Jessica Kate Crowell

SUNY: New Paltz, Digital Media & Journalism, Faculty Member

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, School of Communication & Information, Alumna

Trinity University, Texas, Communication, Faculty Member

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Jessica Kate Crowell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Digital Media and Journalism at SUNY New Paltz (Fall 2019). She holds a PhD in Media Studies/Communication from the School of Communication, Information & Media at Rutgers. She is an affiliated scholar with the Media, Inequality and Change Center (MIC) and is a former Interdisciplinary Fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

Jessica’s research addresses the intersection of media and social justice issues, including information access and policy, digital inequality, and online labor. Her work has appeared in Communication, Culture & Critique; Digital Journalism; and, The Journal of Media Literacy Education. She has taught courses at the intersection of media studies and critical theory, such as Gender, Race, Class and the Media; Media and Popular Culture; Structure of Information; and, Introduction to Mass Communication.

Jessica is a firm believer in engaged scholarship. As such, she has authored government policy papers and reports on broadband access in low-income communities for the U.S. federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, the New Jersey State Board of Public Utilities, and the New Jersey Office of Information Technology. She has collaborated on qualitative projects studying news and information access for the Democracy Fund, the Cleveland . Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Internews. Jessica also previously served as a Grant Assistant in the Media and Democracy Program at the Social Science Research Council.

Prior to graduate study, Jessica was a Media Planner at OMD- New York on the PepsiCo and Hershey's accounts.

For more information, please visit my website -- https://www.jessicacrowell.com

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Marc Champagne

Kwantlen Polytechnic University

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Salvatore Scifo

Bournemouth University

Philip Napoli

Duke University

Leland G Spencer

University of South Carolina

Patrick Vonderau

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Stephanie Boluk

University of California, Davis

Anita Gurumurthy

IT for Change

Stylianos Papathanassopoulos

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens

Natalie Fenton

Goldsmiths, University of London

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Broadband Adoption and Ethnographic Approaches

Transforming Everything?, 2021

Digital inequality scholarship has shifted toward an interest in the “tangible outcomes” of broad... more Digital inequality scholarship has shifted toward an interest in the “tangible outcomes” of broadband adoption and the role individual attitudes may play in shaping digital engagement. However, much of this emerging research remains quantitative in nature and has not offered an extensive sociocultural explanation of why poor attitudes toward digital technology may endure in marginalized communities, or why broadband outcomes remain stratified by class and race. Ethnographic research is especially well-suited to fill this research gap. Critical ethnography offers a useful analytical toolbox: (a) providing a particularized portrait of everyday life; (b) rooting analysis within a social justice perspective; and (c) emphasizing building trust and “rapport” with marginalized communities, thus uncovering hidden practices or behaviors. In offering greater context to our understanding of digital attitudes and outcomes, ethnographic research can help digital inequality scholars further refin...

Liquid labor, precarious lives: an urban ethnography of online work and digital inequality

The primary purpose of this ethnographic study is to better understand the economic lives of part... more The primary purpose of this ethnographic study is to better understand the economic lives of participants in Philadelphia's KEYSPOT project, a network of digital access and skills programs funded by the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Created as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or "stimulus package," the BTOP initiative intended to respond to the Great Recession of 2008 by supporting and expanding U.S. broadband infrastructure, particularly in distressed urban and rural communities. Implicit in this primary goal was the understanding that technological development stimulates job sector growth and can mitigate unemployment and underemployment. Yet, what job opportunities were available to the poor and working class urban Americans targeted through these technology programs? How did computer access and digital training practically shape their economic lives? In this dissertation, I argue that there is a disconnect between the policymakers designing broadband programs and the "policytakers" to whom the programs are targeted. Borrowing from Mosco (2004), this disconnect is due in part to the "digital vi SC&I truly had the most caring group of PhD students one could ever ask for. My special appreciation goes to Charles File, who had a front row seat to the highs and lows of this project. My fellow Media Studies cohort member, Debra Glassco, became a fast friend and a sounding board at every step in the process. Katie McCollough was generous with her dissertation feedback and spent many hours coaching me through the final few months. When Camille Reyes began her tenure as a PhD student in 2011, I served as her "peer mentor"-yet, by the time I was finished, the roles were quite reversed. I also want to thank some other program friends: Alexa Bolanos, Maggie Boyraz, Frank Bridges,

Jessica Kate Crowell

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