A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
The Limits of the Cellular Imaginary: iPhone and the Snuff Film
by: Eric Freedman / Florida Atlantic University
Though Saddam Hussein and Steve Jobs were on public display for quite different purposes, and on quite different stages, they were inevitably bound together by certain cultural logics of new media.
Commercial Media, Media Reform, and an Arlington Church Basement
by: Tim Gibson / George Mason University
The popular critique of media commercialism has deep cultural roots, and you don’t have to be fire-breathing Marxist to be disgusted with the moral consequences.
Not So Ugly: Local Production, Global Franchise, Discursive Femininities, and the Ugly Betty Phenomenon
by: Kim Akass and Janet McCabe
Examining the various incarnations of Columbia’s telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea and the ways in which various countries across the world have adopted and translated the show.
Primetime’s Incompetent Liberalism
by: Shawn Shimpach / University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Primetime’s liberalism is both the problem and solution to its perceived red state/blue state divide.
Temporary Guantanomous Zones: Reality Camps and Crucibles
by: Jack Z. Bratich / Rutgers University
Rather than passively view the proliferation of camps in contemporary reality TV, we can ask how this spatial figure is more than a tool of domination.
Silencing the Buzz: Reconciling Individual and Collective Tastes in Awards Season
by: Bo Baker / FLOW Staff
How do awards affect collective and personal taste?
Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Oprah and African children: On Media Fairy Tales, Personal Blessings and the Ongoing Curses of Africa
by: Olivier Tchouaffe / FLOW Staff
The Western pop-cultural obsession with celebrity adoptions from the African continent begs the question: what do these high-power celebrity adoptions really do for African children?