MIT Comparative Media Studies: Features

Comic-Con Is Serious Business

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:20:17 -0500

It's a continent away from Comparative Media Studies headquarters in Cambridge, but the CMS spirit was palpable at Comic-Con in San Diego this year. The international pop culture convention, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this July, was the perfect place to witness civic media-enhanced community communication in action. And CMS founder and former co-director Henry Jenkins had a front-row seat.

YouTube in the Amazon: Rural Peru's Transition to the Internet

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:07:29 -0500

By Audubon Dougherty '##

We arrived in Cajamarca in northern Peru just in time for an information and communications technology (ICT) training session for local internet entrepreneurs from rural villages across the country. The training site was picturesque - a large house surrounded by cows, streams, mountains, dirt. The minister of technology was in attendance, as was the project manager from FITEL - a public fund distributing subsidies to national telecommunications companies to set up wireless internet in thousands of villages - as well as representatives from various NGOs. I had come to film some of the trainings and try to get a sense of how technology for development was being implemented.

Japan's Plans to Take Over the Gaming World: An Interview with Mia Consalvo

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:51:18 -0500

By Geoffrey Long '##

This fall, the Comparative Media Studies program and the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab are proud to welcome back Dr. Mia Consalvo as a visiting associate professor. GAMBIT researcher and communications director Geoffrey Long recently sat down with her to welcome her to campus and to discover what she plans to accomplish during her stay at MIT.