Department: Entertainment and Media Studies
The Department’s scholars are delving into the unanswered questions of communication and social networks; interactive media, video games and culture, and children and media; health and crisis communication; media law, policy, economics and management in a changing digital environment; media and culture; and the role of media in political and economic development.
Abstract: This study examines the intricacies of the expanding music industry in Northern Ghana, centering the perspectives of artistes. We examine how artistes create and produce music, how they market and promote the music and their images, and also the nature and art of their performances and the scope of their export beyond Tamale. The […]
Read MoreBooker T. Mattison gave a screenwriting workshop for the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival and Lecture Series, the first Academy Award qualifying festival for narrative shorts about women of color.
Read MoreBooker T. Mattison’s short film “Bird” is streaming on LG/CY of a People (Legacy of a People) a venture from actor and producer Tim Reid (Sister Sister, WKRP in Cincinnati).
Read MoreBooker T. Mattison’s with Garland McLaurin (Cinematography) film Ungubani (Who Are You?) started streaming on the Urban Movie Channel in January.
Read MoreAbstract: African Media Studies which is marginalized in the Global North academy lacks not only representation from African students/scholars but is also under-theorized. Employing a decolonial approach, this article presents a critical analysis of African Media Studies from the perspective of a recent PhD graduate and early career scholar. Using what I call an African […]
Read MoreBooker T. Mattison was given the Defiance Award from the Morton Theatre Corporation.
Read MoreAbstract: The 1980s featured a niche slate of syndicated shows prizing nostalgia, sex, consumerism, and camp–and often in children’s programming! First-run syndication in this era was rife with the queer erotics of characters, featuring rippling muscled toons like He-Man and Masters of the Universe, The Transformers, and ThunderCats alongside the spandex-clad American Gladiators and the […]
Read MoreAbstract: When television programs are translated for global audiences, languages are changed, but so too are constructions of diverse identities. Characters who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC) undergo transformations in order to be intelligible outside of their original national contexts; such transformations might reinforce these characters’ difference or eliminate it, effectively whitewashing […]
Read MoreAbstract: With the Peabody Awards’ mission to honor “stories that matter,” producers often include evidence of cultural successes with audiences in submissions. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood demonstrated the value of its fan engagement with a very different kind of package in 1984: a notebook of letters from parents of or children with disabilities. Using letters to […]
Read MoreAbstract: At the same time the 1960s sitcom Bewitched aired in reruns next to drag queens on LOGOtv, a cable channel targeted to LGBTQ viewers, it also aired on the former National Christian Network channel (Familynet) immediately preceding a line-up of church programs featuring far-right, anti-gay activists. How can a TV text be supple enough […]
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