A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
In the final installment of their “Wicked Games” series, Matthew Payne and Peter Alilunas take a look the infamous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ ‘Hot Coffee’ mod, which made sex scenarios visible in the game and elicited regulatory retaliation.
Read moreLouisa Stein explores the realities and possibilities of short form fan audiovisual authorship, particularly on the platform Vine, and examines the form’s role within a larger media ecosystem.
Read moreGarret Castleberry investigates how the “rotten aesthetic” of television horror leads to its spreadability as a genre and the subsequent franchising of and reference to established titles and tropes in the current Quality TV and Peak TV landscapes.
Read moreDan Herbert explores the interaction of entertainment media retail sites, particularly video rental stores, with Somali and Hmong diaspora populations over time in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN.
Read moreWendy Peters explores the gendered boundaries of straight, closeted, and gay characters on 90210 and Glee.
Read moreBambi Haggins considers how the “shady” protagonists, Olivia, Annalise, and Cookie, ambivalently challenge previous “Super Negro” televisual representation strategies.
Read moreManuel Aviles-Santiago explores Univision’s latest appeal to “billenial” audiences through its new show, La Banda , about the creation of a new boy band, which encourages pan-Latino viewership and millennial engagement.
Read moreThank you to those who have submitted both questions and responses for this year’s Flow Conference. The response call is closed, but please continue checking in for more updates. Audience Generations: Millennials, “Becomers,” and Beyond Generational logics guide TV programming, marketing, and branding. These logics are in a state of flux as TV producers reimagine the youth audiences that come […]
Read moreAvi Santo takes a closer look at a few so-called industry outsiders who are leading the charge to change girls’ play culture and guide them toward future STEM fields.
Read moreIn part II of their “Wicked Games” series, Matthew Payne and Peter Alilunas look the controversies surrounding the video game industry in the early 1990s and the subsequent birth of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings.
Read moreWhitten Overby continues his explorations of the intersections of architecture, technology, and gender in AMC’s Mad Men, this time through the lenses of Futurism, car travel, and the sprawling Los Angeles cityscape.
Read moreCoco Zhou examines the role of the Magical Girl and the male gaze in anime programming typically targeted to young female audiences, such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, and explores the economic implications of these programs and their intended audiences in Japan as well as the ways in which these programs appeal to male audiences.
Read more