such as climate change, military interventions, the power of markets, and links between social media and social movements."

The journal will also include "'visual investigations'—images that invite readers to ponder and analyze. Some of those will run online only, alongside videos and podcast" as reported by Chronicle reporter Peter Monaghan.

You can read the full article here.

McGannon Center Working Papers

It's always good to to see what's doing at the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center. The McGannon Center conducts and disseminates research that informs the communications policymaking process and ethical decision-making in the management of media institutions. Here are three of their latest working papers.

10.10.2009 - New Working Paper by Philip Napoli on Navigating Producer-Consumer Convergence

09.15.2009 - New Working Paper by Minna Aslama on Rethinking Media Diversity and Policy in the Web 2.0 Era

09.15.2009 - New Working Paper by Minna Aslama and Ingrid Erikson on Public Spheres, Networked Publics, and Networked Public Spheres

If you like these, check out all the Center's working papers going back to 2004.

New blog from Professor Marvin

If you're interested in what Dr. Carolyn Marvin the Frances Yates Professor of Communication, is up to this year in India, you can check into her new blog, Darsan in Banaras. Professor Marvin is a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Her research will focus on religious and national practices in public space. She elaborates in her first blog post:

"The topic is an adventure for me, combining long-standing interests in ritual communication associated with both religion and nationalism, and public space as an arena of social and cultural production, and taking these to a non-Western culture where these things are inextricably linked."

Though brand new and just sort of warming up since Professor Marvin has yet begin her Indian adventure, the blog is already a joy both visually and verbally. I particularly enjoyed her description of teenage skate boarders in Philadelphia and, in another post, being introduced to Rahu, a mythical Indian sun-eating dragon who is all head. Good stuff.

Following this blog is a good way to learn about India in general, think about communication issues in a different culture, as well as observe firsthand how a veteran communication scholar takes the role of novice in another land to observe and conduct research with a fresh lens.

August CommQuote

Bob Garfield of On the Media interviewed Vinicius Galvao, a reporter for Folha de Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest newspaper, about the city's recent ban on outdoor advertising.

"Bob Garfield: I've seen photos of the city, and it's amazing to see this sprawling metropolis completely devoid of signage, completely devoid of logos and bright lights and so forth. What did Sao Paulo look like up until the ban took place?

Vinicius Galvao: Sao Paulo's a very vertical city. That makes it very frenetic. You couldn't even realize the architecture of the old buildings, because all the buildings, all the houses were just covered with billboards and logos and propaganda. And there was no criteria. And now it's amazing. They uncovered a lot of problems the city had that we never realized. For example, there are some favelas, which are the shantytowns. I wrote a big story in my newspaper today that in a lot of parts of the city we never realized there was a big shantytown. People were shocked because they never saw it before, just because there were a lot of billboards covering the area....It's weird, because you get lost...you don't have any references anymore...My reference was a big Panasonic billboard. But now my reference is art deco building that was covered..."
--excerted from Adbusters (September/October, 2007)