Inside JMS

Kevin Stoker

Welcome to Inside JMS the stories behind the people who work at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, I'm the director of the school. I'm here with Dave Nourse.

Dave Nourse

Great to be here, Kevin, as always,

Kevin Stoker

He's a assistant professor in residence here at the school. And with Ben Burroughs , our guest today, Ben Burroughs. Dr. Ben Burroughs is Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies. Ben, thanks for joining us.

Benjamin Burroughs

Happy to be here.

Kevin Stoker

Ben. We're really excited to get to know you and learn more about you today. But I you know, I think the really interesting thing that I want to start out with is what's a faculty member, you know, somebody who went to school to university Iowa, who grew up in Hawaii, and yet keeps a blog for Clemson football. I, you know, just explained to me how that happens. How do you become someone who bet and you went to USC, right? I did. I went to USC went to London School of Economics as well from my master's degrees. So that story begins with my father being an academic. And he was a professor at Clemson.

Benjamin Burroughs

So I grew up as a very young child at Clemson and going to Clemson football games and just being a fan of, of Clemson, and then we moved to Hawaii. So I grew up in Hawaii. I'm, you know, not Hawaiian, my wife and my kids are wine, but, but I'm what's called Holly. I grew up there on the North Shore. And it actually makes perfect sense for someone from Hawaii to be in Vegas, right in the ninth island because now our family who actually visit us as opposed to being in Iowa, where no one visit us at all. So yeah, there's a lot of reasons for me to be here in Las Vegas and it's been a great fit. That's terrific.

Kevin Stoker

Well, Ben, tell us tell us a little bit about your family.

Benjamin Burroughs

So I have four kids. They are Dashiell that's 12 Mercer. That's 10 Ren that is eight and Seeger who's four secret just started preschool. So there's never a dull moment for for our family. Yeah. And my my wife and I met and grew up on the North Shore. She's from Hola, and I'm from Lightyear. And yeah, so that's, that's our family. And you went to is the name of the high school caca. No Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Yeah, at one point in time. Coucou had more NFL players than any other high school in the nation. So I didn't play football. I played basketball and water polo. But yeah, our, our Coucou high school football teams pretty legendary.

Kevin Stoker

Now, I have to ask you about the names. Those are some pretty unique names. Wouldn't you say Dave?, These are not names that

Dave Nourse

I think, I think if anything, we can tell that there's a story behind each of them.

Kevin Stoker

So we want to hear how you came up with those names now Wren. You know, that's a little more traditional. But Seger is here. Yeah. Was it Bob Seger? Was that, it?

Benjamin Burroughs

So let's start with Dashal. He's the oldest That's not my name. That's my wife's name. And it comes from Minority Report. If you've watched Minority Report, one of the three COGS is his name, Dashiell. And I loved it because I love Dashiell Hammett, the author. And we went with the German spelling of it. Because once upon a time I was a Senate page for the United States Senate one summer and the minority leader at the time, who I worked for was Senator Tom Dashiell. Yeah, so there's a connection there.

I was a Senate page for Senator Roy from Hawaii, but you work for the caucus there. So that was a great experience. And Dashiell his middle name actually is Strider so I got to do that. So there's a little Lord of the Rings connection there. And then Mercer there that was just like, because I have a problem with names, you know, and being a professor and branding and kind of thinking through names. I know what I don't like so it was just a process of elimination of different names. But Mercer's middle name is Tommy toy, which means last man standing and tie he toy was a friend of mine growing up it's Teesha name and a Maori name too. And then Rennes name yeah wrt and ran the bird right is the state bird of the state of South Carolina. So there's a Carolina Wren there. And then wrens middle name is Camilla Comicon. Okay. Lani for her Hawaiian connection which is one and only daughter of the beloved so and then Seeger is Cooley is his middle name so yeah, there was a you know we we went Seeger Bob Seger there's seeker that's a baseball player for the mariners there's a lot of like connections the secret to

Kevin Stoker

it seems like you like trivia.

Benjamin Burroughs

I don't know, you get asked about like, you know, kind of different kids names. So you got to build up I think some you know, rationale for why you have, you know, named your children these things. So I'm a band, so I wanted you know, something a little more exciting than just a band, right? But not like too crazy, just right there in that sweet spot of like, oh, but not like, whoa, unique but not overboard. Right? Yeah, that's what we tried to do, and also kind of rooted in the culture of the family and connect them to their ancestral ties and things like that.

Kevin Stoker

That's pretty cool. You know, I always envy you that when you go on vacation to see family. You have to go to Hawaii.

Benjamin Burroughs

Yeah, you know, we don't do that as much as we should. But, yes, we do try to get back to my wife's family and in Hawaii, but she's one of 12. So there's a lot of family there to be with. Yes. And there's a lot of little house and a lot of family. Right. So,

Dave Nourse

Ben, let's talk a little bit about what you do here. So you've been in at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. This is your seventh year now,

Benjamin Burroughs

I think this is, this is my seventh year here.

Dave Nourse

So what got you to Las Vegas, other than we know, it's a great fit. But you know, why? Why the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies,

Benjamin Burroughs

they're there? That's a great question. I had, you know, multiple opportunities with this is the place that I really wanted to come, I found that I would be a good fit with the faculty. Because at the time, there wasn't a much of emphasis on social media, digital media. And, you know, that suited my strengths. You know, I'm very interested in emerging media, particularly streaming media. And those are the kinds of things that I like to study live streaming, and, and sports. And so I found, you know, I had a good niche here. And also, being in Las Vegas, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is really the only game in town in terms of like, Major r1 institutions. And so, you know, I felt like, it would position me well, and it would be kind of close to family and close to those kinds of things that were important

Dave Nourse

to. So Kevin, I think it's fair to say that Dr. Burrows here is a publishing machine. Yes, yes. I don't think we're going overboard when we say that. But what are you interested in these days? Like, if somebody were to ask you, Dr. Burrows? What do you spend your time working on? Can you can you distill that down into a few things? Are you still spread out all over the place? Well, I

Benjamin Burroughs

mean, I do follow my interests. So everything kind of revolves around new digital, social media, emerging technologies, in different areas. So sports media is definitely one that I'm that I'm interested in. Video games eSports, that's another area and then live streaming is still something that's really important to me. So a paper that I'm working on right now is called the Kooky cuckoo civic streaming paper. And we're looking at the ways in which live streaming technology was used by this group that was protesting these giant windmills that were put into my town, right above my high school. And so there's this really fascinating tension between, you know, climate change and fighting for ecological change, but also indigenous rights and being able to, you know, have your local, have a say over like how your local region takes care of the environment. So you have this large multinational corporation that's getting these, you know, tax refunds. And they put in these giant windmills for that, and the local population saying, hey, my property values are, this is not what we want for our local culture here. And they're doing that and articulating that through live streaming. So that's kind of what we're looking at, in the ways in which live streaming creates a certain kind of rhythm amongst the local population there. So that's one project that that I'm really kind of interested in. Because it connects me back to my you know, my hometown. But yeah, I've got my hands in a lot of different projects and just published something on watchmen and thinking about infrastructural racism, very big on thinking through the implications of of how we might theorize this word infrastructure, and what that does, so yeah, I'm still all over the place. But I think that's good. I got tried to get my hands in a lot of different areas and continue to publish.

Kevin Stoker

Well, tell me what you mean by infrastructure. Give us a, you know, Reader's Digest version.

Benjamin Burroughs

Oh, yeah. So media infrastructure is this kind of concept that comes from John Peters latest book. It has a longer history. But that's really where it's come from for for media studies, folks, and thinking about infrastructure is thinking about the ways in which materialism structures, engagement and practices and sociality, as well as kind of, you know, we've had this infrastructure bill, right, where we're talking about canals and bridges and buildings and things. So we're thinking through the ways in which media infrastructures can can do that work? And then what are the implications of that on on populations? Right. So yeah, that's, I guess, like a quick version of what MIDI infrastructure sounds like. It's great.

Kevin Stoker

And you you just got tenure and promotion last year, and did did a sabbatical. And the project for the sabbatical was that the project, looking at the effect of the windmills and the indigenous population,

Benjamin Burroughs

yeah, that was one of the projects. And that's part of a book proposal I put together on civic streaming. And I have another book proposal that is under review right now, for sports with NYU press. How to watch sports is what it's called right now, we're not wedded to that. But it'll be a whole bunch of different chapters on a sports team. And then its implication with particular topic, like a sports team and race or a sports team in different sports studies concepts. So it should be really good. There's one on how to watch television, how to play video games, and we're pitching the sports. So hopefully, that'll come through. And yeah, and then just publishing, I've got about three papers that that got published during my time, my sabbatical.

Dave Nourse

Wow, that's not productive at all. I don't write

Kevin Stoker

well, and you also teach you some interesting classes, too. Right now, you're our director of our graduate program. And so you and you've ended up teaching a lot of graduate classes. But also, you know, if I was going to say, what's, what class is near and dear to your heart? Would it be virtual worlds?

Benjamin Burroughs

Yeah, I would say the classes near and dear to my heart are the social networks class that when I came in, I built here at the, at the university, and this, this social networks class, which is also video games, and kind of looking at the the connection between the two. So we were talking about things like Twitch, we're talking about influencers, we're talking about a lot of things that students really care about right now. And it's relevant, both professionally and, you know, academically. And yeah, and then I've been the graduate coordinator now for four years, my fifth year, as the graduate coordinator, and really enjoyed working with students. And, you know, we've had a lot of great projects of student thesis projects, creative thesis projects, that I've been able to chair and help students do so really proud of that work to?

Dave Nourse

Then tell me a little bit about since we're talking about you, as a teacher, tell us a little bit about your teaching style, like how what do you what do you think in terms of when you try to connect with students when you're trying to work with students? These could be undergrads graduate students, but, you know, how do you define yourself as a teacher? As a professor?

Benjamin Burroughs

That's a great question, too. You know, to me, promoting critical thinking is my number one goal in the classroom, if I can walk out of the class and have helped students to understand what critical thinking is, and then how to apply it in a particular area, that's important. To me. I do like experiential learning. I do like allowing students to play with technology to have some project based assignments and things. So it's not just all lectures and books, but students are getting their hands on technology and learning by doing and that kind of melds the professional with, with the academic as well, which I have always tried to do in my classes show. You know, the theories, have them understand the theories do critical thinking, develop writing skills, but also, I think it's important for students to be able to take something away. That's, that's practical and skill based as well. So balancing those two is important to me. So that's kind of how I explain myself as a, as a professor as a teacher. That's great.

Kevin Stoker

Well, speaking of balancing, you know, so you had three articles, more than three articles last year, and this year, and you're working on book project and everything else. And you're taking kids to flag football, soccer games, very much engaged in in family life, teaching your courses, running a graduate program, doing all this research, Ben, how do you do it?

Benjamin Burroughs

Huh? Have lots of in and out burgers and and Dr. Pepper and none of that Dr Pepper zero stuff all straight Dr. Pepper now I just tried to stay busy and and put my best foot forward and take it one day at a time. All those kinds of slogans. Yeah, that's it. No, I don't, you know, I, this is what we're supposed to be doing. So you know, that's my job so. So I do well if

Kevin Stoker

you had a secret that you would say to a new faculty member who came in or something like that, and they were trying to figure out how to be successful managing all these things, and most faculty members aren't managing as much as you are. What would you say? Is there some kind of, you know, maybe there's not a secret sauce or anything, but But what would it be?

Benjamin Burroughs

Well, one thing with publishing that I think is important is to understand that rejection is just part of academia, it's part of the game, and not to get too discouraged by by rejection. And at some point, you feel like, you know, whether something is a good enough product to be to be published, and to just trust in that. And, and to keep going forward with projects. So yeah, so understanding rejection, part of it, conferences, papers, proposals, all of the grants, all those things are, that's part of the process. So that that's always been helpful for me to understand that and to not, you know, like, curl up in a ball every time to get rejection, although that may happen sometimes, but and with family life, it's, you know, that I'm blessed to have some great kids and to have a, you know, a great relationship with with my wife, and that, that helps me and relationships with family that support me. So, you know, I'm blessed to have that and, and then I'm blessed to have great faculty members around me that are always supportive, great leadership.

Yeah, we were looking for is that what we're looking

Kevin Stoker

for? You know, Ben, you've you've had an interesting life. USC was your undergrad?

Benjamin Burroughs

No, no, masters and masters. Yeah. So I did two masters degrees, one from the London School of Economics and the other from the University of Southern California. And then I did my, my undergrads actually, at BYU Hawaii. And I did that and to double major there in political science and in intercultural studies with an emphasis on communication. So yeah, then my degrees are MA and MSc in, in global media and communication. And then I went to Iowa and did the PhD in communication studies.

Kevin Stoker

And yeah, I heard you mentioned John Durham Peters, and he was one of your professors there who was very well known in the 90s, at Yale now stationary, and that's right.

Dave Nourse

So Ben, let's take a step back outside of academia for a minute, let's go back to when you were growing up, is there a particular childhood memory or experience that you had that kind of defines the person that you are today other than a rabid Clemson Tigers fan?

Benjamin Burroughs

Oh, I can't do that one. All right, no. Um, so like I said, when I was growing up, I grew up in the South, in, you know, in central South Carolina. And that was much different experience than going from there to Hawaii, where it was very much a flip from being, you know, the majority to the minority in this place that I was, and beginning to, like, understand what that meant, for me culturally. That was kind of a formative shaping experience to kind of learn what what power relations are like in your everyday life, and to to kind of see them to recognize them to understand that things were different. And so that that's helped me be kind of interested in the ways in which culture and power are kind of operating in everyday life. And then I've always been really interested in media and with, you know, television and social media and things like that, that popped up, and then how that played off of each other. So so that really was an important moment when I, I, my first day of school, and in Hawaii, somebody asked me, oh, so where do you live? And I said, Oh, I live on Walnut Street, which is this, this road? And the person said, Oh, you live on Holly Street. This is a sixth grader, right? And I was like, Oh, yes. Yes, I do. I live on how the street and I am. Holly, which isn't, you know, it has a complicated history. And that street has a complicated history. I would later learn in the community, because there were faculty housing that was there. And those faculty housing were usually taken up by, you know, the white faculty members who had come or were brought in. So we had this really complicated, interesting history that I've over the years began to continually unravel and that was really formative and kind of shaped In my positioning and understanding all that,

Dave Nourse

well, and I think, Kevin, you know, one of the things that we do, but maybe listeners don't has been really as a critical culturalist at heart, and I think that says so much about kind of foundationally, who you are and your experience and kind of why you bring this perspective to the work that you do right now. So, that's, that's really enlightening. I'm really glad you shared it,

Benjamin Burroughs

ya know, I do, you know, critical cultural work and qualitative work, mostly, I mean, I do do quantitative work. But, you know, my, I guess my heart is in the qualitative, but it's, it's more about, like, understanding, yeah, culture, power relation texts. And that's the media studies kind of approach that I was, you know, kind of trained in from coming from Iowa and coming from USC. And so yeah, working with Henry Jenkins working with with John Peters. And melding those two together to kind of have the approach that I do right now. Or try to have at least well, if

Kevin Stoker

there's something we haven't asked you during the, the discussion that we should have asked you, that would help our listeners learn more about you and who Dr. Ben burrows really is. Well, what would it be

Benjamin Burroughs

that my in and out order is cheeseburger animal style, regular and grilled onions and chopped chilies been extra toast? That's, that's my order. And it's, that's what drives my, my days. That ends it.

Kevin Stoker

And I have to say that now my order is been extra toes. Yeah. chopped chilies and grilled onions. He's had that influence. Now, I haven't gotten Animal Style yet. But other than that, I've I've followed Ben's example and it's worked out pretty well. I was

Dave Nourse

gonna say I think I think all of our waistlines have a lot to have a lot to thank God,

Kevin Stoker

that, you know, he doesn't buy frogs that he says he doesn't get fries. He just gets the burger.

Benjamin Burroughs

Okay, maybe here's something else to know about me. I did spend a good bit of time in Europe. And so and in Belgium, and so I have, you know, very specific views about fruits lately. So I speak French. And fries should be double shocked. Belgian fruits are the superior fry and you know, like in and out, fries are just too fresh. They make them right there. And fries need some time to get rid of some of their moisture. Right. And, and so Belgian fruits are double shot, which means they're, you know, put in the oil two times. And they're just, they're wonderful. And the sauces, just yeah, they're wonderful.

Dave Nourse

Ben, it was great chatting with you today and have an opportunity to get to know you a little bit more. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you.

Kevin Stoker

We really appreciate it. Ben. Thanks.