CMS News Archives

Writing today after a two-month hiatus, I am moved to think about solutions rather than problems. Perhaps this burst of positivism can be attributed to the fact that the weather in Boston is finally pleasant, after a long, bitterly cold winter and a short, stifling heat wave. Perhaps the prospect of seeing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign together at the end of this week in a bid to unify a divided Democratic party is making me optimistic and foolhardy enough to think that under extenuating circumstances (like a tense presidential race) even enemies can find something in common. Perhaps seeing Pakistan splashed across international newspaper headlines in the past few weeks, rarely in a positive context, is making me feel desperate enough to think outside the box. Whatever the reason, I'm going to use the following paragraphs to suggest that Dr A Q Khan might help diffuse mounting tensions between Pakistan and the US as well as Afghanistan.

Read full text of CMS Grad Huma Yusuf's article "Greater Transparency in Policymaking Remediation" here.

Posted by Cushman Truckster at 9:54 AM in Publications | Permalink

In the latest Chronicle of Higher Education, CMS Director Henry Jenkins writes about the need for media studies to evolve from separate disciplines (film, photography, literature, ...) into something resembling our own program's current mode, comparative media studies, and how the networked, digital landscape continues to shape this change.

He writes, "media studies needs to become comparative, ... to reflect the ways that the contemporary media landscape is blurring the lines between media consumption and production, ... [and] to respond to the enormous hunger for public knowledge about our present moment of profound and persistent media change."

Each media-studies program will need to reinvent itself to reflect the specifics of its institutional setting and existing resources, and what works today will need to be rethought tomorrow as we deal with further shifts in the information landscape. ... Until we make these changes, the best thinking (whether evaluated in terms of process or outcome) is likely to take place outside academic institutions -- through the informal social organizations that are emerging on the Web. We may or may not see the emergence of YouNiversities, but YouTube already exists. And its participants are learning plenty about how media power operates in a networked society

Read the full article.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 12:34 PM in Publications | Permalink

Henry Jenkins recently published a short op-ed piece for the Boston Globe editorial page about Congress and the pending Deleting Online Predators Act.

Time Magazine may have celebrated the new realm of user-generated content with its Person of the Year cover story. That doesn't mean Congress is comfortable with young people's participation in the online world.

Read "Congress wigs out over MySpace", here.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 9:39 AM in Publications | Permalink

CMS director Henry Jenkins, as a guest video curator for Media Commons' In Media Res blog, posts "Holding Out For A Hiro," a short piece about the character Hiro Nakamura (salary man, otaku, "superhiro," superfan) from NBC's new ensemble show, Heroes.

Read the article and feel free to comment and contribute to the discussion.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 2:59 PM in Publications | Permalink

Professor Henry Jenkins has contributed an article at PBS.org debunking eight major myths about video games and their social impact. The myths in question?

1. "The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence."
2. "Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression."
3. "Children are the primary market for video games."
4. "Almost no girls play computer games."
5. "Because games are used to train soldiers to kill, they have the same impact on the kids who play them."
6. "Video games are not a meaningful form of expression."
7. "Video game play is socially isolating."
8. "Video game play is desensitizing."

Read the article.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 12:39 PM in Publications | Permalink

Graduate student Ivan Askwith has an article in today's edition of Slate, entitled "TV You'll Want To Pay For: How $2 Downloads Can Revive Network Television."

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 11:18 AM in Publications | Permalink

CMS Director Henry Jenkins has contributed an article entitled "On The Acceleration Of Change" to Forbes.com.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 11:19 AM in Publications | Permalink

MediaDailyNews has coverage of Henry Jenkins' presentation at The Next Big Idea: the Future of Branded Entertainment.

Posted by CMS Webmaster at 11:21 AM in Events, Publications | Permalink