Kangaskhan: an extant, derived sthenurine kangaroo (Marsupialia, Diprontodotia, Macropodidae) Kangaskhanus macropodiens is a large, bipedal marsupial with several confounding diagnostic characteristics. The common name kangaskhan derives from the word kangaroo, which is colloquially used in reference to large macropods such as the extant species Macropus giganteus (Eastern grey kangaroo) (Shaw, 1790), Macropus fuliginosus (Western grey […]
I’ve been personally and professionally invested in Twitter for a long time but so many of the recent changes to the platform and other decisions by the owner(s) have sapped not only value but morality out of that space. in light of the move to actually make it unusable this week, I’m finally out. No […]
Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University and Lisa Watt, Charles Sturt University The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World series of films have long featured iconic female characters. Laura Dern’s Dr Ellie Sattler from the 1993 original has been lauded as “a female heroine unlike any other”. Julianne Moore’s Dr Sarah Harding from 1997’s The Lost World […]
Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University The tech revolution is coming to advertising. Chatbots are replacing humans, data threatens our privacy, and the blockchain is linking it all together. In our series on tech and advertising, we’re taking a look at how the industry is being reshaped. Creativity and spectacle are becoming less important than the […]
Cows at Small Cow Farm, pic from Tourism Australia. I’ve never had a lot to do with cows, except for a rangy herd that lived on my cousin’s property when I was a kid. But they were mostly to be avoided, if considered at all. I now live in a fairly quotidian suburb, quite like […]
Springfield, Springfield,it’s a hell of a town.The schoolyard’s upand the shopping mall’s down— Bart and Milhouse (Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood) Springfield, as seen in The Simpsons Movie. (image copyright Fox) The town of Springfield, USA, is one of the most recognisable fictional places ever created. Alongside the cavalcade of characters, Springfield has everything it needs […]
It often takes time to recognise a new medium for what it is instead of the content it carries, especially when we’re thinking about the wrong medium. In the history of media studies, there has often been years of focus on the content of a medium before anyone starts to think about its broader social influence. […]
New York City has always been a shimmering mirage of television, cinema, radio and newsprint. It only ever existed in ribbons of Seinfeld, Friends, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Elf, and news coverage like that of September 11, 2001. Though this is an account of my personal mediascape, millions of others would have a similar view. […]
There is a clear pattern of thinking about the value of higher education in purely economic terms. Questions about how much graduates earn dominate mass media discussion of the industry (1, 2, 3) while university marketers talk almost endlessly about employability (4, 5, 6). Meanwhile, academics themselves squabble about higher purposes. The mismatch in this […]
What happened, Medium? You changed. I don’t think we can go on like this. Medium, Your home stream is full of urgent whispers let out into a world that doesn’t want to hear them. A million voices crying out at once. Asking, wondering, ‘what happened?’. Experimenting with it and playing around, filling the stream with mindlessness. […]