Dr. Debra SpitulnikSpecializations
- Anthropology
- Linguistics
- Media Studies
- Semiotics
- Qualitative Methods
Research
- Anthropological study of media use among young Americans
- Anthropological study of corporate culture in a broadcasting corporation
- Anthropological study of media audiences
- Sociolinguistic analysis of multilingual communities
- Discourse analysis of media
- Discourse analysis of conversation
- Semiotic analysis of media
Education
- Ph.D. Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Chicago, 1994.
- M.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985.
- B.A. Language and Mind, University of California-Berkeley,1983.
Selected Publications
2007 "Radio Talk Shows." In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd edition. Macmillan Reference/Thomson.
2007"Media: Radio and TV." In New Encyclopedia of Africa, 2nd edition. Scribners/The Gale Group.
2005 "Claiming Media Anthropology: The Minefield of Disciplinary Essentialism and Scholarly Agenda-Setting." Comment on "Media Anthropology: An Overview" by Mihai Coman. European Association of Social Anthropologists Media Anthropology Network, e-seminar.
2004 "Electronic Media and Oral Traditions." In African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. P. M. Peek and K. Yankah, eds. Pp. 109-113. New York and London: Routledge.
2004 "Radio and Television Drama." In African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. P. M. Peek and K. Yankah. Pp. 385-386. New York and London: Routledge.
2003 "Behind the Microphone." In Personal Encounters in Anthropology: An Introductory Reader. L. Walbridge and A. Sievert, eds. Pp. 185-192. New York: McGraw-Hill.
2002 "Alternative Small Media and Communicative Spaces." In Media and Democracy in Africa .G. Hyden, M. Leslie, and F. F. Ogundimu, eds. Pp. 177-205. New Brunswick (NJ) and London: Transaction.
2002 "Accessing 'Local' Modernities: Reflections on the Place of Linguistic Evidence in Ethnography." In Critically Modern: Alterities, Alternatives, Anthropologies. B. Knauft, ed. Pp. 194-219. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
2002 "Mobile Machines and Fluid Audiences: Rethinking Reception through Zambian Radio Culture." In Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. F. Ginsburg, L. Abu-Lughod, and B. Larkin, eds. Pp. 337-354. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
2000 "Documenting Radio Culture as Lived Experience: Reception Studies and the Mobile Machine in Zambia." In African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition. R. Fardon and G. Furniss, eds. Pp. 144-163. Oxford: James Currey. Westport, CT: Praeger.
1999 "Media." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1-2):148-151. Special issue on "Lexicon for the New Millennium." A. Duranti, ed.
1999/98 "Mediated Modernities: Encounters with the Electronic in Zambia." Visual Anthropology Review 14(2):63-84.
1998 "Mediating Unity and Diversity: The Production of Language Ideologies in Zambian Broadcasting." In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard, and P. Kroskrity, eds. Pp. 163-188. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1998 "The Language of the City: Town Bemba as Urban Hybridity."Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1):30-59. Link to discourse examples.
1996 "The Social Circulation of Media Discourse and the Mediation of Communities."Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 6(2):161-187.
1993 "Anthropology and Mass Media." In Annual Review of Anthropology 22:293-315.
1988 "Levels of Semantic Structuring in Bantu Noun Classification." In Current Approaches to African Linguistics, Volume 5. R. Botne and P. Newman, eds. Pp. 207-220. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.
Courses
- Media and Culture
- Ethnographic Methods and Writing
- Sociolinguistics
- Language and Culture
- Foundations of Linguistics
- Cultures of Africa
- Language and Gender
- Discourse Analysis