Faculty and Staff Profile

James Gilmore

Educational Background

Ph.D. Communication and Culture
Indiana University 2018

M.A. Film and Television
University of California, Los Angeles 2013

B.A. Film and Media Studies
University of South Carolina 2011

Courses Taught

COMM 1070: Media Representations of Science and Technology
COMM 2040: Critical-Cultural Communication Theory (no longer offered)
COMM 2120: Critical-Cultural Research Methods (no longer offered)
COMM 2500: Public Speaking
COMM 3310: Media Communication
COMM 3650: Critical-Cultural Communication
COMM 4020: Mass Communication History and Criticism
COMM 4950: Senior Capstone (no longer offered)
COMM 4970: Collaborative on Communication and Culture
COMM 8020: Communication Theory II (no longer offered)
COMM 8030: Survey of Communication Technology Studies (no longer offered)
COMM 8110: Qualitative Research Methods
COMM 8200: Foundations of Communication
COMM 8230: Seminar in Media & Technology Studies--Communication Infrastructures
COMM 8980: Graduate Colloquium

Independent studies offered to date:
Cultural Studies & Cultural Change
Infrastructure and Surveillance
Friedrich Kittler and German Media Studies
Streaming Media Industries

Profile

Dr. James N. Gilmore is an Associate Professor of Media and Technology Studies and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication. He completed his PhD in Communication and Culture at Indiana University, and his MA in Film and Television at UCLA. He has been at Clemson since 2018. Dr. Gilmore's research analyzes the cultural politics of media and communication technologies, with a particular interest in understanding the processes and consequences of datafication, or how computational technologies convert human behavior to data. Dr. Gilmore is primarily known for his research on wearable technologies. He has been researching wearable technologies and everyday life since 2014, a project which is culminating in his book, Bringers of Order: Wearable technologies and the manufacturing of everyday life, to be released Feb. 2025 from University of California Press. It is the first book in communication and in technology studies explicitly on wearable technologies. He is the co-editor of two anthologies: Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts (co-edited with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Indiana University Press, 2018), and Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (co-edited with Dr. Matthias Stork, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014). He also co-edited, with Dr. Blake Hallinan, a double issue of Cultural Studies on infrastructural politics (2021). His research has been published in leading journals such as New Media & Society; Cultural Studies; Communication, Culture, & Critique; and Critical Studies in Media Communication. He is available for media comment and interview on issues related to technology and culture, including wearable technologies, datafication, digital platforms, and technology literacy. Dr. Gilmore has served as an expert source for publications such as Wired, The Verge, and The Observer, as well as interviewed with a number of local radio programs and podcasts.

Research Publications

Books (Monographs)

Gilmore, J.N. (2025). Bringers of order: Wearable technologies and the manufacturing of everyday life. University of California Press.

Books (Anthologies)

Gilmore, J.N. and Gottlieb, S. (Eds.). (2018). Orson Welles in focus: Texts and contexts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Gilmore, J.N. and Stork, M. (Eds.). (2014). Superhero synergies: Comic book characters go digital. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Journal Special Issues

Hallinan, B. and Gilmore, J.N. (Eds.). (2021). Infrastructural politics [Special double issue]. Cultural Studies 35(4-5).

Journal Articles (* = student co-author)

Gilmore, J.N. and *Blair, B.W. (2024). Make room for VR: Constructing domestic space and accessibility in virtual reality headset tutorials. Television & New Media 25(7): 736-752.

Gilmore, J.N. and *Gruber, C. (2024). Wearable witnesses: Deathlogging and framing wearable
technology data in ‘Fitbit murders.’ Mobile Media & Communication 12(1): 195-211. https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579231208139.

Gilmore, J.N. (2023). ‘Experimentation will be at the forefront’: Industrial reflexivity and data
science on Disney Streaming’s The Art of Possible blog. Population Communication (online ahead of print), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2023.2280649.

Gilmore, J.N., *Hamer, M., *Erazo, V., and *Hayes, P. (2023). ‘Whose house? Our house!’ Streaming revolution during the U.S. Capitol Riots. Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association. https://csalateral.org/issue/12-2/whose-house-our-house-streaming-revolution-during-
the-uscapitol-riot-gilmore-hamer-erazo-hayes/

*White, C. and Gilmore, J.N. (2023). Imagining the thoughtful home: Google Nest and logics of domestic recording. Critical Studies in Media Communication 40(1), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.10080/15295036.2022.2143838.

Gilmore, J.N. (2023). Deathlogging: GoPros as forensic media in accidental sporting deaths. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 29(2): 481-495. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221105787

Gilmore, J.N., *Troutman, B., *Kenney, K., *DePuy, M., *Engel, J., *Freed, K., *Campbell, S., and *Garrigan, S. (2023). Stuck in a cul de sac of care: Therapy Assistance Online and the platformization of mental health services for college students. Television & New Media 24(2): 204-220. https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764221092159

Gilmore, J.N. and *DuRant, M. (2021). Emergency infrastructure and location extraction: Problematizing Computer Assisted Dispatch Systems as public good. Surveillance & Society 19(2): 187-198. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i2.14116

Hallinan, B. and Gilmore, J.N. (2021). Infrastructural politics amidst the coils of control. Cultural Studies 35(4-5): 617-640. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895259

Gilmore, J.N. (2021). Predicting COVID-19: Wearable technologies and the politics of solutionism. Cultural Studies 35(2-3): 382-391. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1898021 [editorially reviewed only].
Reprinted in: Erni, J.N. and Striphas, T. (2022). The cultural politics of COVID-19. Routledge.

Gilmore, J.N. (2020). Alienating and reorganizing cultural goods: Using Lefebvre’s controlled consumption model to theorize media industry change. International Journal of Communication 24: 4474-4493. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/14554

Gilmore, J.N. (2020). To affinity and beyond: Clicking as communicative gesture on the experimentation platform. Communication, Culture, & Critique 13(3): 333-348. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa005

Gilmore, J.N. and *Troutman, B. (2020). Articulating water to infrastructure: Agri-culture and Google’s South Carolina data center. International Journal of Cultural Studies 23(6): 916-931. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920913044

Gilmore, J.N. (2020). Securing the kids: Geofencing and child wearables. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 26(5-6): 1333-1346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856519882317

Gilmore, J.N. (2019). Design for everyone: Apple AirPods and the mediation of accessibility. Critical Studies in Media Communication 36(5): 482-494. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2019.1658885

Gilmore, J.N. (2019). ‘Put your hand against the screen’: U2 and mediated environments. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 33(1): 65-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2018.1537392

Gilmore, J.N. (2017). From Ticks and Tocks to Budges and Nudges: The Smartwatch and the Haptics of Informatic Culture. Television & New Media 18(3): 189-202.

Hassoun, D. and Gilmore, J.N. (2017). Drowsing: Towards a concept of sleepy screen
engagement. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 14(2): 103-119.

Gilmore, J.N. (2017). Zero Dark Thirty and the writing post of post-9/11 history. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 34(3): 275-294.

Gilmore, J.N. (2016). Everywear: The quantified self and wearable fitness technologies. New Media & Society 18(11): 2524-2539.

Gilmore, J.N. (2014). The curious adaptation of Benjamin Button: Or, the dialogics of Brad Pitt’s face. Mediascape (Fall): http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/Fall2014_CuriousAdaptation.html

Gilmore, J.N. (2013). Absolute anxiety test: Urban wreckage in The Dark Knight Rises. Mediascape (Fall): http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/Fall2013_TheDarkKnightRises.html [editorially reviewed only].

Book Chapters

Gilmore, J.N. (2018). Progressivism and the struggles against racism and anti-semitism: Welles’s
correspondences in 1946. In J.N. Gilmore and S. Gottlieb (Eds.), Orson Welles in Focus: Texts
and Contexts (pp. 131-149). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Gottlieb, S. and Gilmore, J.N. (2018). Introduction: The totality of Orson Welles. In J.N. Gilmore
and S. Gottlieb (Eds.), Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts (pp. 1-10). Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.

Gilmore, J.N. (2017). Circulating The Square: Digital distribution as (potential) activism. In C.
Barker and M. Wiatrowski (Eds.), The Age of Netflix: Critical Essays on Streaming Media, Digital
Delivery, and Instant Access (pp. 120-140). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Gilmore, J.N. (2017). Spinning webs: Constructing authors, genre, and fans in the Spider-man film
franchise. In M. Yockey (Ed.), Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe
(pp. 248-267). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Gilmore, J.N. (2015). A eulogy of the urban superhero: The everyday destruction of space in the
superhero film. In P. Petrovic (Ed.), Representing 9/11: Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in
Literature, Film, ad Television (pp. 53-63). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Gilmore, J.N. and Stork, M. (2014). Introduction: Heroes, converge! In J.N. Gilmore and M. Stork
(Eds.), Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (pp. 1-10). Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield.

Gilmore, J.N. (2014). Will you like me when I’m angry? Discourses of the digital in Hulk and The
Incredible Hulk. In J.N. Gilmore and M. Stork, Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go
Digital (pp. 11-26). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gilmore, J. (2013). ‘I moved on, and so did the rest of us’: The masculine ideal and its discontents
in Superman Returns. In N. Farghaly (Ed.), Examining Lois Lane: The Scoop on Superman’s
Sweetheart (pp. 211-234). Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Honors and Awards

Top Paper Award, Popular Communication Division, Southern States Communication Association, for ‘Experimentation will be at the forefront’: Industrial reflexivity and data science on Disney Streaming’s The Art of Possible blog, 2024.

Outstanding Teaching of the Year (Junior Tenure-Track), College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences, Clemson University, 2022-2023.

Outstanding research publication for Securing the kids: Geofencing and child wearables, College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences, Clemson University, 2022.

Research Faculty Spotlight, College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences, Clemson University, Spring 2021 [recognized in April 2021 university research report].

Ray Camp Award for Most Outstanding Research Paper, for “Smart Listening Systems and the Informatization of Communication,” Carolinas Communication Association, 2018.

Top Faculty Paper Panel Participant, for “Smart Listening Systems and the Informatization of Communication,” Carolinas Communication Association 2018 Conference.

Robert Gunderson Award for Best Graduate Student Writing, for “The Smartwatch Imaginary and the Weight of Time,” Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University, 2016 [co-recipient].

Brantlinger-Naremore Essay Prize for Best Graduate Student Writing, for “The Smartwatch Imaginary and the Weight of Time,” Cultural Studies Program, Indiana University, 2016 [co-recipient].

Outstanding Achievement in Leadership and Service, Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University, 2015.

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for CMCL-C190 – Introduction to Media,
Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University, 2015.

Links