A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Turning Back the Tidycans
by: Michael Curtin / University of Wisconsin-Madison
Most evenings my octogenarian, cigar-chomping, father-in-law likes to crank up the TV to full volume, pour a tall one, and settle into his easy chair where he methodically scans the news and talk channels, riding herd on the world from his perch in coastal Georgia.
The 2004 Presidential Election and the Dean Scream
by: Lisa Parks / UC Santa Barbara
What was missing in this campaign in my opinion was the lack of discussion of media industry reform, which is surprising given all the ammunition on the democratic side to address such issues.
The Trunk in the Attic, or, Designing a Digital Legacy
by: Robert Schrag / North Carolina State University
Communication is, and always has been, a negotiation; technology and society parrying and thrusting, demand and counter, proposition and accommodation.
Terrorists Watching TV
by: Cynthia Fuchs / George Mason University
About a half hour into Antonia Bird’s The Hamburg Cell, a group of young Muslims are watching TV.
Interview with Sara Leeder, Segment Producer for CNBC’s “Topic [A] with Tina Brown”
by: Hollis Griffin / FLOW Staff
Sara Leeder: “For me, the hardest thing about working in a 24-hour news environment is keeping myself constantly attuned to what ‘the news’ is, when ‘the news’ is always changing.”
Transform Me, Please…
by: Tara McPherson / University of Southern California
I have to confess that the chance to ‘look ten years younger’ in ten days has its appeal.
by: Chris Lucas / FLOW Staff
Jason Reich: “I think that part of the reason what we do is so frequently perceived as ‘liberal’ is because we’re talking about the news, and these days, the people making the news are, by and large, conservatives…”
Domestic Reality TV
by: Allison McCracken / DePaul University
I have finally found a reality program that I can watch without cringing with embarrassment for the participants and/or becoming enraged at the producers. Not surprisingly, it’s trailing in the ratings and on the brink of cancellation.
Putting the ‘Syn’ into Synergy
by: Eileen R. Meehan / Louisiana State University
I beat the Rugrats to Paris by two years. In December, 1998, I was on an Air France flight from Houston to Paris. Rosy-fingered Eos was rising over Europe and our French flight attendants were distributing breakfasts. In the middle of the tray was a large container of applesauce whose foil cover was emblazoned with the faces of the Rugrats plugging their first movie.
Global Advertising Data SOX-ed up
by: John Sinclair / Victoria University, Melbourne Those of us with an orientation towards political economy and an interest in how the advertising industry propels media development have lost a lot of wind from our sails with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was passed by U.S. Congress in July, 2002. The purpose of the Act is to protect investors from financial […]
Read moreBlack Zen Masters in the Dojo of Reality Television
by: L.S.Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
Typically in reality television, the host is white – famous examples include Jeff Probst in Survivor, Ryan Seacrest in American Idol, and Regis Philbin in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? whose through-the-roof ratings jump-started the reality programming watershed. But in America’s Next Top Model, The Road to Stardom, and Pimp My Ride, the hosts are African American and already stars.
Rethinking the Digital Age
by: Faye Ginsburg / New York University
It is 2005 and the term “The Digital Age” is as naturalized for many as a temporal marking of the dominance of a certain kind of technological regime (“the digital”) as is the “Paleolithic’s” association with certain kinds of stone tools.