media studies

There is a tendency in meta-industry books about Hollywood to promise that the author will reveal hidden truths about how the studio system (or multimedia conglomerates) operate, one that promises to take us beneath the artificial sheen and airbrushed glamor of the star system or the breathless accounts of box office records found in trade publications such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.  Given that Hollywood entertainment is predicated on spectacle, such approaches are tempting.  They have pervaded the ideological criticism found in academic journals for decades. ... read more »

Ever since Sigmund Freud insisted, a little too adamantly for my tatses–that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, we’ve all known that jokes often express unconscious desires or have some form of hidden meaning or purpose.  No surprise there.  And, ever since George Plimpton punked an entire nation of sports fans with stories of a Buddhist Met with a 163-mph fastball, the April Fools article has been a staple of contemporary jour ... read more »

Just a few quick links while I procrastinate on grading some papers: ... read more »

I’m still turning over some of the questions I’ve been considering lately about new distribution models for movies and television, in particular some of the “long tail” arguments that have suggested that affordable broadband will create a “celestial jukebox” that will provide us with essentially unlimited choice and convenience at a reasonable price. ... read more »

I am working on proposing a roundtable for the 2010 Flow Conference on the topic of digital publishing and television criticism, building on some of the thoughts explored in my recent post. If you’re not familiar with the Flow Conference, the idea is that instead of formal papers, there are roundtable structured conversations from invited and interested participants centering around a core topical prompt. ... read more »

I’ve been spending the last few days recovering from and catching up after my trip out to California for SCMS, so I haven’t been able to follow some of the recent debates about new directions in film distribution as closely as I would have liked.  So consider this pot to be a quick recap and reflection on some of the conversations that are taking place.  These notes tend to ramble somewhat, and there isn’t really a thesis here, just an attempt to make sense of some of the ongoing discussions that have been taking place in recent weeks. ... read more »

At this week’s SCMS, I presented a paper, “Redbox or Red Envelope: Closing the Window on the Bricks-and-Mortar Video Store,” exploring the implications of the rise of alternative forms of video distribution and the seemingly imminent demise of chain video stores. ... read more »

I’ve just finished the fifth and final day of the marathon Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in LA, and it was by far one of the best large-scale conferences I’ve ever been to. I attended no bad panels, and only a couple of weak papers – which is pretty rare! Either I got really lucky, my standards have dropped, or the quality of the conference was strong (let’s be generous and assume the third). ... read more »

I performed a few drive-bys at SCMS (parking $40!) as it was held in my own town, meaning I stayed home and was thus left to perform Mommy-duty while other conference-goers cocktailed into the night. No matter, I attended 4 panels, 1 workshop (Queer Mentoring, where I spoke) and 1 party, and here’s a fly-by of my idiosyncratic bests: ... read more »

In case you missed it elsewhere, I wrote yesterday’s SCMS conference report for Antenna.  It’s pretty much impossible to summarize my reactions to four different panels in the space of 600-700 words, but as you’ll see, I found many of the panels I attended yesterday to be incredibly productive and engaging.  While you’re in the neighborhood, you should read yesterday’s report from Derek Kompare, as well.