Welcome back!

We’re all ecstatic right now, as we relaunch MediaCommons on this most historic of days. We’re still working out a few of the bugs — call this a beta release, if that term is still useful — but the migration appears to be complete, and both the MediaCommons blog and In Media Res are open for business. The site is now running in Drupal, which means that very, very soon we’re going to be able to offer any registered user the ability to open and maintain her own blog here; we’re also planning on aggregating content from media studies focused blogs across the web, enriching MediaCommons with the wealth of dialog taking place across the field. (If you’re interested in having your site aggregated here, or in starting a new blog, or reposting select content on MediaCommons, please email me!)

For the moment, a bit of instructional material: If you were a registered user on the old MediaCommons site, your user account should have been migrated here, though with two small complications: 1. Whatever your login ID was, it’s now defaulted to your full name (usually first and last, unless you were using a middle name or initial in your display name on the old site). This is a peculiarity of the import system, and is necessary for the moment in order for posts to be properly signed. At some point in the near future, you’ll be able to change your username to something more you-friendly, and nonetheless have your posts signed with your full name. We’ll keep you apprised of this. 2. When you log in the first time, you’ll need click on "request new password," and to use either your full name or the email address you originally used when you registered on MediaCommons, in order to get the system to send you a new password. You’ll be able to change that password after you log in the first time. Things are still a bit in process here, but we’ve got some great projects coming soon. Stay tuned!