Author: TheConversation

By James Chapman, Professor of Film Studies, University of Leicester It is the time of year for hunkering down to watch a Christmas film with the family, and to hold the annual debate over whether or not “Die Hard” actually counts as one. This debate has now become, in some film history circles, as big a question as to the meaning of “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane or whether Hаn Sоlо or Grееdо shot first in Stаr Wаrs. It is even important enough to warrant a poll from YouGov, which concluded that Die Hard is not a Christmas film. The...

By S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Cinema and Media Studies, by special appointment, Hamilton College If you are one of those people who will settle in this evening with a hot cup of apple cider to watch a holiday movie, you are not alone. Holiday movies have become firmly embedded in Americans’ winter celebrations. The New York Times reports a massive increase in new holiday movies this year. Disney, Netflix, Lifetime and Hallmark are now in direct competition for viewers’ attention, with both new releases and reruns of the classics. Holiday movies are so popular...

By Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor of Hospitality Management, Colorado State University Nothing says Christmas quite like a fruitcake – or, at the very least, a fruitcake joke. A quip attributed to former “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson has it that “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” It has certainly earned its reputation for longevity. Two friends from Iowa have been exchanging the same fruitcake since the late 1950s. Even older is the fruitcake left behind in Antarctica by the explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1910. But the honor...

By Amanda J. Crawford, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Connecticut Conspiracy theories are powerful forces in the United States. They have damaged public health amid a global pandemic, shaken faith in the democratic process, and helped spark a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. These conspiracy theories are part of a dangerous misinformation crisis that has been building for years in the United States. American politics has long had a paranoid streak, and belief in conspiracy theories is nothing new. But as the news cycle reminds us daily, outlandish conspiracy theories born on social media...

By Breigha Adeyemo, Doctoral Candidate in Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago Marginalized people often suffer the most harm from unintended consequences of new technologies. For example, the algorithms that automatically make decisions about who gets to see what content or how images are interpreted suffer from racial and gender biases. People who have multiple marginalized identities, such as being Black and disabled, are even more at risk than those with a single marginalized identity. This is why when Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision for the metaverse – a network of virtual environments in which many people can...