Making the University Matter (Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media Studies)

Making the University Matter investigates how academics situate themselves simultaneously in the university and the world and how doing so affects the viability of the university setting.

The university stands at the intersection of two sets of interests, needing to be at one with the world while aspiring to stand apart from it. In an era that promises intensified political instability, growing administrative pressures, dwindling economic returns and questions about economic viability, lower enrolments and shrinking programs, can the university continue to matter into the future? And if so, in which way? What will help it survive as an honest broker? What are the mechanisms for ensuring its independent voice?

Barbie Zelizer brings together some of the leading names in the field of media and communication studies from around the globe to consider a multiplicity of answers from across the curriculum on making the university matter, including critical scholarship, interdisciplinarity, curricular blends of the humanities and social sciences, practical training and policy work.

The collection is introduced with an essay by the editor and each section has a brief introduction to contextualise the essays and highlight the issues they raise.

Barbie Zelizer is Professor of Communication and holds the Raymond Williams Chair of Communication. A former journalist, Zelizer's work focuses on the cultural dimensions of journalism, with a specific interest in journalistic authority, collective memory, and journalistic images in times of crisis and war. She is also co-editor and founder of the journal Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism (Sage) and has served on the editorial boards of numerous book series and journals, including Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Popular Communication, and Critical and Cultural Studies in Communication. Zelizer has lectured widely both internationally and nationally, and her essays on the media have appeared in The Nation, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Newsday, and other publications. Author and editor of seven books and some 40 articles and book chapters, Zelizer's work has been translated into French, Hebrew, German, Portuguese and Japanese.