Australia's digital channels pose a threat to the free-to-air channels, so how do the latter fight back?
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TV
Australian “Free” TV
Sifting Through the Trash: Guided Spectatorship at the Maury Show
The most memorable part of being a Maury audience member was learning how the show achieves such a consistently united, cacophonous reaction from its audience: through coaching from the production crew.
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Racist Rants as Rebranding Strategies
Juan Williams, Laura Schlessinger, Lou Dobbs, and Don Imus all used racially insensitive comments to renew flagging careers and reinvent themselves for a changed media environment. It's rebranding through racism.
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WikiLeaks “Bombshell”: The CBC is the Enemy
Considering the revelations which could emerge from WikiLeaks, news that U.S. Embassy Officials in Canada were vilifying CBC's fictional programming was...unexpected.
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Dancing with Democracy
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.
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Late to the Party: Twin Peaks (1990-91)
Welcome to our new feature, Late to the Party. Each week, our contributors will consume and report on a canonical or otherwise significant piece of media that they have missed until now. First up: Myles McNutt on Twin Peaks.
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Replying with the Enemy: Showrunners on Twitter II
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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Media, Mothers, and Me
CBS's The Good Wife doesn't shy away from the challenges its protagonist faces in negotiating her adult life, something more than we tend to expect to see on television, where story lines often trade in emotionally false dichotomies.
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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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Chai Boys, Nipples and “Breaking”: Meta-Humor on 30 Rock
Self-referentiality is a staple of 30 Rock's satire. Yet, I almost needed a "drop" and a spinning top to resurface from this live episode's multi-layered meta-humor.
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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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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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Glee as Integrated Musical (Finally!)
“Grilled Cheesus” is one of the few Glee episodes to not only establish, but also to play with, the opposition between dream world and real world in the musical.
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