First, from the blog of Henry Jenkins comes the latest round in the Gender and Fan Studies discussion. I have written about this ongoing discussion several times in the past. The ongoing conversation began with a discussion coming out of the Media in Transition 5 conference on gender issues related to the study of fan communities. In the aftermath, Henry's blog, and a partnering site on LiveJournal, have featured a two-part series every Thursday and Friday featuring conversations between one male and one female fan scholar about gender issues both in fan communities and in the study of fan communities.

The 13th round, available here and here, features Anne Kustritz and Derek Johnson.

Meanwhile, while Jason Mittell continues working on his textbook on American television, he shares some of his latest work on his blog this week, regarding digital television. He writes, "The story of digital television is quite complicated, influenced by the competing interests of broadcasters, television technology manufacturers, the computer industry, Congressional budget priorities, and countless other players." See Mittell's blog for a general overview of some of these trends.

Meanwhile, over at the site for our corporate partner GSD&M Idea City, Rad Tollett writes about Facebook and the changing meaning of friendship. Rad writes, "the Internet may expand my "total network" but has little impact on the people I connect with on a daily- or even weekly-basis.  The question of "friends" shouldn't come into this discussion because "friend" is highly subjective."

See my own post about the changing nature of social interaction on Facebook as well.