A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
To Pee or Not to Pee: On the Politics of Cultural Appropriation
by: Brian L. Ott / Colorado State University
Although I appreciate the courtesy of my fellow drivers letting me know what pisses them off and whom they’d like to piss on, I can’t help but notice that they have adopted the same cultural icon to convey, at times, very divergent targets of distaste.
“Citizen versus Consumer”: Rethinking Core Concepts
by: Michele Hilmes / University of Wisconsin-Madison
Every so often a core concept emerges in an historical or theoretical field that serves a purpose at the time of its invention but slowly loses its explanatory power…
Apology
by: Cynthia Fuchs / George Mason University
Apologizing is an art. And apologizing for TV is something else.
Sculpting a Digital Language
by: Robert Schrag / North Carolina State University
A number of responses to my last Flow column wondered what form the “digital language” I advocated might take. The question took me back to a very non-digital experience.
Laguna Beach
by: Anna McCarthy / New York University
“Oh my God, didn’t Morgan get pretty?” This was a friend’s response when I asked if he’d seen Laguna Beach, a new MTV reality show billed as “the real Orange County.” He wasn’t actually commenting on a character’s looks. Rather, he was parodying its signature mode of dialogue…
Murdoch’s Munificence
by: Michael Curtin / University of Wisconsin-Madison
Critics roundly denounce Rupert Murdoch as the most rapacious media baron of the current era, yet few have commented upon the fact that Sir Rupert is also our greatest media philanthropist.
The New “F” Word: Indexed Out of the Election Debate
by: Bill Herman / University of Pennsylvania
The most important question here is what actually happened on Election Day; most communication researchers are ill-equipped to do this.
My Big Flat Screen TV
by: Sharon Strover / University of Texas at Austin
Our household finally succumbed to the lure of the big flat screen TV. I wonder what we’ve brought into the house that may not be as obvious as the big screen itself.
Race and Reality…TV
by: L. S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz; UCLA
A prime-time line-up without reality television programming seems a lifetime ago.
Want to Hear a Scary Story?
by: Eileen R Meehan / Lousiana State University
Behind Van Helsing lurked a scary tale waiting to be told: General Electric’s purchase of Vivendi’s Universal Vivendi Entertainment unit, which made and released Van Helsing.
“Lost”
by: Allison McCracken / DePaul University
With a fall season marked by the popularity of programs entitled Without a Trace and Lost, the importance of loss as a televisual theme seems rather obvious.
News Corporation: From the Local to the Global
by: John Sinclair / Victoria University, Melbourne
At the end of last month, October 2004, Rupert Murdoch won shareholder approval to move News Corporation’s domicile and main stock market listing from Australia to the US.