For showrunners, the risks and rewards of replying to Twitter users are magnified: replying could create a sense of a personal relationship with their followers, but getting into long conversations with fans (especially antagonistic fans) could spark controversy.
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Current Events
Replying with the Enemy: Showrunners on Twitter II
Conan and the Warm Embrace of Narrowcasting
Basic cable might turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to Conan O'Brien.
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Rehabilitating the Investment in Sports Stardom
Nike tries to give LeBron James a chance to address his off-season controversy in a new 90-second ad while re-establishing the commodity of sports stardom.
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Report from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
A first-hand account of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's gathering on the National Mall.
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Television and the Haunted Holiday
By disrupting the everyday with a yearly tradition which unite a show's cast, Halloween episodes can use the holiday's blurring of fantasy and reality to speak to questions of character.
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Net Neutrality
Despite its reputation as a wonky and bewildering issue, net neutrality actually boils down to a pretty simple principle of openness and nondiscrimination. It’s important to point out, then, that a lot of those who are talking about “net neutrality” these days aren’t actually talking about this.
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Converse Rubber Tracks: What’s a Shoe Company Doing With a Recording Studio?
Are lifestyle brands the new record labels? A new recording studio owned by Converse is offering musicians the opportunity to record their music for free, further reducing the need for artists to work with traditional record labels. There are, of course, some strings attached.
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The ACTA Retreat: Their Ignorance, And Ours
The ACTA retreat is indicative of a larger crisis in how media policy works today. Specifically: we have no idea how media policy works today.
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Mr. Draper’s Wild Ride: “Tomorrowland” and Mad Men’s Season in Review
As Mad Men's fourth season comes to a close, we look back on what Antenna contributors have had to say, and how it reflects on the eventful finale.
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What Do You Think? The Chilean Mine Rescue
The rescue of a group of Chilean miners this week has become a media phenomenon. We want your opinion on it all.
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A Practical Magic: Christine O’Donnell’s Invocations of Witchcraft
By now you've surely heard the news: Christine O'Donnell is not a witch. Merely scoffing at her response to this brouhaha, though, means passing up an opportunity to understand how she constructs herself and her appeal as a righteous outsider.
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“Those Kinds of Shenanigans”: Mad Men’s “Blowing Smoke”
This season, Mad Men, and its mad men and women, have been on a quest to redefine what advertising is, dramatizing the radical changes that the field underwent during the 1960s.
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Simpsonic Business as Usual?
Last night, the Banksy-directed opening credit sequence “couch gag” for The Simpsons took us into the sweatshop behind the franchise. As executive producer Al Jean noted, “This is what you get when you outsource.”
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The Much(?) Anticipated Return of Caprica
Despite an appealing sense of inevitable narrative momentum, a long but more importantly uncertain wait makes it hard to feel excitement and anticipation for the mid-season return of this Battlestar spin-off.
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“Listen. Do You Want to Know a Secret?”: Mad Men, Episode 10, “Hands & Knees”
The British invasion of Sterling Cooper at the end of season two has resulted in a noticeably different firm and a noticeably different direction to the series. This has also meant moments of audible change.
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