1st Edition
Doing Public Scholarship A Practical Guide to Media Engagement
A basic premise of public scholarship is making academic work and related ideas accessible and available to publics. Media engagement, whether interviews with news journalists, or the use of hashtags, is a necessary feature of any public scholarship. Media formats play a fundamental and interactive role in how people ultimately come to view and understand the social world, having had a discernable influence on election outcomes, responses to global pandemics, and so on. The question is not whether scholars should engage with media but how to do so. Drawing on fifteen years of experience that includes hundreds of print, radio, and television news interviews, dozens of published opinion pieces, and the use of social media for public engagement, this book outlines a practical, easy-to-follow approach to doing public sociology in media that consists of, and brings together, interrelated forms of media engagement. This book also offers some advice pertaining to career advancement and provides strategies to avoid negative experiences. Doing Public Scholarship will be of general interest to those wanting to go public with their research.
About the Author
List of Figures
Preface
Introduction: Toward a Mediated Public Scholarship
1 Crafting a Postjournalism Research Agenda
2 Interacting with News Journalists
3 The Op-Ed Game
4 Some Negative Consequences of Doing Public Scholarship (with Erick Laming)
5 E-Public Sociology and Public Engagement
Conclusion: Mediated Public Scholarship
Bibliography
Biography
Christopher J. Schneider, Ph.D., is an award-winning professor of sociology at Brandon University. He has published six books and over 100 scholarly papers, opinion pieces, reviews, and essays. A frequent contributor to media, his work has appeared in more than 600 news segments and reports including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
“Public sociologist Christopher J. Schneider has written a user-friendly primer from A to Z on everything you wanted to know about doing a whole range of public sociologies and how to engage with all forms of mediated scholarship. He has also done an excellent job of sharing his personal and reflexive experiences in fifteen years of doing newsmaking sociology. A must read for academics who want to go public with their scholarship.” - Gregg Barak, author of Chronicles of a Radical Criminologist and Criminology on Trump
“Doing Public Scholarship should be mandatory reading for every scholar and every graduate student across the world. Written by someone who actually does public scholarship—rather than just debates about it—this practical book will appeal to not just sociologists but any social scientist who cares about making their research matter.”- Phillip Vannini, Royal Roads University
“Public sociologist Christopher J. Schneider draws on his experience with media gatekeepers and formats to help navigate the cultural spheres that are often uninterested, foreboding, and outside the reach of most academics. Clear writing about his personal examples will help researchers get the word out to the public." - David L. Altheide, author of Gonzo Governance: The Media Logic of Donald Trump
“Professor Schneider was a regular guest on my afternoon talk radio show where he presented his research and provided accessible analysis for my listeners. This book will be of great interest to anyone who wants to learn how to get their research and scholarly ideas into the media.” - Jessica Samuels, former radio host and producer of “Jacked In” on AM1150
