I'm answering questions for Leandra Preston's class on Digital Girls at the University of Central Florida this week via video. Just posting the links here in case people are interested, or want to make video comments of their own (I'm always happy to check those out. Enjoy ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago,  super smart Women's Studies professor Leandra Peston asked if I would answer some questions from students in her class called "Virtual Girls: Girls and Digital Media" at the University of Central Florida.

I told her I would be happy to answer student questions, as long as I could record video answers. She thought that was cool, ( Read more... )

TERRI’S TIPS FOR CLOSE READING

What is a close reading?

Close reading is a method for

• comprehending
• analyzing and
• appreciating the context of a given piece of writing

As a written document, a close reading looks like an “amped up” version of personal reading notes, designed to help you gain the best understanding of the text you can. In general ( Read more... )

I often find myself teaching  Research Methods to graduate and undergraduate students . Because I have a cultural studies focus, I tend to emphasize  so-called 'qualitative methods': semiotics, discourse analysis, visual analysis, performance work, interviewing, surveys, ethnographic work, user experience testing, and so forth.

I think my students ( Read more... )

So, it is November, which means that some of you teaching Media classes will be cooking up questions for students, and some of you will be trying to think up ideas for papers. I'm doing neither this semester (phew) but in the interest of knowledge-sharing, here are the class essay options for my first year Media Meanings students. Feel free to ( Read more... )

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Television theorist Jason Mittell has just written a very thoughtful essay about Why he's not a fan of the show Mad Men. I have little patience for writers who spend their time hating, but he's doing negative critique the right way, I think, by inserting himself and his identity position front and center. Jason also posted the essay on his blog for ( Read more... )

One day, the world will grow up and stop dividing women into trafficked madonnas and sex worker whores. In the meantime, abuses continue in the name of saving the ladies. The always on-point Melissa Ditmore explains the current situation as it is playing out in Cambodia:

Report: Police Abuse of Sex Workers in Cambodia Made Worse by US PoliciesA ( Read more... )

A student asked me to discuss my thoughts on camgirls and camp performance. Here is my answer ( Read more... )