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Breaking Out of Academic Isolation: The Media Odyssey of a Sociologist

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Abstract

The professional development of sociologists involves specialized training through which we acquire and apply numerous skills. However, it is unlikely that our professional socialization includes training in how to inform the public about sociological knowledge and research through media involvement. As a sociologist who did not receive such training and was not prepared for the enormous unanticipated media and public interest given to my research topic, I provide a personal account of my unexpected metamorphosis into a media self and my experiences working with the media. I describe the nature of my professional and media obscurity, provide an overview of my initiation into media culture, and explore a self-transformation process that became necessary to manage the responsibilities associated with the media-assigned role of expert. I identify and examine the lessons I learned through extensive media involvement and the emergent realities of this involvement. Based on my experiences and resulting awareness of media culture, I offer to the discipline some suggestions and guidelines for media involvement and advocate for media training.

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Notes

  1. Burawoy (2005b: 44) has identified this approach as the “independent scholar” model.

  2. For an analysis of sport marriages and how women experience their marriages to professional athletes, see Ortiz (1997, 2002b, 2006).

  3. For example, I did an off-camera qualifying interview for a national television news program, but the producer decided to drop the segment; I did prerecorded interviews for a regional television news program and a national television sports program, but they were not broadcast; and I did an extensive interview for a national sports magazine article on the groupie phenomenon, but it was never published.

  4. Some form of emotion management (e.g., emotional labor) is usually necessary in various occupations (e.g., Hochschild 1983; Leidner 1999; Mac Rae 1998; Martin 1999), including our own occupation (e.g., teaching, research, service, and administration) (Bellas 1999).

  5. More recently, “public sociologies” was the theme of the 2004 ASA annual meeting and the focus of Burawoy’s (2005a) presidential address.

  6. For example, a formal code of ethics might be created by adapting and modifying sections of the ASA’s code of ethics (American Sociological Association 1999) to make them applicable to media relations. For a less formal code of ethics, see Marx (1997).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Oregon State University, 307 Fairbanks Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331-3703, USA

    Steven M. Ortiz

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  1. Steven M. Ortiz
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Correspondence to Steven M. Ortiz.

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Earlier versions of this article were presented at the annual meetings of the Pacific Sociological Association, 2004, 2006, and the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, 2002. I wish to thank Mark Edwards, Mark Floyd, Jacque Lynn Foltyn, William Loges, William Lunch, Larry Pribyl, Todd Simmons, and Rebecca Warner for their insightful comments and supportive suggestions.

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Ortiz, S.M. Breaking Out of Academic Isolation: The Media Odyssey of a Sociologist. Am Soc 38, 223–249 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-007-9016-8

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