Today’s fake drag name is Wanda Lust.

Listening to Van Morrison at a TLV cafe is like stepping into a time machine back to the kibbutz in 1986 dancing in the bomb shelter disco to Bob Marley’s Exodus and drinking Maccabee beer and smoking clove cigs. #Vibe

Bopping to Sting’s Blue Turtle album in my favorite TLV cafe like I once did on the Kibbutz back in 1986 and listening to the lyrics about peace and Cold War in this climate is, well, a 40 year old vibe that hits hard in all new ways.

The best? I think it’s the least. We have more than political agency. We have cultural and social! We have tremendous power in the palms of our hands. If we are going to expend tech energy, let’s at least harness it to save the planet. Thanks for coming to my progressive tech Ted Talk. 😂

That’s true! All the carbon offsets won’t make up the difference. Glad I’m not just a tourist. Let’s hope the knowledge generation offers value. Otherwise I should stick to digital ethnography Although my mentors in comparative education might be upset with me. And my Fulbright sponsors.

You might be a global scholar if …you pull Chilean sunblock out of your Thai backpack while walking around Tel Aviv

YouTube turns 20: From viral cat videos to AI YouTube video by CBS Sunday Morning

This was fun

youtube.com/watch?v=_Gx4...

One Year Later: Experts Reflect on TikTok Divest-or-Ban Order - Rebooting Social Media The TikTok divest-or-ban order was signed one year ago. The Institute for Rebooting Media spoke with researchers and legal experts to learn about the order’s impact on expression, governance, and the ...

Some reflections on the TikTok ban by some very bright people (and me). rebootingsocialmedia.org/one-year-lat...

YouTube, at 20, Has Hosted 20 Trillion Videos and Launched Superstars. It Wants More—Including Some Prestige Inside the platform that gave us ‘Hot Ones,’ Michelle Khare, ‘Chicken Shop Date,’ and ‘Good Mythical Morning’—not to mention Justin Bieber and MrBeast—as it embraces bingeability and more.

YouTube wants to be taken seriously in Hollywood, and they are being taken very seriously,” says David R. Craig…. “Not so much as a creator of content but as a distraction from the content that Hollywood produces.” www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/st...

Netflix Sees Potential For Video Podcasts, More Creator Content on Platform "Is it premium? Well, some of it is, and we believe we have the best monetization model on the planet for premium storytelling," co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on the earnings call.

Who's gonna tell them? www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

I was thinking how sad it is that people keep using social media to reaffirm their more often bleak vision of the world. Or when it’s not bleak, then it’s an addiction. Either way, machines are evil!
#DeficitReasoning

(Although it reminds me of religious practices … also a kind of addiction.)

Media. Sometimes. I just have a problem when people use media to refer to art, apps, advertising, commerce, communication, platforms, Internet, etc.. that’s when the word becomes meaningless just like content or digital or new.

What if I said that I abhor the term “new media” and it isn’t the “new” that bothers me the most?

Words have functions that change. They aren’t redwood trees.

P.s. the same applies to “digital media”.

a man in a black and white sweater is sitting at a table with his hand on his chin . ALT: a man in a black and white sweater is sitting at a table with his hand on his chin .

Hollywood talent referring to themselves as "creators" because social media platforms and entrepreneurs use the term is Bourdieusian jungle gymnastics. Wonder how long before AMPAS or the TV Academy gets pulled into the fray? Or the Guilds? Or IMDB?

That time you spent a year in a Fulbright predicting and studying the outrageously improbable prospect of global decoupling…and it happens before you finish your research.

I forgot to mention the part where we sent 28,000 NTA approved media literacy discussion guides and the film for free to schools all over the US for students and parents to discuss the peril of YouTube. I’ll spare the part where my doctoral program threatened to kick me out for using them.

Adolescence on Netflix fits nicely within the Social Media Crisis genre which started back with a tv movie called GIRL FIGHT back in 2011.

Ps I produced GIRL FIGHT.

The Studio is even better if you had not seen Wag the Dog, What Just Happened, Swimming with Sharks, The Player, Network, A Face in the Crowd, or read What makes Sammy Run. #MythsofMythmaking

A la carta: cómo funciona la economía de los contenidos Los creadores digitales apuestan a la profesionalización. Ya no se limitan a generar contenido solo para sus propias plataformas, sino que ponen su talento y experiencia al servicio de marcas y client...

Thanks Argentina! www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/neg...

50% OFF Apocalypse Television: How The Day After Helped End the Cold War On November 20, 1983, a three-hour made-for-TV movie, The Day After, premiered on ABC. Set in the heartland of Lawrence, Kansas, the film depicted the events before, during, and after a Soviet nuclear...

Here's your chance to get the end of the world for HALF-PRICE! www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...

What no one tells you about being a "global" scholar is the 7am calls with the partners in the UK, the 10am calls with Chile, the 4pm with Australia, and the 10pm with Thailand.

And I wouldn't trade it for the world. (pun intended)

Civic Media Fellowship Applications for the 2025/26 Fellowship cohort are open from March 3-28, 2025 — APPLY HERE! For more information about the fellowship experience, who we’re looking for and the application process, ple...

You are going to want to check this out, and repost it, and share it with the most brilliant people in your life. www.annenberglab.com/civic-media-...

a man is walking down a hallway with a backpack on his shoulder . ALT: a man is walking down a hallway with a backpack on his shoulder .

Me: Hey Siri, what's life like in academia?

Siri: Thursdays are your weekend. But it's only a half day.

"You can't live in the world without an idea of the world, but it's living that makes the ideas. You can't wait for a theory, but you have to have a theory.” - Kushner, Angels in America

I think about this every day. Often all day.

That’s what the best art does.

TikTok's brief ban sent users to RedNote, another Chinese-owned video-sharing app Many users flocked to another Chinese-owned app, RedNote, when it looked like TikTok would be banned. Americans and Chinese citizens have been getting to know each other.

Thanks @NPR, although I guess this is yesterday's news...but oh have I got lots to say about today's. www.npr.org/2025/01/25/n...

Angels in America (2003) - Belize and America YouTube video by Alex Wilson

All ya’ll upset by the events happening in Late America have clearly never seen Angels in America and it shows. youtu.be/X1QJoUxAKU8?...

Seeing Others “A thoughtful recipe for building social justice” (Kirkus Reviews) from acclaimed Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont that makes the case for reexam...

By one of our nation's most extraordinary scholars.
Available in paperback. p.s. I had the extraordinary opportunity to be interviewed for this work. www.simonandschuster.net/books/Seeing...

alt-ac sounds like a broken keyboard

CCSN The Content Creator Scholars Network

Congrats to those accepted at ICA (and regrets to those who weren't...we feel you.) FYI, the 4th CreatorCon, an ICA pre-conference to be held at the University of Boulder dedicated to platform, creator, wanghong, and influencer studies is still taking submissions until 1 Feb. www.ccsn.site/ica