The challenge facing Tremé (and every other media representation of New Orleans) is finding a way to balance a celebration of the city’s unique cultural contributions with an acknowledgment of its more conventional, and often more damning, histories, memories, and contemporary realities. Week 6’s episode “Feels Like Rain” responds to this challenge, self-consciously,...
Read more »
When it comes to misbehaving male politicos, troubled marriages, and suffering wives, it seems a reasonable question to ask whether the writers/creators of The Good Wife are either clairvoyant, or just darned lucky.
Read more »
As one of the first events of this magnitude that has taken place squarely within the Twitter era, Osama Bin Laden's death reveals the challenge facing traditional media outlets when Twitter runs rampant with speculation (and real reporting).
Read more »
As we enter the second week of protests, it seems a good time to look back and gain some perspective on the people, places and moments which have placed Wisconsin in the national and international spotlight.
Read more »
As I have joined in the vibrant, energetic, and peaceful demonstrations against the Budget Repair Bill at the Wisconsin State Capitol, I have been struck by how those demonstrating have constituted a collective identity for themselves as Wisconsinites.
Read more »
I’m reminded of an argument made by rhetoric scholars Kevin DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples that we need to rethink the notion of the public sphere because so much of our democratic enactments happen not in a sphere, but on what they call the “public screen.”
Read more »
The protests in Madison have demonstrated forcefully the power of an alternative to the opinion poll, an embodied voice of the people.
Read more »
As you may’ve heard, something is going on in the state of Wisconsin.
Read more »
Trying to watch itself, Egyptian state TV has lost its collective mind. They have slid into a self-comforting psychosis. They don’t reject reality as much as they simply create a whole new one.
Read more »
Ulaby’s story of how Harry Potter fans were becoming activists demonstrates how surprising it is for most people that fans are not loners, hiding away from the world, but rather are productive and rational- and can create real political change.
Read more »
I had stopped watching news channels recently, and perhaps I kept watching Survivor because it became a metaphor for the political situation I was trying to avoid.
Read more »
Considering the revelations which could emerge from WikiLeaks, news that U.S. Embassy Officials in Canada were vilifying CBC's fictional programming was...unexpected.
Read more »
While controversy is nothing new for reality TV, the political overtones of Bristol Palin's run on Dancing with the Stars illuminate the genre's tenuous relationship with the principles of democracy.
Read more »
A first-hand account of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's gathering on the National Mall.
Read more »
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.
Read more »
