The Hotness of Cold Opens: Breaking Bad and the Serial Narrative as Puzzle
Lisa Coulthard / University of British Columbia
A look at the puzzling cold opens of Breaking Bad.
Read moreCategory: Volume 13
The Hotness of Cold Opens: Breaking Bad and the Serial Narrative as Puzzle
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,
and What We Know
Murray Pomerance / Ryerson University
“Can it be that we are capable of seeing—with our vast technology and hyperstimulated imaginations—only what was once ourselves, only what we have survived?” Thai film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives inspires us to think about our own lives.
Read moreEverybody Knows
Charles R. Acland / Concordia University
The “nobody knows anything” phrase is a smokescreen for an extensive and concentrated organization of advantage in the arena of commercial cultural enterprise.
Read more“Choice Fatigue,” Community and the Mutations of Television
Graeme Turner / University of Queensland
An Australian scholar relates his experience of “choice fatigue” while visiting and viewing cable programming in the United States, and examines whether expanded choice limits the role of television in communities and nations.
Read moreAction Television/Crime Television: Sensation and Attraction
Yvonne Tasker / University of East Anglia
An argument for a more thorough understanding of the formal relationship between action spectacle and narrative as a distinctive yet neglected aspect of crime television.
Read moreMisunderstanding Bruce Springsteen, the Dead Kennedys, and Devo
Ann Johnson / Cal State University, Long Beach
In this essay, Ann Johnson looks at commonly “misunderstood” songs, the ways artists have made their songs amenable to misuse and their attempts to reassert control over such songs.
Read moreWe Are All Oldies: The Death of Youth Music
Norma Coates / University of Western Ontario
Norma Coates asserts that rock as youth music is dead and heading to the morgue in this provocative article.
Read moreThat’s Democratainment: Obama, Rumor Bombs, and Primary Definers
Jayson Harsin / The American University of Paris
In this article, Jayson Harsin reconsiders the definition of news in response to the emergence of the rumor bomb and convergence culture.
Read moreBlack Guy Corner: What the Upfront Photos Say about the State of TV
Cindy Conaway and Sheila Marie Aird/ SUNY Empire State College
A critical examination of “upfronts,” the photographs distributed by television studios to promote new shows. Does the television industry promote an agenda through imagery that maintains positions of power, or does it covertly use images to give primacy to a particular group of people?
Read moreMasculinity and Authenticity: Reality TV’s Real Men
Christopher Lockett / Memorial University
A look at the visions of blue-collar masculinity provided by reality TV.
Read moreThe Politics of ‘dirt’ in Dirty Jobs
Andrew King / Queensland University of Technology
The concept of dirt is used as a way to explore significant class taboos in the Discovery Channel series, Dirty Jobs. King’s article examines the politics behind the production of this program.
Read moreThe Potential of Vernacular Video for Queer Youth
Daren C. Brabham / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
An examination of the potential positive and negative roles of video in the lives of LGBTQ youth, and a call to action for members of the critical scholar community.
Read more