MLA Style Guides on the Web

Found this very concise MLA style guide that has examples of most of the Works Cited entries. Probably will not solve all problems but at least it's a small help to the rrrreally complex world of the MLA Style! It has an updated version of the 7th (2009) edition of the MLA!

And here: Purdue's MLA guide - also very good!

Introduction to Modern Literary Theory

Dr. Kristi Siegel's page "Introduction to Modern Literary Theory" with short introductions + pretty extensive further references to each theory.

Journal of Ecocriticism

The fairly new (publ. since 2009) Journal of Ecocriticism. All articles available as free PDFs!

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com


Hi Media Sociologists,

I think this is an excellent video about how the media is shifting. Shirky uses a similar model of understanding media to that of the circuit of culture.
What does this tell us about Media Sociology? Do you think that what he is saying is very different to how media works? What I find is that although his ideas take the circuit a step further, he still holds to a traditional idea that media has, till now, promoted a discourse or set of discourses which have been unquestioningly taken up by the general population/ audience. As we know from reception studies, people have been producers of meaning for a lot longer, although his point about the interaction within the audience community is probably the mitigating factor here. What do you think?

Media Sociology Blog

Hi people, found a new blog I would like to share which has a lot of great media insights, and wonderful photos:
The Kisseloff Collection

Also a link to a New Yorker article about tv which is just peachy. The writer is Jeff Kisseloff, and he has written a number of books about media/tv...

Including : The Box: an oral history of television

Which looks great, sort of a combination of audience studies and cultural memory. Available on Fernleihe...enjoy...

Does Dropping iPods and not Bombs Actually Work?

The Internet and especially the blogosphere have been widely heralded as new, extremely effective tools of free speech, of spreading democracy or revolting against tyrannies. Most notably in the case of the recent protests in Iran, sometimes called the "Twitter Revolution".
Evgeny Morozo, however, does not agree at all. He even claims that the Internet can help keep dictators in power and that for every "Cyper-activist" there is a Cyber-captive". This speech is about 12 min. long and I do not agree with everything he says, but it is an interesting and discussion-worthy opinion:

Lecture on Camp; "Popliteratur"

Some of you might be interested in this taped lecture by Stefanie Roenneke on the subject "Adieu Tristesse! Wieviel Camp steckt in Popliteratur". The lecture was given at the University of Hamburg as part of the lecture series "Poetik der Oberflächlichke: Die deutschsprachige Popliteratur der 1990er Jahre".

In this German language lecture, Roenneke briefly discussed a notion of camp based on Jack Smith and Susan Sontag and then discusses the German pop lit. book Tristesse Royale.

Longer abstract, bibliography and the video available here.