Hello there!
My name is Mohammed Rashid (he/they), and I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Media and Communication at The University of Southern Mississippi. Here I teach the graduate courses Mass Communication Theory (COM 607), Media and Society (COM 780), and Critical Cultural Theory in Communication Studies (COM 608), along with undergraduate courses Digital and Social Media (COM 310), Media Management and Economics (MCJ 463), Media Criticism (MCJ 462), Digital Communication (CMS 150), and Introduction to Film Studies (FLM 170).
Before coming to USM, I worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the Anneberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
I have a PhD in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from the Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas.
I am an interdisciplinary scholar trained in Critical Cultural Communication, Mass Comm, Emerging Media Technologies, Global Film and Media Cultures, and Queer Theory. I position my teaching and research at the interface of global emerging media cultures, social movements and media activism, and tactical use of digital communication platforms by queer counter-publics.
I am currently working on my first book project titled Queer Media in Bangladesh, contracted with Bloomsbury Publishing. The project takes a critical media studies approach to study Bangladeshi and South Asian blogging networks, social media sites, online discussion forums, digital archives, and emerging storytelling platforms as affective spaces where Bengali queer sexualities are regulated and negotiated between dominant publics and queer counter-publics. My research has appeared in QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking, Research in Developmental Disabilities, Studies in Media and Communication, Media Fields Journal, and Flow. I have presented my research at national and international conferences, including the National Communication Association (NCA), the Southern States Communication Association (SSCA), the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), the Mississippi Communication Association (MCA), and the Western States Communication Association (WSCA).
I am trained in multiple research methods across the humanities and qualitative research traditions, including content analysis, thematic analysis, discourse analysis, textual analysis, close reading, as well as ethnography, such as site visits, participant observation, user experience research, interviews, focus groups, and digital ethnography. I speak five languages (English, Bangla, Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic), and this helps in multi-cultural and transnational research settings. I have also been trained in socially engaged art (SEA) and participatory media production, and my politically engaged artistic projects have been featured in exhibitions in the United States, Canada, and Bangladesh.
I am a member of the interdisciplinary multi-university Fashioning Circuits Research Collective. Here, I have been working as the Humanities Team Lead for the Migrant Steps Project, along with working on multiple other creative and critical-making projects such as Words Matter. I am also the Co-chair for the Transnational Cinema and Media Scholarly Interest Group (SIG) at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). For the SIG, I have been curating a range of book talks and scholarly discussions by Transnational Cinema and Media Scholars from around the world, which can be accessed through the SIG’s YT channel here.
From the local, regional, national, and global institutions I am affiliated with, I have received various awards and recognitions for my service, scholarship, community, and contribution.