In the first episode of the LSE British Politicast, we take a closer look at the Riots of 2011. This podcast looks back on the riots, presenting sociological and criminological perspectives on why they happened and what, if anything, can be… Read More ›
Mediated Matters 
Welcome to Mediated Matters, a regular weekly column series by Casey Brienza on the sociology of the media and culture. New installments are posted on Monday.
What is ‘academic blogging’?
This question has been on my mind a lot this week. Largely because it occurred to me that I have yet to encounter a non-trivial answer to it. Sure, it’s easy to say academic blogging is blogging by academics. But what does this really tell… Read More ›
Facebook Graph Search: @PaulBernalUK explains what this is all about…
The first thing to ask whenever Facebook (or indeed any other business) releases a new product or service is what’s in it for them. In the case of Facebook’s new ‘Graph Search’, as in most things Facebook, the answer’s pretty… Read More ›
Looking for a new year’s resolution? @PaulbernalUK offers a suggestion some readers may find unthinkable
If you’re looking for a New Year’s Resolution – have you considered leaving Facebook? There are many reasons to do so, and getting more compelling all the time – all it takes is a little resolution. 1) Privacy Everyone should… Read More ›
Sandy Hook and Call of Duty: the toxic relationship between “violent” games and the media
Following the tragic events of Friday in Newtown, Connecticut, a friend and I had been trying to guess how long it would take the media to blame allegedly “violent” video games for the latest spree killing. We didn’t need to… Read More ›
The Web is See Through
88% of the self-generated, sexually explicit online images and videos of young people their analysts encountered had been taken from their original location and uploaded onto other websites, shows a recent study by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Read the… Read More ›
International Number Ones
Click on the image below to explore this visualisation of international number ones (as the people behind it point out: every country is the best at something!) from the wonderful website Information is Beautiful.
Turning Research into Film
The short, professionally made film Rufus Stone is the key output of the three-year ‘Gay and Pleasant Land?’ research project led by Bournemouth University academic, Dr Kip Jones. The stories that form the foundation of the script for Rufus Stone are entirely… Read More ›
Exploring the Emergence of Underground Musical Worlds
In this podcast from the Sociology@Warwick Seminar Series in May 2012, Nick Crossley from Manchester University discusses his use of social network analysis to explore the early development of punk and post-punk musical worlds in the UK. Read more about this research here and here…. Read More ›
Who Do You Really Want to Be? Dr Mayim Bialik’s commencement speech
Being editor is great. You get to impose things you love on the readers! Just joking. But, in all honesty, whether you are a Big Bang Theory fan or not, this is a lovely, useful, and inspiring commencement speech. Dr… Read More ›
Academia 2.0
Do ‘prestigious’ journals make academics lazy? An unlikely parallel with the art world Training, teaching or empowering people with social media? A case study of a university’s digital strategy Podcast with Martin Eve about Open Source Academic Publishing The ‘prestige’ of journals in… Read More ›
SI Top 10 #10 – Comics and Censorship: Is It Really about You?
News broke this past Friday of an American citizen arrested by a Canadian Customs officer at the US-Canada border after manga deemed to be child pornography was discovered on his laptop. Although no real children were harmed in the creation… Read More ›
Women and Muscles: a history in image
Venus with Biceps: a Pictorial History of Muscular Women by David L. Chapman and Patricia Vertinsky is an invaluable collection of rare images of athletic women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Maria Popova at Brainpickings has written a fantastic… Read More ›
History of data journalism
The Guardian reminds us that data journalism is a little older than most of us think. Why is that significant? Because our historical memories are very short and it is important to be reminded of history in order to give… Read More ›
Review of ‘Soundbitten: The Perils of Media-Centered Political Activism’ by Sarah Sobieraj
In her introduction to Soundbitten: The Perils of Media-Centered Political Activism (NYU Press, 2011), sociologist and Tufts University professor writes, ‘I thought this would be a book about how activist groups use presidential elections as moments of political opening, but… Read More ›
Comics and Censorship: Is It Really about You?
News broke this past Friday of an American citizen arrested by a Canadian Customs officer at the US-Canada border after manga deemed to be child pornography was discovered on his laptop. Although no real children were harmed in the creation… Read More ›
On Visually-Mediated Professional Lives
If you currently live in the United States, or are one of The Daily Show‘s horde of global fans, you have surely heard about the latest sex scandal involving New York Congressional Representative Anthony Weiner. If, though, you do not… Read More ›
Creative Labour is Still Labour
Yesterday I attended a book launch at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco for the new graphic novel King of RPGs Vol. 2, written by Jason Thompson and illustrated by Victor Hao. The launch was a raucous, ad hoc… Read More ›
New Contribution to The Comics Grid
In lieu of a new Mediated Matters column this week, I direct you instead to my contribution to The Comics Grid, where I report on the Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2011, the premier indie comics event in Canada. In that… Read More ›
The Unbearable Impossibility of Perfect Communication
In a powerful op-ed written for The New York Times back in late 2010, bestselling novelist Michael Cunningham writes, ‘I’ve come to understand that all literature is a product of translation’. He explains, and I quote the article at length:… Read More ›
The Cool Kindle? On How (Not) to Sell E-Books
While wandering through a vast wasteland of over 200 cable channels the other night I happened across a BBC America marathon of Top Gear. While that show is in itself ripe for sociological analysis, what stopped me dead in my… Read More ›