media studies

My last post skirted the issue, saying I was “too busy” to perform my professorial labors properly: the hard work of “unpacking” lady Gaga. Ha. ... read more »

Michael Marino is the most recent person to review Reinventing Cinema, this time in the journal, Film & History. The review is generally positive, with Marino remarking that  ”Tryon’s book is generally interesting and well argued and it is clear he is an expert on this topic. The book does an excellent job outlining the evolution of the medium of film in the age of digital technology. This topic in turn speaks to wider themes related to the intersection of technology and society.” ... read more »

I’ve recently become intrigued by articles that attempt to depict the labor involved in some of the new video distribution models.  For a while, there was an entire genre of newspaper articles (here is one example) devoted to the behind-the-scenes operations at Netflix. ... read more »

Feeling a bit out of the loop because of the end of the semester, but here are some of the things I’ve been reading an watching over the last few days: ... read more »

Over the course of the 2008 Presidential election cycle, I wrote a series of articles tracing the phenomenon of political mashups, videos that reworked scenes and characters from famous movies in order to comment on the election, whether to support a specific candidate or to tarnish the brand of a rival candidate. ... read more »

At one of the many preschools that my children have attended, there’s a sign that serves as one of the key rules: “You can’t say that you can’t play.” At its core is the basic message that if somebody wants to join in, you’ve got to let them. ... read more »

During a recent visit to Wilmington, North Carolina, the Best Girlfriend Ever and I dropped by EUE Screen Gems Studios for their tour. ... read more »

This is some of my talk for “Sensory Communication: Expressive Culture and Youth Media” at UCSD, April, 2010.

I will also present it to my CGU Cultural Studies Graduate course, Visual Research Methods, as an example of new media scholarship on “digital storytelling” and hope they will respond with some tough questions and insights that track some of the ideas of our course (so make sure to read comments!) ... read more »

Note: This is the first in a series of reviews of films that played at this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham. ... read more »

While I mostly blog on media culture, this is my second effort in a matter of days that reviews a book. If anything, I’ve probably always been more of a reader than a media-buff. However, I turned to film and videos in college, as an academic/political choice, given that I deduced that work in this realm would be where the real cultural action would take place during my professional/activist life. I haven’t looked back.

However, I’ve been thinking more about writing these days (here) because of my in-the-wings all-digital scholarly YouTube publication (three positive reviews from the Press, Yes!, awaiting a contract…) and the questions it raises about moving scholarly projects to other forums and the tough connected issues of vernacular, audience, translation, form (discussed in my previous blog on Praxis.) ... read more »