Alexander Jenkins, PhD
Associate Teaching Professor
Assistant Director Communication, Culture, and Media Graduate Programs
Department of Communication
Education:
- PhD, Communication, Culture, and Media, Drexel University
- BA, Anthropology, Drexel University
Research Interests:
- Fan studies
- Game studies
- Sports media
- Media ecology
- Emerging media and technology
- Mixed methods research
Bio:
Alexander Jenkins is an associate teaching professor in the Department of Communication at Drexel University. He received his PhD in CCM from Drexel writing his dissertation titled Digital Gamers: A Mixed Method Study of Players, Emotion, Mood, and Moral Life. Jenkins teaches in the Department of Communication, in the Strategic and Digital Communication master’s program, and in the Communication, Culture, and Media (CCM) graduate programs. He teaches general communication courses (like Human Communication and Techniques of Speaking), media studies courses (like Resources for Media Studies, Fans, Fandoms, and Audiences, and Sports and Media), and graduate level courses (Media Environments, Research Methods in Communication, Culture, and Media, and Communication Theory: Persuasion and Media Effects). He is passionate about supporting graduate student research and works closely with students in CCM, and undergraduate student research in communication and media studies. His research interests center on digital games, fan discourses on the internet, race and sports, and emerging and converging media. He has examined moral discourse in America, emotion and morality in digital games, and online fan communities. Jenkins's work has been published in a variety of journals, including Political Communication, the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, and the Journal of Sports Media, edited volumes, and a co-authored manuscript.
Selected Publications:
- Ron Bishop, Alexander Jenkins and Nicholas Coffman (2025). “Drowning in Information but Starving for Knowledge: Sports Journalists Frame Major League Baseball’s Recognition of the Negro Leagues.” Journal of Sports Media.
- Alexander Jenkins and Hilde Van den Bulck (2024) “Audience Relations to African American Athletes’ Activism from a Diachronic, Media Ecology and Celebrity Apparatus Perspective: Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Colin Kaepernick” In Gaëlle Ouvrein, Ana Jorge, and Hilde Van den Bulck (Eds.) An Interdisciplinary Approach of the Interactions and Relationships between Celebrities and their Audience. Lexington Books
- Alexander Jenkins and Gregory Loring Albright (2021) Eds. Special Issue Explorations in Media Ecology "20th Anniversary" EME 20.4.
- Alexander Jenkins (2020) “Lighting the Bonfire: The Role of Online Fan Community Collaboration in Dark Souls 3.” In Gaines Hubbell (Ed.) What is a game? Essays on the nature of videogames. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
- Jonathon Lundy, Alexander Jenkins, and Hilde Van den Bulck (2020). Fandom In The International Encylopedia of Media Psychology.
- James Malazita and Alexander Jenkins (2017) “Digital Games and Moral Packaging: The Impacts of In-Game Decisions on Public Pedagogical Deliberation” Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, 9(1), 3-20.
- Douglas Porpora, Alexander Nikolaev, Julia Hagemann May, and Alexander Jenkins (2013). Post-Ethical Society: The Iraq War, Abu-Ghraib, and the Moral Failure of the Secular. The University of Chicago Press.