Not all fans are created equal. Some will sit passively and watch your sci-fi space epic. Others, well, they're not so passive. As we found while putting this Annotated together, a select few will obsessively research, discuss, catalog, and even write books about fictional creations. Such are the fans of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. 

Candy companies partnering with summer movie releases has been a no-brainer for many marketing execs during the past few years, but what does it take to sway a 162-year-old confectioner to partner with a movie franchise for the very first time in its long history?

With the advertising market in turmoil and revenue forecasts falling, these are dark days for the print magazine industry. For publishers, the options are simple: Either come up with a survival plan or get ready to fold.

The rule of law is a hallmark of civilization, and like the original iBook, it's nifty but slow. Sometimes, you need to jump-start the system - and that's where Dexter, the acclaimed Showtime series returning this fall, comes in. By day, Dexter Morgan is a top-notch blood specialist with the Miami pd; by night, an avenging angel who eliminates killers with élan.

Fox Networks Group head Tony Vinciquerra is not happy, and he doesn't care who knows it. At least that was the case in late May when Vinciquerra told Daily Variety he was frustrated with Nielsen Media Research after the firm admitted its ratings might be off by as much as 8 percent, due to reporting inaccuracies.

After conducting one of the more contrived promo campaigns in recent memory, HBO scored 3.7 million viewers for the season-two premiere of True Blood June 14 - the most watched show for the network since the series finale of The Sopranos. But it's still quite possible people are more familiar with the ads than the show.

Long before Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, modern pop culture satire had its roots in the strange mind of the original madman, Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993). His early '50s creation, MAD Magazine, taught buttoned-down America how to detect the inanities and silly idealizations of post-wwii mass media, as it also introduced phrases like "potrzebie" and "fershlugginer" into the national lexicon.

Corporate altruism has always blended with PR, especially when the company doing the giving has a less-than-angelic reputation. Now, British researchers have found that international firms may also use philanthropy to offset their presence in notoriously oppressive nations.

Bill Bernbach was, of course, one of the founders of Doyle Dane Bernbach, and, as architect of the copywriter-art director team and modern media planning, one of the creative minds largely credited with fueling the revolution on Madison Ave. of the late '60s and early '70s. Bernbach passed away in 1982, but media once again faces upheaval similar to that brought on by the mass adoption of television, and we could sure use his guidance again. Here, Paul Parton of Brooklyn Brothers, wonders what Bernbach might have to say about media today. The responses are verbatim quotes, though the interaction …

Video games have taken quite a beating from social science researchers: Past studies have linked excessive game playing among kids and teens to bad grades, aggression and even "permissive attitudes" toward drug use and unsafe sex, according to a number of papers published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.