1. About this e-textbook

At its core, this e-book is designed as a collection of sources – an effort to introduce users to a variety of perspectives about key issues and topics about critical media and cultural studies.

So the material you find here is shaped by what seems to work well for my classes and teaching style at Rollins College, online availability, the key issues and concepts I hope to cover, clarity and brevity, and so forth. Given these varied aims, and the quickly changing character of contemporary media and culture, this book will adapt as needed.

Also note, the content here is meant as a starting point to be developed and critically explored in classes. It is incomplete without that work we will do together.

In addition to sources drawn from across the internet, I’ve developed some material in this text myself. This content includes longstanding material created and revised over my years of teaching, as well as writing and illustrations that are newly created, often using generative AI resources (mostly versions of OpenAI’s Chat GPT).

2. Generative AI/collaborative intelligence tools

I consider generative AI a remarkable resource that should be wholeheartedly embraced, and so I use it! You should too, BUT I also insist that students understand a few important qualifiers.

First, not all writing is for creating a message! Writing is also a very important way of knowing and learning. It is an extremely valuable skill for organizing ideas and thinking them through! Since much of the writing I ask students to do is for thinking and learning, using AI (collaborative intelligence) writing tools would circumvent an important purpose of those assignments and result in a reflection without much reflecting.

Getting very good at using writing to clarify your own thoughts or work through the nuances of a complex idea is among the most important skills college has to offer. Research shows this kind of writing is a very effective way to learn ideas.

If, outside of class, a student wants to write about a topic they know well in order to help others understand the topic better, using AI writing tools are likely very helpful since creating a text that best conveys a clear message is primary goal. But this is seldom the primary goal of writing in this class.

Second, AI /collaborative intelligence tools often take a lot of knowledge, skill, and effort to use well.

Using AI tools for parts of this e-book invariably involved many successive inputs, very detailed requests for subsections, and lots of rearranging, editing and re-writing. While using AI tools helped me save significant time, it was still a lot of work.

Put another way, I would not use AI for written material I didn’t already have the knowledge and background to write myself. The AI-assisted material here is presented by me and reflects my careful choices, judgements, revisions and limitations. None of us should use AI tools in cases where we can’t assume that responsibility.

And these opening paragraphs are all me! 🙂

Steven W. Schoen, Ph.D.

Rollins College

Winter Park, FL