ABC made the May 8, 2018 episode of “Roseanne” available in advance for comment by some thoughtful observers. When producer Tom Werner, an old friend, asked me if I had some scholars to suggest, I immediately thought of Amir Hussain and Sohad Murrar. Marty Kaplan, Director, Norman Lear Center Why… More
Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount, Los Angeles I watched the “Go Cubs” episode of Roseanne, which I think is extraordinary. When asked in surveys, most Americans indicate that they don’t know a Muslim, and so the images that they see on television are crucial, as they may be the… More
Ph.D. candidate in Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison The new episode of Roseanne turns to Islamophobia. It does it responsibly. The season has already tackled problems of class, political ideology, race, sexuality, immigration and veteran affairs. (Spoiler alert!) This new episode, “Go Cubs,” introduces the Conners’ new neighbors, the Al Harazis,… More
This originally appeared in the Forward and is republished with permission. In this week’s episode, Roseanne hates on the Muslims. Spoiler alert: By the end, Roseanne gets woke. But how many racist jokes can the season’s highest-rated scripted TV series make without itself being racist? I wonder how I’d feel… More
This originally appeared in the Forward and is republished with permission. You are teaching a class on media literacy. You want your students to think critically about the truth claims of messages. You bring to the classroom Donald Trump and Bette Davis. You display a Trump tweet about our trade… More
This originally appeared in the Forward and is republished with permission. The Cambridge Analytica furor, like the uproar over Russian penetration of Facebook that preceded it, has painted a bullseye on Mark Zuckerberg. I get why he and other social media CEOs are waffling about testifying at congressional hearings: They’re afraid that… More
Kathleen Hall Jamieson delivers her Rogers Colloquium “How Russian Hackers & Trolls Exploited the US Media” Monday, March 5th in the Forum at Wallis Annenberg Hall. What could be more timely? 3/2/18: Leaked: Secret Documents From Russia’s Election Trolls The Decline of American Politics, and How to Fix It Is our… More
This originally appeared in the Forward and is republished with permission. It was the second time I noticed a news story about a fatal crash of a church group that I had the uneasy feeling there was a pattern. That time, it was Baptists, seniors in their church’s Young at… More
This originally appeared in the Forward and is republished with permission. “Look at that thing, dude!” A hundred miles off the coast of San Diego, two Navy fighter pilots on a Super Hornets training mission spot a whitish, oval-shaped aircraft of some kind flying on an unearthly trajectory at crazy… More
A full moon ambushed me the other morning. It was pasted on the sky like a crafts project, too flat and too burnt orange, and too close to Beverly and La Brea, to be real. I wasn’t, How beautiful! I was, How strange. How strange there’s a four-and-a-half billion-year-old rock… More