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Academia Media Pop Culture The Simpsons

‘They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons’

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 […]

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Academia Media The Simpsons Uncategorized

Springfield, A Hell of a Place

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 […]

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Academia Pop Culture The Simpsons Uncategorized

The One Where They Go to New York

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. […]

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Discourse Analysis The Simpsons

Bart vs Australia

An episode that once deeply offended me is now one of my favourites in a long line of classics from The Simpsons. Here are my comments on Bart vs Australia from my honours thesis. Page 13: it is worth noting that there are occasions where audiences, broadcasters and governments in countries like Australia, Brazil and […]

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Discourse Analysis The Simpsons

Irony in The Simpsons

I briefly tackled irony in The Lord of the Rings in my last post, focussing on a quintessential speech by Bilbo Baggins at his birthday to make my point. The use of irony in popular texts is a rich vein, one that I first seriously delved into while researching and writing about The Simpsons in […]

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Content Analysis Discourse Analysis Literature Review Research Methods The Simpsons

Content Analysis Revisited

I’ve noticed what might be called a ‘long-tail‘ of search referrals from people looking for information on content analysis. As a result, I’ve decided to write up my experiences with content analysis in some detail in this post. For a brief primer on what content analysis actually is, please see this Wikipedia page. My introduction […]

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Academia Media

A Simpsonised Year

I’ve wasted half my life, Marge. You know how many memories I have? Three! Standing in line for a movie, having a key made, and sitting here talking to you. Thirty-eight years and that’s all I have to show for it! – Homer Simpson, The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace At the end of a long-ish […]

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Academia

Imagined Communities in ‘The Simpsons’

UPDATE: If you’ve come to this post looking for information about content analysis, you might be better served looking here, where I’ve written up a more detailed and logical post. It’s been a little while since I written a post here with anything to do with my thesis. That is mostly because I’ve been working […]

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Academia

The Road Not Taken

UPDATE: If you’ve come to this post looking for information about content analysis, you might be better served looking here, where I’ve written up a more detailed and logical post. I have been doing some considerable reading for the last fortnight and I came across one text that has thrown me a bit. The problem […]

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Academia

An Analysis of the Content

UPDATE: If you’ve come to this post looking for information about content analysis, you might be better served looking here, where I’ve written up a more detailed and logical post. A key data collection method for my thesis will be content analysis. Basically (and I could well be shot for simplifying it this much) content […]