Interesting conference report

From MIT, a conversation about popular culture and Stephen Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You, which I reviewed here. There's also an audio version available on the site. I found the discussion of the complexity of today's TV storylines versus older TV particularly notable since I was just listening to the commentary on the pilot of American Gothic, in which the producers discuss the network's initial opposition to having Sheriff Buck whistle the theme from The Andy Griffith Show as he jauntily went to kill someone. In 1995, they say on the commentary track, before Buffy, network execs resisted references to other shows, but they think they were allowed to do it because Pulp Fiction had just shown the popularity of cross-reference.

Anyway, the MIT series is pretty cool; you can find other conference reports and papers on the same site.