Noted media scholar Jennifer Rauch, Ph.D., will present a lecture at Linfield College on the problems associated with modern-day media and a budding movement to slow the pace of media production and consumption.
Rauch, professor of journalism and communication studies at Long Island University-Brooklyn, will present “Slow Media: Why ‘Slow’ is Satisfying, Sustainable and Smart” on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 5 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room of the Nicholson Library on campus.
Rauch will share ideas from her book of the same name (2018, Oxford University Press), which examines the complex and surprising relationships between everyday media choices, human well-being and the natural world, and introduces readers to the Slow Media movement.
Taking its cue from the Slow Food movement, which has inspired people around the world to apply principles of humanism, localism, simplicity, self-reliance and fairness to food production and consumption, the Slow Media movement aims to apply the same principles to media production and consumption. This movement promotes alternatives to global, corporate media that are often unresponsive to the needs of human communities and natural environments. Rauch argues that our media habits are tied to an unsustainable growth paradigm that depletes human and ecological resources.
Rauch’s book introduces the concepts of Mindful Media, Green Media and Post-Luddism and presents ways to make media use and production more socially and environmentally sustainable. Mindful Media advocates for more contemplation in, and about, daily communications. Green Media debunks the assumption that digital media are ecologically benign and identifies alternatives that reduce electronic waste and consumption of nonrenewable resources. Post-Luddisim challenges the conventional wisdom that people who are skeptical of technology are ignorant or fearful.
Rauch is a member of the advisory panel for the George Polk Awards in investigative journalism and has written articles about alternative journalism, news audiences and media activism for academic and popular outlets including Huffington Post, Medium, OUPblog, Transformations, and Urban Audubon, as well as her “Slow Media” blog. Rauch has talked about Slow Media with journalists from The Daily Beast (U.S), NPR’s Marketplace (U.S), Radio National’s Future Tense (Australia), Planet Mundus (Aarhus, Denmark), and others worldwide.
This lecture is free and open to the public. Copies of her book will be available for purchase at the event. For more information, contact Lisa Weidman at lweidma@linfield.edu.
