TV, internet and other media

Monday, 27 July 2020 09:59

A Strange Bird: Comcast and Universal's Peacock streaming service

Written by Dennis Broe

Dennis Broe continues his review of series TV with a sceptical look at Comcast and Universal's Peacock, the latest streaming service from the world of capitalist media conglomerates Do we need yet another television network/movie studio/cable station conglomerate turned into a streaming service whose main contribution is to put its…

Brave New World The Office

Sunday, 05 July 2020 08:51

Perry Mason and The Case of the Missing Case

Written by Dennis Broe

in TV, internet and other media

Dennis Broe reviews the new HBO Perry Mason series on Sky. There are many things to like about HBO’s new version of one of the most popular book and television series of all time, Perry Mason, which is available in Britain on Sky and in France on OCS. This young…

Tuesday, 23 June 2020 09:37

Take away their power: climate breakdown and the corporate media

Written by David Cromwell

in TV, internet and other media

David Cromwell outlines the way the media is beholden to corporate capitalism, and calls for a radical democratisation of ownership and control of the broadcast and print media In his classic science fiction novel, 'Foundation', Isaac Asimov posited a future in which 'psychohistorians' could predict outcomes based on past history…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 22 June 2020 10:10

The global drug pandemic, police supremacism and the corruption of film-makers

in TV, internet and other media

Written by Dennis Broe

Dennis Broe focuses on the global drug pandemic, dealt with in different ways in three new series Three new series deal variously with the drug pandemic, that byproduct of the despair that has grown in the wake of neoliberal capitalism. As opportunities shrink because of a global upward redistribution of…

Hightown Amo Homecoming Black Lives Matter Harriet

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 22 June 2020 08:53

Covid-19 and the ownership and control of the media

in TV, internet and other media

Written by Natalie Fenton

Natalie Fenton points to the need for less concentrated ownership and more democratic control of the media, in the wake of the Covid-ap pandemic. The media are vital purveyors of information and interrogators of power in a pandemic where a government’s decisions translate directly into lives lost or saved. In…

bbc Boris Johnson Michael Gove Cultural democracy

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 09 June 2020 14:29

When Channel 4 was radical: a sketch of political and cultural alternatives

in TV, internet and other media

Written by Rod Stoneman

Rod Stoneman looks back at the radical, risk-taking early days of Channel 4, as an example of a progressive alternative to mainstream, conservative media culture In its first decade, Channel 4 took risks and developed programming that gave voice to the marginalised – from Black radicals to Irish republicans, and…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Thursday, 04 June 2020 10:35

Are we really all in this together?

in TV, internet and other media

Written by Esther Leslie

Esther Leslie questions the media messages and slogans around the Covid-19 pandemic, as part of the joint Morning Star and Culture Matters series on Covid-19 and culture A picture flashed through social media channels. A woman, in a Stars and Stripes dress, protesting at Huntington Beach, California, holds up a…

Covid19 Social Media Dominic Cummings

Monday, 01 June 2020 07:13

Serial TV and the indignities of class: Snowpiercer, Normal People and Little Fires Everywhere

Written by Dennis Broe

in TV, internet and other media

Dennis Broe looks at how our class-divided society is represented in three current series being streamed on TV One of the effects of the coronavirus crisis is the accentuation of already exacerbated class differences. Yes, middle-class digital workers cheered largely working-class first responders from their windows, but that did not…

Snowpiercer Normal People Little Fires Everywhere

Monday, 18 May 2020 11:15

Canadian TV series, Quibi, surveillance capitalism and mental junk food

Written by Dennis Broe

in TV, internet and other media

Dennis Broe continues his series, looking at how Cardinal inverts the usual cliched story of individual serial killers to suggest the shared gult of capitalists; how Tribal suggests bias against First Nations people in the justice system in Canada; and points to the links between the new Quibi Turnstyle format…

Tribal Cardinal

Wednesday, 13 May 2020 08:11

Home Before Dark and Quibi

Written by Dennis Broe

in TV, internet and other media

Dennis Broe continues his series with a look at Home Before Dark and Quibi It's the first masterful series from Apple TV+, after a horrible slip out of the gate with the clumsy, awkward The Morning Show. Home Before Dark details the efforts of a nine-year-old reporter to get to…

Tuesday, 05 May 2020 09:26

Stream it, skip it or revolutionise it? Series TV post-Covid

Written by Dennis Broe

in TV, internet and other media

Dennis Broe considers post-Covid-19 possibilities for a more progressive, artist-led approach to film and television series. Image from Superstore Before quarantine when a phrase like “shelter in place” seemed like something out of the apocalyptic future forecast in The Walking Dead, the main issue in film and television was how…