Biography
Gina Giotta
Ph.D., University of Iowa
B.A., University of California, Berkeley
Gina Giotta is Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). As a media historian, she studies the social, cultural, and material histories of communication technology from the camera to the computer to understand how these extensions of the human sensorium have reorganized the lifeworld. Her published work on the television laugh track, photographic retouching, and media theory pedagogy appears in such venues as the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Communication Teacher, and the MIT Press collection Fake News: A Reader, edited by Melissa Zimdars and Kembrew McLeod. She regularly teaches courses in the philosophy of technology, communication history, rhetorical criticism, and food studies, and she is active in numerous professional organizations like the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the Western States Communication Association.
When Dr. Giotta isn't working, she enjoys economically unproductive activities like making vegan soup stock, composting, and restoring salvaged furniture and clothing.