Papers by Lia Wolock
Race and Media: Critical Approaches, 2020
In this chapter I briefly trace the history of South Asian migration to the United States, unpack... more In this chapter I briefly trace the history of South Asian migration to the United States, unpack the racialization of South Asian Americans in mainstream media, and highlight how these communities have always used media (e.g. phones, records, films, streaming platforms) to negotiate the complexities of diasporic identity. Working through scholarship on racial triangulation and technoculture, I then show how multiple, sometimes competing versions of South Asian American identity are actively constituted by activists and users through digital diasporic media. In creating and supporting sites such as Sepia Mutiny and the South Asian American Digital Archive, I argue that the proponents of coalitional South Asian America bring together novel understandings of diaspora and digital media to remap their identities and the racial lines of the United States.
From edited volume Race and Media: Critical Approaches (Ed. Lori Lopez), NYU Press 2020, pp. 190-201.
https://nyupress.org/9781479889310/race-and-media/
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Journal of American History, 2021
In this piece I discuss the South Asian American Digital Archive's evolving organizational strate... more In this piece I discuss the South Asian American Digital Archive's evolving organizational strategies and participatory projects, from its founding in 2008 to the present. In line with Johnson, Drake, and Caswell's call for archives and institutions to take up liberatory memory work, SAADA is "dedicated to animating traces of the past for social justice activism in the present and to envision and enact radically just futures" (https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/reflections-from-the-2016-mandela-dialogues). This public history review examines how SAADA puts liberatory memory work into practice and how SAADA's struggles and triumphs in this pursuit reflect broader ongoing efforts to enact a coalitional South Asian American identity and politics.
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This article examines post-network American television’s fraught relationship with race and ethni... more This article examines post-network American television’s fraught relationship with race and ethnicity by exploring two recent media ventures focused on South Asian Americans: MTV-Desi and NBC’s Outsourced. Approaching these media ventures
as productive failures, we examine how industry workers narrate these failures to trace how the contemporary television industry in the United States imagines racial and ethnic identities. Bringing together interviews with media industry professionals,
observations at a media industry convention, and thematic analyses of trade press and news coverage, we argue that both media ventures are symptomatic of nationalist logics that inform the operations of television industry professionals even as they seek to target audiences increasingly embedded in transnational media circuits. Industry professionals’ misreading of South Asian Americans’ position in the racial economies of the United States and changes in patterns of media circulation reveal the challenges
confronting the media industry when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity.
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Teaching Documents by Lia Wolock
This course is a graduate-level seminar exploring contemporary and foundational research on race ... more This course is a graduate-level seminar exploring contemporary and foundational research on race and media activism from a critical-cultural communication and media studies perspective. How do activists, audiences, and corporations wrestle with media texts and practices to reshape ideas about race and identity, racism, and cultural citizenship? And with what consequences? We will explore a variety of media systems, texts, and practices from around the world (with an emphasis on the United States) and different ways of studying and understanding them. Students will write a conferencelength original research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the professor. Alternative final projects are also possible, undertaken in consultation with the professor. On a weekly basis, students are expected to engage actively with course readings and discussions, and support the other members of this learning community.
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This course is a graduate-level seminar exploring contemporary and foundational research on rheto... more This course is a graduate-level seminar exploring contemporary and foundational research on rhetoric about the internet and rhetoric used in online spaces from a criticalcultural communication and media studies perspective.
The internet, social media, and digital cultures are deeply enmeshed in our personal experiences of daily life (ex. friendship and familial communication, online banking, cloud-accessible calendars), our jobs and labor practices, our access to knowledge, and our interactions with community and society at every scale. Thus how we talk about the internet and how we talk on the internet shapes our lives at both the most conceptual and the most intimate levels. Out of what (and whose) fantasies and aspirations is the internet constructed? On top of what sedimented histories have the material and social infrastructures that facilitate our lives online been built? How do different communities communicate online using digital and social affordances, with what affect?
Students will write a conference-length original research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the professor. Alternative final projects are also possible. On a weekly basis, students are expected to engage actively with course readings and discussions, and support the other members of this learning community.
Course Objectives
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This course is the first of two required courses in the media studies concentration for JAMS majo... more This course is the first of two required courses in the media studies concentration for JAMS majors. It is designed to give you an overview of contemporary approaches to media studies. This field seeks to understand the importance of media in our everyday lives and the pleasures we derive from media. But it also takes a critical perspective on media, questioning why and how media industries, media producers, and media audiences function as they do. Central to this course is the idea that media matter, both to societies and to individuals in their everyday lives. Thus, we will treat all kinds of media seriously, even that which many people consider trash. And even when a media product seems to be pure "entertainment," we will consider its formal design, its social significance, its political and economic context, and the kinds of pleasures it offers. We will consider media in terms of three key aspects: media technologies, media texts and audiences, and media industries and labor, and we will explore the central issues in each of these key areas.
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Handout for JAMS 855: Participatory Cultures in the Digital Era in which students can compare 4 S... more Handout for JAMS 855: Participatory Cultures in the Digital Era in which students can compare 4 SCHOLARLY FRAMEWORKS / THEORIES in terms of how they discuss MEDIA USE / ACTIVISM + SOCIAL CHANGE:
--Public Sphere / Theories of Publics and Counterpublics
--Fan Studies
--Public Culture
--Participatory Cultures
You can change up which theories are being compared.
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Can voting for a singer in a reality show teach democratic principles? Is curating a social justi... more Can voting for a singer in a reality show teach democratic principles? Is curating a social justice Tumblr "real work" that can make a real-world difference? We'll explore these questions and the ways in which scholars, artists, and activists have tried to understand, promote, and problematize participatory and public culture. At stake is how we define and encourage civic engagement and activism in the digital era through the production and sharing of media. Students will write a conference-length original research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the professor, and get hands-on experience creating digital and DIY media (e.g. podcasts, zines) associated with participatory and public culture.
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This course is an upper-level undergraduate (and introductory-level graduate) examination of glob... more This course is an upper-level undergraduate (and introductory-level graduate) examination of global media and globalization. We will explore a variety of media systems, texts, and practices from around the world, and different ways of studying and understanding them. We will also consider what is at stake when people study and discuss global media, globalization, and related concepts in the current era, marked as it is by the increased movement of capital, ideas, people, and data. Students are expected to design and conduct an original research project and engage actively with course readings and discussions.
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Instructional handout for a combined grad/undergrad class.
I. What are primary sources? (p. 2)
I... more Instructional handout for a combined grad/undergrad class.
I. What are primary sources? (p. 2)
II. What are secondary sources? (p. 3)
III. Sample past projects (pp. 4-7)
IV. How does a student research paper get written? (pp. 8-10)
V. JAMS 620 research project assignments (p. 11)
VI. How to find a topic (pp. 12-15)
Explains the semester-long research project process for a critical-cultural (global) media studies seminar. Provides "snapshots" (i.e. primary sources, secondary sources, thesis) for past student projects. Explains primary and secondary sources. Offers help brainstorming topics.
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Instructional document for combined undergrad/grad class.
I. What do you need scholarly sources ... more Instructional document for combined undergrad/grad class.
I. What do you need scholarly sources for? (pp. 2-4)
II. Searching for scholarly sources (pp. 5-8)
III. Making sure a source is scholarly (pp. 9-10)
IV. Getting access to a scholarly source (pp. 11-15)
V. Reading your scholarly sources (pp. 16-17)
VI. Using & citing your sources (pp. 18-22)
Walks students through finding, reading, and using secondary sources for a critical-cultural media studies research project/paper.
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Papers by Lia Wolock
From edited volume Race and Media: Critical Approaches (Ed. Lori Lopez), NYU Press 2020, pp. 190-201.
https://nyupress.org/9781479889310/race-and-media/
as productive failures, we examine how industry workers narrate these failures to trace how the contemporary television industry in the United States imagines racial and ethnic identities. Bringing together interviews with media industry professionals,
observations at a media industry convention, and thematic analyses of trade press and news coverage, we argue that both media ventures are symptomatic of nationalist logics that inform the operations of television industry professionals even as they seek to target audiences increasingly embedded in transnational media circuits. Industry professionals’ misreading of South Asian Americans’ position in the racial economies of the United States and changes in patterns of media circulation reveal the challenges
confronting the media industry when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity.
Teaching Documents by Lia Wolock
The internet, social media, and digital cultures are deeply enmeshed in our personal experiences of daily life (ex. friendship and familial communication, online banking, cloud-accessible calendars), our jobs and labor practices, our access to knowledge, and our interactions with community and society at every scale. Thus how we talk about the internet and how we talk on the internet shapes our lives at both the most conceptual and the most intimate levels. Out of what (and whose) fantasies and aspirations is the internet constructed? On top of what sedimented histories have the material and social infrastructures that facilitate our lives online been built? How do different communities communicate online using digital and social affordances, with what affect?
Students will write a conference-length original research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the professor. Alternative final projects are also possible. On a weekly basis, students are expected to engage actively with course readings and discussions, and support the other members of this learning community.
Course Objectives
--Public Sphere / Theories of Publics and Counterpublics
--Fan Studies
--Public Culture
--Participatory Cultures
You can change up which theories are being compared.
I. What are primary sources? (p. 2)
II. What are secondary sources? (p. 3)
III. Sample past projects (pp. 4-7)
IV. How does a student research paper get written? (pp. 8-10)
V. JAMS 620 research project assignments (p. 11)
VI. How to find a topic (pp. 12-15)
Explains the semester-long research project process for a critical-cultural (global) media studies seminar. Provides "snapshots" (i.e. primary sources, secondary sources, thesis) for past student projects. Explains primary and secondary sources. Offers help brainstorming topics.
I. What do you need scholarly sources for? (pp. 2-4)
II. Searching for scholarly sources (pp. 5-8)
III. Making sure a source is scholarly (pp. 9-10)
IV. Getting access to a scholarly source (pp. 11-15)
V. Reading your scholarly sources (pp. 16-17)
VI. Using & citing your sources (pp. 18-22)
Walks students through finding, reading, and using secondary sources for a critical-cultural media studies research project/paper.
From edited volume Race and Media: Critical Approaches (Ed. Lori Lopez), NYU Press 2020, pp. 190-201.
https://nyupress.org/9781479889310/race-and-media/
as productive failures, we examine how industry workers narrate these failures to trace how the contemporary television industry in the United States imagines racial and ethnic identities. Bringing together interviews with media industry professionals,
observations at a media industry convention, and thematic analyses of trade press and news coverage, we argue that both media ventures are symptomatic of nationalist logics that inform the operations of television industry professionals even as they seek to target audiences increasingly embedded in transnational media circuits. Industry professionals’ misreading of South Asian Americans’ position in the racial economies of the United States and changes in patterns of media circulation reveal the challenges
confronting the media industry when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity.
The internet, social media, and digital cultures are deeply enmeshed in our personal experiences of daily life (ex. friendship and familial communication, online banking, cloud-accessible calendars), our jobs and labor practices, our access to knowledge, and our interactions with community and society at every scale. Thus how we talk about the internet and how we talk on the internet shapes our lives at both the most conceptual and the most intimate levels. Out of what (and whose) fantasies and aspirations is the internet constructed? On top of what sedimented histories have the material and social infrastructures that facilitate our lives online been built? How do different communities communicate online using digital and social affordances, with what affect?
Students will write a conference-length original research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the professor. Alternative final projects are also possible. On a weekly basis, students are expected to engage actively with course readings and discussions, and support the other members of this learning community.
Course Objectives
--Public Sphere / Theories of Publics and Counterpublics
--Fan Studies
--Public Culture
--Participatory Cultures
You can change up which theories are being compared.
I. What are primary sources? (p. 2)
II. What are secondary sources? (p. 3)
III. Sample past projects (pp. 4-7)
IV. How does a student research paper get written? (pp. 8-10)
V. JAMS 620 research project assignments (p. 11)
VI. How to find a topic (pp. 12-15)
Explains the semester-long research project process for a critical-cultural (global) media studies seminar. Provides "snapshots" (i.e. primary sources, secondary sources, thesis) for past student projects. Explains primary and secondary sources. Offers help brainstorming topics.
I. What do you need scholarly sources for? (pp. 2-4)
II. Searching for scholarly sources (pp. 5-8)
III. Making sure a source is scholarly (pp. 9-10)
IV. Getting access to a scholarly source (pp. 11-15)
V. Reading your scholarly sources (pp. 16-17)
VI. Using & citing your sources (pp. 18-22)
Walks students through finding, reading, and using secondary sources for a critical-cultural media studies research project/paper.