TV and the Academy

A brief report, also in EducationLife, on academics studying popular culture cites some PhD topics. Four of the 11 mentioned are in communication, btw; others were in anthropology, history, education, cultural studies, and sociology). Those mentioned in communication:
Lynn Schofield Clark, U of Colorado, Boulder—analyzed religious symbols and adolescents and the “interpretative strategies that teens brought to such popular television programs as ‘Touched by an Angel’”
Richard Crew, Misericordia College, “Audience reception study of the “Survivor” series”
Stephanie Kelley-Romano, Bates College, “Myth of communication: Rhetorical analysis of the narrative of alien abductees”
Andrew Wood, San Jose State, “Reading culture, engendering girls: The politics of the everyday in the production of girls’ manga [Japanese comics]”