Author Archive

With election results now in, attention has inevitably turned to the one media source that has seemingly dedicated itself, 24/7, to making sure Obama was defeated and Republicans would take control of the Senate: Fox News.
Read more »

With the release of the new documentary on Sarah Palin, the former governor takes umbrage at the "hate" directed toward her by Hollywood celebrities. She either doesn't understand celebrity culture or understands it all too well.
Read more »

Glenn Beck's departure from Fox News does not mean he truly leaves the network. Cable television news has been fundamentally changed as a result of his presence. We look back at Beck's legacy and what that means for television news.
Read more »

What is the meaning of political bodies in a hypermediated world? If five hundred thousand of my best friends show up and the New York Times doesn't know how to read us, has Sanity occurred? A report from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
Read more »

As the media hand-wringing continues over whether Rev. Terry Jones's Quran book-burning stunt deserved so much media attention, commentators miss the more important points about this episode and its relationship to contemporary political culture.
Read more »

Dramatic television has rarely shown much affinity for musicians, and neither has it shown much artistry for dealing with musical performances within the narrative. This time, David Simon and HBO finally get it right.
Read more »

As the Republican Party careens off into the netherworld of nuttery crafted by right wingnuts, we must ask ourselves what role users of new media play in helping craft their appeal. Do they deserve the attention we afford them through our own actions employing new media/social media?
Read more »

Glenn Beck may say he is simply an entertainer with little interest in politics, but that is a lie. He has proven himself a political demagogue who employs a variety of well-worn rhetorical techniques, all of which, as history has shown, are dangerous.
Read more »

While YouTube offers the opportunity for unprecedented political participation through user-crafted videos, it can also house the performance of political lies mascarading as truth. Can citizens resist the attractions of such visual truthiness?
Read more »

The latest ideological skirmish will be played out through a History Channel mini-series on the Kennedys by conservative producer Joel Surnow. The problem, though, runs much deeper than shoddy history. It is rooted in a fundamental epistemological divide between left and right over what constitutes truth and how we arrive at it.
Read more »

Stewart praises Fox News for presenting a clear and simple narrative, and chastises Obama for his lack of the same. Citizens need stories, even in politics. But do they have to be so simple in an age of complexity?
Read more »

Although the public is notoriously ahistorical about contemporary politics, the news media do little to remind them of how we got here. Political reporting looks more and more like entertainment/celebrity reporting, and Obama will need to return to campaign mode to capitalize on that.
Read more »

While Palin's contract with Fox News seems natural and inevitable, television is actually her worst medium.
Read more »

What NBC failed to understand in the Leno/O'Brien debacle is what it itself had created--late-night audiences.
Read more »