Fresh Politics, New Media

Last week, I spoke with Washington Post journalist Paul Farhi about my research on the effects of political comedy programs and the freshman seminar on popular culture and politics that I'll be teaching at Towson University this fall. Farhi's article published in The Washington Post and reprinted on the web sites of a variety of regional papers ( Pittsburgh Post Gazette , Chicago Tribune, New Orleans Times Picayune to name just a few) quickly attracted attention. John Hudson offered his take on studying Colbert at the college and university level for The Atlantic Wire and Sophia McClennen offered a rebuttal over at the Huffington Post with student Remy M. Maisel. I too agree that John Hudson could use some help picking the right statistics to compare. He's welcome to enroll in my MCOM490 class: Mass Communication Research where we devote a few weeks to statistical principles. I'd also be happy to have Hudson visit my upcoming seminar. The full title

It's been a while since I've posted, but it's been a busy summer. I've spent a lot of time preparing for my upcoming Towson Seminar -- Popular Culture and Politics: Comedy, Entertainment, Celebrity, and Democracy. I'm excited to bring my research interests into the classroom. As I discuss in a recent article in The Washington Post , academic interest in studying political comedy and Stephen Colbert in particular is growing at a rapid pace. In preparing for the seminar, I'm revisiting some political comedy "gems" from the 2008 election. Here's my favorite piece: Tina Fey actually offers a great summary of the clip and its significance in Bossypants . Stay tuned for more political comedy gems as course prep continues.