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This chapter brings the wildly popular 2014 podcast Serial into conversation with Shakespearean tragedy (Romeo and Juliet; Othello) and problem comedy (Measure for Measure) through the unexpected lens of Aristotelian rhetoric. By first introducing the conventions of the classical persuasive arts, Holmes enables students to analyze the legal and interpretive crises that plague Renaissance literature and contemporary court cases alike. This combination empowers students to question the construction of cultural and legal narratives when truth itself seems precarious.

Chapter 4 begins by discussing Smith’s “View Askewniverse,” which can be viewed as a series of films both by a fanboy and featuring fanboy characters. This chapter examines the ways Smith has leveraged his fandom to build his career—both in the sense of the body of people who follow him, especially on his website discussion board, and in the sense of parlaying his geek credibility into a transmedia career as a professional fanboy through projects such as Comic Book Men, the SModcast podcast, and comic book writing. However, while Smith’s fannishness is unimpeachable, his auteurishness is less well established, and he has not often been given the reins of film franchises, largely because he lacks the necessary reverence. The chapter also explores the ways Smith can never quite escape the conservatism of mainstream fanboy identity even as he expands his reach as an auteur.

Email, blogs, interviews, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, conferences … are only a few of the many ways scientists communicate with each other, with institutions, journalists and the media, and the public. The ease of use and free access to social media mean that information can spread rapidly and to a massive audience. This chapter discusses how social media and networking can be employed to your advantage and some possible traps to avoid.

NPR has always been a haven for people with brains, but in the beginning it was also a sanctuary for literate people with ears. As the final chapter explains, the “magazine” format adopted by All Things Considered was a nod toward established literary publications like the New Yorker. With ninety minutes at its disposal, All Things Considered could reasonably indulge its listeners with an inventive mix of news, commentaries, satire, essays, plays, and mini-documentaries that earned the program a cult following by 1978. NPR revealed a preference for marginal stories, which fed its interest in pseudo-news radio genres like commentaries, essays, and documentaries, and its pursuit of offbeat topics allowed the network to sustain a commitment to sound as an artistic medium. A sense of adventure informed the young network’s attitude toward storytelling that harked back to the golden years of radio. NPR surprised even itself by hiring Joe Frank and by picking up Ken Nordine’s eccentric Word Jazz. Fabulists who later developed cult followings in the manner of Jean Shepherd, Frank, and Nordine were a good match for NPR’s experiment with novel forms of storytelling, which for a brief period tested the boundaries of listening.

This chapter explains how incorporating podcasts and multimedia sources (audio and TV clips, social-media messages, etc.) into a History of English course can lead not only to the greatest student engagement but also to a significantly richer learning experience. This chapter will reflect upon both what these materials are and why they should be so meaningful for students, as well as how these materials are also satisfying and engaging to the scholar/teacher. Specific examples of podcasts, YouTube videos, and Internet memes are mentioned, along with relevant class discussion prompts or out-of-class assignments.

The Number of administrators and staffers on university campuses has increased so rapidly in recent years that often there is simply not enough work to keep all of them busy. I have spent time in university administrative suites and in the corridors of public agencies. In both settings I am always struck by the fact that so many well-paid individuals have so little to do. To fill their time, administrators engage in a number of make-work activities. They attend meetings and conferences, they organize and attend administrative and staff retreats, and they participate in the strategic planning processes that have become commonplace on many campuses. While these activities are time consuming, their actual contribution to the core research and teaching missions of the university is questionable. Little would be lost if all pending administrative retreats and conferences, as well as four of every five staff meetings (these could be selected at random), were canceled tomorrow. And, as to the ubiquitous campus planning exercises, as we shall see below, the planning process functions mainly to enhance the power of senior managers. The actual plans produced after the investment of thousands of hours of staff time are usually filed away and quickly forgotten. There is, to be sure, one realm in which administrators as-a-class have proven extraordinarily adept. This is the general domain of fund-raising. College and university administrators have built a massive fund-raising apparatus that, every year, collects hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts and bequests mainly, though not exclusively, from alumni whose sense of nostalgia or obligation make them easy marks for fund-raisers’ finely-honed tactics. Even during the depths of the recession in 2009, schools were able to raise money. On the one hand, the donors who give selflessly to their schools deserve to be commended for their beneficence. At the same time, it should still be noted that, as is so often the case in the not-for-profit world, university administrators appropriate much of this money to support—what else?— more administration.

The content of individual lessons and units in TBMI classrooms falls somewhere on a spectrum of content, as seen in Figure 6.1. At the left end of the spectrum fall activities that are purely musical. Even in TBMI classes, we can occasionally design activities that we believe address long-term goals and short-term objectives that are purely musical. For example, when we ask our students to rehearse or perform a piece of music (although it may eventually be recorded, edited, mixed, etc.), we are addressing musical goals through musical activities without integrating technology. At the right end of this spectrum fall activities that are purely technological. These activities may include procedures for digital file management, techniques within software, or hardware connectivity and maintenance. Even though the broader content of TBMI classes should be musical, the focus on technology in lessons that fall to the right side of the spectrum is one of the ideas that separate TBMI classes from traditional music classes. We include lessons that focus on technology because those are the tools in use to make music. It is important that students learn how to use them properly, and teachers should consider it their responsibility to include lessons that meet this description. Purity of content is rare. In truth, longer-term sequences of TBMI might be categorized in one of two ways: Lessons fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. This indicates that the lesson has some content that is musical and some that is technological. The teacher artfully blends them together so that students recognize the application of technology to music, and of music to technology. Lessons shift from one end of the spectrum to the other, perhaps exhibiting more than one shift within a class period. Sometimes it is necessary to explore a musical concept in non-technological ways, then shift to a technological technique that will further address that concept. So, when the activities associated with the two phases of the lesson are combined, we achieve “neutrality” along the spectrum. Also, it should be acknowledged that this spectrum of lesson content depicts lessons under ideal circumstances.

E-newsletters, podcasts, wikis, social networks, blogs, and webinars can all be important to researchers’ communication strategy. However, they should be prioritized along with the many other activities and responsibilities. Researcher should also decide what their social media “persona” should be. E-newsletters should be organized to include content users will find helpful and should be managed to observe best practices. Podcasts should observe specific technical and production requirements to make them successful. Wikis can be highly useful to share information within and among research groups. Social networks—including lay-level and academic networks—can provide valuable contacts and promote collaboration. Blogs can be useful communications with lay and professional audiences but have both pros and cons. Twitter and webinars can be a conduit to the public, as well as a useful communication tool within research groups.