New issue of the UDC Newsletter!

Check out the May 2013 issue of the UDC Newsletter. Thanks to newsletter editor John Sullivan for his hard work in bringing this together once again.

Contents include:


Why You’ll Say “Wow!” at the UDC/Project Censored Conference

By Michelle Rodino-Colocino

2013 UDC/Project Censored Conference Call for Papers

Notes from Membership Central

By Doug Tewksbury

Why I Joined UDC-A Reflection

By Brian Dolber

An Uncensored Look at Project Censored

By Mickey Huff & Andy Lee Roth

Video Games and the Commodification of Violence

By Randy Nichols

UDC-Project Censored's 2013 Conference -- Call for Papers & conference update

Hello UDC members, supporters, and friends:

Below is the call for papers for our upcoming conference, The Point is to Change It: Media Democracy and Democratic Media in Action, November 1-3, 2013 at the University of San Francisco. This year, UDC is partnering with Project Censored, so we should have a profoundly energetic, intellectual, and political conference. We are taking steps to reduce the cost of attending the conference by finding affordable accommodations.

We hope you will consider submitting your work to the 2013 conference of UDC and Project Censored.

Details for nominating candidates for the Dallas Smythe award will be circulated shortly.

Any ideas, inquiries, or comments may be directed toward our co-organizers, Brian Murphy at bmm@niagara.edu, Michelle Rodino-Colocino at michelle@psu.edu (both of UDC), or Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored, at andyleeroth@gmail.com.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to organizing this conference. We will be in touch again shortly with our wonderful volunteers. If you would like to volunteer to help organize this year's conference, please contact Brian or Michelle.

To stay "in the loop" on conference updates, please consider "following" UDC using one of the methods in the right-hand sidebar of this page. These include UDC's listserv, e-mail & RSS subscriptions for UDC blog posts, and our Facebook & Twitter pages. A dedicated conference website is coming soon.

Lastly, please share this call widely with your colleagues, departments, associations, lists, and social media sites. Sharing buttons are available at the bottom of this post.

All the best,

Michelle

Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Ph.D.                               "Enjoy the process" --my mother

Assistant Professor                                                 "Mangia" --my grandmother

Film/Video, Media and Women's Studies                   "Say it" --my daughter

Chair, Steering Committee UDC (Union for Democratic Communications)

http://www.democraticcommunications.net/

http://comm.psu.edu/people/mlr31

rocofem@gmail.com (work and personal)

michelle@psu.edu (work)

As eagerly anticipated as the old Sears Catalog -- it's Issue No. 3 of the UDC Newsletter

Hot off the (digital) press, here's issue no. 3 (December 2012) of the UDC Newsletter. A big, big thanks to John Sullivan for editing the newsletter. Thanks to each of the contributors. And thank you, UDC membership, for your interest in and work toward a more democratic media system. Please share this newsletter widely (sharing buttons at the bottom of this post).

Issue No. 3, December 2012 Contents:

UDC Past, Present, and Future -- Michelle Rodino-Colocino 

2012 Florida State University Conference Report -- Jennifer Proffitt 

Chapter Membership Rediscovered -- Robert Carley  

2013 UDC Conference Announced -- John Sullivan 

2012 UDC Conference Entertainment  Roundup -- Jeanette Castillo 

Memorial Tribute to Jeanne Lynn Hall -- Chris Jordan 

Democratic Communiqué Seeks Submissions for Special Issue 

Bringing Down the House with Wall of Sound -- Kathleen Kuehn 

John Downing Receives Dallas W. Smythe Award 

Joel Bakan Delivers Plenary Lecture

Equality Equals…? Conference

Equality Equals…? Conference

April 5th-6th 2013

Sponsored by the Department of Communication Studies Graduate Student Association at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Call for Anthology Contributors: Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means"

UDC member Murali Balaji is looking for contributors for a new anthology titled, Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means. The deadline for submitting a chapter synopsis is December 15.

Zombies are everywhere these days. Rather than run away, we're seemingly embracing them. The popularity of zombies has reached a pinnacle with shows such as the Walking Dead - the highest rated drama on basic cable - and movies such as the Resident Evil series, Dawn of the Dead and various incarnations of zombie flicks. What does our obsession with zombies say about us as a consumer society? This anthology seeks to interrogate our obsession with the undead from a critical lens, offering us a variety of perspectives on zombie culture, consumption and the notion of these apocalyptic scenarios as our eternal fear of the other and ourselves. 

Chapters must be 6,000-7,000 words in APA style. 

200 word chapter synopses sent to murali.balaji@temple.edu no later than Dec. 15 with full manuscripts delivered by Feb. 1.

New book from UDC member John Sullivan: Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power

Source: sagepub.com

It's that time. Publishers and bookstores are hounding you for your book orders, right? Well, for your media studies courses, consider UDC member John Sullivan's new book: Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power (2012, Sage Publications).

Whether we are watching TV, surfing the Internet, listening to our iPods, or reading a novel, we are all engaged with media as a member of an audience. Despite the widespread use of this term in our popular culture, the meaning of the "audience" is complex, and it has undergone significant historical shifts as new forms of mediated communication have developed from print, telegraphy, and radio to film, television, and the Internet. Media Audiences explores the concept of media audiences from four broad perspectives: as "victims" of mass media, as market constructions & commodities, as users of media, and as producers & subcultures of mass media. The goal of the text is for students to be able to think critically about the role and status of media audiences in contemporary society, reflecting on their relative power in relation to institutional media producers.

This is a junior-senior level text, but is also suitable for entry-level graduate courses in audience studies.

Request a review copy here and get a discounted personal copy here.

Table of Contents after the jump...

"Off the Menu" documentary explores the political economy of body and food through student work

Source: cinemaservesjustice.com

Lisa Tillman (Rollins College) has a documentary out that may be of interest to UDCers. The film is titled "Off the Menu: Challenging the Politics and Economics of Body and Food" (2011, Cinema Serves Justice).

What's wrong with the ways we relate to our bodies, to others' bodies, to eating, and to food - and what can we do about it?

The film was screened and discussed at a recent NCA session:

Topics investigated include body and beauty ideals, body image, body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia, our cultural fear and hatred of fat, anti-fat prejudice, and inequalities related to the U.S. food system. 

The film features personal narratives and digital art composed by 24 students enrolled in a course called The Political Economy of Body and Food. A political economic lens helps us see: whose political and economic interests are served by the ways people in the U.S. tend to relate to our own bodies, to others' bodies, to eating, and to food? When we survey the contemporary landscape of body and food, who has what kind of power? Who profits, and at whose expense? How can everyday people resist and promote healthier relationships with body and food?

For a full-length preview, contact Lisa Tillman.

See the film's website for ordering information.

Do you have a book, call for papers, conference panel, creative work, or other project that you'd like other UDC members to know about? Let us know.