From his high-school newspaper to current teaching, Scott has a longstanding interest in news, journalism, and public communication.
Scott worked in Chicago as a freelance journalist covering arts and culture for various local and national publications, and as Managing Editor of P-form: An International Arts Quarterly. Citizen journalism was the subject of his master’s thesis, working with political communication scholars David Domke and Lance Bennett, which produced two book chapters that continue to be cited by scholars globally. As an educator, he incorporates informed citizenship, deliberative democracy, and public sphere theory into classes such as Public Communication of Science and Technology, Popular Communication, Gender Communication, and Public Speaking. Analyses of mainstream, online, and alternative media frequently comprise aspects of his research.
“I owe my life to journalism,” Scott says, grinning. “My biological parents met in a journalism class at Baylor University. My great-grandmother published a South Texas newspaper. My dad was a reporter and anchor. It’s in my blood.”
Select Work
Tempests of the Blogosphere: Presidential Campaign Stories that Failed to Ignite Mainstream Media. Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (2008, The MIT Press). Book reviewed in Canadian Journal of Communication, Online Information Review, Information, Communication & Society, American Studies, Logos, Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, Social Movement Studies, Neural: Media-Art-Hactivism, Feminist Review Connections, Media International Australia, Paideusis, Digital Icons.
Pundits in Muckrakers' Clothing: Political Blogs and the 2004 Presidential Election. Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media (2006, Routledge). Book reviewed in College Quarterly, Media International Australia, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, JHISTORY, Global Media Journal.
Book review essay: Brian Winston, Messages: Free Expression, Media and the West from Gutenberg to Google; Kim Vicente, The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology; Steven E. Jones, Against Technology: From the Luddites to Neo-Luddism. International Journal of Communication (2007).
Protest Email as Alternative Media in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Campaign. Westminster Papers in Communication & Culture (2005).
Arts news and journalism for Art Papers, New Art Examiner, High Performance, dialogue, P-form, The Stranger (Seattle), Windy City Times (Chicago), New City (Chicago).