Football Talk
by: Jim McGuigan / Loughborough University, UK
Jim McGuigan examines why the ubiquitous presence of football chatter in the UK is a crucial source of pleasurable release.
Tag: Criticism
“You Got to Know When to Hold Em”: Notes Against the Academicization of Television
by: Walter Metz / University of Montana-Bozeman
The relentless pressure to be taken seriously must not prevent TV scholars from admitting that on occasion, like the average viewers, they do slack in front of the tube. Metz watches “Poker TV” or even the Simpson’s just for their saccharine appeals and for relaxation purposes.
TV Revisiting TV: Why TV Does the “Remake” Better than Movies Do
by: Sharon Ross / Columbia College Chicago
How film remakes TV, and how TV remakes TV, too.
The “Popular Culture and Philosophy” Books and Philosophy: Philosophy, You’ve Officially Been Pimped
by: Brian L. Ott / Colorado State University
Brian Ott takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the faux-wit and wisdom of the Popular Culture and Philosophy books.
Desperate Citizens
by: John McMurria / DePaul University
Extreme Makeover Home Edition contestants are portrayed as good and deserving citizens who are the victims of misfortunes beyond their control. However, while EMHE helps these deserving citizens, the corporate sponsored show fails to recognize the irony inherent in the fact that it is these very corporations that contribute to these problems in the first place.
The Los Angeles Misanthrope
by: Walter Metz / Montana State University at Bozeman
Online publication, such as Flow, allows academics the much needed space to contemporaneously intervene into the reception of films and TV programs while they are still attended by the general population. The benefit of these interventions is changing the nature of reception by making it relevant to its time.
Reality TV
by: Derek Kompare / Southern Methodist University
How Hurricane Katrina can reshift how we define reality TV worth watching.
What is Lost?
by: David Golumbia / University of Virginia
David Golumbia takes the Lost discussion one step further.
Pass the Remote: Catch and Release
by: Chris Terry, Cate Racek, and Cory Maclauchlin
What’s the appeal of fishing shows?
Evaluating TV Smarts in the Public Sphere
by: Allison McCracken / DePaul University
Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good for You) writes that television can be a “cognitive workout.” Whose television is he talking about?
“Roswell! Roswell! The People Have a Right to Know!”: The State of Fluff, part 2.
by: Eileen Meehan / Louisiana State University
“Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing,” serves as an example of the state of network news reporting.
Reinventing Public Media
by: Michael Curtin / University of Wisconsin-Madison
A pragmatic approach to the possibility of media reform