Office Hours
Tuesday 11 am–12 pm
Wednesday 10 am–12 pm
or by appointment
Education
PhD, University of Texas at Austin (Organizational Communication & Technology)
MA, University of Alabama (Organizational & Intercultural Communication Studies)
Honors BA, University of Alabama (Communication Studies & Spanish)
About Me
Sam James is an assistant professor of communication in the School of Communication & Journalism. In her teaching, she loves connecting her students’ outside experiences with course concepts and putting communication skills into practice through applied projects.
James studies critical organizational communication as it overlaps with new media adoption and globalization. She is fascinated by “labors of love”, that is, grassroots organizing around shared identities or passions. Her current research projects delve into the case of global internet fandoms, namely international fans of Korean pop music (K-pop). James was a Fulbright scholar to Seoul, South Korea, where she spent a year collecting hybrid ethnographic and interview data about online and offline K-pop fan organizing efforts. She also collaborated on several other projects related to collective organizing, including a study on indigenous environmental groups in India and the effects of sustainability reporting practices in the UN Global Compact Network. James has presented her work at meetings of the National and International Communication Association and has published in outlets such as the Korean Journal of Communication and the Handbook of Organizational Communication Theory and Research.
When not on campus, she likes visiting local farmers markets, seeking out the best coffee shops around town, and exploring eastern Alabama’s excellent local vintage store scene.
Research Interests
Organizational Communication, Platformization, Globalization, Fandom, “Labors of Love”
Publications
- James, S. (2024) How to be a Fan: The Contradictory Practices of International K-pop fans in Korea’s Platform Society. Korean Journal of Communication.
- Ganesh, S., Stohl., C., & James, S. (2024) Global Methods in Qualitative Organizational Communication. In B. Brummans, Taylor, B., and Sivunen, A. (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Organizational Communication. Sage.
- Ganesh, S., Stohl, C., & James, S. (2024). Generational Shifts: The emergence of visibility in globalization research. In V. Miller & S. Poole (Eds.) Handbook of Organizational Communication Theory and Research. DeGruyter.
- Ganesh, S., Harness, D., Schnell, M., Klingelhoefer, J., James, S., Palakshappa, N. (2023). The Powerpoint Imagination: Visualization and Managerial Vocabularies in Sustainability Reports. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.
- James, S. (2023). What makes a 'Bad' Fan? Dialectics of Pride and Shame in K-pop Fan Organizing. In Xie, M. and Chao, C. C. (Eds.) Mobile Communication in Asian Society and Culture: Continuity and Changes across Private, Organizational, and Public Spheres. Routledge.
Courses Taught
- COMM 3400: Organizational Communication
- COMM 2410: Small Group Communication