Author Archives: Ralph Hanson

Live sports are TV’s salvation – but there ain’t no sports…

It’s pretty clear that the one thing that draws people age 18-49 to conventional TV these days is live sports. So what happens when there aren’t any live sports anywhere in the world? With all the choices globally, that’s an … Continue reading

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Movies and Theaters in the Age of COVID19

Back in March of 2020, it was becoming clear to the movie industry that it was going to be a significant amount of time before audiences were going to be gathering in large numbers anywhere, let alone close-packed movie theaters. … Continue reading

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Putting popularity of government action on COVID19 in context by comix XKCD

XKCD is a comic about range of geeky issues, but it is often about how to present data in interesting and honest ways. This one does a great job of putting the popularity of government efforts to protect us from … Continue reading

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Lin-Manuel Miranda talks with AP History Students on Primary Sources and Writing Hamilton

Our time of COVID19 isolation has led to a wide range of unusual media content out there.   But for me, nothing has been as cool as all of the Hamilton content that has sprung up in the last month. … Continue reading

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Great work from my commentary and blogging students

It’s been a rough time during the second part of this semester for my blogging and commentary students, with all of their classes going online/remote.  Some of them are graduating into an uncertain world; all of them are dealing with … Continue reading

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“If we break quarantine, we could all die.” Alien, 1979

My favorite bit of social distancing art is this tattoo design done by artist Genevieve Kent-Bethley out of Kitchener, Ontario. It’s been circulated heavily on Twitter without credit to the artist.

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Remembering John Prine – “Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches”

And I always will remember these words my daddy said He said, “Buddy, when you’re dead, you’re a dead pecker-head” I hope to prove him wrong… that is, when I get to heaven –John Prine, When I Get to Heaven … Continue reading

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COVID19 Patrol: How the world changed in 2020

It’s difficult now to think back to a time when most of us had not heard of words like coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic, community spread, social distancing and self-quarantining. A time before all classes were abruptly moved online. A time before … Continue reading

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COVID19 Patrol: A look at social and legacy media

Memes and social media have been going nuts in the age of work-remotely/study-online/shelter-in-place. Here are a couple that have stood out to me, along with a couple of excellent Washington Post stories. You all know that I am a sucker … Continue reading

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Teaching Mass Communication in the Time of COVID-19

It’s been  a difficult time for all of us the last few weeks with the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for social distancing, self-isolation, self-quarantine, working remotely, dealing with shortages of medical equipment and hospital beds… For faculty and students, it … Continue reading

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