Aca-Media The Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Bust out your fancy headphones for this episode, folks. In one our best episodes ever from an audiophilic perspective, Jonathan Nichols-Pethick talks with Jacob Smith about his recent experimental audiobooks, ESC: Sonic Adventure in the Anthropocene and Lightning Birds: An Aeroecology of the Airwaves, both of which are available as open access files on the University of Michigan Press website. Then Chris and Michael chat about the gratification of SCMS volunteering, wish you a happy eclipse, and tout the glories of NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Recorded live on the scene! (so please forgive any less-than-ideal audio quality) Convening at the 2024 SCMS conference in Boston and gathering “after dark” on the conference eve (i.e. after the opening reception and its free bar, which might have made us all a little giddy), Chris and Michael chat with longtime Conference Manager Leslie LeMond and new president Vicky Johnson about what goes into choosing a conference city and what the future may hold, as well as some of the unique challenges the organizing team faced this year (yes, they talked about the awards situation). We then welcome Aniko (Madison friends, update your pronunciation) Bodroghkozy, who tells us about the new Television and Radio History Scholarly Interest Group. And we end with a few suggestions from Michael for sites to see, things to eat, and horrific animal scenes you may encounter while in Boston.

Stephanie Brown chats with Justin Rawlins about his new book on method acting (Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance) and the discourse the method has generated over the years. Meanwhile, Michael tries to channel his inner authentic podcaster and nearly goes full-Leto.

If you’re feeling sluggish from the holiday season, press play on this rich conversation between Jonathan Nichols-Pethick and Jordan Sjol to get your brain sparked and ready for a new year of smart conversations about media. The two DePauw colleagues talk about Sjol’s JCMS article, “A Diachronic, Scale-Flexible, Relational, Perspectival Operation: In Defense of (Always-Reforming) Medium Specificity” (don’t worry, they break it down word-by-word), as well as the recent feature film that Sjol co-wrote, How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Then Chris and Michael chat about how to name a department and how not to title a podcast.

We continue on with our coverage of media industry labor, as Stephanie Brown talks with Andrea Ruehlicke about reality TV contestants fighting for fair rights and against exploitative conditions.

What is it like when your area of expertise is suddenly in the news? Industry scholars Kate Fortmueller and Miranda Banks share how they are talking about the strikes with the press and students.