Category: Audience/Reception Studies
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On Transgressing Audiencehood: Web 2.0, Interactivity, and Becoming What We’ve Always Been
I think I have now determined what my main research trajectory will be, and I wanted to take the opportunity to organize these thoughts to provide the beginning of a structure for how to organize my research, past, present and future. For awhile now, I’ve been convinced that how the new media has affected our…
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For the Love of Zombies
My latest article at Clearance Bin Review delves into the psychological and sociocultural reasons for why we seem to be so obsessed with zombies lately. They are everywhere in our pop culture and mass media, and their fans organize charity events and protests. Speaking with a fellow fan of zombies (who organizes events like the…
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The Rise of Hentai in America, Part 3
[This is the final part of the women studies paper I wrote on hentai. You can find Part 1, on the definition of hentai, here, and Part 2, on the comparison of hentai to live action pornography, here.] While it may not be as prevalent or have the same tradition in our society that live…
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The Culture of The Fail
As a society, as a civilization, even as a species, we like to celebrate success. With the Summer Olympics under way in Ye Olde London Towne, we have one of the great examples of how much we humans celebrate success. We give people medals, trophies, money, cereal endorsements, all for outrunning, outgunning, outswimming, outsynchronizing their…
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Singin’ About a Simulacrum
(From a 2007 class assignment) I can remember rather vividly when I first saw Singin’ in the Rain. Gene Kelly had just passed away and my father was aghast that we had never seen what he considered the best musical of all time. And while I still have favorites that supersede this musical, Singin’ in…
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Teenagers Using Media Texts for Sexual Identity Exploration
What turns me on, turns me off?: Usage of media texts by adolescents for sexual identity exploration. (A graduate school psychology final paper, edited for posting, with link containing the full paper.) When the audience for the media and its content is children, research into the mass media typically focuses on two mediated “sins”: violence…
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The Whats versus Hows of Film Spectatorship
[What follows is a 2007 paper I wrote for a graduate level course on film studies. It was this paper that started me thinking about what I’ve come to term minutia reception studies. I’ve edited the paper for length, and I’ve included a picture of the reception worksheets my brother filled out as part of…
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Television Showrunners & Their Fans: Does the Internet Make Them Friends?
Dan Harmon has been replaced as the showrunner for the NBC sitcom Community. The replacement came on the heels of the series being given a fourth, and final, half-season order to let the show wrap-up it’s ultimate question of: will the Greendale Seven actually ever graduate from their community college? Harmon is being replaced by two…
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