Welcome to the Culture Wars

Note: I will update this post periodically as I see people using terms they may not understand, and appreciate anyone’s help to make certain I am properly translating, defining, and contextualizing terms. EDITED: Here is a great rundown of terms from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/alt-left-alt-right-glossary.html?_r=0 Feature image comes from http://www.full-stop.net/2011/08/29/features/essays/michael-schapira/how-to-master-the-culture-wars-in-two-weeks/ which shows just how long the culture […]

Community at AAW

It takes a community to build a wrestling promotion. We have been going to AAW shows now for over a year. We have been to see them in the various venues they use in Chicago — Logan Square Auditorium, 115 Bourbon Street, the Berwyn Eagles Club, and Joe’s Live at Rosemont. We have watched some […]

V for Vendetta and Resisting Fascism

In the thirty-ninth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I present a special episode as they compare and contrast the graphic novel V for Vendetta and its film adaptation. In this episode, we discussed how the two versions of the story reflected on the social, cultural, and historical periods in which […]

Convergent Wrestling: Call for Chapters

Official Call for Chapter Proposals Title: Colliding Inside the Squared Circle: The Convergent Nature of Professional Wrestling Editors: CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Dominican University) & Christopher J. Olson (Dominican University) Purpose: The concept of convergence represents one of the most pervasive buzzwords in media studies, but with good reason. In essence, convergence concerns how the boundaries […]

Online Learning Communities with a Dominican Flair

Online Learning Communities with a Dominican Flair: Arguing for applying the Dominican ethos to online higher education CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Claire Noonan (Dominican University) Introduction It seems that everywhere one looks in the world of contemporary higher education, someone is making an argument for the elimination of faculty in favor of technology as the […]

Advice for Children on Social Media

My first piece of advice is to focus on teaching your children how to be respectful when they communicate and engage with people, online but also in person. This means being aware of not just what you are saying but how you are saying it, and that how is immensely important in social media with […]

Avatars, Audiences and Interactive Television

This presentation was given at the 100th National Communication Association Conference in Chicago on November 21, 2014. This presentation reflects the work I have done with Pooky Amsterdam to understand the nature and potential of virtual world television as reported in the Journal of Virtual World Research. This presentation was awarded one of the Top […]

Community in Online Learning: Thoughts from EDUCAUSE

Every year, there is a special gathering of individuals interested in improving the technologies of higher education. Faculty, IT administrators, inventors, entrepreneurs, the Big Dogs (i.e. Google, Microsoft, Dell, etc) convene for several days of talks, presentations, pitches, sales, and ideas. This get annual, international together is sponsored by EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit dedicated to improving […]

Experience Spotlights: Richard Kastelein

Richard Kastelein, an expert on social television and transmedia storytelling, presents his work on Twinners, an attempt at creating a real time virtual world television experience. Experience Spotlights: Richard Kastelein

Pragmatic Approach to Social Media

(The following comes from my extended position in a debate on the benefits and drawbacks, the harms and hopes, of social media. This debate was developed for the Dominican University Caritas Veritas symposium and was delivered on Tuesday, September 24th, 2013.) My name is Dr. CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, and since I am the director of […]