About Us

Placeholder imageScreenSite first emerged in 1994 during the Paleolithic era of the Web. It was then that we introduced the world to "ScreenSite Man" (left) and his jaunty promise of "tomorrow's opportunity." (Archived versions of the 1996 and 1999 ScreenSites are available online.) In 2003 we mounted a major renovation. After a technical issue took us down in June 2006, we overhauled the site again.

Then, in 2011, we couldn't resist fiddling with its design again. This time around we decided to stress its function as a link directory, but with the occasional article—running on the WordPress platform. Over the years, we have collected thousands of links to college media programs, academic journals and blogs, syllabi, and other resources. (The full, historical, and deprecated list is online.)

In 2012 we officially partnered with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies to augment their directory of online resources.

In 2019, we returned to a HTML site, using the Bootstrap toolkit. We found that WordPress was just too large a target for hackers. However, we have saved all the link data we collected and put them online.

History

  1. October 24, 1994: ScreenSite launched.
    • Started on Student Affairs' Web server, the University of Alabama. Moved to the Telecommunication and Film Department's server on September 1, 1997—running O'Reilly's WebSite Professional on a Windows 3.1 computer.
  2. 2003: rebuilt on the PHP-Nuke platform.
  3. July 11, 2006: rebuilt on the Joomla platform.
  4. 2011: rebuilt on the WordPress platform.
  5. December 1, 2019: returned to HTML, augmented by the Bootstrap toolkit. Moved off the TCF server and onto the A2 hosting service.

Early Accolades (from the 1990s)

"A great site for the study of TV and Film"
"SCREENsite is the resource center for film and TV scholarship."
"Very comprehensive!"
Association Québécoise des Études Cinématographiques "Sans doute le site le plus important pour les études cinématographiques."
"A good lookin' and thorough primer for the online film and TV buff."
"A wealth of information."

Presented "with a perceptible spirit of fun!"

"A generously compiled array of scholarly resources."
"Any student of film or television will find something useful at this academic site."
NVR Reports Featured in "Independents in Cyberspace," by Peter Broderick.

 


OUT OF THE PAST

Mothballed previous versions of ScreenSite:

GET IN TOUCH

Jeremy Butler

Professor Emeritus of Television and Film Studies
The University of Alabama
jgbutler@gmail.com
Teaching media studies.