The Academic’s Lullabye

I used to think that every new graduate student should receive a night mouth guard and a prescription for Ambien. Now I think that academics need to talk more about sleep hygiene. I slept great as an undergrad but suffered from an affliction known as “seminar paper deadline” as a graduate student. Symptoms of seminar…

Spoiler Presentation at WSCA

This time last year I was conducting interviews with TV critics, entertainment journalists, and editors to gain a better understanding of how the vocal reactions of spoiler-phobes may impact their work. Noelle McElrath-Hart and I analyzed the interview discourse through a Community of Practice framework to understand how the writers and editors were implicitly engaging in spoiler meaning…

Love is Good

My Mom put out our family Christmas decorations last weekend. She called me afterward and we both cried about my Dad’s stocking. Dad passed away in July. While coping with his loss, I leaned on remaining family and good friends, but also on wizards. Writing the Media Marathoning book helped me realize that I take solace in…

The Master of None Revelation

Do you want to learn about many problems with ethnic representations in media and laugh while you learn? (It’s the laughing with kind of humor, not the guilt-inducing laughing at kind.) Check out the very “marathonable” Master of None on Netflix and look forward to episode 4 titled “Indians on TV.” In 31 awkward, fresh, and funny minutes, Aziz Ansari and…

Marathoning News

What’s new in marathoning news, you ask? This post foregrounds a smattering of recent developments in technology, politics, and scholarship related to media marathoning. 1. Marathoning has become both easier and more challenging with new options from T-Mobile and Netflix. First, the good news. T-Mobile recently launched their Binge On™ plan that allows subscribers with 3GB or more…

Academic Blogs and Idea Pollinators

As “back to school!” is being trumpeted through advertisements and social media, let me suggest another way to get back to where you once belonged: a blog. You’re reading this one. Why not make your own? I eased back into serious work mode in August by making this post on gender problems in children’s programming.…

Mourning and Media Marathoning

Curator’s note: This is the fifth and final blog post made by students in Dr. Perks’s spring 2015 Media Marathoning class at Nazareth College. Students conducted qualitative research projects in groups addressing one research question. These blog posts represent their distillation of findings that are also reported in 8-10 page essays. This post is from Brenna,…

Video Game Marathoning

Curator’s note: This is the fourth of five blog posts made by students in Dr. Perks’s spring 2015 Media Marathoning class at Nazareth College. Students conducted qualitative research projects in groups addressing one research question. These blog posts represent their distillation of findings that are also reported in 8-10 page essays. This post is from Dave,…

The Social Experience of Media Marathoning

Curator’s note: This is the third of five blog posts made by students in Dr. Perks’s spring 2015 Media Marathoning class at Nazareth College. Students conducted qualitative research projects in groups addressing one research question. These blog posts represent their distillation of findings that are also reported in 8-10 page essays. This post is from Joel,…