Stephen Barnard, associate professor and chair of sociology, recently had his second book published, All Media are Social - Sociological Perspectives on Mass Media.
From TV to smartphone apps to movies to newspapers, mass media are nearly omnipresent in contemporary life and act as a powerful social institution. This introduction to media sociology encourages readers to think critically about the power of big media companies, state-media relations, new developments in journalism, representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in media, and what social media may or may not be doing to our brains, among other topics. With a strong emphasis on theory and methods, Barnard and his co-author, Andrew M. Lindner from Skidmore College, provide students and general readers alike with the tools to better understand the ever-changing media landscape.
The book, published by Routledge, was written with a primary audience of students in mind and Barnard plans to use it when teaching his First-Year Seminar, Fake News, Real Facts, as well as when he teaches Sociology 169: Media and Society. Other courses Barnard teaches include Culture and Identity in the Digital Age and Media and Power.
Barnard's first book, Citizens at the Gates: Twitter, Networked Publics, and the Transformation of American Journalism, was published in 2018 and draws insights from nearly a decade of mixed-method research, analyzing Twitter’s role in the transformation of American journalism.
Barnard received his B.A. (2005), M.A. (2007) and Ph.D. (2012) at the University of Missouri and joined St. Lawrence's Department of Sociology as an assistant professor in 2014.
