A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Alex Brannan discusses the potential for mainstream long-form improv, using the Netflix comedy special Middleditch & Schwartz as a case study.
Read moreBrett Siegel examines the NFL’s developing response to the Coronavirus and the George Floyd protests as an extension, and in many ways a culmination, of Trump era anxieties and tensions.
Read moreEric Forthun looks at how local and regional late night talk shows might help us re-imagine the cultural function of U.S. late night television.
Read moreAsh Kinney d’Harcourt examines the complexities in the later in life female-to-male (FTM) transition narratives shared on YouTube. The stories of these late bloomers, and trans elders more broadly, are significant at a time when trans futures are uncertain.
Read moreWhat does it mean to receive notifications from your smart watch telling you to exercise, especially during a pandemic? Andy Fischer Wright makes an argument that his Apple Watch Activity notifications make it clear that the company is more interested in the data he produces than his well-being.
Read moreDeborah L. Jaramillo examines the shifting visibility of the public and private spheres on television news in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read moreBrian Fauteux questions the theoretical “celestial jukebox” of algorithm-driven music streaming services and the actual variety and access their catalogues offer, and compares it to campus radio stations and their rich libraries of more local and diverse music.
Read moreThe Silence of the Lambs has been the object of ongoing cultural fascination and criticism for its negative portrayal of transgenderism. Cáel M. Keegan questions whether this “bad object†is redeemable in this exploration of the standards of representation in the transgender media archive.
Read moreUsing Harrison Ford as a case study, Kathleen Loock examines the shifting role of aging male actors in blockbuster franchise sequels from hypermasculine hero to father.
Read moreJudy Mikovitz in Plandemic Misinformation has plagued the public consciousness since the beginning of the written word; however, contemporary fake news has the opportunity to be far more damaging than its historical predecessors. Access to a global information superhighway allows unreliable images, articles, and videos to be shared to millions of people in one instantaneous click. Over the past five […]
Read moreMelissa Morton explores how the UK’s public broadcasting channels have adapted their branding in response to the Covid-19 health crisis and discusses the implications of new viewing habits for the future of the UK’s public service broadcasters.
Read moreVice President Mike Pence visits the Mayo Clinic. As YiÄŸit Soncul and Jussi Parikka contend in “Masks: The Face between Bodies and Networks,†masks have become particularly symbolically freighted, with recent imagery of their use emerging from the Australian wildfires, protest movements, and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The authors’ following exploration “argues that it is through contexts of immunity and […]
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