Hey, Klaatu! Call Peter!: The State of Fluff, part 1
by: Eileen R. Meehan / Louisiana State University
When Frank Rich nails media wastrels, they stay nailed.
The Unwired Side of the Digital Divide
by: Faye Ginsberg / NYU
Today, as I write, the United Nations is inaugurating a long awaited program, a “Digital Solidarity Fund”, that will underwrite initiatives that address “the uneven distribution and use of new information and communication technologies” and “enable excluded people and countries to enter the new era of the information society.”
Elevating Servants, Elevating American Families
by: L.S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
The figure of the domestic servant and the television, come together to teach Americans parenting skills.
Watching Westerns in Old Europe
by: Patrick J. Walsh / Universität Passau
Americans are rich and they use the Western to explain why. So said one of my students in a class on the Western at the University of Passau in southern Germany.
Nanny TV
by: Laurie Ouellette / Queens College
Are your kids a handful? Are you exhausted? Is your house a “zoo?” Do you need help juggling the demands of work and family? Me too.
I’m A Celebrity – Analyse Me: The Appeal of Celebrity Reality TV
by: Kirsty Fairclough / University of Salford, UK
What celebrity reality TV offers as opposed to its celebrity-constructing counterpart is not the transformation of the “ordinary” person into the “extraordinary,” but the opposite trajectory.
Belaboring Reality
by: Heather Hendershot / Queens College CUNY
In season one of The Simple Life, the apparently soulless Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton spend a month in rural Arkansas disappointing the Ledings, the humble, hard-working farm family that has agreed to take them in.
Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy
by: Doug Kellner / UCLA
On March 10, 2004, when speaking to AFL-CIO union workers in Chicago, John Kerry said in what he thought was an off-mike comment: “Let me tell you–we’re just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, lying group of people I’ve ever seen.”
The Credibility of Reality TV and Its Lineage with other Photographic Arts
by: Mary Beth Haralovich / University of Arizona
Recently, I was asked to comment on the credibility of reality television as compared to the credibility of street photography by artists like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank and Cindy Sherman.
P.S. An Idol’s Pace
by: Mimi White / Northwestern University
This column is something of a postscript to the last one I wrote, concerning the differential paces of television.
Can the Social History of Audiences Contribute to Media Reform?
by: Thomas Streeter / University of Vermont
Zephyr Teachout, formerly a staffer for Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign, recently published an open memo to the Democratic Party about using the internet to help rejuvenate the Party at the grassroots…
Who Wants to be a Crorepati?: Global Television and Local Genres in India
by: Shanti Kumar / University of Texas-Austin
In 2000, when Star Plus Channel launched Kaun Banega Crorepati? (KBC), the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the show quickly became the biggest hit on Indian television.