After a year away spent finishing my dissertation and starting my first year as an assistant professor, I’ve restarted this blog. And, after losing some of the data to a hacking, I’ve tried to clean it up. While it’s not perfect, it’s a space where I can start gathering thoughts for future work.

Much of this blog contributed to my thoughts and words in my forthcoming book and I hope will serve a similar purpose in the future — particularly in terms of scholarship on news as a form of social control.

Enjoy!

Like I don’t have enough to do with my dissertation, community organizing, and everything else, I have decided to start mapping Iowa City. It won’t be as great as other projects, such as Bostonography, but I have been inspired by dissertation research and mental mapping that I have been doing in the community that I thought it would be interesting to see how we can look at our own community in different ways.

So, while not about news, per se, this project does take my dissertation research into place-making among journalists as interpretive communities and placing it into a form of public scholarship. Above, for instance, is the start of mapping Iowa City bus lines as part of an effort to get the city to revisit its busing policies.

Any thoughts are welcome.