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The New Crisis in Higher Education
Canadian universities are on the front lines as an essential service equipping Canadians to face the demanding realities of the new world of work. However, they are now facing financial setbacks from Manitoba’s backward approach to crisis management. -
Open-ended Questions
There’s nothing like an open-ended question to get the conversation going. So how do we make sure a question is open-ended? Easy. It’s all encoded in the syntactical structure of our query. For teachers, the open-ended question is half the battle. -
The Etymology of Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message”
Have you ever wondered why the medium equals the message? That is, it is the message! Andrew McLuhan explains the origin and meaning through the etymology of m=m. -
On Eric McLuhan’s “Media Ecology in the 21st Century”
Eric McLuhan’s last speech, ‘Media Ecology in the 21st Century,’ was delivered at El Nogal in Bogotá, Colombia, on May 17th 2018. He died, suddenly, the following afternoon. -
The Poetic Uses of Criticism
It is helpful to keep in mind that Marshall McLuhan was an English professor who studied and taught literature and poetry. All his work in media was influenced by this solid foundation in poetry and literature. -
Barthes Takes a Trip to Epcot Centre
In his essay “Myth Today,” Roland Barthes defines myth as a type of speech, a system of communication, and in particular as a message. Expanding upon Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology, Barthes developed a second-order semiological system. -
Echoes and Reflections on “Embedded Memories”
In Embedded Memories, Will Straw advances the argument that the Internet has strengthened the cultural weight of the past in ways very similar to other forms of new media. -
Interview with Travis Younger
A documentary filmmaker on the trail of a good story is searching for Travis Younger. He wants to find out what really happened when the Younger family moved into their new house at 406 Clybourne Street back in 1959. -
Punk: A Form of Resistant Meaning-Making
Is punk subculture a form of resistant meaning making? Dick Hebdige argues that this is indeed the case in his essay “Subculture: The Meaning of Style.” In this brief essay I will try to outline the reasoning that lies behind Hebdige’s argument. -
Only Entertainment can be Utopian
In “Entertainment and Utopia,” the fifth chapter of Only Entertainment, Richard Dyer argues that musicals—both stage and screen—represent a form of entertainment that he calls “pure entertainment.”
