Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently.
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Eastbound and Down’s primary character Kenny Powers is the ultimate in camp masculinity. Kenny’s character reeks of white masculine power, and as cultural critics, we need to ask how this type of supremacist rhetoric functions in America’s “postracial” political climate.
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Do public spaces increase democratic participation through public discourse and visibility? Does a mediated non-profit ‘public forum’ help to promote the ‘promise’ of American democracy? These questions still provide grounds for healthy debate over the purpose of media studies, as well as a coherent logic for media research.
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After two episodes of trying to decide how I feel about the show, I started to wonder: Who does HBO hope will watch Girls? Girls’ small initial audience suggests that its audience “isn’t easily defined.”
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Whether you saw their performance on Saturday Night Live, heard the insanely catchy “What Makes You Beautiful” playing over a mall sound system, or just happen to know a 12-year-old girl, it’s possible you’ve already encountered One Direction, the first truly viable boy band of the current musical era.
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Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently.
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While this media surge contributed to this season’s premiere becoming Mad Men’s highest rated episode ever, ratings are not really the point. Mad Men sustains AMC's brand, providing a specific and prestigious visibility that extends beyond those who actually watch. Mad Men also offers viewers the opportunity to feel simultaneously nostalgic for and superior...
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Last week’s South Park episode, “Jewpacabra,” is just the latest in the program’s intermittent efforts to use their medium to introduce otherwise silenced elements of society and culture into the public sphere. Though packaged in exactly the sort of silliness and Jew jokiness that the title implies, the episode actually features one...
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Ira Glass' iconic voice seems to be everywhere, and offers insight into contemporary radio culture and stardom.
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Using Google+ for student assignments in a TV genre class would, ideally, link learning with social technologies students are already using, and spur students to consume social media more critically. As with all experiments there was some success and some failure.
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Carly Rae Jepsen's Justin Bieber-supported breakthrough offers a case study for how difficult it is for stardom to remain transnational when moving into the U.S. market.
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Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently.
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Clear Channel has figured out how to profit from college radio. Can college radio survive its embrace?
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“One Shining Moment’s” recent revisions suggest that the mythic meaning the highlight attaches to the men's tournament is contingent upon the stability of the gendered television viewing experience it constructs.
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It isn’t difficult to find feminist game studies, or feminist gamers. The reputation of misogyny in video game culture, lack of women and racial minorities in the industry, the perpetuation of player stereotypes in games marketing and the popular press, and the dearth of non-white, female, or queer characters in games has provided plenty...
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Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently.
Read more »