Todd Holden: Profile

Todd Joseph Miles Holden (PhD, Syracuse University, 1989) is Professor of Mediated Sociology in the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies at Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan. His writings embrace social theory, semiology, advertising, gender, political communication, sports and comparative culture.

His books include medi@sia: global media/tion in and out of context (2006), Globalization, Culture and Inequality in Asia (2003), and Reading Signs: Language, Culture and Society (in Japanese, 2000).

Representative chapters have addressed:

  • youth cell phone use in Japan
  • pro-social messages and political control in Malaysian television commercials;

  • commercialized political campaigning in Japan;

  • Japanese Internet dating sites and contemporary social theory;

  • conceptions of heroes in Japanese culture;

  • a synthetic introduction to advertising studies;

  • maculinities in Japanese TV food shows

  • the phenomenon of Japanese "sports exports/media imports", and

  • a sociological overview of Japanese television.

His monthly column, "ReDotPop", is published in the e-zine PopMatters.

All of his writings, including a manuscript on gender in japanese TV ads (called "Sold on Gender: Representations of men and women in Japanese television advertising") can be found on his website.

Todd is a member of various editorial boards of professional journals and is an executive member of APSA, the Asia Pacific Sociology Association, whose home page he designed and maintains.



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