Brenton Malin
Assistant Professor of Communication
Affiliate Faculty, Cultural Studies
PhD, University of Iowa
1109L Cathedral of Learning
Phone: 412-624-6798
Email: bmalin@pitt.edu
Brent Malin studies media history, theory, and criticism with a focus in cultural studies and critical theory. His work explores how various popular cultural artifacts suggest particular understandings of identity and the implications of these understandings for questions of cultural power and citizenship. Malin has examined such contemporary topics as the construction of masculinity during the Clinton era, as well as earlier issues such as the ideologies of whiteness and middle-class distinction that accompanied the early 20th century stereoscope. Other recent work has focused on the ways in which institutional, scientific, and journalistic discourses on technology have impacted ideas about pleasure, emotion, and identity in the United States—examining such varied technologies as the steel guitar and the psycho-galvanometer. Malin has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the University of Iowa, St. Olaf College, Allegheny College, and San Francisco State University.
Courses Taught
- Mass Communication Process
- Television and Society
- Media Criticism
- Media Theory
- Seminar in Media Studies
Selected Publications
Malin, B. (2011). Failed transmissions and broken hearts: The telegraph, communications law, and the emotional responsibility of new technologies. Media History, 17(4), 331-344.
Malin, B. (2011). Electrifying speeches: Emotional control and the technological aesthetic of the voice in the early 20th century US. Journal of Social History, 45(1), 1-19.
Malin, B. (2011). Not just your average beauty: Carl Seashore and the history of communication research in the US. Communication Theory, 21(3), 299-316.
Malin, B. (2011). A very popular blog: The Internet and the possibilities of publicity. New Media & Society, 13(2), 187-202.
Malin, B. (2010). Viral manhood: Niche marketing, hardboiled detectives, and the economics of masculinity. Media, Culture & Society, 32(3), 373-389.
Malin, B. (2009). Mediating emotion: Technology, social science, and emotion in the Payne Fund Motion Picture Studies. Technology & Culture, 50(2), 366-390 (2010 winner of the Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the field of Media Ecology from the Media Ecology Association).
Malin, B. (2007). Looking white and middle-class: Stereoscopic imagery and technology in the early 20th century United States. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 93(4), 403-424.
Malin, B. (2005). American masculinity under Clinton: Popular media and the Nineties “crisis of masculinity.” New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. (part of the book series “Popular Culture and Everyday Life” edited by Toby Miller)
Malin, B. (2004). Gender, culture, power: Three theoretical views. In M. Rose Williams and P. Backlund (Ed.s), Readings in gender communication (pp. 65-75). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Malin, B. (2003). Drive by programming: Niche marketing to the channel surfer on TNT, MTV, and CNN. Explorations in media ecology, 2(2), 101-115.
Malin, B. (2003). Memorializing white masculinity: The late 1990s "crisis of masculinity" and the "subversive performance" of Man on the Moon. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 27(3), 239-255 (reprinted in Whitehead, S. [Ed.]. [2006]. Men and masculinities: Critical concepts in sociology. London: Routledge).
Malin, B. (2001). Communication with feeling: Emotion, publicness, and embodiment. Quarterly Journal of Speech 87(2), 216-235.