Author Archive

Yes We Can

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 6th, 2008 • Category: Convergence culture & cybertheory, Currently featured, Presidential politics

A perfect example of multimedia reporting. A great summary intro which narrates the civil rights precedents to the Obama victory which combines historic footage intercut with Obama’s victory speech and contemporary commentary is followed by an interview with the perfectly chosen Maya Angelou. She concludes with a recitation of her poem “I rise” which […]



Dopple your fun - Technology - smh.com.au

By Marcus O'Donnell • Aug 20th, 2008 • Category: Convergence culture & cybertheory

Five internet gurus spell out what’s happening at technology’s cutting edge, writes Nick Galvin.The breakneck pace of online innovation is showing no sign of slackening. New tools, concepts and services seem to pop up on the internet almost daily, making it nigh on impossible for the average punter to keep up with it all.
Dopple your […]



Student blogs as uni promotion

By Marcus O'Donnell • Dec 18th, 2007 • Category: Blogs in higher education

A number of universities are using student blogs as a kind of “reality ad” for their courses and campus life. Here in Sydney UTS had an ill fated go at it that didn’t really take off but as I noted in another post last year Sydney Uni has a more vibrant project still going. Today […]



Possibleworldz redesign

By Marcus O'Donnell • Dec 18th, 2007 • Category: Blogging

I have redesigned this site again following on from last year’s attempt to integrate my different blogging worlds. I was never completely happy with my 2006 design and my attempts at regular blogging this year have been sporadic to say the least. I am hoping that having my key content areas up front will encourage […]



Symbolic politics in Bali

By Marcus O'Donnell • Dec 14th, 2007 • Category: Environment and ecocriticism

They kept the star power to the end. Al Gore fired-up the weary Bali climate change conference delegates with a speech which named the inconvenient truth everyone was battling against: the Bush delegates were stonewalling again. But his message of hope was more instructive: America is changing. As Time noted:
Toward the end of his speech […]



Charlie Rose Interview with Jon Krakauer

By Marcus O'Donnell • Dec 12th, 2007 • Category: Film & popular culture

Jon Krakauer talks about Christopher McCandless and what drew him to the story of the young man who went “into the wild”. He says he felt a visceral tingle when he first read reports of the hunters who had found the then unidentified body of the young adventurer.



Who’s on the Line?

By Marcus O'Donnell • Aug 12th, 2007 • Category: Currently featured

From a longer Washingtonpost.com article about TV and movie representation of surveillance:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who back in June reportedly went to great lengths to defend Jack Bauer. …At a legal conference in Ottawa, responding to another participant who warned against asking, “What would Jack Bauer do?”
Scalia mounted a spirited defense, saying, “Jack Bauer […]



Good Mother Bad Mother Politics

By Marcus O'Donnell • Jan 12th, 2007 • Category: Presidential politics

It is hard to imagine what the impeccably dressed Condoleezza Rice feels when she has to defend a President that she must now know deep down is a tremendous disappointment. She endured hours of Senate grilling including a bravura performance from Senator Barbara Boxer :
BOXER: October 19th ‘05, you came before this committee to discuss, […]



Images of death

By Marcus O'Donnell • Jan 9th, 2007 • Category: Journalism and the media

The Saddam hanging videos have raised key questions about the changing power of circulated images. The brutality of the incident is emphasised in the dirty grain and jerky focus of the mobile phone images. the release of the second video apparently posted on a pro-baathist news site and apparently showing the ugly state of Saddam’s […]



Naming the Civil War

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 30th, 2006 • Category: Uncategorized

As GWB steadfastly resists calling the conflict in Iraq a “civil war” despite the pronouncements of many of his own current and ex-military advisers, media outlets also grapple with the nomenclature. E&P reports that starting Monday The Los Angeles Times, NBC and MSNBC, will all be using that troublesome phrase to describe what is going […]



Student blogs

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 16th, 2006 • Category: Blogs in higher education

I have just finished marking 75 student blogs and 75 reflective essays from this semester’s features course.I had the students posting three times a week in three categories: observations from life, analysing features and feature ideas. This seemed to me like a perfect vehicle to explore observational writing, strong structure and interesting ideas - the […]



Fallen Preacher Man

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 9th, 2006 • Category: Religious identity

 

In amidst following the election coverage (and all my corrections) I have still found time to be fascinated by the Ted Haggard scandal and have been spending time as a lurker in the Christian blogsphere (a revelation in itself - a very vibrant and diverse community) where the discussion has been fierce. What struck me […]



Incestuous Amplification

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 8th, 2006 • Category: Uncategorized

The wisdom from political commentators last night seemed to be that Rumsfeld would be given a reprieve in spite of the election results. The history of the Bush regime shows heel digging as a common response to critique. But maybe the decider has just had enough this time. He admitted to reporters today that he […]



A Christmas gift for Ted..

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 3rd, 2006 • Category: Gay stuff, Religious identity

This is what Ted Haggard wanted for Christmas… It’s just one of the poses from Mike Jones massage web site. Rev Haggard is obviously not the only local Jones was keeping happy, his site says:
“Voted best massage and personal trainer for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 by readers of the community newspaper Out […]



Male order

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 3rd, 2006 • Category: Gay stuff, Religious identity

It’s fascinating to watch yet another Evangelical/Republican homo-sex scandal erupt. After Rep Mark Foley was introduced to the world by a White House page, Rev Ted Haggard hits the media courtesy of a Denver prostitute called Mike Jones. Not only did the (now former) president of the National Association of Evangelicals pay Jones for sex […]



Ocean Walk

By Marcus O'Donnell • Nov 1st, 2006 • Category: Observations

The ocean is never familiar. After months of walking the same stretch of beach there is still only awe. Sometimes when the ocean is rough it seems angry but tonight there was more playfulness in the swell than ferocity.
It was good to finally leave the cave of code.



A new home

By Marcus O'Donnell • Oct 28th, 2006 • Category: Blogging

After days of fiddling this new version of my blog is up and running. I have brought together all the entries from my other blogs and reverted to the name I chose when I first started blogging in 2004 - but with a “z” because the other domain was taken. I thought it was about […]



Not New York

By Marcus O'Donnell • Oct 19th, 2006 • Category: Film & popular culture

I have been thinking a lot about the “apocalytpic cities” section of my thesis. Initial thoughts are to focus on New York, but the whole idea of the multimodal mythic cluster means that New York is every city and every city is New York. Well, that is to say that New York is London, LA, […]



At Reuters, a New Book and a Lost Job - New York Times

By Marcus O'Donnell • Oct 10th, 2006 • Category: Journalism and the media

New York Times reports that Joe Maguire, one of two editors in charge of markets coverage at Reuters, has apparently been fired because his new book on right wing commentator Anne Coulter: Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter. A clear case where a commitment to objectivity principles quash argued critique.

On Wednesday, Mr. Maguire […]



Huffington in fine form on Woodward

By Marcus O'Donnell • Oct 3rd, 2006 • Category: Presidential politics

The Blog | Arianna Huffington: Woodward as Journalistic Hero: the Real State of Denial | The Huffington Post:
Talk about being in a state of denial: praising Woodward for his very-late-to-the-party Iraq pile-on is like a music critic writing a rave of “Let It Be” and getting credit for discovering The Beatles. ….
Then there […]