UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A researcher whose work examines the intersections of culture, digital media, society and technology will discuss how digital culture can support cute pet images as well as political hate and what we can learn about the technology, and ourselves, during a free public lecture on Penn State's University Park campus.

Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama, will present the Pockrass Memorial Lecture, titled “Beyond the Attention Economy: The Ambivalence of Pets, Memes, and TikTok,” at 5 p.m. on Dec. 1 in Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library. The session is free and open to the public. Those who cannot attend in person may watch live on Zoom but must pre-register.

Cute pet and animal images are staples of contemporary digital cultures, argues Maddox, but the cultural tenets that inform their creation and circulation can often be wielded for more insidious means. The same social media that produces Grumpy Cat can also produce political hate symbols. By specifically examining the role of attention in relation to pet and animal social media, Maddox will discuss the slippages between the cute and ugly of the contemporary internet.

Maddox is an assistant professor of digital media technology in the department of journalism and creative media at the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences. Her work has been published in numerous scholarly journals and honored by the International Communication Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Prior to entering academia, Maddox was a magazine journalist and social media strategist.

The Pockrass Lecture was named for the late Professor Robert M. Pockrass, a member of the Penn State journalism faculty from 1948 to 1977. He specialized in public opinion and popular culture, served as the graduate officer and taught radio news writing in the School of Journalism, a precursor to the Bellisario College.