“Why 2008 Won’t Be Like 1984:” Viral Videos and Presidential Politics

by: Chuck Tryon / Fayetteville State University
How will voter-created viral videos shape the mediascape of the forthcoming 2008 US Presidential Election?.

Merging With Diversity, or, Got MLK?

by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
Will the upcoming merger between the WB and UPN networks result in the whitewashing of what little African American programming network television has mustered thus far?

“Ad”ing by Subtraction

by: Chandler Harriss / Alfred University
How do you know you’re “too old” for advertisers (and therefore networks) to cater to you? Perhaps when you’re at home on Saturday night….

“AZN Television: The Network for Asian America”

by: L. S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
It’s a good time to consider the emergence, significance, and implications of television targeted towards Asian Americans.

The August Audience

by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
While television networks are rolling out their lineups of new shows this month, many potential viewers have already decided which programs they will tune in to, and which they will actively avoid. How does pre-season marketing play in to the way audiences interpret television texts, and how do we analyze those readings as critics in television studies?

Television’s Gated Communities

by: Megan Mullen / University of Wisconsin-Parkside
New strategies in cable television are reinforcing the metaphor of cultural gated communities.

Why Media Scholars Should Write Corporate Histories

by: Frederick Wasser / Brooklyn College
Several trade publications have received notices that last month was the tenth anniversary of the launch of WB and UPN, the fifth and sixth broadcast TV networks, dubbed by the trades in their argot as “weblets.”

An Open Letter to the Food Network

by: Anna McCarthy / New York University
Dear Food Network, I like cooking and I like eating . . .

Putting the ‘Syn’ into Synergy

by: Eileen R. Meehan / Louisiana State University
I beat the Rugrats to Paris by two years. In December, 1998, I was on an Air France flight from Houston to Paris. Rosy-fingered Eos was rising over Europe and our French flight attendants were distributing breakfasts. In the middle of the tray was a large container of applesauce whose foil cover was emblazoned with the faces of the Rugrats plugging their first movie.

Global Advertising Data SOX-ed up

by: John Sinclair / Victoria University, Melbourne
Those of us with an orientation towards political economy and an interest in how the advertising industry propels media development have lost a lot of wind from our sails with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was passed by U.S. Congress in July, 2002. The purpose of the Act is [...]

Affective Economics 101

by: Henry Jenkins / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Apprentice
How many different ways is The Apprentice involved in branding?
1. The Brand as Protagonist: The Donald casts himself and his corporate empire as the series protagonists. In the Sept.23 episode, the Donald ascends down the escalator to a trumpet fanfare and then directs our eyes upwards to [...]