Alec Austin is a game design lead with Electrified Games. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, he authored the reports Playing in Other Worlds (2007), Selling Creatively (2006), and How to Turn Pirates into Loyalists (2006).

READ ESSAY: The Implicit Contract

Eleanor Baird Stribling is Director of Client Services & Research at video advertising and analytics platform TubeMogul and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. As a member of the research team at the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium, she published reports and articles on media measurement, engagement, and brand strategy.

FOR MORE FROM ELEANOR: http://masslesscommunication.net/

READ ESSAY: Valuing Fans

John Banks is a lecturer with the creative industries faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. His research interests focus on user-led innovation and consumer co-creation in participatory culture networks, particularly in video games.

READ ESSAY: Co-creative Expertise in Gaming Cultures

Nancy K. Baym is principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England. She is author of Personal Connections in the Digital Age (2010) and Tune In, Log On (2000) and coeditor of Internet Inquiry (2009) and Internet Research Annual, Volume I (2004).

FOR MORE FROM NANCY: http://www.onlinefandom.com/

READ ESSAY: The Swedish Model

Abigail De Kosnik is an assistant professor at the University of California–Berkeley, in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies. She is author of Illegitimate Media (forthcoming) and co-editor of The Survival of Soap Opera (2011).

READ ESSAY: Interrogating “Free” Fan Labor

Ana Domb is director of the Interaction Design Program at Universidad Veritas in Costa Rica. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, she coauthored the report If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (2008), an inspiration for Spreadable Media, and authored the report Tacky and Proud (2009).

FOR MORE FROM ANA: http://anadk.com

READ ESSAY: Tecnobrega’s Productive Audiences

Kevin Driscoll is working on his doctorate at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. He is a member of the Students for Free Culture board of directors and was formerly a teacher at Prospect Hill Academy Charter School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

READ ESSAY: Soulja Boy and Dance Crazes

David Edery is CEO of game studio Spry Fox, principal of games consulting company Fuzbi, and a director on the board of the International Game Developers Association. He is coauthor of Changing the Game (2008) and a former staff member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium project.

FOR MORE FROM DAVID: http://www.edery.org/

READ ESSAY: The Long Tail of Digital Games

Sam Ford is Director of Audience Engagement with Peppercomm Strategic Communications, an affiliate with the MIT Program in Comparative Media Studies and the Western Kentucky University Popular Culture Studies Program, and a regular contributor to Fast Company. He is co-editor of The Survival of the Soap Opera (2011).

FOR MORE FROM SAM: http://www.fastcompany.com/user/sam-ford

READ ESSAY: Learning to Be a Responsible Circulator

Jonathan Gray is an associate professor of media and cultural studies at University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is author of Show Sold Separately (2010), Television Entertainment (2008), and Watching with The Simpsons (2006); coauthor of Television Studies (2011); and coeditor of Satire TV (2009), Battleground: The Media (2008), and Fandom (2007).

FOR MORE FROM JONATHAN: http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/author/jagray/

READ ESSAY: The Use Value of Authors

C. Lee Harrington is a professor of sociology and an affiliate of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Miami University. She is coauthor of Global TV (2008) and Soap Fans (1995) and coeditor of The Survival of Soap Opera (2011), Fandom (2007), and Popular Culture (2001).

READ ESSAY: The Moral Economy of Soap Opera Fandom

Ted Hovet is a professor of film studies and composition at Western Kentucky University who writes on technology and fair use in educational settings and on early film history. His current research project is entitled “Framing Motion: Containing the Image in Early Cinema and Beyond.”

READ ESSAY: YouTube and Archives in Educational Environments

Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at USC. He is author of five books, most recently Convergence Culture (2008), Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers (2006), The Wow Climax (2006), all available from NYU Press, and is co-author or editor of eight other books on media and communication.

FOR MORE FROM HENRY: http://henryjenkins.org/

READ ESSAYS: Twitter Revolutions? and Joss Whedon, the Browncoats, and Dr. Horrible

Derek Johnson is assistant professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is author of the forthcoming book Creative License and coeditor of the forthcoming collections A Companion to Media Authorship and Intermediaries.

READ ESSAY: A History of Transmedia Entertainment

Robert V. Kozinets is professor of marketing and chair of the marketing department at York University’s Schulich School of Business. He is author of Netnography (2009) and coeditor of Consumer Tribes (2007) and has consulted for a diverse range of companies.

FOR MORE FROM ROBERT: http://www.kozinets.net/

READ ESSAY: Retrobrands and Retromarketing

Alex Leavitt is a graduate student at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, he authored the report Watching with the World: The Networked Television Audience Online (2011).

FOR MORE FROM ALEX: http://doalchemy.org/

READ ESSAY: Performing with Glee

Xiaochang Li is a doctoral student in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communications at New York University. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, she coauthored the report If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (2008) and authored the report More than Money Can Buy (2009), both of which acted as inspirations for Spreadable Media.

READ ESSAY: Transnational Audiences and East Asian Television

Geoffrey Long is a media analyst, scholar, and author exploring emerging entertainment platforms as a program manager at Microsoft. He is coeditor of the Playful Thinking book series from MIT Press and, as a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, authored the reports Moving Stories (2006) and How to Ride a Lion (2011).

READ ESSAY: (Sp)reading Digital Comics

Amanda D. Lotz is an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan. She is author of The Television Will Be Revolutionized (2007) and Redesigning Women (2006), coauthor of Understanding Media Industries (2011) and Television Studies (2011), and editor of Beyond Prime Time (2009).

READ ESSAY: What Old Media Can Teach New Media

Grant McCracken, who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago, has taught at the Harvard Business School and consulted widely. He is author of Culturematic (2012), Chief Culture Officer (2009), Transformations (2008), Flock and Flow (2006), Culture and Consumption II (2005), Plentitude (1997), Big Hair (1996), Culture and Consumption (1990), and The Long Interview (1988).

FOR MORE FROM GRANT: http://www.cultureby.com/

READ ESSAY: “Consumers” or “Multipliers”?

Jason Mittell is an associate professor of American studies and film and media culture at Middlebury College. He is author of Television and American Culture (2009) and Genre and Television (2004). He is currently writing a book on narrative complexity in contemporary U.S. television.

FOR MORE FROM JASON: http://justtv.wordpress.com/

READ ESSAY: Forensic Fandom and the Drillable Text

Whitney Phillips is working on her doctorate in English with a folklore-structured emphasis at the University of Oregon. She studies online culture, specifically transgressive humor within trolling and gaming communities.

FOR MORE FROM WHITNEY: http://billions-and-billions.com/

READ ESSAY: In Defense of Memes

Aswin Punathambekar is an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan. He is coeditor of Global Bollywood (2008) and is currently writing a book on the globalization of Indian film and television.

READ ESSAY: Targeting Desis

Bob Rehak is assistant professor of film and media studies at Swarthmore College. He has published essays on film, television, and video games and is currently working on a book on special effects and media evolution.

FOR MORE FROM BOB: http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu/

READ ESSAY: The Value of Retrogames

Sharon Marie Ross is associate professor of television at Columbia College Chicago and associate chair of the TV Department. She is author of Beyond the Box (2008) and coeditor of Teen Television (2008).

READ ESSAY: Television’s Invitation to Participate

Sheila Murphy Seles is Marketing Manger at Bluefin Labs. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, she authored two reports, entitled Turn On, Tune In, Cash Out (2010) and It’s (Not) The End of TV as We Know It (2009).

READ ESSAY: Chuck vs. Leno

Parmesh Shahani works on innovation and culture at Godrej Industries, one of India’s oldest and largest business conglomerates, and also serves as editor at large for the Indian fashion and lifestyle magazine Verve. The initial research manager of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium, Shahani is author of Gay Bombay (2008) and a TEDIndia Fellow.

FOR MORE ON PARMESH: http://parmesh.net/

READ ESSAY: The Revolution Is Not Spreadable

Hanna Rose Shell, assistant professor in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT, is a filmmaker and a historian of science and media. She is the co-director of the 2007 documentary film about old clothes Secondhand (Pepe) and the author of the 2012 book Hide and Seek.

READ ESSAY: A Global History of Secondhand Clothing

Ethan Tussey is working on his doctorate in film and media studies at the University of California–Santa Barbara. He serves as a researcher with the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project and researches Hollywood’s relationship to the digitally empowered public.

READ ESSAY: The Online Prime Time of Workspace Media

William Uricchio is director of the MIT Program in Comparative Media Studies and professor of comparative media history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is author of a forthcoming book on televisuality and of Media, Simultaneity, Convergence (1997); coauthor of the forthcoming “The Nickel Madness” and of Reframing Culture (1993); editor of We Europeans? (2008) and Die Anfänge des deutschen Fernsehens (1991); and coeditor of the forthcoming Blurred Vistas, Media Cultures (2006) and of The Many Lives of the Batman (1991).

READ ESSAY: The History of Spreadable Media

Ilya Vedrashko is the head of research and development at advertising agency Hill Holliday, whose work has appeared in Forbes, Wired, the New York Times, and Advertising Age. As a member of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium research team, he authored the report Vision Report 2010: In-Game Advertising (2006).

FOR MORE FROM ILYA: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/

READ ESSAY: How Spreadability Changes How We Think about Advertising

Christopher Weaver founded Bethesda Softworks and teaches part-time in the Microphotonics Center and the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT. He was formerly Manager of Technology Forecasting for ABC and Chief Engineer to the Congressional Subcommittee on Communications.

READ ESSAY: Learning to Be a Responsible Circulator

Stacy Wood is the Langdon Distinguished Professor of Marketing at North Carolina State University and an internationally recognized scholar in consumer behavior and innovation. Her research focuses on how consumers react and adapt to change.

READ ESSAY: The Value of Customer Recommendations

Ethan Zuckerman is Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, cofounder of Global Voices Online, and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board. He was cofounder of web-hosting enterprise Tripod.com and founded the nonprofit Geekcorps.

FOR MORE FROM ETHAN: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/

READ ESSAY: From “Weird” to Wide