MIT Graduate Program in Comparative Media Studies

Studying Media and Making Media

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From the archive: Boing Boing features CMS theses

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In the Fall 2007 issue of the CMS newsletter In Medias Res, we featured a note by friend of the program Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing, praising the truly remarkable thesis projects that had just been published here at cms.mit.edu.

I once spent a mind-blowing day at [the CMS] program, meeting super-smart people seriously unpicking things like pro-wrestling fandom and understanding what makes it tick. Now there’s dozens of these online—I could read this stuff for weeks.

What’s particularly impressive is how past thesis work continues to guide research here and elsewhere. The 2007 batch includes Sam Ford’s thesis As the World Turns in a Convergence Culture, which was influential on the new Convergence Culture Consortium, as well as Transmedia Storytelling: Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson Company by Geoffrey Long, who now works as a researcher and Communications Director at the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab.

MIT Comparative Media Studies—Theses

About Andrew Whitacre

Andrew directs the communications efforts for CMS/W and its research groups. A native of Washington, D.C., he holds a degree in communication from Wake Forest University, with a minor in humanities, as well as an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College.

His work includes drawing up and executing strategic communications plans, with projects including website design, social media management and training, press outreach, product launches, fundraising campaign support, and event promotions.