Lance Strate

Ph.D., New York University

As a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, he is internationally recognized for his intellectual leadership in the discipline of communication. His scholarship has focused on the development of media ecology as a field of inquiry, with special attention to the work of Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Neil Postman; on the historical relationship between modes of communication and sociocultural phenomena such as heroes, religion, nationalism, the city, the self, and consciousness; on the impact of new technologies and digital media including online communications and mobile telephony; on media history and futurism; on language and symbolic communication as it relates to media and technology; on communication and autism; on popular culture phenomena including television, film, baseball, masculinity and alcohol, the sense of smell, and science fiction and fantasy. He has served as editor of the Speech Communication Annual, and Explorations in Media Ecology, and is supervisory editor of the media ecology book series published by Hampton Press.

One of the founders of the Media Ecology Association (launched at Fordham University on September 4, 1998), Lance Strate and has served as the organization's President since its inception. He is also a Past President of the New York State Communication Association. He is active in a number of other organizations, including serving on the National Advisory Board of the Walter Ong Center at Saint Louis University, a Review Committee Member for the Carl Couch Center's James W. Carey Award, and a member of the editorial board of several journals, including The Journal of Applied Communication Research, Qualitative Research Reports, and Razón y Palabra. Among the honors he has received is the New York State Communication Association's John F. Wilson Fellow Award in recognition for exceptional scholarship, leadership, and dedication to the field of communication; the June 2003 Book of the Month Award from the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies for the anthology he co-edited, Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment (2nd edition); and the Proclamation by Mayor Wellington E. Webb "that February 15, 2002 be known as Dr. Lance Strate Day in the City and County of Denver" in honor of the keynote address he delivered at the 2002 Convention of the Rocky Mountain Communication Association.

Lance Strate maintains an active research program that includes investigations into technological innovation and socio-cultural change. Areas of particular interest include the relationship between media and conceptions of space, time, self and consciousness, religion, and culture.

Lance Strate, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006.

Lance Strate and Edward Wachtel (Eds.). The Legacy of McLuhan. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2005.

Lance Strate, Ron Jacobson, and Stephanie Gibson (Eds.). Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment (2nd ed.). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2003.

Robin Andersen and Lance Strate (Eds.). Critical Studies in Media Commercialism. London, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, Lance Strate, and Charles Weingartner. Myths, Men, and Beer: An Analysis of Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television. Falls Church, VA: American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, 1987.

Selected Articles

"The Medium is the Memory." In Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan[online virtual exhibition on the Library and Archives Canada website].

"Understanding A Man in Time: James W. Carey and the Media Ecology Intellectual Tradition." Critical Studies in Media Communication, 24:2, 2007, pp. 177-180.

"The Judaic Roots of Neil Postman's Cultural Commentary." Journal of Media and Religion [special issue on cultural biography], 5:3, 2006, pp. 189-208.

• Media Ecology
• Communication Theory
• Communication and Technology
• Digital Communication and New Media
• Orality and Literacy
• Symbols and Semantics
• Popular Culture
• Science Fiction