Prelims

About the Authors

Deb Aikat

A former journalist, Deb Aikat has been a faculty member of Media and Journalism since 1995 in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He is co-author of the 2019 book, Agendamelding: News, social media, audiences, and civic community with Dr. Don Shaw, Dr. Milad Minooie and Dr. Chris Vargo. Aikat’s research has been published in book chapters and refereed journals such as First Amendment Studies, Health Communication, Global Media and Communication, Popular Music and Society, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, and publications of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Microsoft Corporation. Aikat worked as a journalist in India for Ananda Bazar Patrika’s The Telegraph newspaper and reported for the BBC World Service. He founded in 2015 the South Asia Communication Association, which unites professors and professionals in examining South Asia and its diaspora worldwide. He completed in 1990 a Certificate in American Political Culture from the New York University. Aikat earned in 1995 a Ph. D. in Media and Journalism from Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism.

Yaron Ariel

Yaron Ariel (Ph.D., University of Haifa) is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication of the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Israel. His areas of expertise include the new media, interactivity and computer mediated communication. Specifically, he studies mobile media and social media from a user-centered perspectives. His work has been published in books including Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology, Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace (Cambridge) and refereed journals including Telematics and Informatics, Media, War and Conflict, Atlantic Journal of Communication and more.

Juan G. Arroyo-Flores

Juan G. Arroyo-Flores is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of South Florida. He is a McKnight Doctoral Fellow and holds a BA and MA in Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico. His doctoral dissertation aims to address multiplayer online gamers’ identity and social networks management (online and offline) using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Juan’s primary research interests are digital culture, media sociology, and social network analysis. Currently, he is working on projects including the Puerto Rican vote in the USA after the 2017 hurricanes; and social network analysis of risky behaviors among seasonal Latina workers and MSM in Florida.

David J. Atkin

David J. Atkin (Ph.D., Mass Media, Michigan State) is Professor of Communication at the University of Connecticut. He has done grant-supported work on the adoption, use and regulation of new media , and political communication. Atkin received the field’s Krieghbaum Under-40 award, granted annually to a junior scholar for distinction in research. He’s ranked among the 80 most prolific scholars in the history of our discipline, the 25 most prolific since 1995, and the two most prolific scholars in telecom as well as communication policy. Books include Communication Technology & Society, The Televiewing Audience, and Communication Technology & Social Change.

Ruth Avidar

Ruth Avidar (Ph.D., University Haifa), is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication of the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Israel. Her research focuses on online public relations, social media, marketing communications, computer mediated communication, and new technologies, and it has been published in leading refereed journals. Ruth worked for two years as a policy advisor in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and almost a decade as a spokesperson in various Israeli businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay

Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay is Assistant Professor of Communications at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She holds BS degrees in Brain and Cognitive Science and Comparative Media Studies from MIT, an MA degree from the School of Cinematic Arts and a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California. Charisse investigates how media affect the way users think about themselves and others, and how media can construct and reaffirm positive identities. Her upcoming book, Consumer Verité: The American Psychosocial Relationship with 20th Century Media (Routledge), investigates how American users have historically engaged with media technology to describe, analyze, and predict their adoption habits with future technology.

Vered Elishar-Malka

Vered Elishar-Malka (Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication of the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Israel. Her research focuses on political communication, deliberative communication, the Internet as a journalistic work tool, and the roles of new media in contemporary society.

Chris Gentilviso

Chris Gentilviso is a Roy H. Park Fellow at the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina. He holds a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and an M.A. in Media & Communication from UNC. Chris’ research focuses on how news organizations are adapting to new technologies and responding to consumers’ evolving interests. He also wrote and reported on politics and policy issues in local communities across North Carolina. His professional media experience includes digital roles at TIME.com in New York, N.Y., The Huffington Post in Washington, D.C. and Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, N.C.

Anne Holohan

Anne Holohan is Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. She received her PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, and has been a Marie Curie International Fellow at the University of Trento, Italy. She is Principal Investigator and Coordinator of Gaming for Peace (GAP) www.gap-project.eu, 2016-2019. The project is delivering a curriculum in soft skills for peacekeeping personnel in a role-playing digital game. She researches, publishes and teaches on digital technologies and their impact, organizational sociology, peacekeeping, networks, citizen science, gamification and ethnographic methods.

Steven J. Kendrat

Steven J. Kendrat is currently working towards a Master of Science for Teachers from Le Moyne College. He holds an M.A. in Media Studies and a B.S. in Television, Radio, & Film from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He has received awards for his work in video and photography, and has collaborated with musicians, artists, and organizations to produce music videos and promotional works. Steven has also worked in arts education with the New York State Education Department. He is particularly interested in young people’s use of media for creative expression, specifically in an interactive, digital era.

Barry King

Barry King is Professor of Communications at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. He is the author (with Sean Cubitt, Harriet Margolies, and Thierry Jutel) of Studying the Event Film: The Lord of the Rings, Manchester University Press, (2008, 2014) and of Taking Fame to Market, Palgrave MacMillan (2014). He has also published a substantial number of articles that explore the relationships been popular culture, celebrity and stardom and digital media. He is a contributor and member of the editorial board of the journal Celebrity Studies. His other publications focus on creative labour, semiotic determinism, the sociology of acting and performance and the New Zealand Cultural industries. He is currently completing a book, Working as a Sign: on the sociology of acting.

David J. Park

David J. Park (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Florida International University. He is an Author of Conglomerate Rock: The Music Industry’s Quest to Divide Music and Conquer Wallets (Lexington Books). His research interests include media technologies, political economy, media and culture, environmental sustainability, consumerism, and international communication. His scholarship appears in numerous journals and book chapters, and he serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

Juliana Maria (da Silva) Trammel

Juliana Maria (da Silva) Trammel is a professor of strategic communication and interim chair of the Department of Journalism & Mass Communications at Savannah State University. Her research interests include the intersection of gender, media, race and human communication, with a special focus on social media, women and early childhood communication in Brazil. Her most recent publication includes a chapter titled “Color Privileges, Humor, and Dialogues: Theorizing How People of African Descent in Brazil Communicatively Manage Stigmatization and Racial Discrimination,” published in a groundbreaking Black/Africana communication theory book. In addition to her scholarship, she has over 15 years of communication-related experience including social advocacy on Capitol Hill, higher education administration, teaching and consulting. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from Howard University; an MA in Public Communication from American University; a BA in Journalism from Rust College. She was born and raised in Brazil and is fluent in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.

Katarzyna Wodniak

Katarzyna Wodniak (PhD, Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin) is an assistant Professor at the University of Social Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her main research interest is sociology of organizations and specifically inter-organizational cooperation and institutional change. She has participated in a number of research projects including a study on the institutional and organizational legacy of UEFA EURO 2012 in Poland, a pilot study on migration and education in Ireland, and her most recent project, an investigation of perceptions of the newly opened National Museum in Qatar. She has also lectured in a variety of sociology courses at Trinity College Dublin including Social Networks and Digital Lives, Comparative Welfare State, and Globalization and Development.

John Xeller

John Xeller (M.A., Higher Education Administration, Boston College) is Development Associate at Rectory School in Connecticut and completed extensive coursework in Communication at the University of Connecticut. As student in the graduate program and graduate teaching assistant, Xeller’s interests centered on political communication as well as persuasion and social influence. Prior to his time in Storrs, Xeller developed his skills as an educator at Boston College. Since moving on from UConn, Xeller has worked to refine existing and develop new communication strategies geared toward improving alumni engagement and “town and gown” relationships at Rectory School.

Acknowledgments

All of the ESMC editorial staff extend our appreciation to the many individuals who have contributed to this volume. We would like to call attention to the often unseen work of the many individuals whose support has been indispensable in publishing all volumes in the series, and this volume in particular. Regarding the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), we thank the Council for the section’s sponsorship of the series, as well as members of our Editorial Board for disseminating their service to the series. In particular, at Emerald Publishing, we deeply appreciate both Jen McCall’s and Katy Mathers’ support of the series and the Emerald editorial staff’s contributions bringing the volumes to press. Finally, we recognize our Guest Editors: Jenny Davis and Gabe Ignatow who shared their invaluable expertise.