KEVIN HOWLEY is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in “Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism,” “Social Movement Studies,” and “Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture.” He is the author and editor of several books including “Media Interventions” and “Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.” Phone: 765.658.4491 Address: DePauw University Department of Communication 0304 GCPA 600 S. Locust St. Greencastle, IN 46135 USA
A filmmaker wrestles with a pervading sense of dread and temporal disjuncture in the time of Covi... more A filmmaker wrestles with a pervading sense of dread and temporal disjuncture in the time of Covid-19. Inspired by true events.
Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination starts with a basic premise: technology shapes a... more Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination starts with a basic premise: technology shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell about it. Stories about drones – at once anxious and hopeful, fearful and awe-inspired – are emblematic of the profound ambivalence that frequently accompanies the introduction of new technologies. Through critical analysis of a variety of cultural forms – from newspaper headlines, nightly newscasts, and documentary films to advertising, entertainment media, and graphic arts — this book demonstrates the prevalence of drones in global battlefields and domestic airspace, public discourse and the popular imagination. Written in a lively, engaging and accessible style, Kevin Howley argues that media discourse plays a decisive role in shaping these new technologies, understanding their application in various spheres of human activity, and integrating them into everyday life. Doing so, Howley highlights the relationship between discursive and material practice in the social construction of technology.
This collection of essays, the first book-length treatment of its kind, explicates the concept of... more This collection of essays, the first book-length treatment of its kind, explicates the concept of “media interventions” herein defined as activities and projects that secure, exercise, challenge or acquire media power for tactical and strategic action.
Drawing on insights from media, communication and cultural studies, contributors offer penetrating analyses of media interventions in a variety of social, political, and cultural settings from culture jamming and DIY media, to public relations campaigns and reality television shows. In doing so, the volume develops an analytical framework for examining the complex and contradictory operation of media power in contemporary society.
Aiming to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the uneven, fluid and heterogeneous operation of media power, this volume breaks new ground on the theory and practice of media interventions as well as contributing to, and stimulating the development of a productive line of inquiry into the study of media interventions.
With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promisi... more With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promising young scholars, this comprehensive volume examines community-based media from theoretical, empirical, and practical perspectives. More than 30 original essays provide an incisive and timely analysis of the relationships between media and society, technology and culture, and communication and community.
While transnational conglomerates consolidate their control of the global mediascape, local commu... more While transnational conglomerates consolidate their control of the global mediascape, local communities struggle to create democratic media systems. This groundbreaking study of community media combines original research with comparative and theoretical analysis in an engaging and accessible style. Kevin Howley explores the different ways in which local communities come to make use of various technologies such as radio, television, print and computer networks for purposes of community communication and considers the ways these technologies shape, and are shaped by, the everyday lived experience of local populations. He also addresses broader theoretical and philosophical issues surrounding the relationship between communication and community, media systems and the public sphere. Case studies illustrate the pivotal role community media play in promoting cultural production and communicative democracy within and between local communities. This book will make a significant contribution to existing scholarship in media and cultural studies on alternative, participatory and community-based media.
Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hand... more Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hands, and participatory culture became an academic and industry buzzword, community media have provided everyday people access to the channels of public communication. From a historical perspective, then, community media constitute a prefigurative form of contemporary social media practice: a dynamic, contested, and frequently messy means of cultural expression, civic engagement, and democratic communication. Unsurprisingly, scholars and practitioners employ an assortment of terms, such as “alternative,” “citizens,’” “grassroots,” “participatory,” and “radical,” to explain how and why local populations make use of electronic media for community communication. Despite or perhaps because of these disparate labels, and the inferences and emphases associated with each, researchers take an interdisciplinary approach to community media studies, including but not limited to perspectives from polit...
This article explores the use of humor in the context of multiple crises in higher education. Spe... more This article explores the use of humor in the context of multiple crises in higher education. Specifically, I examine recent instances of campus humor – understood here as a pragmatic, underutilized, and under appreciated approach to crisis intervention.
This post considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short A Message from the Future wi... more This post considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (2019, dir. Crabapple, Lewis & Feeney). Understood here as creative practices that support dominant structures and ideologies, or which offer alternative ways of seeing, feeling, and acting in the world, “cultural work” operates at the intersection of art and politics (Banks, 2007). Presented by author and activist Naomi Klein, in association with the online news outlet The Intercept, the film illustrates what American society would look like, decades from now, when the Green New Deal has radically transformed not only our habitat but also our entire way of life. In what follows, I examine the discursive strategies and practices employed by this animated film, with an eye toward evaluating the political value of “critical utopianism” (Ashcroft, 2007) in the face of climate catastrophe. Doing so, I consider how, and to what ends, this “media intervention” (Howl...
This essay considers the relafion of cultural studies to undergraduates and undergraduate educafi... more This essay considers the relafion of cultural studies to undergraduates and undergraduate educafion. Specifically, I discuss my experience teaching a course that explores contemporary American culture through an engagement with an emerging body ...
This article explores the cultural dynamics of the microradio movement in the USA. Viewed in the ... more This article explores the cultural dynamics of the microradio movement in the USA. Viewed in the wider context of political economy and participatory democracy, I argue that the microradio movement is an expression of the felt need of local populations to reconnect with the civic and cultural life of their communities. Furthermore, I contend that the unique features of the medium - its ubiquity, low-cost and low-tech credentials - make microradio particularly well suited to meet the needs of diverse urban neighborhoods and underserved rural communities alike. The article concludes that, in its efforts to reinvent radio as a vehicle of participatory democracy and a resource for community development, the microradio movement not only demonstrates the medium's significance to our understanding of community, democracy and citizenship, but underscores the role media activism plays as an agent of progressive social change. �
Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies, 2022
Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hand... more Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hands, and participatory culture became an academic and industry buzzword, community media have provided everyday people access to the channels of public communication. For purposes of this bibliography, we begin with work that takes up conceptual issues in community media studies. Next, this article considers various forms of community media: broadcast radio and television, cable access TV and participatory video, computer-mediated communication, and more recent innovations associated with digital technologies. Subsequent sections consider ethnic, diasporic, and Indigenous community media respectively. The final section demonstrates that community media is a rich, if somewhat neglected site of local, national, and global cultural politics. Throughout, this bibliography aims to guide readers to some of the more compelling, revealing, and illustrative literature on community media.
This essay examines a variety of approaches to teaching about and with alternative media across a... more This essay examines a variety of approaches to teaching about and with alternative media across a media studies curriculum. I locate this discussion in the context of ongoing debates surrounding the theory and practice of critical media literacy (Kellner and Share, 2005; Lewis and Jhally, 1998). The essay proceeds with examples of teaching (with) alternative media in two courses: an introductory media studies course and a video production class. Throughout, I highlight the role alternative media play in educating students about the political economy of media, the cultural politics of media representation, and the relationship between media, citizenship, and social movements.
A filmmaker wrestles with a pervading sense of dread and temporal disjuncture in the time of Covi... more A filmmaker wrestles with a pervading sense of dread and temporal disjuncture in the time of Covid-19. Inspired by true events.
Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination starts with a basic premise: technology shapes a... more Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination starts with a basic premise: technology shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell about it. Stories about drones – at once anxious and hopeful, fearful and awe-inspired – are emblematic of the profound ambivalence that frequently accompanies the introduction of new technologies. Through critical analysis of a variety of cultural forms – from newspaper headlines, nightly newscasts, and documentary films to advertising, entertainment media, and graphic arts — this book demonstrates the prevalence of drones in global battlefields and domestic airspace, public discourse and the popular imagination. Written in a lively, engaging and accessible style, Kevin Howley argues that media discourse plays a decisive role in shaping these new technologies, understanding their application in various spheres of human activity, and integrating them into everyday life. Doing so, Howley highlights the relationship between discursive and material practice in the social construction of technology.
This collection of essays, the first book-length treatment of its kind, explicates the concept of... more This collection of essays, the first book-length treatment of its kind, explicates the concept of “media interventions” herein defined as activities and projects that secure, exercise, challenge or acquire media power for tactical and strategic action.
Drawing on insights from media, communication and cultural studies, contributors offer penetrating analyses of media interventions in a variety of social, political, and cultural settings from culture jamming and DIY media, to public relations campaigns and reality television shows. In doing so, the volume develops an analytical framework for examining the complex and contradictory operation of media power in contemporary society.
Aiming to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the uneven, fluid and heterogeneous operation of media power, this volume breaks new ground on the theory and practice of media interventions as well as contributing to, and stimulating the development of a productive line of inquiry into the study of media interventions.
With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promisi... more With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promising young scholars, this comprehensive volume examines community-based media from theoretical, empirical, and practical perspectives. More than 30 original essays provide an incisive and timely analysis of the relationships between media and society, technology and culture, and communication and community.
While transnational conglomerates consolidate their control of the global mediascape, local commu... more While transnational conglomerates consolidate their control of the global mediascape, local communities struggle to create democratic media systems. This groundbreaking study of community media combines original research with comparative and theoretical analysis in an engaging and accessible style. Kevin Howley explores the different ways in which local communities come to make use of various technologies such as radio, television, print and computer networks for purposes of community communication and considers the ways these technologies shape, and are shaped by, the everyday lived experience of local populations. He also addresses broader theoretical and philosophical issues surrounding the relationship between communication and community, media systems and the public sphere. Case studies illustrate the pivotal role community media play in promoting cultural production and communicative democracy within and between local communities. This book will make a significant contribution to existing scholarship in media and cultural studies on alternative, participatory and community-based media.
Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hand... more Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hands, and participatory culture became an academic and industry buzzword, community media have provided everyday people access to the channels of public communication. From a historical perspective, then, community media constitute a prefigurative form of contemporary social media practice: a dynamic, contested, and frequently messy means of cultural expression, civic engagement, and democratic communication. Unsurprisingly, scholars and practitioners employ an assortment of terms, such as “alternative,” “citizens,’” “grassroots,” “participatory,” and “radical,” to explain how and why local populations make use of electronic media for community communication. Despite or perhaps because of these disparate labels, and the inferences and emphases associated with each, researchers take an interdisciplinary approach to community media studies, including but not limited to perspectives from polit...
This article explores the use of humor in the context of multiple crises in higher education. Spe... more This article explores the use of humor in the context of multiple crises in higher education. Specifically, I examine recent instances of campus humor – understood here as a pragmatic, underutilized, and under appreciated approach to crisis intervention.
This post considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short A Message from the Future wi... more This post considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (2019, dir. Crabapple, Lewis & Feeney). Understood here as creative practices that support dominant structures and ideologies, or which offer alternative ways of seeing, feeling, and acting in the world, “cultural work” operates at the intersection of art and politics (Banks, 2007). Presented by author and activist Naomi Klein, in association with the online news outlet The Intercept, the film illustrates what American society would look like, decades from now, when the Green New Deal has radically transformed not only our habitat but also our entire way of life. In what follows, I examine the discursive strategies and practices employed by this animated film, with an eye toward evaluating the political value of “critical utopianism” (Ashcroft, 2007) in the face of climate catastrophe. Doing so, I consider how, and to what ends, this “media intervention” (Howl...
This essay considers the relafion of cultural studies to undergraduates and undergraduate educafi... more This essay considers the relafion of cultural studies to undergraduates and undergraduate educafion. Specifically, I discuss my experience teaching a course that explores contemporary American culture through an engagement with an emerging body ...
This article explores the cultural dynamics of the microradio movement in the USA. Viewed in the ... more This article explores the cultural dynamics of the microradio movement in the USA. Viewed in the wider context of political economy and participatory democracy, I argue that the microradio movement is an expression of the felt need of local populations to reconnect with the civic and cultural life of their communities. Furthermore, I contend that the unique features of the medium - its ubiquity, low-cost and low-tech credentials - make microradio particularly well suited to meet the needs of diverse urban neighborhoods and underserved rural communities alike. The article concludes that, in its efforts to reinvent radio as a vehicle of participatory democracy and a resource for community development, the microradio movement not only demonstrates the medium's significance to our understanding of community, democracy and citizenship, but underscores the role media activism plays as an agent of progressive social change. �
Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies, 2022
Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hand... more Long before digital devices put the means of media production and distribution into “users’” hands, and participatory culture became an academic and industry buzzword, community media have provided everyday people access to the channels of public communication. For purposes of this bibliography, we begin with work that takes up conceptual issues in community media studies. Next, this article considers various forms of community media: broadcast radio and television, cable access TV and participatory video, computer-mediated communication, and more recent innovations associated with digital technologies. Subsequent sections consider ethnic, diasporic, and Indigenous community media respectively. The final section demonstrates that community media is a rich, if somewhat neglected site of local, national, and global cultural politics. Throughout, this bibliography aims to guide readers to some of the more compelling, revealing, and illustrative literature on community media.
This essay examines a variety of approaches to teaching about and with alternative media across a... more This essay examines a variety of approaches to teaching about and with alternative media across a media studies curriculum. I locate this discussion in the context of ongoing debates surrounding the theory and practice of critical media literacy (Kellner and Share, 2005; Lewis and Jhally, 1998). The essay proceeds with examples of teaching (with) alternative media in two courses: an introductory media studies course and a video production class. Throughout, I highlight the role alternative media play in educating students about the political economy of media, the cultural politics of media representation, and the relationship between media, citizenship, and social movements.
“Ground the Drones: Direct Action and Media Activism.” In Athina Karatzogianni, Ioanna Ferra & Mi... more “Ground the Drones: Direct Action and Media Activism.” In Athina Karatzogianni, Ioanna Ferra & Michael Schandorf (Eds.), Protest Technologies and Media Revolutions: The Longue Durée. Bingley: Emerald Publishing (2020): 127-139.
Introduction A snapshot, not unlike countless photographs likely to be found in any number of fam... more Introduction A snapshot, not unlike countless photographs likely to be found in any number of family albums, shows two figures sitting on a park bench: an elderly and amiable looking man grins beneath the rim of a golf cap; a young boy of twelve smiles wide for the camera — a rather banal scene, captured on film. And yet, this seemingly innocent and unexceptional photograph was the site of a remarkable and wide ranging discourse — encompassing American conservatism, celebrity politics, and the end of the Cold War — as the image circulated around the globe during the weeklong state funeral of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States. Taken in 1997 by the young boy’s grandfather, Ukrainian immigrant Yakov Ravin, during a chance encounter with the former president, the snapshot is believed to be the last public photograph of Ronald Reagan. Published on the occasion of the president’s death, the photograph made “instant celebrities” of the boy, now a twenty-year-old col...
Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, 2019
Drawing on the long history of politically committed documentary, Brave New Films combines tradit... more Drawing on the long history of politically committed documentary, Brave New Films combines traditional and emergent production methods with innovative approaches to online distribution and grassroots exhibition aimed at ‘creating media that makes an impact’. In what follows, I argue that Unmanned, Brave New Films’ screen intervention into the highly circumscribed debate over drone warfare, opens discursive space for human rights lawyers, international relations experts, and witnesses of drone strikes to alert the American people of the legal, strategic and ethical implications of the targeted killing programme. Whether or not Unmanned effects lasting or substantive policy change is, for present purposes, beside the point. Rather, my principal concern is to demonstrate the film’s achievement in subverting the dominant discourse surrounding the precision, accuracy and efficacy of US drone strikes.
This short paper considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short "A Message from the F... more This short paper considers the cultural work taken up in the animated short "A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez" and its engagement with critical utopian thought to support the Green New Deal.
This paper examines the discursive strategies and practices behind a United States Air Force (USA... more This paper examines the discursive strategies and practices behind a United States Air Force (USAF) recruitment commercial featuring a new generation of hi-tech weapon systems: Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), better known as drones. I contend the advertisement’s persuasive appeal, drawn from the visual style and aesthetics of action-adventure films and video war games, articulates the admixture of awe and fear, apprehension and wonder that shapes public understanding of drone technology.
Based on insights drawn from a career marked by the precarity of a critical media scholar working... more Based on insights drawn from a career marked by the precarity of a critical media scholar working on the margins of both industry and academia, this paper advances an inside-outside strategy for organizing media (studies) labor in the neoliberal moment. Specifically, the paper promotes a coalition model of media praxis that leverages the collective passions and expertise of media workers to resist, reject, and reconfigure neoliberal approaches to higher education. In contrast to conservative forces that weaponize media and cultural studies to advance a corporatist agenda favoring instrumentalism over critical inquiry, I advocate an approach that puts creativity, collaboration and connectivity at the center of media studies scholarship and practice.
Paper presented at the Labour of Media (Studies) conference, Montreal, November, 2018.
This paper adapts the concept of “distributed intimacy” in an effort to identify and analyze uneq... more This paper adapts the concept of “distributed intimacy” in an effort to identify and analyze unequal relations of power/knowledge in the mediated relationships articulated by drone warfare. Throughout, I contend this notion enhances our understanding of the authoritarian logic of disembodied control at a distance underpinning America’s drone campaign. Based on an examination of press accounts, broadcast interviews, and documentary films, this paper identifies drone whistleblowers – whose intimate testimony exposes the physical, emotional, and psychological brutality of drone warfare – as central actors in the formation of an alternative order of discourse surrounding weaponized drones. The paper concludes with an assessment of the personal and institutional challenges confronting the ranks of remote-control warriors as Donald Trump, one of the most authoritarian figures in recent American history, assumes the office of the presidency, and with it, command and control of the US drone program.
Paper presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research, Eugene, Oregon, June, 2018.
Drawing on previous work that examines resistance to the US drone program through direct action a... more Drawing on previous work that examines resistance to the US drone program through direct action and media activism, this paper analyzes the interventionist practice of Brave New Films (BNF). Specifically, the paper considers the discursive and political significance of the new media company's eighth feature-length documentary Unmanned: America's Drone Wars (2013). Throughout, I contend BNF's screen intervention into the highly circumscribed debate over drone warfare opens discursive space for human rights lawyers, international relations experts, and witnesses of drone strikes across the Muslim world to alert the American people of the legal, strategic, and moral hazards of the targeted killing program. The paper is organized as follows. First, I situate the film in relation to the literature on social change documentary and digital media activism. Following this, I analyze the strategy and tactics Brave New Films employs in its screen intervention; most notably, filmmaker Robert Greenwald's collaborative approach to investigating US drone strikes, and the production and online distribution of eyewitness testimony of these assaults. In contrast to commercial and corporate media, the film eschews official sources and relies instead on expert testimony from human rights workers, as well as the lived experience of victims, survivors, and a former drone operator. Next, I consider the significance of the film's screening at the first-ever House subcommittee meeting on targeted killing. Despite the failure of this intervention to effect policy change, the film's mode of inquiry, its online distribution, and strategic deployment in the halls of Congress proved instrumental in amplifying critical perspectives on the use of drones in US counterinsurgency operations. The paper concludes with an assessment of the limits and possibilities of screen(ing) interventions designed to raise public awareness of the implications of drone warfare at home and abroad.
This chapter situates community media in relation to Habermas' seminal concept of the public sphe... more This chapter situates community media in relation to Habermas' seminal concept of the public sphere. Mini case studies illuminate the social, political and cultural significance of community media across the globe.
Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising, 2019
This paper presents a case study in satirical news – Harry Shearer’s long-running, weekly radio p... more This paper presents a case study in satirical news – Harry Shearer’s long-running, weekly radio program, Le Show – to examine the increasingly intertwined and interdependent relationship between alternative journalism and mainstream political news content. Employing content and discourse analysis of a single episode – one which typifies Le Show’s style and structure – this paper aims to demonstrate the political value and cultural significance of “alternative journalism” in the satirical register. Throughout, I argue that Le Show is emblematic of the political and cultural challenge alternative media represents to mainstream news content and practices.
“Ground the Drones: Direct Action and Media Activism.” In Athina Karatzogianni, Ioanna Ferra & Mi... more “Ground the Drones: Direct Action and Media Activism.” In Athina Karatzogianni, Ioanna Ferra & Michael Schandorf (Eds.), Protest Technologies and Media Revolutions: The Longue Durée. Bingley: Emerald Publishing (2020): 127-139.
In recent weeks, college students across the country have raised their voices in support of the P... more In recent weeks, college students across the country have raised their voices in support of the Palestinian people, whose collective punishment at the hands of the Israeli government and their enablers in the United States and across Western Europe is both shameful and horrific. For conservative culture warriors, pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses are a gift that keeps giving.
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Videos by Kevin Howley
Experimental/Speculative Memoir
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Books by Kevin Howley
Drawing on insights from media, communication and cultural studies, contributors offer penetrating analyses of media interventions in a variety of social, political, and cultural settings from culture jamming and DIY media, to public relations campaigns and reality television shows. In doing so, the volume develops an analytical framework for examining the complex and contradictory operation of media power in contemporary society.
Aiming to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the uneven, fluid and heterogeneous operation of media power, this volume breaks new ground on the theory and practice of media interventions as well as contributing to, and stimulating the development of a productive line of inquiry into the study of media interventions.
Papers by Kevin Howley
Experimental/Speculative Memoir
4:58
Drawing on insights from media, communication and cultural studies, contributors offer penetrating analyses of media interventions in a variety of social, political, and cultural settings from culture jamming and DIY media, to public relations campaigns and reality television shows. In doing so, the volume develops an analytical framework for examining the complex and contradictory operation of media power in contemporary society.
Aiming to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the uneven, fluid and heterogeneous operation of media power, this volume breaks new ground on the theory and practice of media interventions as well as contributing to, and stimulating the development of a productive line of inquiry into the study of media interventions.
Paper presented at the Labour of Media (Studies) conference, Montreal, November, 2018.
Paper presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research, Eugene, Oregon, June, 2018.