Statement of Research
My scholarly interests are centrally focused on critical cultural studies and the emergence of new technologies of media. An appropriately big topic, the approach that I take is particularly centered in terms of practices of cultural governance and the creation of new, global networks of communication. That is, I am concerned with the possibilities and consequences – cultural, social, political, economic, and increasingly environmental – that occur through the uptake of new media technologies into society, and the cultural practices that materialize in conjunction with these media.
During the years of the Bush-era Neoliberal movement, we saw these practices act as a central strategy of governance on a global scale. It certainly remains to be seen how or whether the political and economic developments of the past year will change these practices, but one thing remains clear: While the methods of governance through network forms may change depending on the scope of power and the medium in question, the strategy of control through the practices of new media forms is here to stay. I believe it is the job of critical media scholars to highlight these practices.
In my work, I explore the uses of new media forms in order to see not only the mechanisms of control, but also the possibilities for resistance inherent in these practices. My paper, Crowdsourcing Home(land) Security and the Texas Border Watch: The New Technology of the Mediated Security State, explores the uses of Crowdsourcing, a cutting-edge, networked form of distributive labor developed by private industry, as a strategy of governance through the Texas Border Watch, a state-sponsored online program whereby the US-Mexico border will be policed by any citizen with an internet connection. It makes use of paradigms of self-governance and surveillance, as well as a number of theorists concerned with critiquing the governing (and governmental) practices of the Neoliberal movement.
Furthermore, my dissertation, ‘Empire’ Records: A Study of Cultural Resistance and the Politics of Music-Making in the Network Age, argues a re-thinking of culture as a site of global conflict by examining new transnational flows of power though social networking and music distribution sites for new media forms. I center on the ideal of governmental, corporate, and social governance through cultural forms by exploring the new mediations of social activism, the new possibilities that have opened up due to new networks and technologies of communication. It is a work that I am currently revising for publication.
I have a related secondary interest, which is the cultural history of communication technologies. James Carey’s work has always had a strong influence on me, but as I revisit his cultural histories, I am always inspired to rethink today’s communication technologies from a new perspective. I have more recently turned my attention toward the untold cultural uses of seemingly old media. With all that has been written on communication technologies, it still amazes me of the number of old communication technologies that still have been left unexplored from a cultural perspective, particularly those technologies that lend insight into present-day cultural developments. We often forget this in our rush to cover the newest developments in media technologies.
I have begun research for a book proposal on the Cultural History of Junk Mail, a media form that has never been adequately explored in general, but this is particularly true from a cultural perspective. It is a media form that has affected everything from our postal system to our campaign finance laws, our views of commercialism to our marketing of class structures, our labor of consumption to our view of email/online spam. Junk mail produces a very specific culture, with very specific practices, neither of which have been particularly well-explored. The possibilities of this project are fascinating, and the deeper I get into my research, the more I am rethinking the way in which we view these issues though present-day media.
Additionally, responding to an entirely prescient call from Rick Maxwell and Toby Miller that I encountered at UC-Irvine’s Seminar for Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) in 2008, I am trying to create a space in all of my work for environmental questions of the impact of media technologies, a topic of increasing importance worldwide, but one that has long been neglected in cultural studies circles as a whole, and media studies in particular.
In the end, my philosophical approach to critical media analysis and cultural studies research reflects my belief that all communication is political, in the sense that one cannot separate concerns of communication from concerns of power. New media are particularly interesting in this sense: As the world becomes increasingly meditated, the ways in which we produce and consume different realities provides a number of different articulations of labor, power, capital structures, and governing practices through everyday life. It is increasingly important that critical scholars explore both the past and the present of these practices to not only identify these strategies of control, but also to provide greater clarity of the structures and functions of the field of the cultural studies of the media.