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Aymar Jean “AJ” Christian is an assistant professor in the Media, Technology and Society program in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University and editor of Televisual.
Dr. Christian researches new media and television, focusing on how the market for web series (or independent television) expands our understanding of media production as technologies and markets rapidly change.
As part of this research, he documents the changing market for television across popular and academic publications: on Televisual, but also for Slate, Indiewire, The Wall Street Journal, among others; and academic journals Continuum, Transformative Works & Culture, First Monday, Cinema Journal and Communication, Culture and Critique.
Christian’s interest in production has led him to produce several indie video projects. The most significant of these is She’s Out Of Order, a Philadelphia-set sitcom about a journalist dealing with life’s professional and romantic frustrations. The series was produced by Under the Spell. The experience of producing this project informed Christian’s manuscript, tentatively titled, Off the Line: Independent Television and the Pitch to Reinvent Hollywood.
Christian has served on a number of judging committees for web television, including the Streamy Awards Blue Ribbon Panel, RFI and Black Women’s Entertainment Network Web Series Writing Contest and the Make My Series contest. During his doctoral studies Christian also ran the small-but-proud Film@Perelman program and lectured on film at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Televisual has been linked to by The Atlantic, Gawker, and MSN, to name a few. Christian has offered media commentary on topics from web TV, film, race and sexuality for The New York Times, Slate, Plain Dealer, The BIO Channel and NPR, among others.
Christian received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, with a certificate in cinema studies. He received his bachelors degree from the University of Michigan in American Culture. He lives in Chicago.
You can follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook.
For press/media inquiries, you can contact him here.
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