John Downing is Media@McGill's Beaverbrook Visiting Scholar in October-November 2010. He is currently Visiting Professor in the Information and Media Studies Department, Aarhus University, Denmark, and will be a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the universities of Helsinki and Tampere, January-May 2011. He is Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Global Media Research Center, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He has also taught at the University of Texas at Austin (1990-2003), and previously at Hunter College, City University of New York (1981-1990). His research interests include globalization, culture and media; alternative media and social movements; political cinemas of the global South; social class, racism and media. His recent publications include: Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements (Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, California: 2001); Sage Handbook of Media Studies (Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, California: 2004); Representing ‘Race': Racisms, Ethnicities and Media (co-author Charles Husband) (Sage Publications Co., London, UK: 2005); and the Sage Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media (2010). He also edited the segment on international communication in the 12-volume International Encyclopedia of Communication, edited by Wolfgang Donsbach. He serves on the executive editorial board of the journal Global Media & Communication, was recently elected editor of the ICA journal Communication, Culture & Critique, and is a vice-president of the International Association for Media and Communication Research.