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Samantha James

Samantha James

Assistant Professor

Communication

Communication & Journalism

Samantha James

Contact Me

shj0010@auburn.edu

232-C Tichenor Hall

Personal Website

Office Hours

Tuesday 1:30–4:30 pm

In the news

Samantha James
Arirang News: K-pop breaks the Grammy wall

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. (2026) Prideful Actions, Shameful Identities: Hybridity in International K-pop Fan Communities. In E. Zimmerman and C. Fujimura (Eds.) Foundations in Cyber-Ethnography: A Cross-Cultural Approach. Bloomsbury.
  • James, S. (2026) “It’s About Showing our Love and Support for our Boys”: K-pop Fan-made Cafes as Transcultural ‘Labors of Love’. In T. Hu & F. Wu Transcultural Media Fandom in the Asia Pacific. Bloomsbury.
  • James, S. (2025) Affective Participation From the In-Between: The Platformization of K-Pop Fandom. Social Media + Society.
  • 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 2410: Small Group Communication
  • COMM 3400: Organizational Communication
  • COMM 3450 Intercultural Communication
  • CMJN 4970: Global Communication & K-pop