Glenn Kubish

Somewhere in the mists of my undergraduate learning is a remnant of a memory of a teaching about laughter being no laughing matter. Seriously, that's all I've got. Maybe it's Rousseau in his letter on the theatre or somewhere in Hobbes or maybe it was from Bloom's book or in a lecture from Craig or Carmichael. I can't recall it. And we know what we can recall, said Ong.  Whatever it is that is left floats in and out as I get ready to form an actual research question for my final essay project toward a master's degree in communications and technology. That essay will have something to do with laughter.  You will recall :) that I have spent the last few years circling around the Duckett Cookie Video artifact, trying to gain theoretical perspectives on its meaning, its impact, its lessons. Not yet in the form of a research question, my interest in that video text, which has attracted nearly 350,000 views, will, I feel, reflect my newfound perspe...

This blog is meant to do a few things. Capture my thoughts and pain as I train for a half-marathon. Make sense of my high school years. Figure out what is going on in the Duckett Cookie Episode video . I am confident of only the first. But on I slog. The Duckett Cookie incident is important to me because I sense that it contains key aspects of our current mediasphere. Or, at least, I am betting three years and a few thousand dollars toward a Masters of Arts in Communication and Technology degree on that sense that it contains key aspects of our current mediasphere. I use as a point of departure the words Premier Ed Stelmach shared with the legislature earlier on the day he fired Duckett. He said that he thought "everyone in Alberta watched and saw the offensive comments. I'll just leave it at that." The truth is nobody left it at that. Stelmach didn't. He booted Duckett hours later. Those captured by the story didn't just watch and see. They watched, saw...

One of the most amazing chapters of my time at CTV Edmonton was a convergence culture moment. The term convergence culture is Henry Jenkins's, and it refers loosely to the meanings created when established media collide with new media. My up-close view of this came in the Duckett Cookie Episode , when then (and that's not a throwaway adjective in this case) Alberta Health Service CEO Stephen Duckett chose not to answer reporters' questions.  The questions, as it turned out, were about whether he would answer questions, whether he thought he should stop to talk about emergency room wait times. CTV posted the video of that encounter to YouTube. Hundreds of thousands of people viewed the video, thousands commented, scores created mashups. The premier told the legislature that he thought everyone had seen the video. Duckett was subsequently fired. It is not the firing that is of interest to me. Who knows? It may have been politically motivated, and had nothing to do with c...