Welcome to the new home of medieninitiative, the blog of media theorist Shane Denson. Formerly hosted at medieninitiative.wordpress.com, the blog has been running since 2011. Moving to the new address blog.shanedenson.com (a subdomain of my website shanedenson.com) gives me more control over the blog–and above all means that you don’t have to look at any ads!
There will doubtless be a few hiccups as everything gets settled in, so please let me know if you spot any problems!
I quipped the other day on Facebook, “Thank god blogs are dead!” — thinking of some particularly toxic moments and scenes from “back in the day.” Facebook must have heard me… I wanted to post the rough scrap of writing above to that piece of … social media today (with the clever caption: “Brian O’Blivion makes a surprise cameo appearance in my book! Was not expecting this…”), but FB won’t accept my image or post my comment. I know that the network is having major difficulties today, difficulties that will likely pass quickly, but this episode has gotten me thinking (somewhat romantically) about the possibility of a different Internet. The blogosphere was often horrible, but could it ever be as bad as Facebook? Could #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown spark a mass migration and a revival of blogs? Probably not… But leave a comment if you’d like to see it happen! (Or if not, why not.)
Some of you may have noticed a new tab at the top right of this page, labeled “shanedenson.com.” Surprisingly enough, that’s also the name of my new website: shanedenson.com. In case you’re wondering, though, this blog is not going anywhere. The website, which is pretty sparse at the moment, provides a more general landing site, while the blog will continue to provide updates on current and upcoming events and issues of more topical relevance — it will continue, in other words, to do what blogs do. The website, on the other hand, offers me the chance to do some things that aren’t supported on a wordpress site. I plan to add some more interesting rubrics soon, so stop by occasionally and check it out.
For the independent studies course I’m directing this semester on the topic of “Digital Media and Humanities Scholarship,” three students have set up a nice looking blog, Bonfire of the Televised Profanities (or “Profanity TV” for short), which went online today. They’ve even put together a video “trailer” for the blog, which provides some context and gives a taste of what they’ll be doing there. Check it out!
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