I am involved in several exciting new research projects. I am working on an article about the "cinematization" of television in recent years, considering the ways that critical, aesthetic, and technological discourses seek to elevate television culturally by associating it with cinema. I am concerned with the gendered and classed dimensions of such an effort at hierarchization.
I am also working on a project about U.S. daytime soap operas since the 1980s, considering the ways in which the broadcast networks have repeatedly tried to reinvigorate the genre just as its audiences are declining. In particular, I am working on an article about the very recent uses of the internet to promote the soaps. I am analyzing the networks' on-line efforts, including blogs, podcasts, and on-line storytelling, by analyzing the content itself and speaking with some of the network and production personnel involved in the projects.
This research on the daytime soap opera is tied to the early stages of my next book project, a study of the U.S. daytime television soap opera that examines the genre's industrial, textual, and reception histories.