As I’ve referenced the Twitter hashtag #commnerd twice now, let me digress briefly to explain. My department has some AMAZING students that have created a network of social scholarship online. Many of them (you know who you are) tweet encouragement to their peers as they complete their rigorous, life-sucking senior seminar projects, as well as share helpful links and comments. Some also blog about their research experience. However, this online collaboration and reflection has not replaced their more traditional study sessions, only enhanced them. Somewhere along the way, the nickname Comm Nerd caught on and is now a Twitter list, hashtag AND t-shirt. These students rock! I could go on and on about the complexities of the millennials, as shared by my fellow academic bloggers and tweeps since the Pew Center released this and PBS aired Digital Nation. However, I don’t have anything spectacularly different or fresh to offer that hasn’t been addressed by said academics and public intellectuals. What I will say is that these students’ fantastic accomplishments are exhausting! I’m incredibly proud of them and confident they’ll do well in grad school and/or their respective careers. They’ve inspired me to get back to the writing board but it’s been a rough winter.

Teaching is the most rewarding job, yet it’s not a job you leave at the office. My office is also the library, the coffee shop, the interwebs and, especially, my home. I don’t often discuss my home life in my work life, but so much of my home life is consumed talking about my work life. Ouch, I think I sprained by brain on that one. Anyway, my home life that exists on Twitter and Facebook, while I do spend some of it connecting with family and grad school friends, is mostly spent reading links that incorporate my research and pedagogy interests. Hence, when the time comes to just sit down and write about these intersections, I’ve struggled to spend even more time at the computer being quantitatively productive. I use the word quantitatively not because I do empirical social science (because I don’t) but because research productivity for tenure and promotion is mostly concerned with quantifiable, verifiable publications. Sure, I am fortunate to work at a public liberal arts institution that values my teaching first, scholarship second. However, the scope of research and scholarship that I spend so much of my day cultivating via social media is a hybrid approach that I don’t think is quite recognizable as practical pedagogy and research.

And now we’ve come full circle. I’ve spent much of this semester mining through published essays and anthologies on pedagogy and digital/social media as well as feminist and queer theory to work toward publications that bring together my research agenda and pedagogical philosophy. I have half a Moleskin full of handwritten notes because I need to step away from the computer to be able to come back to it and actually be “productive” in the tenure-able capacity. The plan was to hit the writing hard this week during spring break. Instead, I did course prep, my taxes and other more manageable tasks that don’t require accelerated levels of emotional creativity. Why? Because I got a rescue puppy from a local shelter the first weekend of break. We’ve been talking about it for months but wanted to wait till we had time to train and get the pup acclimated to a new environment as best as possible. Since spring break affords that opportunity better than a regular work week, here we are. To others it may appear I’m stalling on the writing. Although this puppy has drained my energy, watching him sleep at my feet as I type this reminds me that there are other immeasurable means of productivity. We saved a puppy’s life. My work will get done. Just not this week.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In all seriousness, I realize my snarkiness coincides with continued real-life crises. Just as the entertainment industry and the viewing public obsessed over million-dollar contracts for established white guys while Haiti’s infrastructure collapsed and its people mourned the dead, I am distracted by this pop culture obsession. Yes, I study television for a living, but I don’t want to lose sight of the irony that this feminist scholar appears more concerned over problems impacting the old guard of Hollywood than the humanitarian needs of an impoverished community. But here’s the thing: Hollywood once again proves its thread in the fiber of our society. Many of the stars that participated in the Clooney-helmed Help for Haiti Now telethon visited the late-night shows, as well as daytime talk, during the NBC Contract Wars of January 2010. While CNN and the major news outlets focused on Haiti, the entertainment news media, as well as major establishments like the New York Times, couldn’t cover Conan v. Leno enough. I’ve been dumping many of the blog and news links into a browser bookmark folder toward a panel for the National Communication Association Conference, whose deadline is Feb. 17. A few of my grad school colleagues will join me in proposing a panel about the social, political and theoretical implications of the late-night wars as an example of the continued evolution of the broadcast television industry.

I know the “changing media” panels come a dime a dozen, but the mobilization of young adult viewers via Twitter and Facebook, as well as all the time-shifting via Hulu and DVRs make late-night TV the perfect example of how the current TV model is broken. In addition, the narratives of masculinity and race and class politics, given the gender and race of the late-night guard, as well as the multimillion dollar contracts at stake, should make great conversation fodder and possibly an essay worthy of publication. On that note, I need to brainstorm some more writing ideas.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

However, I still plan on plugging blogs and Twitter as a great (ahem, all but necessary) resource for communication studies majors. Maybe I’ll even get some takers who want to build blogs from my Wordpress multiuser account. Meanwhile, a number of my pop culture and/or theory students from last semester have moved onto their senior research, where they plan to incorporate social media theory and use into project design. I can’t stress enough how cool it is to still see at least a handful of them actively tweeting pop culture and current events topics.

The absence of student blogs linked from Pop Academy this semester means I need to step up my game as the site’s sole contributor. I’ve needed to do so from Day 1, but fall semester was my heavy teaching load. In addition, most of my conference prep for the Media Studies Interest Group of the Central States Communication Association is complete. The conference isn’t until near the end of the semester, which helps, too. With the course release from the large lecture course and a lighter grading load, spring semester will allow more time for research and active blogging—which are one and the same given my goal of designing a social media in the classroom research study. Once I get into a teaching and office hour rhythm, I’ll be working on my IRB form and then participant recruitment.

In addition to the new study, I need to complete the Tila Tequila essay that’s been on the back burner for a year. Essentially, in the piece I argue how popular media has positioned her bisexuality as a lifestyle choice for ratings and consistently asked her to “prove” her orientation via physical performance. I may also have a Mad Men edited volume to work on later in the term if my co-editors and I have success with a publisher. Finally, I’ll be prepping Pop Academy, well the Critical Theory and Popular Culture class, for a high-density online run for the first summer session.

Oh, and I must mention today is the first day of spring classes. I teach just once, in fact I only teach one class daily Monday through Thursday this term. Here’s hoping for a good start to Spring Semester and lots of good writing time.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My students deserve much credit for grasping 300- and 400-level theories in my extended absence. The pop culture class in many ways has taught itself via the course blog and Twitter. In the theory class we relied on Skype and the department video camera to keep group presentations on schedule. I want to examine these classroom tech topics more closely once the semester is officially complete. Many research and pedagogy ideas came to me at the National Communication Association annual convention in Chicago earlier this month that I have to find time to digest. In short, I attended a daylong special seminar on intersectionality and feminism that may turn into a book project with other scholars. I also made some connections at an amazing panel focused on using social media in communication research. Google Docs and Wave may give my research agenda just the boost it needs to study social media in the classroom.

The Twitter project made perfect sense for the pop culture class. However, the non-graded use of Twitter by my students for their other classes makes a compelling case for Twitter adoption by other professors in my department. I have noticed an uncommon offline connection between the communication students via their online chatter. They started creating their own course hashtags and making associations across courses and professors. I’m looking forward to our Twitter wrap-up in class Wednesday but feeling bittersweet about letting my tweeps go.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I expect I might get creative inspiration at the conference I’m attending this week, the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender. OSCLG is a great cohort of folks from all types of institutions and research persuasions. A couple colleagues and I are presenting a roundtable discussion on AMC’s Mad Men. In addition to looking at representations of femininity, masculinity and sexuality, we also plan to discuss how we have used the series as a learning tool in our courses. While I’m not teaching gender this semester, I’ve used Mad Men in the past to ignite conversation from my students regarding gender roles and expectations in the workplace. Although the show is set in 1960s Manhattan, it provides a great outlet for comparing what has changed and what has not. Students share not only stories they know of their parents and grandparents but also their own, current examples of latent and sometimes obvious discrimination. More than anything, though, the Mad Men viewing leads to vibrant discussion of the ongoing rigid gender expectations in much of society. My main point in this conference presentation will focus on the politics of identity hiding. Everyone seems to have a secret on Mad Men. From Betty to Sal, the pressure to be a good wife or husband is sometimes to much to endure. That’s enough of a teaser. I plan to record our round table and see if it works as a podcast post here. (On that note, I know I haven’t posted my talks on blogging in the classroom. It’s been hard to find time to edit in addition to teaching and trying to get some research done. Soon, I hope). Time to put the laptop away and prepare for landing.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.