The endless selections on streaming services and beyond may be daunting, so Fordham News asked faculty members for a few of their favorite film and book suggestions to help narrow it down and avoid a night of infinite scroll. Hopefully, you’ll find an interesting new piece of media or rediscover an old favorite in the recommendations below.

Films

Mark Street, Associate Professor of Visual Arts

La Jetee (1963), directed by Chris Marker
This “cine novel,” which exists in book form too, is the movie upon which Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys is based. The time travel story is told entirely in stills, except for one shot which is moving. In the absence of movement, we can let our imagination roam and contemplate the conceptual richness and audacity of the conceit.
Available on Kanopy

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), directed by Maya Deren
This brilliant filmmaker pierces the masculinist world of the American avant-garde. This film is about dreams within reveries within dreams; we’re not sure what’s happening, what’s dreamed, what’s imagined. Its fracturing of time reminds me a bit of our current state, where things have slowed down, and we are looking at time in a new way.
Available on Kanopy

Amy (2015), directed by Asif Kapadia
A wrenching examination of Amy Winehouse’s life, including home movie footage and interviews with friends and family. She’s a product of her time in that she was a mediated image from the beginning of her life (as a sonogram of her in her mother’s womb), right up until her death. This very imaging of her led to her struggles with eating disorders and alcoholism.
Available on Kanopy

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), directed by Liz Garbus
A good bonus double feature to pair with Amy. Also a product of her time, we see an uncompromising artist from a classically trained prodigy in North Carolina to explosive artist, to righteous, uncompromising activist. She battled mental health issues, racism, and domestic abuse along the way, and her voice is as current and powerful as it ever was.
Available on Netflix

James Jennewein, Senior Lecturer of Communication and Media Studies

The King’s Speech (2010), directed by Tom Hooper
Based on the true story of King George, who was crowned King of England after his older brother abdicated, The King’s Speech is a very moving and inspiring tale of his fight to overcome a serious speech impediment so as to become a more effective king to his people. But deep down it is also the story of one man’s battle with his own inner demons and how his friendship with his speech therapist helps him ultimately to grow as a man.
Available on Netflix

Tootsie (1982), directed by Sydney Pollack
A classic comedy about a driven New York City actor who becomes a soap opera star, dressed as a woman. A brilliant tale of how a sexist learns how to be a better man as he lives out the trials and tribulations of being a woman in society.
Available on Netflix

Television Shows

Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies

The Strain
I recently discovered that The Strain, an FX series that originally aired from 2014 to 2017 is steaming, and even though I had watched it in its entirety as it came out, I decided to binge it a second time, something I almost never do. I highly recommend it, if and only if you are fine with the horror genre. Created by acclaimed film director Guillermo del Toro together with Chuck Hogan, the series is set almost entirely in New York City, and makes full use of neighborhood locations in all five boroughs, which makes it a real treat for New Yorkers. The story is an original take on the vampire genre, mixed together with a good amount of the contagion genre, and even a touch of the zombie motif included. At a time when we are experiencing a form of true horror in the real world, you might think it best to stay far away from that sort of storyline, but I found retreat into this fantasy version diverting and in some ways inoculating, and the plot is absolutely gripping.
Available on Hulu

Star Trek: Picard
As someone who often turns to science fiction, I find no shortage of series available on streaming services these days, but one that stands out that recently completed its first season is Star Trek: Picard. As someone who prefers the original Star Trek series to the Next Generation, I reserved judgment on this new series that debuted only a couple of months ago and just wrapped up its first season. I was very impressed with the first new Star Trek series on CBS All Access, Star Trek: Discovery, a prequel to the original series that has been exceptional in its first two seasons, and Star Trek: Picard rival Discovery in regard to overall quality and entertainment value. Star Trek: Picard is a welcome continuation of the Star Trek story, and with Patrick Stewart in the lead, how can you go wrong? Top that off with several new and interesting regular characters and guest appearances from a few old ones, and an intriguing plot line, and Picard stands out easily as my favorite new series of this strange new year. And on the topic of Star Trek, I strongly recommend Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the best of the earlier series, with marvelous characters and a dramatic, continuing story that emerged after the first couple of seasons.
Available on CBS All Access

The Plot Against America
I am currently enjoying The Plot Against America miniseries on HBO, based on the novel by Phillip Roth. Set circa 1940-1941, the story is an alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh, as a Nazi sympathizer running on an antiwar platform, defeats FDR and becomes president. While fascinating for its historical detail regarding life in Newark in this era, and thought provoking as a what-if scenario, the series resonates in many ways with contemporary American society and politics, making it all the more relevant.
Available on HBO

Books

Mary Bly, Professor of English

Mary Bly, professor and English department chair, Shakespeare scholar, and author of popular romance novels under the pen name Eloisa James, offered this list of 20 books from her to-be-read-during-quarantine pile, which has something for everyone:

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl
Meg and Jo by Virginia Kantra
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
Magpie Murders by Antony Horowitz
There There by Tommy Orange
The Best American Sci Fi & Fantasy 2019 edited by John Joseph Adams and Carmen Maria Machado
An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard
The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley
American Duchess by Karen Harper
Thicker Than Mud by Jason Morris
New Dramaturgies by Mark Bly
The Pier Falls: And Other Stories by Mark Haddon
The New Life of Hugo Gardner by Louis Begley
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson
Moonglow by Michael Chabon
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson
All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned In Loehmann’s Dressing Room by Erma Bombeck
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
The Lighthouse by P.D. James

Shonni Enelow, Associate Professor of English

Theodor Adorno
I’m actually reading a lot of philosophy (in the 15 minutes when my kid is occupied with something or napping), particularly Theodor Adorno. I’m finding it oddly soothing. 

Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life by Tavia Nyong’o
I’m also reading Tavia Nyong’o’s new book Afro-Fabulations, which is fantastic. 

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life by Maurice Sendak
And a lot of Maurice Sendak with my kid. We were just given his not-really-a-kid’s-book Higglety Pigglety Pop, which is like Lewis Carroll by way of Samuel Beckett.

Laura Childs, Emerging Technologies Librarian

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
First, a warning: these books will consume your life! I love this series because you get completely lost in it—you feel like you’re in the story alongside the characters. You’ll be reading for hours and look up, having no idea where (or when) you are. Great for readers who love historical fiction. It’s also been made into a fantastic show that you can binge watch on Netflix!

11/22/63 by Stephen King
This is probably my favorite Stephen King novel, but it’s not a typical horror story. If you like to get emotionally attached to a book, this is for you. It is thrilling and will also break your heart. Another book you will not be able to stop reading (but it’s over 1,000 pages, so you’ll be occupied for a long time).

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Any book by this author is an excellent choice if you enjoy drama, mystery, and some humor mixed in. This particular book is a lot of fun because you get to experience the story through the eyes of different characters, each with their own unique voice. This is a fast, entertaining read.

Additional Resources

Mary Bly, Professor of English

The English Department launched a Mighty Networks site when this happened. It’s a one-stop place for all our spring events, for student-run workshops, etc. Last week, for example, we had a creative writing/cooking demonstration by Sarah Gambito (head of Creative Writing), a yoga class, and a lecture by a disability activist.

Shonni Enelow, Associate Professor of English

The visionary downtown theater director Richard Maxwell and his company New York City Players have put up Vimeos of all their shows.

The Wooster Group is posting a new video every week of their shows, which transfer exceptionally well to video.

The playwright Jeremy O. Harris is doing a master class on Monday through New York Theatre Workshop.

Laura Childs, Emerging Technologies Librarian

As for library resources, I’d like to add that there are thousands of e-books available in our collection that students/faculty can access anywhere. They can be found by searching the catalog on our website. We also offer streaming video and movie platforms that students can watch from anywhere, including many new and popular films. Lastly, even though we’re not in the library, we are still here to help with research questions and can be contacted via email, text, and the 24/7 chat service!

“Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion,” was inspired by the 2015 anthology of the same name, that was edited by Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communications.

In one of the day’s panels, Levinson, fellow Fordham communications professor Lance Strate, Ph.D.,and novelists Alex Shvartsman and David Walton sat for a wide-ranging discussion, “Science Fiction Looks at Space Travel and Religion.”

“As far as we can tell, we alone not only adapt our environment, we change our environment,” said Levinson. “There’s one form of literature that addresses those quintessentially human activities. That is science fiction.”

Panelists discussed works they felt most profoundly melded issues of faith and science fiction. For Walton, C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (Scribner, 1996) —is the most provocative illustration of the intersection of faith and science. Shvartsman cited Stranger in a Strange Land, (Ace, 1987) by Robert A. Heinlein. The main character comes back from to Earth, having been raised by Martians.

“He’s been completely removed from human culture, so the book is seeing humanity through his eyes, and how he essentially starts a brand-new religion. It’s about what a religion is, and how one might be started, which I feel is both fresh and radical.”

Strate made a case for H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, in part because Wells was a student of Thomas Henry Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” In the end of the story, when aliens are felled by disease, Wells speaks of “the humblest things that God, in his wisdom put upon this earth.” Strate said this was originally a reference to natural selection. In the 1953 film adaptation of the story, however a priest who is acting as a peace envoy is vaporized; an act that is treated as the aliens’ first—or original—sin. The same line of dialogue thus takes on a much more religious tone when they perish at the end.

“Religion is trying to find answers to core questions like ‘Who I am?’, ‘Where did I come from?’, ‘What is my purpose in life?’, and ‘Where are we going?” said Walton.

“These are the stories that science fiction writers grapple with whether they explicitly deal with religion or not.”

As for the genre’s effects on religion, when Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out, Strate noted that an op ed appeared in the magazine Tablet that criticized it as “Reformed Jedi-ism,” a none-too-subtle jab at Reform Judaism.

“There was something very positive that anyone could be a Jedi and be in touch with the Force. It was missing from all of Lucas’ work, but at the end of the last Jedi, they suddenly introduced this idea,” he said.

In many ways, Shvartsman said, science fiction writers are advance scouts for philosophers and religious leaders.

“If we develop interstellar flight, and humanity does spread to the stars, what will happen if the Messiah comes? Will he go around collecting people off those planets, or are people who leave Earth screwed? If we meet aliens and they’re intelligent, do they have souls?

“These are all really complicated questions, and the good thing for us science fiction writers is we don’t have to answer them. That’s not our job. Our job is to ask the question. But asking the question will give everyone else time to consider them and come up with eventual answers before the science catches up with the fiction.”

The conference also featured panels discussions “Triangulating Creed: Identifying Memories that Form Values (A Creed), which Portray a Future” and “What Little Children See in Space,” and a keynote speech, “Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?” by Guy Consolmagno, S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory.

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, 

In his new book, Strate, professor of communication and media studies, examines how smartphones, apps, and social media shape us as human beings. He expands on an intellectual tradition, one spearheaded by Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan (who taught at Fordham), that’s about much more than understanding any one particular medium.

“It starts with the understanding that those things we pay attention to, like screens, are not just gadgets,” he said. “We think we can turn them on or off, but when you look at them as part of our environment, we can’t escape them.”

Even people who don’t use social media will be inadvertently affected by it, said Strate, because its use is ubiquitous—much the same as persons who don’t fly and yet must content with planes continuously flying overhead. “We are living in an environment that is full of these mediations that influence us.”

“We all speak with a language we didn’t create. That influences how we express ourselves and in how we think,” he said.e

Forensic Social Work: Psychosocial Legal Issues Across Diverse Populations and Settings, 2 ed., co-edited by Tina Maschi, Ph.D., and George Stuart Leibowitz, Ph.D. (Springer Publishing, 2018)

“We’ve come a long way from forensic texts just being about expert testimony in court, but to include the systems of care,” said Tina Maschi, Ph.D. associate professor in the Graduate School of Social Service, the book’s co-editor. “Whatever angle or systems you are looking at, the problems still emerge.”

A collection of articles by leading academics and professionals, Forensic Social Work looks at the latest research and practices in the field. Readers learn to integrate socio-legal knowledge when working with diverse populations, and to become familiar with common forensic issues in the major settings of health care, social and protective services, the child welfare system, the criminal justice system, school systems, immigration services, and addiction treatment facilities, among others.

Among the topics discussed are the use of restorative justice around the globe; the application of “cultural humility,” in which social work practitioners are mindful to put aside biases when working with clients with cultural differences; and the importance of teaching ethics in forensic social work environments.

(Listen to Tina Maschi speak about the book.)

Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts, co-edited by Fran C. Blumberg, Ph.D., and Patricia J. Brooks, Ph.D. (Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 2017)

Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts provides a survey of the impact of digital media on key aspects of children’s and adolescents’ cognitive development pertaining to attention, memory, language, and executive functioning.

The co-editors sought to present content pertinent to how children and adolescents evaluate the content presented to them via different types of screen media; what many scholars see as an aspect of media literacy, according to Blumberg. Both women had a goal to highlight how cognitive development was impacted by exposure and use of digital media.

“This focus has surprisingly remained largely neglected amid societal concerns about pathological media use and vulnerability to media effects such as demonstrations of physical aggression, cyberbullying, and Internet addiction,” said Blumberg, associate professor in the Division of Psychological and Educational Services at the Graduate School of Education.

The intended audience includes educators, researchers, policymakers, and media designers dedicated to examining and promoting children’s and adolescents’ cognitive growth in the digital era.

Essays in International Money and Finance: Interest Rates, Exchange Rates, Prices and the Supply of Money Within and Across Countries, by James Lothian, Ph.D. (World Scientific Publishing, 2017)

A collection of papers by Lothian, Distinguished Professor of Finance and holder of the Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets, Essays in International Money and Finance focuses on the empirical performance of international monetary and financial theory. Within the broad scope of topics, one paper focuses on a study of exchange-rate behavior over the 200-year period from 1791 to 1990.

The featured papers were written over a 40-year period and have received the attention of other scholars, said Lothian, which is why he decided to assemble them together.

“The papers share a broadness in scope of another sort, with concerns for both history and in some instances, the history of economic thought and with emphases on both open-economy and closed-economy models of economic behavior,” he said.

Ethics in Anthropology of Business, co-edited by Timothy de Waal Malefyt, Ph.D., and Robert J. Morais, Ph.D. (Routledge, 2017)

Malefyt, a clinical associate professor in the Gabelli School of Business, said that the anthropology of business is a relatively new field that takes a “cultural perspective of how people in groups may fit particular patterns.”

The timely collection of essays examines ethical challenges for anthropologists working in industries such as advertising, market research, and design. In a contributed chapter on advertising, Malefyt writes that ethics in that field can often prove complicated. He cites the popular Virginia Slims ads, which, in spite of being advertisements for cigarettes, had a positive effect on the feminist movement with their “You’ve come a long way” tag line.

“Anthropologists are good at studying cultural issues and how they impact business,” Malefyt said. “Adding ethics can be very valuable.”

Think Big with Think Alouds, by Molly Ness, Ph.D., (Corwin, 2017)

In her new book, Molly Ness, Ph.D., associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, helps elementary school teachers focus on five strategies to develop strategic reading habits and improve K-5 students’ comprehension. These include: (1) Asking questions; (2) making inferences; (3) synthesizing information; (4) understanding the author’s purpose; and (5) monitoring and clarifying. The book builds on Ness’s long-term research on reading comprehension instruction.

Specifically, she presents a three-step planning process to build teachers’ ability to “think-aloud”. In a think aloud, a proficient reader models the thinking process that s/he uses to understand a particular piece of text. The new book is based on a yearlong research study that Ness undertook with public school teachers who were simultaneously enrolled in GSE classes.  Findings from the research study showed that, although think alouds are highly effective, they are not yet commonplace in classrooms today.

(Tom Stoelker and Veronika Kero contributed to this report.)

Fordham University mourns the passing of Frank G. M. Corbin, FCRH ’50, of Pelham, New York, a public relations professional and adjunct professor who was a beloved mainstay of Fordham’s communications faculty for 59 years. He died on Oct. 17 at the age of 90.

“We’ve lost someone who was very near and dear to the department, and to Fordham,” said Lance Strate, PhD, one of many professors in the Department of Communication and Media Studies who knew him. “He was a consummate professional in public relations and as a teacher. He was really a very kind and considerate person who was always interested in finding the common ground with the person he was interacting with.”

Corbin, owner of Corbin Communications Counsel in Pelham, was a 1943 graduate of Cardinal Hayes High School and a veteran of World War II and the Battle of the Bulge. He also belonged to the group of Fordham alumni that honored their former professor, Edward A. Walsh, by creating a scholarship and a media laboratory—located on the Rose Hill campus—in his name, Strate said. Corbin sat on the committee that chose the Walsh Scholarship recipients.

“He never wavered in his loyalty to Fordham and never stopped giving back for as long as he was able to,” Strate said.

While his career was successful, teaching at Fordham was “his true passion,” according to Corbin’s obituary. For decades, ending in 2012, he taught a popular course in public relations that he was clearly proud of, colleagues said. “I don’t think I’ve ever known a human being who loved teaching as much as Frank Corbin,” said communications professor Paul Levinson, PhD. “He loved being part of the academic world, and he loved being part of Fordham.”

Corbin emphasized ethics in the course, said another colleague, communications professor Robin Andersen, PhD. He was a longtime reader of The Catholic Worker who embraced Fordham’s ethos of social justice, as well as its philosophy of cura personalis, which was invoked at his funeral on Oct. 20, she said.

“Fordham and its mission really defined Frank,” Andersen said.

Corbin’s family asked for donations in lieu of flowers to be sent to the Frank G. M. Corbin Scholarship Fund, Fordham University Development Department, c/o Michael Boyd, Rose Hill Campus, Bronx, N.Y., 10458. Gifts may also be made online.

“His strength was unwavering, his intellect was rigorous, and his selfless nature was to be admired,” his obituary said. “He was well loved, respected, and will be missed by all who knew him.”

Corbin is survived by his two children, Catherine and Peter; his daughter-in-law, Annette; and his two grandchildren, Kaitlyn and Caroline.

The University’s more active Twitter users spring from the communication and media studies department, though faculty in other disciplines are delving in as well.

All regular faculty users interviewed have one thing in common: they warily tested the waters before finding their comfort zone.

To a non-digital native, Twitter can seem like an unwieldy, hungry beast, or worse, a massive party where you can’t find your friends. Interviews with six professors demonstrate how they manage to both find friends and feed the beast.

Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies 

@paullev 

With more than 6,300 followers, Levinson tops the heap in terms of audience. It’s not surprising, considering that Levinson wrote New, New Media (Pierson, 2009, 2013). The Chronicle of Higher Educationhas named him one of “Twitter’s Top Ten High Fliers.” As a direct disciple of the late media ecology theorist Neil Postman, who taught at NYU, Levinson approaches the medium with an anthropologist’s eye.

“As John Dewey said, you learn by doing. You get to know things best when you’re inside them, and that’s a crucial point. The best way to learn Twitter is to take time to learn it and not take advice from someone else. Twitter makes it easy for any voice to be heard, and a university has a lot of voices. In the past, the only way that things got out to the public was if some gatekeeper passed approval, like an editor or producer.  This was a system intended to keep out low-quality work, but often it kept out high-quality. Twitter is a very good corrective to that. It makes me think of the line from Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.’ I’m concerned about these flowers wasting their time in the desert. Twitter allows them to be seen.”

Lance Strate, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies

@lancestrate

Strate got onto Twitter in the very early days. Another disciple of Postman, Strate’s Twitter circle includes scholars and practitioners of media ecology. Though he uses the medium proficiently for specific interests, he remains acutely aware of Twitter’s pitfalls.

“From a critical point of view, Twitter raises a lot of questions. What is the point of this medium? What is it doing? What is it undoing? I see it as abbreviated telegraphic discourse. Electronic media in general undermines the concept and practice of literacy as we’ve known it. It discourages engagement in long, measured discourse and deep reading, and it’s not about following a train of coherent thought. It often trivializes what you’re dealing with. And while it’s common to hear complaints about the ‘What-I-had-for-lunch’ tweets, more importantly, Twitter turns political discourse into slogans, quips, and sound bites. We lose the capacity for careful reasoning and clear thought. That naturally leads to more conflict-oriented communication. So, how do you evaluate that? We evaluate a tweet by how clever and economical it is, how many people it goes out to, and how often it gets re-tweeted. None of that speaks to how well it informs us, educates us, or uplifts us. You know something’s wrong when every television show has a ‘like us on Facebook’ and a ‘follow us on Twitter.’

Beth Knobel, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies

@bethknobel

Knobel spent nearly 14 years as a journalist reporting on Russia, nine of those years with CBS News (@cbsnews). She still comments as an expert in Russian affairs and tweets about it frequently, as well as on the ever-shifting media landscape. Her Twitter followers are influential experts in their fields.

“As a professor of communications it’s important to practice what I preach. Rather than mouthing off I try to use Twitter to add something to the debate going on in the profession. People appreciate it the most when it’s used to spread valuable information and not just self-promotion. I have specialized interests, but I try to tweet things that are interesting to a general public. I tweet what I know so that I’m comfortable as to my decision to add to a discussion or start one, rather than just to say what’son my mind. For news,Twitter is a double-edged sword. On one hand it encourages people to learn more if they desire by linking to articles, but I have students who follow the New York Times (@nytimes) and they think they’re informed. Unless you take that extra step you don’t get more than 140 characters. While it’s great for spreading headlines, Twitter takes action to get real knowledge.”

Christiana Peppard, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology

@profpeppard

Peppard uses Twitter as a way to expand on her niche area of research: environmental ethics with a specialization in water. She is a relative newcomer to the medium and sees it as another facet of being a public intellectual.

“I was encouraged to join Twitter about a year ago. It’s been a process of discernment, because initially I wasn’t sure if I wanted my voice out there. Recently, I realized that it’s a way for me to connect with other folks who are analyzing or aggregating information about water ethics and science. I find the 140 characters facilitate an economy of language, even like a form of poetry. I like to have a baseline of scheduled tweets (from TweetDeck). Sometimes I send out nice, interesting quotes that aren’t necessarily linked to any particular news hook. For example, when I was reading the Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man, I set up a series of ‘Daily Darwin’ quotes that were funny, suggestive, and sometimes absurd. People seem to like that. One of the things I continue to explore is how to render my Twitter voice both personal (reflective of how I proceed in the world) and professional. And that’s where the humor comes in. It humanizes my professional work.”

Robert Blechman, Ph.D., adjunct professor of communication and media studies

@rkblechman @rkbs_twitstery @twistery

Blechman stands out among tweeters beyond Fordham’s gates in that he has done the seemingly impossible: he wrote an entire novel on Twitter. As a media ecology theorist, he believes that the establishment often reacts to a new medium with trepidation. His response was to explore the Twitter medium through a familiar form, the mystery novel.

“I started writing [my novel]in Twitter as a literary experiment, which I believe was the first real-time attempt at Twitter fiction. There were some efforts to publish pre-written pieces in 140 character chunks and, of course, many Japanese cellphone novels. Though I usually posted the novel tweets in real time at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., seven days a week, I sometimes scheduled my tweets via a Twitter automation service, SocialOomph, to update the story when I couldn’t be at a computer. At times I’d reach out to [my followers]through my main character. For example, if my detective faced a difficult puzzle or was trapped by an adversary, he’d use his Twitter feed to solicit suggestions, asking ‘How do I get out of this?’  I’m now tweeting a sequel three times daily at @Twitsery.” 

Mike Plugh, GSAS ’08, lecturer in communication and media studies

@mikeplugh

Plugh teaches digital media and cyberculture. He tweets about the media, culture, and sports—especially his frustration with the Knicks.  

“I came to Fordham because it is the unofficial home of media ecology. I only say that because we probably have the largest collection of former Neil Postman (@postmanquote) students under one roof. Then of course there’s the affiliation of the late [communication theorist]Marshall McLuhan (@marshallmcluhan). The way we try to think about any emerging tech like Twitter is how it fits into the existing culture and how does it change democracy and institutions? This is something very special about Fordham (@fordhamnotes).” 

“I became a Twitter evangelist,” said Cornell, who created the first Westchester ‘Tweet-Up” in 2009 and who is now social media director for Thompson & Bender, and a columnist for Westchester’s Examiner News.

New Media panelists (l to r) Chris Cornell, Robin Colner, Paull Young and Constantin Basturea. Photo by Janet Sassi

Five years ago, Paull Young saw a Tweet asking those who cared about clean water to request donations for charity:water in lieu of gifts on their birthdays; he set up an account, blogged it out, and was able to raise enough on his birthday to finance the building of one well in Africa.

Cornell and Young were part of an expert roundtable, organized and moderated by Lance Strate, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies, that helped launch the Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies’ (PCS) new program, Professional Studies in New Media, on May 31.

Panelists were unanimous in their view, which was, as social networks proliferate and the cyber universe expands, businesses and institutions need to do one thing to stay competitive: dip in and be there or risk being left behind.

“A lot of people are naysayers to social media, and they don’t see the benefits and refuse to get into it,” said Cornell. “The only way you can really see the full opportunities that social media present is to look at them from within. Every time you take a step, it brings new opportunities to leverage and magnify.”

The PCS’ new program, housed at the Westchester campus, focuses on developing new media expertise through courses such as Digital Design for New Media, Social Media Marketing, New Media Metrics, and Issues and Ethics in Cyberspace.

With the recent IPO of Facebook, and the exponential development of new networking platforms, organizations have untapped opportunities for selling products, tracking customers/followers, raising funds, and building brands, panelists said.

Young, who is now charity:water’s director of Digital Engagement, said the non-profit company does 75 percent of its fundraising on line. The organization, dedicated to bringing clean water to people worldwide, is planning to raise $25 million this year.

He described the power of social media, referencing a blog that was posted recently by a mother who was proud of her daughter for raising $362 for charity work: the girl wrote “Giving up my presents was really easy . . . I don’t need all that stuff.”

He reposted the girl’s comments, and people donated even more.

“That’s a movement. And that is social media amplifying word-of mouth,” said Young, who helped charity:water become the first non-profit to have one million Twitter followers.

Niche platforms, said panelists Constantin Basturea, vice-president for Strategy, Converseon, and Robin Colner, president and founder of DigiStar Media, are likely to become more valuable resources in the future. Pinterest, said Colner, offers a market that is 87 percent female, between the ages of 24 and 45, and whose time on site is an hour and a half, whereas time on a mass platform like Google Plus is “maybe three minutes?”

The cyberworld will continue to be “very fragmented” said Basturea, which is another reason why keeping abreast of new media is important.

“Is this madness going to end? No. Are there going to be less platforms? Yes, if you consider less being 500 versus 1500,” he said. “You have to figure out if there is value for you or your clients in a platform, and at what point in your client’s development, or the platform’s development, it makes sense to jump on the bandwagon.”

Strate, who directs the Professional Studies in New Media program, said the program will sponsor more roundtables in the fall. For more information on PCS ‘ Professional Studies in New Media, visit the website.

Strate has published a new book, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study (Hampton Press, 2006), that will likely glean him honors of the more conventional sort for an academic and writer. The book, according to Strate, is the first major overview of media ecology as a field of study, covering the field’s seminal figures, Marshall McLuhan, the Jesuit scholar Walter Ong, and Neil Postman, and offers a case study of the concept of self from a media ecology point of view, and based in part on his experiences as the parent of an autistic child.

“Media ecology is the best way to understand what it means to be human—not the last hundred years, but from prehistory to the modern day,” Strate said, discussing what drew him to the field. “Media ecology looks at the whole human environment, especially the nexus between communication and technology. And it deals with the big questions: what we are about as a species, and the nature of the universe.”

While the field originated in the 1960s, the last decade has seen its largest and most rapid expansion. The 1990s saw renewed interest in Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman, and the field’s scholarly organization, the Media Ecology Association (MEA), was only founded in 1998, at Fordham University. Strate is the association’s founding president, in fact, and received his doctorate under Postman at New York University. As intellectual pedigrees go, Strate’s is pretty impressive.

Strate has also written and edited a number of books, monographs and reports in his field, including the book, The Legacy of McLuhan, edited with Edward Wachtel, Ph.D., associate professor of communication and media studies at Fordham; and a report, Myths, Men, and Beer: An Analysis of Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television, 1987, co-authored with Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom and Charles Weingartner. He has a new book forthcoming from Hampton Press, Cybertheory and the Ecology of Digital Media, edited with Susan B. Barnes.

“Back in 1968, [Neil] Postman emphasized the survival value of media ecology as a scholarly activity,” Strate told colleagues at third annual convention of the Media Ecology Association at Marymount Manhattan College in 2002. “He did so, not because media ecologists have all of the answers. They didn’t back then, and we still don’t today. Rather, it is because media ecology scholars ask the right questions. That is who we are, that is what we do, and that is how we can make a difference.