Lauren Berliner (she/her)

Associate Professor

Adjunct Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, UW Seattle Adjunct Associate Professor, Communication, UW Seattle

Lauren Berliner (she/her)

Associate Professor

Adjunct Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, UW Seattle Adjunct Associate Professor, Communication, UW Seattle

Education

B.A., Wesleyan University, English Literature and Anthropology
M.A., Emerson College, Visual & Media Art
PhD., University of California, San Diego, Communication

Courses

  • BIS 313 Life Online: Interpreting the Internet
  • BCULST BIS 233 Social Media in Context
  • BIS 473 Visual Culture Studies in a Digital World
  • BISMCS 333 Media and Communication Studies
  • Representing Empire: Media, Colonialism and Human Rights in Ireland & the UK (with Dr. Camille Walsh)
  • CMS 597 Digital Media Practice and Power

Teaching Interests

My primary goal in teaching is to help my students feel energized and equipped to do difficult and important work in the world. And I wish for them to leave my classes with more questions than they started with. I am always pleased when students tell me that my classes have made them consider multiple sides of issues and debates. Is the Internet inherently empowering? How do we learn to see difference?

 

I am interested in developing new frameworks for critical pedagogy and encourage students to take a praxis-oriented approach to scholarship as well as a scholarly approach to multiple forms of cultural practices. I see pedagogy as a form of critical engagement and community building through collaboration with on-campus and local resources, and believe my role is to enhance these connections for students even after our coursework together has ended. I typically incorporate diverse learning styles and uses of new media forms in the classroom, and enjoy tailoring activities to students’ particular backgrounds, interests, and concerns.

Research and Scholarship Interests

I study trends and transformations in everyday media production. From the old home videos in your basement to social media feeds, I am interested in what we make reveals about existing social and institutional structures.

 

My first book, Producing Queer Youth: The Paradox of Digital Media Empowerment examines how queer youth media makers negotiate the structural conditions of funding and publicity and incorporate digital self-representations into practices of identity management.

 

I have also co-edited a volume with Ron Krabill called Feminist Interventions in Participatory Media: Pedagogy, Publics, Practice, which provides theoretical, creative, and practical strategies for integrating technology, social change, media activism, and/or praxis into teaching or community work.

 

An important facet of my public scholarship is my role as a Associate Director of Los Angeles Filmforum’s Festival of (In)Appropriation, an international traveling showcase of contemporary, short audiovisual works that appropriate existing film, video, or other media and repurpose it in “inappropriate” and inventive ways.

 

My current research focuses on digital (social) media that has been posted online but does not manage to circulate. By studying media that is either filtered out or over, or simply unwatched, I seek to learn what themes, identities, and production practices are escaping (algorithmically-informed) representation.

  • Berliner, L. Producing Queer Youth: The Paradox of Digital Media Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2018.
  • Berliner, L. and Krabill, R. Feminist Interventions in Participatory Culture: Pedagogy, Publics, Practice. New York: Routledge, 2018.
  • Co-Producer, 5-DVD Compilation and traveling international program, the Festival of (In)Appropriation, 2012-present.
  • Director and Producer, All in One Basket (2006), distributed by Fanlight Productions/Icarus Films
  • Berliner, L. “…Like No One is Watching: Taking Digital Obscura Seriously,” InFocus: Absences and Afterlives, InFocus, JCMS, May 2024.
  • Berliner, L. “Editor’s Introduction,” “Absence and Afterlives: Unwatched, Undistributed, Lost, and Inaccessible Media” InFocus, Absences and Afterlives, JCMS, May 2024.
  • Berliner, L. “When Contexts Collapse: How Ubiquitous Video Cameras in the Home During COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns Transformed Family Representation,” Alphaville Journal of
    Film and Screen Media. February 2024.
  • Berliner, L, and Cohn, J. “Editor’s Introduction: Genre After Media,” Television and New Media, Vol 24, Issue 5. Spring 2023.
  • Berliner, L. “Towards a Methodology of Unwatched Media,” Feminist Media Histories. Spring 2022.
  • Berliner, L. “Whatever Happened to Home Movies? Self-representation from Family Archives to Online Algorithms,” Frames Cinema Journal. Spring 2022.
  • Berliner, L. “Ruptures in the (Racist) Archive: What Video Essays can teach us about Scholarly Practices.” The Cine-Files, Issue 20, Fall 2020.
  • Berliner, L. and Kenworthy, N. “Producing a Worthy Illness: Personal Crowdfunding Amidst Financial Crisis.” Social Science and Medicine, 2017.
  • Berliner, L. “The Paradox of Ubiquitous Production.” Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier, Vol. 3(4) “The Integration of Production and Theory/History in Cinema and Media Studies,” 2016.
  • Berliner, L. “Producing Knowledge in the Media Studies Classroom: Working with Wikis.” Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier, Vol. 3(3) “Digital Humanities and Media Studies Crossovers,” 2016.
  • Berliner, L. “From Home Movie Makers to Content Creators: Forging a Genealogy of Self-made Media” in Companion to American Film History. Pamela Wojcik and Paula J. Massood, editors. Routledge, 2025.
  • Berliner, L. “When it all Clicks: Writing about Participatory Media.” Writing about Screen Media. Lisa Patti, editor. Routledge, 2019.
  • Berliner, L. “’This is About Way More than Bullies’: User-generated Video, Narrative Multiplicity, and LGBTQ Youth Identity.” Documenting Gendered Violence: Representations, Collaborations, and Movements. Heather McIntosh and Lisa Cuklanz, eds. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
  • Berliner, L. “Shooting for Profit: The Monetary Logic of the YouTube Home Movie.” In Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young and Barry Monahan, eds.
  • Ali, I., Berliner L, Brown, S., Choi, S., Goldman, T., Hentrich, N. “Spotlight: Critical Media Pedagogies Scholarly Interest Group.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. 62.2, 1-4. 2023.
  • Berliner, L., and Berette S. Macaulay. “Of Blood and Circuitry, From Satellites to Dust: Confronting Media in Crisis,” in MONDAY art journal, Vol 6. “Lux Aeterna,” 2022.
  • Berliner, L. “The Best LGBTQ Videos are the One’s You’ll Probably Never See” on Confessions of an Aca-Fan (Henry Jenkins’ academic blog), 2017.
  • Berliner, L, “Unspreadable Media (Part Five) Back and Forth” a dialogue with Sam Ford, Henry Jenkins, and Leah Shafer on Confessions of an Aca-Fan (Henry Jenkins’ academic blog), 2017
  • Berliner, L. “Where Your Curriculum Shuts a Door, Open a (YouTube) Window: What Queer Youth Video Bloggers Can Teach Us About Necessary Shifts in Media Pedagogy.” The New Everyday: A Media Commons Project, 2011.

Research featured in the following media outlets:

  • The Atlantic
  • Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
  • Bloomberg Media
  • Financial Times London
  • Forbes
  • Huffpost
  • Mother Jones
  • NPR’s Marketplace Weekend
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
  • ARD Radio (Germany)
  • ZDF television (Germany)
  • KIRO Radio
  • KJZZ
  • KLRU
  • KUOW’s The Record
  • Bad with Money podcast
  • The Boston Globe
  • “Clouded Histories, Mediated Futures” on the panel Past Feelings and Future Memories: Digital Archives, Affective Technologies, and the Politics of Remembering” with Susan Aasman, Christine Lohmeier, and Rieke Böhling. ZeMKI Internation Anniversary Conference: 20 Years into the Future: What is our vision of media, data, and society?” Bremen, Germany, 2025.
  • “Care/Work on Screen, Or how Covid-19 Lockdowns Transformed Home Representation” on the panel “Media Care” with Brian Goldfarb, Wentao Ma, and Claudia Sicondolfo. Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference, Boston, 2024.
  • “A Conversation on Digital Youth Queer Cultures” plenary roundtable discussion, International Communication Association annual conference, Brisbane. Australia, June 2024.
  • “Towards a Methodology of Unwatched Digital Media: Reverse-engineering the Algorithm to Reveal What “Likes” Obscure” on the panel “Beyond Likes and Shares: Unpacking the Impact of Social Media on Underprivileged Areas” with Eliana Regina Lopes Loureiro; Norah Abokhodair; Yarden Skop; Houda El Mimouni; and Deanna Holroyd. Society for Social
    Studies of Science (4S) annual conference, Honolulu, 2023.