My newest academic article is now out in Media International Australia. Based on the ‘extended-mixed methods’ model developed by Janet Fulton and others, my paper looks at the role podcasting can play in communicating palaeontology, and science more generally. I completed the study mostly through actual podcast production (Fossils and Fiction) so in part I […]
WordPress + ActivityPub + Friends is the web we need decades in the making A decade ago, or more, there was talk all over the higher ed blogs about how best to use WordPress (+others) for blogging with students. Federation, syndication, wikis, badges, domains, and more were the talk of the web. Remember that? Here […]
My colleagues Michelle O’Connor, Professor David Marshall and I are editing a special edition of M/C Journal on ‘audio’. Here’s the Call for Papers: Sound is a physical phenomenon. It propagates as acoustic waves through space and time via physical media including solids, liquids, and gasses. Humans have spent much of our cultural history producing […]
IMDB Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University In June 1993, director Steven Spielberg released a film that unleashed a wave of technological change in film-making and simultaneously helped to revive popular interest in dinosaurs. Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s novel, spawned five blockbuster sequels as well as a multitude of spin-off games, toys, novels, and […]
Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, will speak at the Sydney Opera House this weekend on the secrets of the show. Now in its 28th season, The Simpsons is one of the mostly widely lauded, and enduring series in TV history. But has it peaked creatively? Is it time […]
I’m increasingly annoyed with media studies— a field I’ve devoted years to — and this is why. My plea for interventionist academics. My colleague Rob Carr (an historian) suggested on Facebook today that academics need to ask “how is my research going to benefit society, and will it benefit society as much as another research topic?” “Marshall […]
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 […]
Four of Australia’s regional television networks are urging viewers to campaign for changes to Australian media ownership laws which restrict their market penetration and dominance but they won’t come clean with audiences on what the changes could mean. The networks — Prime, WIN, Imparja and Southern Cross Austereo — feel imperiled by new media players including streaming apps from […]
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. […]