In honor of Mr. Minow’s birthday (01/17), we’re re-releasing our interview with the former FCC Chair. Joining us from his office in Chicago, we discuss the role of television in presidential debates, his decisions that supported the rise of PBS, and of course, his famous “vast wasteland” speech.
Happy Holidays from Inside the Box. For this last main feed episode of our limited-episode season, we bring you the gift of Steve Voorhees! Steve climbs back aboard the good ship ITB to discuss with Jonathan Universal Music’s latest efforts to recontextualize classic holiday recordings with newly produced animated music videos.
This week Jonathan switches from TV and memory to social media and memory. He takes you through some core ideas about collective memory and how they connect to social media. He also explains a few different ways younger people think about the idea of social media as memory machines.
This week Jonathan works through some ideas relating to the potential for “time travel” through the ability to live within memory bubbles thanks to curated content, persistent nostalgia thanks to certain business strategies, and the unexpected staying power of dead celebrities thanks to new fan work and the use of CGI.
This week join Jonathan as he asks, “Why a new documentary on John Belushi in 2020?” when his story seems to have been told often and long, long, ago. He also uses the documentary to define and apply some historical concepts in order to think through why are such stories seemingly forgotten and then reanimated.
This week Jonathan sits down with Rowan’s Dr. Emil Steiner to discuss his research on binge watching and how it connects to sports documentaries. If you’ve already listened to our episode (Ep. 90) on sports documentaries and nostalgia with Dr. Branden Buehler, then this will be the perfect companion episode. If you haven’t, that’s ok too since this is an excellent standalone episode and conversation about sports documentaries, sports fandom, why we watch what we watch the way that we watch it 😉 and also a little insight into how biography influences scholarship.
This week Jonathan sits down with San Diego State University’s Dr. Brian Hu about his article, “Bruce Lee” after Bruce Lee: A Life in Conjectures. Then in the second half of the interview Jonathan asks Brian’s opinion about a question Jonathan has been toying with: Will the powers that be, attempt to mold late actor Chadwick Boseman’s (1976-2020) legacy and image in much the same way film studios’ attempted to do so with Bruce Lee (1940-1973)?
This week Jonathan sits down with Seton Hall’s Dr. Branden Buehler to discuss the recent spate of sports documentaries and where these films intersect and engage with nostalgia. We make connections back to my discussion with Travis Vogan and talk through the wider definition of the term “documentary” that many may not be familiar with.
Inside the Box is back with an all-new limited episode season! We kick things off in conversation with sports media scholar, Dr. Travis Vogan to discuss his book Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media. In fitting with this season’s focus on history and collective memory that often goes beyond the television screen (or “box”), Travis and Jonathan discuss NFL Films’s role in crafting how we think about the league, in what ways that has changed with the newer emphasis on the NFL Network, and the role databases and metadata has played in helping to structure this mindset.
In this 7min. preview, Jonathan welcomes you and explains what to expect from the return of Inside the Box: The TV History Podcast during its new limited-episode season.