Dr. Zack Furness

Pittsburgh & Penn State Greater Allegheny

Pittsburgh Region

• Native Land – You are here.
• Pittsburgh Cultural Resources – An interactive Google Map for PSUGA students. Lots of good stuff here!
• Steeltown – Supporting film and digital media arts in Pittsburgh.
• Restaurant Finder – via Pittsburgh Magazine.
• Pittsburgh International Food Markets – via Foursquare.
• Black Mental Health Resources in Pittsburgh – A working document compiled in 2020.
• Free Things to Do in Pittsburgh – via Visit Pittsburgh.

Penn State Greater Allegheny

• COMM @ PSUGA – The Communications Program at Penn State Greater Allegheny.
• Academic Calendars
• Financial Aid
• External Scholarships
• Engage – Student organizations and events on campus.
• Learning Center
• Career Services
• Health Services
• Counseling Services
• Center for Academic and Career Excellence (ACE) – ACE is a federal program that provides academic and non-academic services to students who meet federal eligibility requirements and agree to participate in the program. This includes first generation college students, those from low-income families, physically challenged students, and students with learning disabilities.
• Commuting to Campus
• Reporting – Resources for reporting wrongdoing at Penn State.
• Title IX, Media & Emotional resources
• Teaching International Events Calendar

Penn State (Mostly) Technology Resources

• Sites – Create your own free blog, website, or digital portfolio using WordPress.
• Accessibility – Accessibility and usability resources for faculty, staff and students.
• Downloads – Free software for Penn State students and faculty.
• WebApps – Access popular applications (such as Microsoft Office) from a wide array of devices.
• LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) – Free video tutorials on Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. There’s a ton of super helpful stuff on this website.
• Click! – Technology jumpstart guide.
• Media Commons – A university-wide initiative to enrich the teaching and learning experience through multimedia technology, classroom training and direct support for students, faculty and staff. I strongly recommend checking out their Tutorials pages.
• Free Media Library – via Penn State Media Commons.
• H5P – Create, share, and resume interactive HTML5 content.

Research & Writing

Penn State Libraries – General Resources

• Libraries Home
• Remote resources page (post COVID)
• Library Subject Guides
• Library Tutorials and Information Materials
• Digital Collections
• E-Books Collections at Penn State
• Streaming Video Resources:
  • Kanopy – Excellent for documentaries and films (including partial access to Criteron Collection).
  • Docuseek – Enormous collection of documentary films.
  • Alexander Street – Excellent for documentaries, TV productions, and educational media.
  • Swank Motion Pictures, Inc. – A small but decent collection of streaming films.
• Independent Voices – An open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries.

Writing Resources & Citation Guides

• Harvard College Writing Center – Harvard Faculty Explain Analytical Writing
• Harvard College Writing Center – Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines
• Excelsior College OWL (Online Writing Lab) – Also an excellent collection of materials regarding formatting and citations.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab – an excellent collection of articles, tools and tips related to all aspects of the research and writing process, including valuable information on formatting and citations.
• The Chicago Manual of Style (Quick Guide) – If you want to access the entire text of The Chicago Manual of Style, you can read it online through the Penn State library here.
• Dictionary of social media terms.

General Research Links

• Pew Research Center
• The New York Public Library – Digital Collections

Communication Research

Penn State Libraries – Communications Research Guides

• Effective Speech (CAS 100) Course Guide
• Communications & media studies guide
• Comparing media systems guide
• News media ethics guide
• News media trends guide
• Television news programs
• CAS 204: Communication Research Methods library guide

Communication Theory & Research Methods 

• A Dictionary of Media and Communication (Oxford University Press, 2020)
• Eds. Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell, How to Watch Television (New York University Press, 2013).
• Keywords for Media Studies (2017)
• The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods (2017)
• Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014)
• Keywords for African American Studies (2018)
• The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies (2012)
• New School professor, Dr. Shannon Mattern, has incredible information on her websites, including these student resources that dive into reading, writing, research, and analysis.
• Eds. Michael Bloor and Fiona Wood, Keywords in Qualitative Methods (2006)
• Video – Survey Research (there are lots of great tutorial videos like this via SAGE Research Methods database)
• Making Sense of Evidence, via George Mason University
• Communication Research Methods Database, via Ithaca College
• Chapter outlines for Investigating Communication (research textbook)
• ‘Content Analysis’ resources
• D. Soyini Madison, “Introduction to Critical Ethnography”
• Textual Analysis Directory, via Aberystwyth University
• Daniel Chandler’s “Semiotics for Beginners”

Media, Culture, and Politics

A Non-Comprehensive List of Publications

• Ada
• The American Prospect
• Ars Technica
• Art Forum
• The Atlantic
• The Baffler
• The Battleground (EU)
• Belt Magazine
• Bitch Media
• Book Forum
• Catapult
• Color Lines
• CounterPunch
• Cyborgology
• Defector
• Dissent
• The Drift
• The Economist
• Esquire
• Flow
• Harper’s
• Hyperallergic
• The Intercept
• In These Times
• Jacobin
• Journal Safar
• Late Light
• Literary Hub
• Logic
• Maximum Rocknroll
• MEL Magazine
• The Nation
• The New Inquiry
• New Lines Magazine
• The New Republic
• The New Yorker
• New York Magazine – Accessible to PSU students via Press Reader
• n+1
• The Outline
• Pacific Standard
• The Paris Review
• Pop Matters
• The Postindustrial
• Public Books
• Real Life
• Slate
• Souciant
• Sounding Out!
• Splice Today
• Teen Vogue
• Territory
• Vox
• Wired

Archival Research

• The ARChive of Contemporary Music
• Interference Archive
• Oakland Museum of California – Political Posters
• Palestine Poster Project
• Radical Online Collections & Archives – Open access online collections of radical, left-wing and labour historical documents, compiled by Dr. Evan Smith at Flinders University. Over 350 collections from around the world.

Good Stuff on the Web

• The Internet Archive
• Know Your Meme
• The Found Footage Festival – Videos
• Fonts in Use
• Top Documentary Films

News & Journalism

General Resources

• Press Reader – Access more than 5000 newspapers and magazines from 100 countries in 60 languages.

Penn State News

• The GA-ZETTE – Penn State Greater Allegheny news.
• Daily Collegian – Penn State University Park news.

Local & Regional News

• Centre Daily Times – Students can access this publication for free via the Student News Readership Program. Click here for details & links.
• The Mon Valley Independent – Independent, local news focused on the Mon Valley.
• New Pittsburgh Courier – Local newspaper focused on Pittsburgh’s African American community.
• PennLive – Students can access this publication for free via the Student News Readership Program. Click here for details & links.
• The Philadelphia Inquirer – The third oldest daily newspaper in the US.
• Pittsburgh Business Times – Local business reporting, accessible via PSU Libraries.
• Pittsburgh City Paper – Local alternative weekly newspaper with an emphasis on arts & culture.
• Pittsburgh Current – Independent alternative weekly newspaper.
• Pittsburgh Independent – A new independent news organization, founded on May 1, 2022.
• Pittsburgh Institute of Nonprofit Journalism – Excellent new-ish local news organization.
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Local daily newspaper. Students have full access the newspaper here.
• Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – Local daily newspaper.
• Public Source – Independent, non-profit, local news online.
• South Pittsburgh Reporter – The oldest weekly community newspaper in the City of Pittsburgh, published since 1939.
• Tube City Online – Independent, online news in McKeesport run by a great local journalist named Jason Togyer. Also check out the Tube City podcast: 2 Rivers, 30 Minutes.
• Valley News Dispatch – The Tribune Review‘s coverage of the Mon Valley.

National & International News

• Al Jazeera
• BBC News
• Democracy Now! – Independent, nationally syndicated, in-depth daily news broadcast
• The Guardian
• New York Times – Students can access this publication for free via the Student News Readership Program. Click here for details & links.
• Pro Publica 
• Reveal – The Center for Investigative Reporting.
• Semafor
• Wall Street Journal – Students can access the publication for free via the Student News Readership Program. Click here for details & links.
• Washington Post
• Los Angeles Times – Students have full access the newspaper here.

Coverage & Analysis of News

• Columbia Journalism Review
• FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
• Nieman Lab – at Harvard University
• Politifact – by the Poynter Institute
• Quill – by the Society of Professional Journalists
• AllSides – features both news & guides to political slants of various publications.