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 The CMS Colloquium Series is intended to provide an intimate and informal exchange between a visiting speaker and CMS faculty, students, visiting scholars and friends. Subjects relate to the various media we create and consume each day: film, TV, comics, videogames, the internet, and the vast body of emerging media that's being created as you read this.
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Jim Ross, the longtime voice of World Wrestling Entertainment, joins CMS graduate student Sam Ford to discuss the unique blend of reality and fiction in the world of American professional wrestling world. Ross will talk about how WWE’s distribution across multiple media platforms creates an interesting storytelling atmosphere, and he will share experiences from his many years in the television industry as wrestling has moved from broadcast to cable and pay-per-view and now to DVD distribution, on-demand, and the Web. See Ross’s Web site at www.jrsbarbq.com.
NOTE: This was the first of two colloquia about American professional wrestling organized this term by Sam Ford ’07. Ford taught a spring class on the pro wrestling industry and is a researcher for the Convergence Culture Consortium. He is a weekly columnist for the Ohio County Times-News in Hartford, Ky., and performs in pro wrestling events on occasion.
Continue reading "“This One’s Gonna Be a Slobberknocker”: A Q&A with WWE’s “Good Ol’ J.R.” Jim Ross" »
Longtime soap opera writer Kay Alden talks about her decades in the industry with CMS graduate student Sam Ford ’07 who is writing his thesis about soap operas. Alden worked for more than 30 years on The Young and the Restless, the top-rated daytime drama that she served as head writer for from 1998 to 2006. Recently, she took on a consulting position with ABC Daytime and continues working with the genre during what is seen as a period of substantial change for the daytime television industry. Ford’s thesis, “"As the World Turns in a Convergence Environment",” focuses on the shifting technologies and cultural patterns that are affecting daytime television.
Continue reading "Love May Not Be in the Afternoon Anymore: A Q&A; with Soap Opera Writer Kay Alden About How the Genre Is (and/or Should Be) Changing with the Times" »
What have we learned? What have we accomplished? Where do we go from here?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Summary Perspectives" »
Today, artists working in new media, including video, web projects and music confront contested and conceptually confusing terrain in which reproduction can be as perfect as the artist desires and endless copies theoretically possible. Yet many find the lack of clarity stimulating and a compelling space in which to break new ground. Why are so many artists today mimicking new forms of visual culture and their distribution systems -- even at the risk of confusion with their popular sources? How are artists debating the value of tightly controlling distribution of media art versus allowing its wider reproduction? What are the tradeoffs artists make between creating artificial scarcity to increase a work's unique value and increasing its visibility through broader reproduction? How are the needs of those who teach and write on video going to be met in the face of hyper-commodification?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Reproduction, Mimicry, Critique and Distribution Systems in Visual Art" »
It is possible that live performance is not so live any more. In this talk, Sharon Mazer looked at the ways that audience “performances” may be seen to challenge the live-ness of the onstage action in the Road to Wrestlemania 23, which the WWE takes to New Zealand in early 2007, and in Te Matatini, the National Kapa Haka Festival, a biennial Maori cultural performance competition happening that same weekend. Mazer is head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand). Her book Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle was published by the University Press of Mississippi, and her current research is focused on Maori performance.
Continue reading "What's Live Got To Do With It?" »
Historically, engineers learned by taking machines apart and putting them back together again. Can young people also learn how culture works by sampling and remixing the materials of their culture? Might this ability to appropriate and transform valued cultural materials be recognized as an important new kind of cultural competency, what some people are calling the new media literacies? How might we meaningfully incorporate this fascination with mash-ups into our pedagogical practices and what values should we place on the kinds of new content which young people produce by working on and working over existing cultural materials? In this program, we will showcase a range of contemporary projects that embrace a hands-on approach to contemporary and classical media materials as a means of getting young people to think critically about their own roles as future media producers and consumers.
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Learning through Remixing" »
How has the American tradition of intellectual property law understood the relationship between originality and tradition? What rights do artists and educators have to draw inspiration from or comment on existing works in existing media? What habits, beliefs, legal and policy decisions threaten the emergence of a more participatory culture? What have people done, and what can we do to protect the Fair Use rights of artists, educators, and amateurs so that explore the opportunities created by new media and a networked society?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Copyright, Fair Use and the Cultural Commons" »
"Collective Intelligence" and "the wisdom of crowds" have become central buzz phrases in recent discussions of networked culture. But what do they really mean? What do we know about the new forms of collaboration that is emerging as people work together across geographic distances online? Are we working, learning, socializing, creating, consuming, and playing in new ways as a result of the emergence of our participation in online communities? What have we learned over the past decade that may help us to design more powerful communities in the real world? What lessons can we carry from our Second Lives into our First?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Collaboration and Collective Intelligence" »
Digital visionaries such as Yochai Benkler have described the emergence of a new networked culture in which participants with differing intentions and professional credentials co-exist and cooperate in a complex media ecology. Are we witnessing the appearance of a new or revitalized folk culture? Are there older traditions and practices from print culture or oral societies that resemble these emerging digital practices? What sort of amateur or grassroots creativity have been studied or documented by literary scholars, anthropologists, and students of folklore? How were creativity and collaboration understood in earlier cultures? Are there lessons or cautions for digital culture in the near or distant past?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
Continue reading "MIT 5: Folk Cultures and Digital Cultures" »
Recent trends in music composition push bounds by creating pieces which are either more complex or simpler than works of the past. And yet, our ability to understand and be interested in the compositions at these extremes has kept pace. In this talk, Michael Cuthbert shows how simple minimalist processes give rise to highly ambiguous structures, while many of the most complex moments are reducible to easier to comprehend processes. The effect of potentially endless works—including sections of Beethoven symphonies--will generalize the talk to other musical styles and other media. Cuthbert, visiting assistant professor of music at MIT, has worked extensively on fourteenth-century music and on music of the past 40 years. A recipient of the Rome Prize of the American Academy, Cuthbert earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 2006.
Continue reading "Ambiguity, Process, and Information Content in Minimal Music" »
Mick Foley, one of the top wrestling performers of the past decade, alked about his experiences as an entertainer and bestselling author who has written three memoirs (including Foley Is Good: And the Real World is Faker Than Wrestling) two novels, and a variety of children's books. Foley has been a professional wrestler since the mid-1980s and was a headlining star for World Wrestling Entertainment (www.wwe.com) under the personas of Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love. Foley will discuss telling stories in a variety of written and performative genres and how he has managed to bridge the gap across multiple genres and entertainment forms.
This is the 2nd part of our multi-part American Pro Wrestling series. The previous entry, featuring Jim Ross of the WWE, will be posted soon!
Continue reading "The Real World''s Faker than Wrestling: Former WWE Champion and Best-Selling Author Mick Foley" »
American evangelicals have a long history of engagement with the media, dating back to Great Awakening of the late eighteenth century. Today evangelical groups are active in all media, from the Internet and cellular telephones to print journalism, broadcasting, film, and multi-media entertainment. In this Forum, our speakers discuss the social and political impact of the evangelical movement’s use of media technologies. Gary Schneeberger is special assistant for media relations to James Dobson, founder and chairman of the evangelical group Focus on the Family (www.family.org). Diane Winston is the Knight Chair in Media and Religion in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and author of Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army. The Forum was moderated by the Rev. Amy McCreath, MIT’s Episcopal chaplain and coordinator of the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT (web.mit.edu/tac).
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: Evangelicals and the Media" »
Alan Moore, CEO of engagement marketing company SMLXL and co-author of Communities Dominate Brands, believes that community-based engagement initiatives and the enabling of peer-to-peer flows of communication within organizations, and those that engage with them, will replace the traditional media orthodoxies of government, management, business, media distribution and marketing
Continue reading "Old World, New World: How Communities, Culture, Connectivity, and Commerce are Changing How We Create Culture, Media, Education and Politics" »
A conversation between Frank Moss, new director of the Media Lab, and CMS Director Henry Jenkins about ongoing projects and inventive digital applications at MIT's legendary laboratory. Demonstrations were also shown and discussed.
The MIT Communications Forum hosts a summary of the event.
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: What's New at the Media Lab?" »
New technologies are enabling forms of borrowing, appropriation and "remixing" of media materials in exciting, provocative ways. In this Forum, two MIT scholars who have studied and written about the remixing of Shakespeare will describe their research, show some salient audio-visual examples and discuss the implications of their work for contemporary culture. Literature Professor Peter Donaldson is director of the Shakespeare Electronic Archive which since 1992 has used computers to develop new ways of studying the text, image and film records of Shakespearean publication and production. Literature Professor Diana Henderson is the author of Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare Across Time and Media and A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen. She is an active participant in MIT's partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The forum will be moderated by Mary Fuller of the Literature Faculty.
The MIT Communications Forum hosts a summary of the event.
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: Remixing Shakespeare" »
This is the third and final forum in the Will Newspapers Survive? series presented by the MIT Communications Forum. Why Newspapers Matter, features Jerome Armstrong of Netroots.com and MyDD.com; Pablo Boczkowski, associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University; Dante Chinni from the Christian Science Monitor; and David Thorburn, professor of literature and director of the Communications Forum at MIT.
The MIT Communications Forum hosts a summary of the event.
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: Why Newspapers Matter?" »
This is the first forum in the Will Newspapers Survive? series presented by the MIT Communications Forums. The Emergence of Citizen's Media features Alex Beam of the Boston Globe, Ellen Foley from the Wisconsin State Journal and Dan Gillmor, founder of the Center for Citizen Media.
The MIT Communications Forum hosts a summary of the event and our own Sam Ford wrote an article for the CMS page in October.
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: The Emergence of Citizens' Media" »
This is an video recording of a lecture Jesper Juul gave to us on November 28, 2006.
What happens when a player picks up video game, learns to play it, masters it, and leaves it? Using concepts from my book on video games, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, I will argue that video game players are neither rational solvers of abstract problems, nor daydreamers in fictional worlds, but both of these things with shifting emphasis. The unique quality of video games is to be located in their intricate interplay of rules and fictions, which I will examine across genres, from casual games to massively multiplayer games.
Jesper Juul is a video game theorist and assistant professor in video game theory and design at the Centre for Computer Game Research Copenhagen where he also earned his Ph.D. His book Half-Real on video game theory was published by MIT Press in 2005. Additionally, he works as a multi-user chat systems and casual game developer. He is currently a visiting scholar at Parsons School of Design in New York.
Continue reading "Half-Real: A Video Game in the Hands of a Player (Video)" »
This is an audio recording of a lecture Jesper Juul gave to us on November 28, 2006. (A video recording of the same event will follow).
This lecture ties into his recent book, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds.
Continue reading "Half-Real: A Video Game in the Hands of a Player (Audio)" »
This is the seventh in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Not the Real World Anymore was the fifth session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are John Lester, from Linden Lab; Ron Meiners, Developer Relations Manager at Multiverse.net; and Todd Cunningham and Eric Gruber, from MTV Networks. The moderator was Joshua Green.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Not the Real World Anymore (Video)" »
This is the seventh in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Not the Real World Anymore was the fifth session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are John Lester, from Linden Lab; Ron Meiners, Developer Relations Manager at Multiverse.net; and Todd Cunningham and Eric Gruber, from MTV Networks. The moderator was Joshua Green.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Not the Real World Anymore (Audio)" »
This is the sixth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Fan Cultures was the fourth session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Diane Nelson, president of Warner Premiere; danah boyd, a doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley; and Molly Chase, Executive Producer of Cartoon Network New Media. The moderator was Henry Jenkins.
Updated: the files have been fixed and are now downloadable.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Fan Cultures (Video)" »
This is the fifth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
This particular recording is of the opening presentation for the second day, Viscerality and Web 2.0, given by Joshua Green, Research Manager for C3.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Viscerality and Web 2.0 (Video)" »
This is the fourth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Transmedia Properties was the third session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics; Michael Lebowitz, co-founder and CEO of Big Spaceship; and Alex Chisholm, ounder of [ICE]3 Studios. The moderator was Henry Jenkins.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Transmedia Properties (Video)" »
This is the third in a series of six podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
User-Generated Content was the second session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Caterina Fake, Director of Tech Development at Yahoo! Inc; Ji Lee, founder of the Bubble Project; Rob Tercek, President and Co Founder of MultiMedia Networks; and Kevin Barrett, the Director of Design at BioWare Corp. The moderator was Joshua Green.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: User-Generated Content (Video)" »
This is the first in a series of six podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
In this first podcast, we present Henry Jenkins' opening remarks. As we post these, please check Henry's weblog for further commentary.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Henry Jenkins' Opening Remarks (Video)" »
This is the sixth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Fan Cultures was the fourth session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Diane Nelson, president of Warner Premiere; danah boyd, a doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley; and Molly Chase, Executive Producer of Cartoon Network New Media. The moderator was Henry Jenkins.
Updated: the files have been fixed and are now downloadable.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Fan Cultures (Audio)" »
This is the fifth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
This particular recording is of the opening presentation for the second day, Viscerality and Web 2.0, given by Joshua Green, Research Manager for C3.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Viscerality and Web 2.0 (Audio)" »
This is the fourth in a series of seven podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Transmedia Properties was the third session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics; Michael Lebowitz, co-founder and CEO of Big Spaceship; and Alex Chisholm, ounder of [ICE]3 Studios. The moderator was Henry Jenkins.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Transmedia Properties (Audio)" »
This is the third in a series of six podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
User-Generated Content was the second session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Caterina Fake, Director of Tech Development at Yahoo! Inc; Ji Lee, founder of the Bubble Project; Rob Tercek, President and Co Founder of MultiMedia Networks; and Kevin Barrett, the Director of Design at BioWare Corp. The moderator was Joshua Green.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: User-Generated Content (Audio)" »
This is the second in a series of six podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Television Futures was the first session of the conference. The panelists featured in this recording are Andy Hunter, a Planning Director at GSD&M; Mark Warshaw, founder of FlatWorld Intertainment, Inc; and Josh Bernoff, a vice president at Forrester. The moderator was Henry Jenkins.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Television Futures" »
This is the first in a series of six podcasts, recorded during the Futures of Entertainment Conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
In this first podcast, we present Henry Jenkins' opening remarks. As we post these, please check Henry's weblog for further commentary.
Continue reading "Futures of Entertainment 2006: Henry Jenkins' Opening Remarks (Audio)" »
Foreign Languages and Literatures visiting professor Sharon Kinsella examines the media constructions of a teenage female revolt in contemporary Japan drawing from her current book project Girls as Energy: Fantasies of Social Rejuvenation.
Continue reading "Colloquium Podcast: Men Imagining a Girl Revolution" »
The latest MIT Communications Forum, The Craft of Science Fiction, featured Joe Haldeman, four-time Nebula Award winner and author of The Forever War, his forthcoming novel The Accidental Time Machine and many other books.
This forum was moderated by CMS Director Henry Jenkins.
A detailed summary, as well as a Real Audio-formated audio stream, can be found at the MIT Communication Forum's website.
Continue reading "MIT Communications Forum: The Craft of Science Fiction" »
Featured speakers included Lauren Cornell, director of Rhizome.org; Jon Ippolito, media artist, curator, author; and our own Beth Coleman, Assistant Professor of Comparative Media Studies and of Writing and Humanistic Studies, co-founder of the SoundLab Cultural Alchemy project.
Thanks, Mike Danzinger, for recording this and Stephen Schultze, for mixing and post-production!
Continue reading "Colloquium Podcast: New Media and Art roundtable" »
Scott Donaton, associate publisher and editorial director of the Ad Age Group and author of Madison & Vine talked about why user-empowerment is the key trend in business, and the ways marketers are adapting to it, including the rise of branded entertainment.
Continue reading "Colloquium: Scott Donaton, Marketing in the Age of Consumer Empowerment" »
Chris Boebel and David Tamés gave us an overview of the production of ZigZag, MIT's new video podcast/magazine, as well as a look into the future of media production, distribution, and consumption.
Continue reading "Colloquium: MIT's ZigZag on Podcasting and the Future of Media" »
This entry in the MIT Communications Forum series, Will Newspapers Survive?, hosted Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, and included our directors, Henry Jenkins and William Uricchio.
The next entry in this series, Why Newspapers Matter will be held October 5, 2006 from 5-7 PM at Bartos Theater, and like all of our events is open to the public. Check our website regularly for more upcoming events.
Continue reading "Forum: News, Information, and the Wealth of Networks" »
Our first speaker for the Fall semester, newly appointed MLK scholar Frank Espinosa, leads a discussion of his Eisner-award nominated graphic novel, Rocketo.
Continue reading "Colloquium: Rocketo by Frank Espinosa" »
The CMS colloquium series is intended to provide an intimate and informal exchange between a visiting speaker and CMS faculty, students, visiting scholars and friends.
Look back here in the future for recordings of future colloquia, conferences, and other events hosted by Comparative Media Studies. For now, here is a colloquium recorded Feb 2, 2006:
Sex in Games with Brenda Brathwaite, Professor of Game Design, Savannah College of Art & Design, whose book Sex in Video Games will be published this September.
Continue reading "Past Colloquium: Sex in Games with Brenda Brathwaite" »
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