A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Merging With Diversity, or, Got MLK?
by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
Will the upcoming merger between the WB and UPN networks result in the whitewashing of what little African American programming network television has mustered thus far?
“AZN Television: The Network for Asian America”
by: L. S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
It’s a good time to consider the emergence, significance, and implications of television targeted towards Asian Americans.
TV Revisiting TV: Why TV Does the “Remake” Better than Movies Do
by: Sharon Ross / Columbia College Chicago
How film remakes TV, and how TV remakes TV, too.
Awkward Conversations About Uncomfortable Laughter
by: Henry Jenkins / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Is Sarah Silverman making racist jokes, or jokes about racism?
Feeling Blue: Katrina, The South, and The Nation
by: Tara McPherson / University of Southern California
A consideration of regional politics in Katrina coverage.
The Los Angeles Misanthrope
by: Walter Metz / Montana State University at Bozeman
Online publication, such as Flow, allows academics the much needed space to contemporaneously intervene into the reception of films and TV programs while they are still attended by the general population. The benefit of these interventions is changing the nature of reception by making it relevant to its time.
Hurricane Spectacles and the Crisis of the Bush Presidency
by: Douglas Kellner / UCLA
(How) will the Bush image weather criticism leveled at his administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?
Reality TV
by: Derek Kompare / Southern Methodist University
How Hurricane Katrina can reshift how we define reality TV worth watching.
Where’s the Beef?
by: Daniel Bernardi / Arizona State University
A look at pornography, hate speech, Donna Haraway’s cyborg metaphor, and their relationship to race in America.
Overhaulin’ TV and Government (Thoughts on the Political Campaign to Pimp Your Ride)
by: James Hay / University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
These days, the expression “overhauling” is in the air (and “on the air.”)
Domestic Reality TV
by: Allison McCracken / DePaul University
I have finally found a reality program that I can watch without cringing with embarrassment for the participants and/or becoming enraged at the producers. Not surprisingly, it’s trailing in the ratings and on the brink of cancellation.
Black Zen Masters in the Dojo of Reality Television
by: L.S.Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
Typically in reality television, the host is white – famous examples include Jeff Probst in Survivor, Ryan Seacrest in American Idol, and Regis Philbin in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? whose through-the-roof ratings jump-started the reality programming watershed. But in America’s Next Top Model, The Road to Stardom, and Pimp My Ride, the hosts are African American and already stars.