Department of Communication Studies

Daniel Pawley, Ph.D., mainly studies intentional communities that form around products of media and culture. Fandom, as this subject is sometimes called, involves doing what we do with what we like. It is the study of taste, preference, and choice in modern life, and it seeks to understand what motivates human beings to socialize around specifically chosen music, films, books, and other products of media and culture. Pawley is also highly interested in creative ways of bringing theology and the philosophy of religion into our understanding of contemporary mass media.