I'd be grateful for any feedback on this first draft of my cover letter template and dissertation description (for my CV, which is now updated). I've annotated the job letter for your edification; Tenured Radical's blog post is also a good place to start for understanding the formula. Please join the Media Studies Job Search facebook group if you're interested in such topics!

Indiscrete Media: Television/Digital Convergence and Economies of Online Lesbian Fan Communities
My dissertation analyzes how the convergence of television and the internet is transforming the relationship between the media industry and its consumers. Taking women's production of fan music videos, fiction, critique, and community as an exemplar of economic, regulatory, and technological struggles emerging today, I undertake three case studies of online lesbian fan formations around three television series. Through these artifacts, and drawing from media archaeology, autonomist Marxism, queer theory and cultural studies, I argue that fan engagement is a contested axis of immaterial labor in late capitalism. By framing convergence's technologies, discourses, and subjectivities as queer, I offer a schema for mapping its challenges to systems of ownership, circulation, and value. My work uniquely synthesizes media studies, fan studies, and industry studies, and makes critical contributions to scholarship on television, digital media, and lesbian representation.

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Dear [name or generic search committee],


[1] I am writing to apply for the position of [job] in [department] at [institution], as announced on [source]. My expertise is in television, internet subcultures, and their intersection in fan production, via the critical framework of queer, Marxist, and media theory. Currently, I am completing my dissertation, Indiscrete Media: Television/Digital Convergence and Economies of Online Lesbian Fan Communities, under the direction of Lynne Joyrich in the department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, and expect to receive my PhD in the summer of 2009. [one-sentence summary of my strengths tailored to the specific job]

[2] "Convergence" crystallizes a matrix of current cultural phenomena, from corporate consolidation to technical integration to user-generated participation, that are transforming the relationship between media producers and consumers. In my dissertation, my analysis of this formation takes queer female labor in the guise of online fan discussion, fiction, music videos, and community-building as an exemplar of the tensions emerging at the crossroads of television and the internet. Because the media industry is itself reorienting to privilege fan engagement, my approach to larger economic, legal, and ideological negotiations through the lens of fandom is timely. Beyond broadening the scope of fan studies, however, my work brings a unique critical theoretical perspective to bear upon popular "new" media dynamics, constructing a framework drawn from autonomist Marxism, media archaeology, queer theory and cultural studies. The core of my project consists of three localized evaluations of lesbian fan activity around the television programs Battlestar Galactica, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and The L Word, with attention to three intertwined registers: the screen texts still defined as television episodes; the transmedia texts online that include tie-ins, promotions, and gossip; and the fan texts produced by interpretive communities. These case studies exemplify disputes over technologies of reproduction (figured by the hybrid), politics of representation (figured by the closet), and commodification of identity (figured by the network), demonstrating that fan economies are a contested axis of immaterial labor in late capitalism. Concluding with an excursion into online video, my dissertation maps the queer interventions and global connections generated by a predominantly female fan subculture, arguing that convergence's technologies, discourses, and subjectivities pose structural challenges to systems of ownership, circulation, and value that corporate media is struggling to reincorporate. I maintain that scrutinizing the increasingly intermediated configuration of television and the internet is necessary to understanding the antagonisms shaping media evolution today.

[3] Beyond my dissertation, I have studied television form, queer spectatorship, digital politics, and cybersexuality, presenting on these topics at numerous conferences and publishing articles on lesbian representation and queer netporn. I currently serve on the founding editorial team of the open access, international, peer-reviewed online journal Transformative Works and Cultures, which exposes me to interdisciplinary scholarship on popular media and fan communities. In my next project, I plan to investigate the ecology of user-generated internet video, examining the ongoing spiral of grassroots participation and capitalist regulation that intersects global struggles over fair use, network infrastructure, visual publics, and self-representation. This expands my work on media fandom to encompass a wider range of subcultural production, with a continuing focus on television futures and on immaterial labor.

[4] My commitment to teaching arises from an investment in endowing young adults with the theoretical tools to think critically about the media engagements that permeate their personal and cultural experience. Pedagogically, I emphasize process-oriented and participatory learning, and mobilize online social media platforms to structure, share, and network course materials and student work. While I accommodate varying learning styles, I have a particular dedication to developing student writing skills, and have taken advantage of programs at Brown's Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning to refine my educational strategies. In my department at Brown, I had the opportunity to teach my own seminar, "Television on the Internet: Private Property in the Public Eye," which introduced students to a variety of methodological frameworks for analyzing how an array of convergent phenomena are reshaping media texts, reception, and production. This venture, along with my training as a teaching assistant for such classes as Introduction to Television Studies, Introduction to Digital Media, and Introduction to Modern Culture and Media, have prepared me to teach core courses offered by [name of department], including [list some]. I am also eager to develop new courses in the areas of [make up some that are relevant to the job description].

[5] [short paragraph expressing specific enthusiasm for the specific job/department]

Please find my curriculum vitae [and list any other materials] enclosed. The names and contact information of my references are included at the end of the CV, and their letters will arrive through Brown's dossier service. [if applicable: My proffered writing sample, "Many Copies: Conceptions of Battlestar Galactica," is a condensed dissertation chapter that is representative of my critical approach to transmedia artifacts.] I would be delighted to provide other materials upon request. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[me]


NOTES

[1] The first paragraph gives basic information and is highly standardized. Basically, by sentence: 1) what you're applying for; 2) summarize yourself in one sentence (optional); 3) describe your current status (could be two sentences); 4) your pitch -- "I believe that my blah blah blah make me an excellent candidate for this position" (also optional).

[2] Explain your dissertation and its contribution to the field. I worked from a further breakdown of the formula that went, more or less sentence-by-sentence:
1. context
2. intervention
3. methodology
4. contents
5. conclusions
6. big picture

[3] There seem to be differing opinions about the purpose of the third paragraph, but I adopted the model that says this is where you outline your larger research interests and apocryphal next project (NB: invented completely out of thin air). It could also be a catch-all for anything else you think is important about you, outside of dissertation and teaching.

[4] The teaching paragraph. Others might prefer to go into less detail about nebulous principles and more detail about courses you have taught/would like to teach. I haven't really gotten around to imagining new courses yet.

[5] This is a kind of unofficial paragraph, but I wanted to template out this flexible space rather than attempting to rewrite the whole letter in each case. I think it will prove useful as a spot to construct a tailored pitch. Whether you include it or not, do make sure you conclude with an inventory of all the materials you've sent as part of your application package. I'm also putting my contact info both at the top and the bottom of the letter.