Dr. Andrew Davis

Broadly speaking, my research operates at the intersection of Media & Technology Studies and Cultural Studies, with a primary concern for questions regarding the relationship between media and power. What is the nature of that relationship? How does power operate through forms of media and technology? Through which mediated cultural practices (and in which ways) is power produced, transformed, reproduced, concentrated and distributed? The objective of this research program is to understand the power of media in society through an examination of the connections between communication technologies, political-economic infrastructure, and the manipulation of sociopsychological desire.

My approach to pedagogy is indebted to Robert Anton Wilson, who wrote of his lifelong fascination with “every new tool and technique that […] spurs creativity, higher intelligence, expanded consciousness, and, above all, broader compassion.” At its best, education is a set of techniques for helping students and teachers mutually assemble a toolbox of theories, concepts, research methods, critical thinking practices, and ethical commitments that can be put to use constructing a more just, equitable, empathetic and polysemic world.

Editor

Davis, Andrew, John Nguyet Erni, Carolyn Hardin, Gil Rodman, and Jennifer Daryl Slack, Eds. Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg. Millersville, PA: Imbricate! Press (2025).

Journal Articles

Davis, Andrew. “Whose Singularity? Artificial Intelligence as a Mechanism of Corporate Sovereignty.” Culture Machine 20 (2021): 1-23.

Davis, Andrew. “Failure Is Always an Option: The Necessity, Promise & Peril of Radical Contextualism.” Cultural Studies 33.1 (2019): 46-56.

Kim, Sei-Hill, John P. Carvalho, Andrew G. Davis, and Amanda M. Mullins. “The View at the Border: News Framing of the Definition, Causes, and Solutions to the Illegal Immigration Problem.” Mass Communication and Society 14.3 (2011): 292-314.

Kim, Sei-Hill, John P. Carvalho, and Andrew G. Davis. “Talking About Poverty: News Framing of Who Is Responsible for Causing and Fixing the Problem.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly  87.3/4 (2010): 563-81.

Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters

Davis, Andrew. “In Defense of Authority: Lawrence Grossberg & the Pedagogical Performance of Expertise.” Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg. Eds. Andrew Davis, John Nguyet Erni, Carolyn Hardin, Gil Rodman, and Jennifer Daryl Slack. Millersville, PA: Imbricate! Press, 2025. 252-261.

Davis, Andrew, John Nguyet Erni, Carolyn Hardin, Gil Rodman, and Jennifer Daryl Slack. “Capturing the Legacy of Lawrence Grossberg.” Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg. Millersville, PA: Imbricate! Press, 2025. 1-15.

Davis, Andrew. “Artistic Capacities for Confronting Fascist Desire.” Capacities to: Affect Up Against Fascism. Eds. Gregory J. Seigworth, Matthew Arthur, Wendy J. Truran, and Chad Shomura. Millersville, PA: Imbricate! Press, 2025. 305-312.

Davis, Andrew. “Teaching Conjuncturally: Cultural Studies as the Practice of Conjunctural Analysis.” Cultural Studies in the Classroom & Beyond: Critical Pedagogies & Classroom Strategies. Eds. Jaafar Aksikas, Sean Johnson Andrews, and Donald Hedrick. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 259-278.

Davis, Andrew G. “Dap-Dippin’ Independent Tradition: The Rebirth of Rhythm and Blues.”Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Essays on Debut Albums. Ed. George Plasketes. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2013. 179-88.

Davis, Andrew G. “From Junk to Jesus: Recontextualizing ‘The Pusher’.” Play It Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music. Ed. George Plasketes. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010. 111-26.

Invited Presentations

Davis, Andrew. “Understanding the Media Ecosystem & Where Student Media Fit In.” Invited presentation at the Conference for College Media Students & Advisers of the North Carolina College Media Association, February 22, 2025.

Davis, Andrew. “Aren’t You a Little Short for a Stormtrooper? A Conjunctural Reappraisal of Fascism.” Keynote lecture at the Virtual Lecture Series of the Association for Cultural Studies, July 25, 2024.

Davis, Andrew. “Course Design for a Vertical Writing Curriculum.” Invited presentation at the Writing in the Discipline panel discussion of the Rhetoric & Composition Program, Appalachian State University, February 7, 2024.

Davis, Andrew. “Artificial Intelligence & Corporate Power.” Invited presentation at Research Forum: Artificial Intelligence sponsored by the Office of Research at ASU, February 2, 2022.

Interviews

Halk, Emily. “Episode 1: Power, Platforms & Parasocial Relationships with Dr. Andrew Davis.” (Untangling) the History of PR: Propaganda Relations podcast. February 24, 2023.

Stump, Jessica. “Don’t Be an April Fool for ‘Fake News’: Appalachian Communication Professor Dr. Andrew Davis Shares Tips on How to Discern Fact from Fiction in a World of Increasing Misinformation.” Appalachian Today. April 2, 2019. https://today.appstate.edu/2019/04/02/fake-news.

Manuscripts in Progress

Davis, Andrew. Tech/Sovereign: Or, the New Authoritarian (book).

Davis, Andrew. “Aren’t You a Little Short for a Stormtrooper?: A Cultural Studies Approach to Analyzing Fascism.” (book chapter).

Davis, Andrew. “DARPA, Silicon Valley & the Technocratic Construction of the 21^st Century” (journal article).

Davis, Andrew. “Choreographies of Becoming: Uses of Media in Ritual Magic as a Production of Posthuman Subjectivity.” (journal article).

Davis, Andrew. This Joke Kills Fascists: Bill Hicks & the Search for American Anarchism (book).