politics

I haven’t written as much lately about political mashups, in part because the 2008 election cycle has passed.  But two recent ads by the Democrats have sought to exploit the rhetoric of some of the Apple ads to support Democratic candidates for Senate and the House: ... read more »

Here’s a quick pointer to an article I co-wrote with Richard Edwards for the journal, First Monday, “Political Video Mashups as Allegories of Citizen Empowerment.“  The article focuses on three modes of political mashup: advocacy, protest, and commentary through three videos that commented on the 2008 election, Vote Different, Imagine This, ... read more »

Short-form networked documentaries aren’t an entirely new idea.  Activist filmmakers have been using tools such as camcorders and other cheap video tools to document under-reported stories.  Add to that the use of YouTube as a rapid distribution model and a vibrant political and documentary blogosphere, and we have seen a number of attempts at analyzing political activity on the fly.  More often than not, this format has lended itself to forms of gotcha journalism that may be a temporary distraction along the lines of Max Blume ... read more »

In celebration of being listed as one of the 100 Top Blogs about Film Studies, here is a long links post full of pointers to some recent debates about film distribution, documentary, and the new media landscape: ... read more »

A recent post on Daily Kos reminded me that PBS (specifically Bill Moyers) has been re-screening the powerful documentary film, Critical Condition, which looks at three families dealing with difficult financial and personal choices as a result of not having access to health insurance.  Thanks to a POV screener DVD, I saw the film a few months ago and ... read more »

More film and media news that has caught my attention over the last couple of days: ... read more »

The Plot:

An internationally respected African American Professor (Denzel Washington) returns home from holiday and finds the door to his plush suburban home is jammed.  The taxi driver (Benicio Del Toro) helps him “break” in to his own house.

The neighbors (played by the full cast of Desperate Housewives) get nervous seeing these events, and call the police, who promptly arrive within seconds. [Backstory - the reason the police arrive so quickly is because this is a “good” neighborhood.] ... read more »

It’s difficult to know what to say at this point about the Iran elections, but I think it’s worth pointing to some of the videos and blogs that are coming out of Tehran as protesters have been holding a mourning ceremony to mark the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot to death during post-election protests. ... read more »

I recently c0-signed this letter initiated by Steve Buckley, President of AMARC and Director of Sheffield Live fm.  See the letter in it’s original context at http://www.sheffieldlive.org/lettertogordonbrown/

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