John Downing
John Downing served as sociology lecturer/professor at Greenwich University, London, 1968-1980; as visiting sociology professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1980-81; as professor of media studies, Hunter College, City University of New York, 1981-1990; as John T. Jones, Jr., Centennial Professor of Communication, University of Texas, Austin, 1990-2003; and as founding director of the Global Media Research Center, Southern Illinois University, 2004-2010. Over the fall semester, 2010, he will be a visiting professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, and will be a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Helsinki and Tampere Universities, Finland, over the spring semester of 2011.
John Downing's research publications have focused on social movement media; racism, ethnicity and media; global media; and Soviet bloc media during the build-up to the bloc's disintegration. His most recent work is the forthcoming Sage Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, with 250 entries from nearly all regions of the planet. He is also a member of the executive editorial committee of the journal Global Media and Communication, and elected editor (2010-2013) of the International Communication Association journal Communication, Culture and Critique. He was elected Vice-President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research for the period 2008-2012.