Research on the Media

Books

Forthcoming book

Mummery, J & Rodan, D. (forthcoming, 2020). Imagining new human-animal futures in Australia. (contracted to Peter Lang, London)

Scholarly books published by Associate Professor Debbie Rodan as lead author

Activism and digital culture in Australia

Activists use digital as well as mainstream media tools to attract supporters, advertise their campaigns, and raise awareness of issues in the broader community. Activism and Digital Culture in Australia examines the use of digital tools and culture by Australian and international activist organisations to facilitate public engagement, participation and deliberation in issues and advance social change. In particular the book engages media studies, cultural studies, social theory and various ethical and political philosophical perspectives to examine the use of digital multi-platform tools by activist organisations and advocates for social change to a) disseminate information and raise public awareness; b) invoke, inform and shape public debate through the provision of information and invocation of affect; and c) garner public support (including funding) for issues and for associated social change. Engaging both qualitative and quantitative approaches, these case studies will demonstrate the richness of digital culture for activism and advocacy, examining the use by activist organisations of such digital media tools as apps, blogging, Facebook, RSS, Twitter, and YouTube. The shows that digital culture offers productive mechanisms and spaces for the reshaping of society itself to take more of a participatory role in progressing social change.

Rodan, D. & Mummery, J. (2018) Activism and digital culture in Australia. London, England: Rowman & Littlefield.
www.rowman.com

Disability, obesity and ageing: Popular media identifications

Disability, Obesity and Ageing offers an engaging account of a new area of pressing concern, analysing the way in which 'spurned' identities are depicted and reacted to in televisual genres and online forums. Examining the symbolic power of the media, this book presents case studies from drama, situation comedies, reality and documentary television programmes popular in the UK, USA and Australia to shed light on the representation of disability, obesity and ageing, and the manner in which their status as unwanted and unwelcome identities is perpetuated. A theoretically sophisticated exploration of television as a translator of identity, and the exploration of identity categories in allied virtual spaces, this book will be of interest to sociologists, as well as scholars of popular culture, and cultural and media studies.

Rodan, D. Ellis, K & Lebeck, P (2014). Disability, obesity and ageing: Popular media identifications. London, UK: Ashgate.
www.routledge.com

Identity and justice: Conflicts, contradictions and contingencies

Debbie Rodan adds breadth and depth to the field of literary, cultural and gender studies through a meticulous investigation of notions such as re-presentation, justice and legitimation. She examines their historical and philosophical trajectories as well as their politico-juridical underpinnings through an ambitious and timely recuperation of the Enlightenment projects of rationality and emancipation. The point of departure is a critical engagement with the theoretical work of John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-Francois Lyotard. Rodan claims each can be read as foregrounding diverse ways of constituting identity within the social world. Recognition of other people's identity at the social, cultural and national level is crucial to the possibility of justice. Rodan tests the concepts of justice, legitimation and identity through detailed critical readings/analyses of a range of texts. The range includes the film East is East, a number of auto/biographical narratives as well as the Australian government report, Bringing Them Home, which is concerned with the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. She avoids polarising Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal notions of justice, identity etc. by including texts which raise and problematise questions of ethnicity and gender