Matthew
Jordan
Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies,
Director, News Literacy Initiative
Expertise:
- Journalism & Media
- Digital Media Technologies
Focus Areas:
- Media Studies
- News Literacy
- Fake News
In The Media:
About
- Jordan directs Penn State's News Literacy Initiative and can talk about the state of local news and the journalism industry, including the spread of misinformation, the impact of digital technology and what it means for democracy and society.
- His research focuses on the role of media on everyday culture and on how different popular media forms and media technologies are used – and have been used - to constitute and reify aspects of personal identity and cultural ideology.
Matthew Jordan is a critical media scholar, whose research focuses on the role of media in everyday culture, including on personal identity and cultural ideology. He teaches courses on media studies, cultural studies, film studies, sound culture and critical theory. In addition to his role as associate professor and head of the Department of Film and Media Studies in Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications, Jordan also directs the University’s News Literacy Initiative. The mission of the News Literacy Initiative is to provide strategies to help students and citizens navigate the news media landscape and be able to tell the difference between what’s reliable information and what’s not. Jordan also co-hosts the initiative’s weekly podcast, “News Over Noise.”
Jordan is the author of two books, including his most recent, “Danger Sound Klaxon!: The Horn that Changed History,” published in 2023 by University of Virginia Press. By charting the meteoric rise and eventual fall of the Klaxon automobile horn, Jordan highlights how perceptions of sound-producing technologies are guided by, manipulated, and transformed through advertising strategies, public debate, consumer reactions and governmental regulations.
In The Media
Did Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s campaign make up dozens of false news stories?
from Philadelphia Inquirer February 5, 2024
“This works in that kind of environment, where people are exhausted and nobody is going to check anymore.”
Reactions: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch steps down as chairman of Fox, News Corp
from Reuters September 21, 2023
"Fox News runs minute-by-minute ratings, and ties their storylines and coverage to what its audience wants to hear."
How To Cover Trump? CNN On Defensive As Media Wring Hands -- Again
from International Business Times May 11, 2023
"Responsible journalism verifies fact before publishing it."
'Watching people throw poo at each other': Oz, Fetterman ads set campaign spending record
from Yahoo News November 9, 2022
“I’m not sure that people get persuaded by these ads. I think it tends to confirm the opinions that they already have.”
Why Toyota Would Put a Fake Stick Shift and Fake Engine Noises in an Electric Car
from Slate June 15, 2023
“Sounds are all relative.”
From fake news to fabricated video, can we preserve our shared reality?
from The Christian Science Monitor February 22, 2018
“The term ‘fake news’ as a kind of an epithet kind of rises and falls.”
Focus on research: Jerry Springer and the history of that (bleeping) bleep sound
from Centre Daily Times June 14, 2023
"In fact, media researchers have shown that bleeping words actually draws attention to them and that audiences perceive the frequency of profanity to be higher when words are bleeped."
'Barbie' breaks records and barriers
from The Daily Item August 4, 2023
“By the end, the movie says ‘you can’t idealize women, you have to embrace all of it’ and I think that’s a healthy message.”
Netflix Isn't Made for the US Anymore—It's for the Whole World
from Wired January 13, 2016
“Netflix is trying to be international in the same way as the big movie studios, but it fills in niches that those studios aren’t.”
In Penn State News
Related Topic
Related
Topic
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Preserving Democracy
Americans on both sides of the aisle say the U.S. is at risk of losing its democracy depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The erosion of trust in institutions, including the media, elections and rule of law, has contributed what Gallup found is a record-low percentage of U.S. adults who are satisfied with democracy.