"When we understand why things are the way they are, we can begin to imagine how they could be different. I aim to teach the knowledge and skills to change systems from within as well as to reimagine them altogether"
Cara Dickason
Visiting Assistant ProfessorCommunication and Media Studies
Cara Dickason is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Goucher. She completed her Ph.D. in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University and her M.A. in English at Georgetown University. At Northwestern, she was a Mellon Fellow in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and her dissertation examined the intersection of surveillance and women’s spectatorship in television technology and representation. She previously taught English and composition at Trinity Washington University, Prince George’s Community College, and Georgetown. Her teaching and research interests include digital technology and surveillance, television spectatorship, girls’ and women’s media, and mixed-race and Middle Eastern identity in popular culture. At Goucher, Cara teaches courses on race and gender in media, and media theory and analysis.
Publications
“Selling Smart TV Surveillance.” FLOW: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture. Vol 28, Issue 7 (May 2022). https://www.flowjournal.org/2022/05/smart-tv-surveillance/
“Logged in to You: Negotiating Algorithmic Address in Women’s Streaming Television.” FLOW: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture. Vol 28, Issue 3 (December 2021). https://www.flowjournal.org/2021/12/logged-in-to-you/
“Network(ed) Spectatorship: Nation, Nostalgia, and Broadcast Streaming on CBS All Access.” FLOW: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture, Special Issue: Streaming Wars. Vol. 26, Issue 5 (March 2020). https://www.flowjournal.org/2020/03/networked-spectatorship-cbs-all-access/
“Girls Worth Looking At: Surveillance, Race, and Class in Contemporary Teen Girl TV.” Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, Volume 2. Eds. Morgan Blue and Mary Celeste Kearney. Peter Lang, 2018. 49-65.
“‘Someone Was Watching Us’: Surveillance and Spectatorship in Pretty Little Liars.” ABC Family to Freeform: Essays on the Millennial-Focused Network and Its Programs. Eds. Emily L. Newman and Emily Witsell. McFarland, 2018. 33-48.
Conference Papers & Panel Participation
“Reinventing Romance: Women’s Spectatorship in Transition from Lifetime to Streaming,” Console-ing Passions, Orlando, FL, June 2022.
“‘Be the Boss’: Domestic Surveillance, Girls’ Spectatorship, and Smart TV Parental Controls,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Online, April 2022.
“Surveilling Spectatorship: Smart TV Parental Controls and the Dynamics of Domestic Privacy,” Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting, Online, October 2021.
“Can Your TV Do That?: Surveillance, Smart TVs, and the Value of Privacy,” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Washington, D.C., April 2019.
“Network(ed) Spectatorship: Surveillance, Citizenship, and Broadcast Streaming on CBS All-Access,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, March 2019.
“Consensual Sexual Selfies: Everyday Exposure in Televised Teen Girls’ Digital Lives,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, ON, March 2018.
“Watching Women: Surveillance and Early Television Spectatorship,” Console-ing Passions, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, July 2017.
“Streaming the Oppositional Gaze: Digital Delivery and Feminist Resistance in Scandal and Orange Is the New Black,” Console-ing Passions, Dublin, Ireland, June 2015.
Academic or Professional Associations
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Console-ing Passions
Society for Social Studies of Science
National Council of Teachers of English
Popular Culture Association
Other Professional or Scholarly Activity
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Board of Directors (2019-2021)