Stephen F Ostertag
Biographic Data
| ID | 3685969 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen F Ostertag |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen F |
| FAMILY NAME | Ostertag |
| SIGNATURE | OSTERTAG S F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tulane University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5471-9884 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Connecting After Chaos: Social Media and the Extended Aftermath of Disaster
A riveting portrait of how one community used the power of culture to restore their lives and social connections in the years after a devastating natural disaster Natural disasters and other such catastrophes typically attract large-scale media attention and public concern in their immediate aftermath. However, rebuilding efforts can take years or even decades, and communities are often left to repair physical and psychological damage on their ow…
Compulsive immobility: Understanding the role of health on collective efficacy
Most health care approaches to understanding social ills are rooted in strain or ecological models. Strain models assume that the impact of poor physical health operates through the individual, that it is the individual suffering from poor health who engages in social ills as a means of adapting, and that the impact of poor health is rather direct and immediate. Meanwhile, ecological approaches of health acknowledge how poor health may impact oth…
A Cultural Sociology of Social Media: Social Drama, Cultural Affordances and Blogging in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
Research on social media, networks and collective action currently lacks a strong cultural component, often focusing on network formation and characteristics from afar. At the same time, research in cultural sociology often takes social media for granted, removed from analytical or theoretical attention. We know little about the perspectives of users or the shared meanings, emotions, and codes that inform social media practices and discourses. Ad…
Building Trust through Social Media in Times of Crisis: Cultural Persuasion, Citizen News, and the Cultural Affordances of Blogs
Research on trust and news tends to focus on professional news (agents, organizations, institutions), ignores the content of news, and takes place during relatively settled times. This article seeks to remedy these gaps by examining how citizens used blogs to make and share news during a natural disaster and its aftermath. It draws on a case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and examines the perspective of blog use…
Producing Facts in a World of Alternatives: Why Journalism Matters and Why It Could Matter More
Can Social Media Use Produce Enduring Social Ties? Affordances and the Case of Katrina Bloggers
A critical strong program: Cultural power and racialized civil exclusion
Katrina Bloggers Activate: The Long-Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation
There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross-sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks ne…
Becoming Pure: The Civil Sphere, Media Practices and Constructing Civil Purification
This paper integrates the US civil sphere, European media as practice, and social psychological literatures to demonstrate how people construct their own civil purity and become pure. It uses in-depth interview data to uncover a language of civil purity that people draw on to construct their own belonging in civil society. It argues that some people create an imagined public-at-large that they infuse with polluting qualities associated with the b…
Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action: The Web as a Virtual Mobilizing Structure
Scholarship on collective civic action helps link collective-level contentious actions and individual-level civic engagement. Using longitudinal data from a group of New Orleans residents who started blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina, we highlight the digitally mediated social processes linking individual civic engagement with collective civic actions. Through a developmental approach, we analyze the progression from individual blogging t…
The battle over meaning: Digitally mediated processes of cultural trauma and repair in the wake of hurricane Katrina
When Innovation Meets Legacy: Citizen journalists, ink reporters and television news
Journalism's transition from an industrial age to an information age and the unstable economics of profit-driven newsmaking have allowed for an unprecedented level of citizen input and involvement in the making of news. Here, new relationships between legacy and innovative newsmaking are forged and new models of newsmaking emerge. In this article, we discuss the case of The New Orleans Eye, an attempt at innovative newsmaking rooted in an individ…
Image Isn't Everything: Contemporary Systemic Racism and Antiracism in the Age of Obama
In order to be properly addressed or assessed, racism must be appropriately and consistently defined. We employ critical race theory to challenge the popular notion that the election of Barack Obama and other images of diversity signify racism's decline, end, or reversal. Further, we illustrate the utility and accuracy of critical race theory and the persistence of contemporary systemic racism through a brief analysis of the U.S. criminal justice…
Processing Culture: Cognition, Ontology, and the News Media1
This article discusses how people cognitively engage with the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news in ways that yield ontological services. It treats the news as both a system of signs and a cultural object, and assesses how people mentally intercept, negotiate, and use the news in ways that foster a sense of control and order over an unstable and unpredictable social world (i.e., “ontological security”) ( Giddens, 1991 ). Based on interview data,…
Establishing news confidence: A Qualitative Study of How People Use the News Media to Know the News-World
When Innovation Meets Legacy: Citizen journalists, ink reporters and television news
Journalism's transition from an industrial age to an information age and the unstable economics of profit-driven newsmaking have allowed for an unprecedented level of citizen input and involvement in the making of news. Here, new relationships between legacy and innovative newsmaking are forged and new models of newsmaking emerge. In this article, we discuss the case of The New Orleans Eye, an attempt at innovative newsmaking rooted in an individ…
The battle over meaning: Digitally mediated processes of cultural trauma and repair in the wake of hurricane Katrina
Establishing news confidence: A Qualitative Study of How People Use the News Media to Know the News-World
A critical strong program: Cultural power and racialized civil exclusion
Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action: The Web as a Virtual Mobilizing Structure
Scholarship on collective civic action helps link collective-level contentious actions and individual-level civic engagement. Using longitudinal data from a group of New Orleans residents who started blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina, we highlight the digitally mediated social processes linking individual civic engagement with collective civic actions. Through a developmental approach, we analyze the progression from individual blogging t…
Processing Culture: Cognition, Ontology, and the News Media1
This article discusses how people cognitively engage with the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news in ways that yield ontological services. It treats the news as both a system of signs and a cultural object, and assesses how people mentally intercept, negotiate, and use the news in ways that foster a sense of control and order over an unstable and unpredictable social world (i.e., “ontological security”) ( Giddens, 1991 ). Based on interview data,…
Katrina Bloggers Activate: The Long-Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation
There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross-sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks ne…
Can Social Media Use Produce Enduring Social Ties? Affordances and the Case of Katrina Bloggers
Becoming Pure: The Civil Sphere, Media Practices and Constructing Civil Purification
This paper integrates the US civil sphere, European media as practice, and social psychological literatures to demonstrate how people construct their own civil purity and become pure. It uses in-depth interview data to uncover a language of civil purity that people draw on to construct their own belonging in civil society. It argues that some people create an imagined public-at-large that they infuse with polluting qualities associated with the b…
Image Isn't Everything: Contemporary Systemic Racism and Antiracism in the Age of Obama
In order to be properly addressed or assessed, racism must be appropriately and consistently defined. We employ critical race theory to challenge the popular notion that the election of Barack Obama and other images of diversity signify racism's decline, end, or reversal. Further, we illustrate the utility and accuracy of critical race theory and the persistence of contemporary systemic racism through a brief analysis of the U.S. criminal justice…
Processing Culture: Cognition, Ontology, and the News Media1
This article discusses how people cognitively engage with the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news in ways that yield ontological services. It treats the news as both a system of signs and a cultural object, and assesses how people mentally intercept, negotiate, and use the news in ways that foster a sense of control and order over an unstable and unpredictable social world (i.e., “ontological security”) ( Giddens, 1991 ). Based on interview data,…
Establishing news confidence: A Qualitative Study of How People Use the News Media to Know the News-World
Image Isn't Everything: Contemporary Systemic Racism and Antiracism in the Age of Obama
In order to be properly addressed or assessed, racism must be appropriately and consistently defined. We employ critical race theory to challenge the popular notion that the election of Barack Obama and other images of diversity signify racism's decline, end, or reversal. Further, we illustrate the utility and accuracy of critical race theory and the persistence of contemporary systemic racism through a brief analysis of the U.S. criminal justice…
When Innovation Meets Legacy: Citizen journalists, ink reporters and television news
Journalism's transition from an industrial age to an information age and the unstable economics of profit-driven newsmaking have allowed for an unprecedented level of citizen input and involvement in the making of news. Here, new relationships between legacy and innovative newsmaking are forged and new models of newsmaking emerge. In this article, we discuss the case of The New Orleans Eye, an attempt at innovative newsmaking rooted in an individ…
The battle over meaning: Digitally mediated processes of cultural trauma and repair in the wake of hurricane Katrina
Becoming Pure: The Civil Sphere, Media Practices and Constructing Civil Purification
This paper integrates the US civil sphere, European media as practice, and social psychological literatures to demonstrate how people construct their own civil purity and become pure. It uses in-depth interview data to uncover a language of civil purity that people draw on to construct their own belonging in civil society. It argues that some people create an imagined public-at-large that they infuse with polluting qualities associated with the b…
Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action: The Web as a Virtual Mobilizing Structure
Scholarship on collective civic action helps link collective-level contentious actions and individual-level civic engagement. Using longitudinal data from a group of New Orleans residents who started blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina, we highlight the digitally mediated social processes linking individual civic engagement with collective civic actions. Through a developmental approach, we analyze the progression from individual blogging t…
Katrina Bloggers Activate: The Long-Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation
There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross-sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks ne…
A critical strong program: Cultural power and racialized civil exclusion
Can Social Media Use Produce Enduring Social Ties? Affordances and the Case of Katrina Bloggers
Producing Facts in a World of Alternatives: Why Journalism Matters and Why It Could Matter More
A Cultural Sociology of Social Media: Social Drama, Cultural Affordances and Blogging in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
Research on social media, networks and collective action currently lacks a strong cultural component, often focusing on network formation and characteristics from afar. At the same time, research in cultural sociology often takes social media for granted, removed from analytical or theoretical attention. We know little about the perspectives of users or the shared meanings, emotions, and codes that inform social media practices and discourses. Ad…
Building Trust through Social Media in Times of Crisis: Cultural Persuasion, Citizen News, and the Cultural Affordances of Blogs
Research on trust and news tends to focus on professional news (agents, organizations, institutions), ignores the content of news, and takes place during relatively settled times. This article seeks to remedy these gaps by examining how citizens used blogs to make and share news during a natural disaster and its aftermath. It draws on a case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and examines the perspective of blog use…
Compulsive immobility: Understanding the role of health on collective efficacy
Most health care approaches to understanding social ills are rooted in strain or ecological models. Strain models assume that the impact of poor physical health operates through the individual, that it is the individual suffering from poor health who engages in social ills as a means of adapting, and that the impact of poor health is rather direct and immediate. Meanwhile, ecological approaches of health acknowledge how poor health may impact oth…
Connecting After Chaos: Social Media and the Extended Aftermath of Disaster
A riveting portrait of how one community used the power of culture to restore their lives and social connections in the years after a devastating natural disaster Natural disasters and other such catastrophes typically attract large-scale media attention and public concern in their immediate aftermath. However, rebuilding efforts can take years or even decades, and communities are often left to repair physical and psychological damage on their ow…
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (9 works) · Media studies (9 works) · Media Studies and Communication (8 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Social Media and Politics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Hurricane katrina (5 works)