Doctor Who Theme Week @ In Media Res

Chris Olson and I kick off the In Media Res theme week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. This piece, with a wonderful video produced by Chris, is based on the conference paper we recently presented at MPCA. You can see the post and the video via “I AM the Doctor”: Polysemic rhetoric and […]

“I AM the Doctor.”: The Historical Trajectory of Doctor Who

“I AM the Doctor.”: Polysemic rhetorical flexibility and non-traditional audience reception in Doctor Who By Christopher J. Olson, DePaul University & CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, Dominican University This paper was presented at the MPCA 2013 Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the longer version of the presentation, and thus it represents are full current thoughts on […]

Equestria Girls: Displeasure Among Bronies

It was quite a busy day yesterday on the My Little Pony Facebook page. Hasbro announced the release date for the Equestria Girls movie (on DVD this Tuesday! which makes it the widest release!) as well as the toy line associated with the spin-off. As I have been tracking since the beginning of the marketing for the spin-off (starting […]

Hollywood Dialogue

Dialogue may be considered to be a session of give-and-take that occurs with relatively short turnaround time — one person speaks, then the other person responds, leading to the first responding to the second’s responses, and so forth. The time lag between the first person speaking and then speaking again is the consideration for the […]

Corporations Ploy to Educate Online Pirates

I wrote this week’s Dr. Geek piece for Clearance Bin Review on the recent implementation by the big five ISPs in the United States — AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner — of a new “educational program” designed as a warning and punishment system to stop people from engaging in peer-to-peer filesharing of copyrighted […]

CBS, Hawaii Five-O and Content Interactivity

CBS is no newcomer when it comes to experimenting with giving their audience a more interactive experience with their television programming. As I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog, the television network in the past had offered their audience a chance to engage in social interactivity while watching their favorite shows online. The network had structured […]

3D Printing: The end of consumerism?

We’ve been contemplating acquiring a 3D printer at my university for pedagogical and research purposes. As part of this contemplation, I have had to learn more about the technology and uses of desktop manufacturing. And in doing this, I began thinking about how the diffusion and integration of 3D printing into everyday life could change […]

Whose Voices?: The elite versus the public in the game of merger mania

(I wrote this back in 1999, as part of my consternation about the rise of media mergers after the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Unfortunately, such consternation has not abated: in fact, they might have gotten worse with the rise of predominance of the Internet.) Forget Pokémon. Merger mania is the real game sweeping the nation. In […]

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 […]

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 […]