Lisa Parks (media scholar)

Lisa Parks
Lisa Parks at Berkeley Center for New Media in 2013
Title Professor of Comparative Media Studies
Awards MacArthur Fellowship
Academic background
Education University of Montana
Alma mater University of Wisconsin–Madison
Thesis Cultures in Orbit: Satellite Technologies, Global Media and Local Practice (1998)
Academic work
Discipline Media Studies
Institutions
Main interests Media, information technology, surveillance
Notable works Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual
Website lisaparks.mit.edu

Lisa Ann Parks is an American media scholar who won a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in 2018 for "exploring the global reach of information technology infrastructures".[1] A professor of Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Parks is director of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab.

Contributions

Parks's research examines the effects of technologies such as satellites, remote sensing, and drones on society. Her 2005 book Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual showed how the rise of satellites in television, warfare, and astronomy led to a more globalized understanding of the world among viewers, but also provided new opportunities to filter what people could see.[2] Choice praised Cultures in Orbit as a "fascinating study of satellite information gathering" but also noted that "the book's academic, jargon-filled style puts this interesting discussion beyond the reach of inexperienced readers."[3]

In 2018 she published the book Rethinking Media Coverage: Vertical Mediation and the War on Terror, which explores how TV news, airport checkpoints, satellite imagery, and drone media generate forms of "'coverage' that make vertical space intelligible to global publics in new ways and powerfully reveals what is at stake in controlling it."[4] Parks also co-edited the books Life in the Age of Drone Warfare with Caren Kaplan and Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures with Nicole Starosielski. Parks explores "how greater understanding of media systems can inform and assist citizens, scholars and policymakers in the US and abroad to advance campaigns for technological literacy, creative expression, social justice, and human rights."[5]

Education and career

Parks grew up in Missoula, Montana, and earned a bachelor of arts in Political Science and History at the University of Montana.[6] She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1998.[7] She previously worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara but moved to MIT in 2016.[8][9]

Bibliography

  • Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual (Duke University Press, 2005) ISBN 9780822334972
  • (Co-editor, with Nicole Starosielski) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures (University of Illinois Press, 2015) ISBN 9780252080876
  • (Co-editor, with Caren Kaplan) Life in the Age of Drone Warfare (Duke University Press, 2017) ISBN 9780822369738
  • Rethinking Media Coverage: Vertical Mediation and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2018) ISBN 9780415999823

References

  1. ↑ "Lisa Parks: Media Scholar". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  2. ↑ Christophers, Brett (2007). "Media Geography's Dualities". Cultural Geographies. 14 (1). doi:10.1177/1474474007072825.
  3. ↑ Cathcart, R. (2005). "Cultures in orbit: satellites and the televisual". Choice. Vol. 43 no. 4. p. 652.
  4. ↑ "Rethinking Media Coverage". Routledge. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Lisa Parks | MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing". MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing. October 5, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  6. ↑ Inbody, Kristen (October 4, 2018). "University of Montana grad named MacArthur genius, plans research on Blackfeet Reservation". Great Falls Tribune. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  7. ↑ Parks, Lisa Ann (1998). Cultures in orbit: Satellite technologies, global media and local practice (Ph.D.). University of Wisconsin–Madison. OCLC 609021377.
  8. ↑ Levenson, Michael (October 4, 2018). "Several figures with Boston-area ties among 2018 MacArthur fellows". Boston Globe. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab: People". MIT Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
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