Blog entries from Sam Ford

More on Cultural Biases and Soaps

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:04:37 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on June 13, 2008.

As many regular C3 blog readers know, I spend quite a bit of my research time focusing on soap opera related projects. At the moment, I'm working with C3 Consulting Researchers C. Lee Read More...

Soap Fans Looking for a New Home: The General Hospital Nomads

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:03:52 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 28, 2008.

Who owns the media property? Is it the copyright holder? Or is it the audience, the group that makes that product popular? These are questions at the core in tension between media producers Read More...

Interesting Soaps Links: Liccardo, Bibel, and Muslim Representation on ATWT

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:02:15 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 28, 2008.

I wanted to start out a full round of post-Memorial Day blog entries today with highlights of a couple of things worth seeing from around the Web. For this post, a few interesting soap operaRead More...

Culture Wars and Cultural Hierarchies: New York Times on ATWT's Nuke

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:01:29 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 21, 2008.

Lynn Liccardo suggested to Lee Harrington, Gail Derecho, and me that one of us should respond to the recent article in The New York Times by Gina Bellafante about the sRead More...

The Continuing Controversy of ATWT's Nuke

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:00:54 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 21, 2008.

I have written some in the past about the continued development of the Luke Snyder coming out storyline on As the World Turns, a story which has engaged new viewers to tRead More...

Masculine Discourse Surrounding Modern Television

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:00:16 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 21, 2008.

One of my greatest frustrations from Console-ing Passions was that my workshop was scheduled directly against some of the panels most directly relevant to my interests. Now, this is not meant aRead More...

Soap Operas, Relative Realism, and Implicit Contracts

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:59:22 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 20, 2008.

Just yesterday, I was out to lunch with someone when the subject of soap operas caRead More...

Product Placement and Soap Operas

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:58:38 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on May 6, 2008.

In my final piece this afternoon regarding product placement, I wanted to provide some excerpts from my research on the subject of acceptable and unacceptable placement. This project started Read More...

Outside the Target Demographic: Surplus Audiences in Wrestling and Soaps (3 of 3)

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:54:19 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 24, 2008.

Perhaps even more frustrated, then, are soap opera fans. Soap opera producers sell the 18-49 female demographic more broadly, and the 18-34 female demographic in particular, to advertisers. FRead More...

Outside the Target Demographic: Surplus Audiences in Wrestling and Soaps (2 of 3)

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:53:33 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 24, 2008.

In the case of pro wrestling, the WWE's popular television shows--Monday Night Raw, ECW, and Friday Night Smackdown target a young adult male and teeRead More...

Outside the Target Demographic: Surplus Audiences in Wrestling and Soaps (1 of 3)

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:52:50 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 24, 2008.

I came to the Gender and Fan Studies/Culture dialogue on LiveJournal and Henry Jenkins' blog from both ends of the producer/consumer scholarship binaries often posed in the discussion. On Read More...

Soap Opera-Branded Casual Games

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:51:53 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 22, 2008.

As many of you may have read in this post here on the blog earlier in the month, I'm teaching a course this semester on the history and current state of the U.S. soap opera geRead More...

PCA/ACA: Other Soap Opera Presentations

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:50:14 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 9, 2008.

This year at the PCA/ACA conference, I presented work that originated from my Master's thesis project, which you can find more about here and here on the subjecRead More...

PCA/ACA: Marsha Ducey on FCC Complaints; Other Soap Projects

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:49:15 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 9, 2008.

One project that really caught my eye at this years soap opera area at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference in San Francisco was fRead More...

PCA/ACA: The Soap Opera Area and Suzanne Frentz

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:48:29 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 9, 2008.

The soap opera area at the national joint conference for the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association in San Francisco this year was my main reason for attending. SinRead More...

My MIT Course on U.S. Soap Operas

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:47:17 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on April 2, 2008.

This semester at MIT, I'm teaching a course on the history of U.S. soap operas, based on the work I've published here on the blog over the past couRead More...

SCMS: Vast Narratives and Immersive Story Worlds

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:45:56 +0100

This post originally appeared on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog on March 21, 2008.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been planning to include some notes here on the Consortium's blog about a few of the sessions I had the opportunity to attend at the Society for CiRead More...

GL Makes Major Shift in Soap Opera Production This Week

Sam Ford — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:43:10 +0100

I originally posted this piece on Feb. 24, 2008, on the .MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog.

One industry many have come to expect the Consortium blog to post on, per my entries, over the past couple of years is American soap operas, the area in which I've done my thesis work and continue to write about substantially. In fact, my particular areas of interest and myRead More...

Scott Bryce Fan Campaign Continues

Sam Ford — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:55:54 +0100

This piece was originally published as part of an entry on February 10, 2008, on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog.

As part of some blog catch-up this Sunday, I wanted to pick back up on a story I wrote about last month about fan response to the firing of actor Scott Bryce on As the World Turns.
Fan campaigns have launched Web sites, petitions, and mailing
campaigns, as soap fans are so quick to do when they dislike a
decisions madeRead More...

Passions Cancelled Again...But Rumors of Its Continuation Persist

Sam Ford — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:53:50 +0100

This piece was originally published as part of an entry on February 09, 2008, on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium Weblog.

Last April, I wrote about the intriguing deal NBC struck with DirecTV to move its soap opera Passions
over to the satellite provider as exclusive content, after the network
had decided to cut the soap opera from its daytime schedule to make
room for another hour of The Today Show.

The show ended up getting a run that lRead More...