Yascha Mounk: “These claims … sound far too much like the sort of thing educated people want to believe. But a meticulous new paper published in the American Economic Review, one of the world’s most prestigious social-science journals, suggests that there might be truth to these clichés.” At least in Italy, among those who watched channels owned by Silvio Berlusconi. – The Atlantic
Category: media
How Technology Has Changed The Kind Of TV We Watch
The ability for audiences to watch and re-watch on demand has allowed screenwriters to make scripts more complicated and less formulaic. – BBC
MoviePass Is Struggling To Reinvent. But Competing Services Are Taking Advantage
The subscription went from having more than 3 million members to around 225,000 in April 2019, according to Variety, which was first to report the service had been suspended. It’s unclear if an app revamp can actually help the company stay afloat. – CNBC
What It’s Like To Try To Drag The 92-Year-Old Academy Of Motion Pictures Into The Present
Eight years of change, controversy, criticism and occasional chaos have turned a Hollywood fixture, with all the pertinent connotations of calcification, into a roiling center of conversations about inclusivity, sexual harassment, digital disruption and globalization. – Los Angeles Times
Thirty Years Ago A Wave Of Black Directors Hit Hollywood. So What Happened?
“You think, ‘It’s O.K. — you’re like every other filmmaker,’ but then you realize, ‘No,’” she said. “It’s like they set us up to fail — all they wanted was to be able to pat themselves on the back like they did something.” – The New York Times
And You Think You Have A Bad Job – The Life Of Moderating Online Content
“The policies that were in place almost parodied themselves. They were so specific on the one hand and totally missing the forest for the trees on the other that you really had to embed yourself into the logic of the particular platform, and of course every platform has its own set of policies that it makes up.” – The New Yorker
In The World Of Video Games, Black Women Are Making Themselves Heard And Felt
“Black women are among the least represented demographic in the $135 billion global gaming industry. … But an emerging generation of millennial women of color is now beginning to carve out space for others like themselves. They’re building a network of support organizations that never existed before, aimed at facilitating, encouraging and training aspiring female gamers of color to reach new heights in the industry.” – OZY
Motion Picture Academy Invites 842 New Members – Half Women
While for years the Academy made a concerted effort to limit the number of new member invitations and keep the number of voters to no more than 6,000, all the membership limits were abandoned in the wake of the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite controversy. In the aftermath of the protests that followed two consecutive years of all-white acting nominees, the Academy vowed to double the number of female and non-white members by 2020. – The Wrap
How “Game Of Thrones” Is Like Chaucer
The fate of Chaucer’s unfinished works suggests there may be something to be appreciated in the peculiarly suspended state in which fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones currently find themselves. Should Martin be compelled to abandon his saga for one reason or another, he can console himself with the knowledge that the unfinished state of Chaucer’s texts did nothing to prevent John Dryden from declaring Chaucer to be the “Father of English poetry”. – Times Literary-Supplement
With ‘AMC Artisan Films’, Big Theater Chain Tries To Give Smaller Movies A Boost
“According to a press release, the initiative will spotlight ‘character and narrative driven movies’ that big-budget box-office behemoths tend to overshadow. … If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because … the promise to recognize ‘artist-driven, thought-provoking’ movies that show ‘expertise in writing, directing, acting and/or one of the many component parts that make up a movie,’ echoes one of the company’s previous initiatives” — AMC Independent from 2010. – Slate