Theorising the Popular Conference 2017 Liverpool Hope University, June 21 st -22 nd 2017 The Popular Culture Research Group at Liverpool Hope University is delighted to announce its seventh annual international conference, ‘Theorising the Popular’. Building on the success of previous years, the 2017 conference aims to highlight the intellectual originality, depth and breadth of ‘popular’ disciplines, as well as their
Booking now open (£10/£5 students): http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/bw This workshop will bring together scholars interested in how war has been broadcast to the public in the 20th and 21st centuries. From the early use of radio, through to newsreel, television, 24-hour news, and now social media, the ways in which war has been broadcast has constantly evolved.
Colombia’s narcotraficantes [narco-traffickers] emerged as a consequence of many complex factors. Washington supported the trade in drugs during its war in Vietnam as a means of funding proxy local actors, who quickly perceived potentially powerful market forces at play among the US military, and fuelled a demand that was soon repatriated.
When comedian Jimmy Fallon ruffled Donald Trump’s hair during an interview on The Tonight Show in the final weeks of the American election campaign, the internet exploded.
The recent General Election in the US shocked politicians, pollsters, political scientists, and progressives alike. How did two absurd people end up as the principal parties’ picks , and why will the most ridiculous coiffure since Jefferson’s enter the White House in January?
(First published on December 14th 2012) Image from AMC.com. I am watching Walking Dead on the small flat screen television that sits beside my computer.
Two things have made me think about the role of television in the current wave of disaffection from politics.
A decade ago, Bernie Sanders and I arrived on the same plane from New York to a public event in the mid-west. We were allocated shared transport from the airport, so I spent maybe forty minutes with him. The event we were headed to was about media reform. Other speakers included Jesse Jackson, Amy Goodman, Billy Bragg (whom noone had heard of), and Phil Donahue. My friend Bob McChesney was our presiding guru.
August 11, 2015 is the day Pretty Little Liars (2010-) unmasked ‘A’, a day five years in the making: (Spoiler) ‘A’ is CeCe Drake (Vanessa Ray) on PLL . I write about this reveal not just from a personal investment in the show or because it comprises a part of my PhD dissertation, but because of how the reveal divided the fandom and the popular entertainment news media.
I am at the end of my third month of sick leave after suffering an acute, stress-induced, asthma attack at the beginning of February, which resulted in an ambulance ride into A&E and an 8-day stay in hospital.
