Prof's Blog Winter 10I will summarize what we did in class each session, and post links to Web sites we went over in class.Class
17 - March 8/9: Media Law
QUIZ: Media Law
VIDEO: We finished watching Bowling for Columbine, and discussed WB p. 27.ASSIGNMENTS: Students chose their positions for next week's TV production.
==============
Class
16 - March 3/4:
Class canceled today so students can participate in March 4 protest activities. Students who write and turn in a 2-page page describing the the role communication and the media played (or should have played) in the activities can earn up to 25 points extra credit.
Class
15 - March 1/2: Advertising
I will get this
section updated soon! Thanks
for your patience.Class
14 - Feb. 24/25: Public Relations
I will get this
section updated soon! Thanks
for your patience.
==============
Class 13 - Feb. 22/23: Electronic Journalism
OPENER: Students completed a crossword puzzle on the Electronic Journalism chapter, then we went over it in class, along with a bit of a discussion on some of the terms.
QUIZ: Electronic journalismMEDIA HISTORY REVIEW: Students placed media events on a timeline on the board, then we went over them to make sure they were in the correct place.SHOW & TELL: Historical timeline rulerVIDEO: We watched the first two segments of Moment of Impact on the stories of Pulitzer Prize photography winners, and how tragic, unpleasant and controversial images can have major effects on society. We discussed the impact of photojournalism on the Vietnam War, Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize winning photo during the Sudan famine (WB p.28), and the ethical challenges photographers face on the job.
PHOTOJOURNALISM: Students looked through photojournalism books and reported to the class on the most effective images they found.
==============
Class 12 - Feb. 17/18: Internet
I will get this section updated soon! Thanks for your patience.
Class 11 - Feb. 10/11: Television
I will get this section updated soon! Thanks
for your patience.Class 10 - Feb. 8/9: Radio
I will get this section updated soon! Thanks
for your patience.Class 9 - Feb. 3/4: Recordings
I will get this section updated soon! Thanks
for your patience.==============
Class 8 - Feb. 1/2: MoviesOPENER: We saw part of Film Johnny,
a silent movie from 1914 staring Charlie Chaplin, who is impressed with
an actress he sees at a nickelodeon (movie theater), and then goes to
the studio to meet her.
LECTURETTE: The
pre-production, production and post-production stages of movie making.
SHOW & TELL:
Shooting schedule for "Gremlins." Movie scripts ("Big Chill," "A Hard
Day's Night"), storyboard ("Star Wars") samples of 16mm and 8 mm film,
a brochure listing of sound effects you can buy for your films, books
critiquing films, film production forms.
VIDEOS: Segment from an old Lumiere Brothers film (circa 1894) Birth of a Nation
(1915) along with discussion on why it is such a well-known
film (first film to use modern day editing techniques and glorification
of KKK) and an old Lumiere Brothers film
 
Newsreels: Anne Sullivan & Helen Keller (1930) and Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald (1963)
  GROUPS/DISCUSSION: WB p. 15 on movie topics: product placement (we saw the short clip from "Wayne's World"), tie-ins, stereotypes, copycat behavior, competition, early experiences.DISCUSSION: WB p. 14 on Visual Rhetoric. A definition is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_rhetoric
We looked at an example of applying the principles of visual rhetoric: http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/f03/PWR1/whatisvisrhet.htm
ONLINE: We looked at photographs from the news and popular media that had been manipulated at Photo Tampering Throughout History.VIDEO: We saw some of the clips from the "The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made"
(Segments below are from the film, but all aren't the same ones we saw
in class.) Even though these were examples of awful movies, the
segments covered some of the issues from our study of media:
censorship, images of women, violence toward women, copyright
violation, continuity, special effects, budgets.
       OVERHEAD: We matched movie crew titles with their definitions.
QUIZ: Movies
HOMEWORK: See assignment sheet.
==============
Class 7 - Jan. 27/28: Magazines
THE IPAD!!!: We looked at two videos:
(1) Steve Jobs announcing the iPad and
(2) the the the iPad promo from the Apple site:
  Added to
Quickli
and, (Thursday only) an Onion parody of Apple announcing a laptop without a keyboard:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
We discussed techniques Apple used in their promo (music, choice of cast, background, choice of words), and how media used "agenda setting" to tell us that this event was important.
SHOW & TELL: I
passed around various magazines and discussed them: historical
(including issues of Life, National Geographic and Rolling Stone over
several years), magazines in foreign languages (Japanese, French,
Swedish, etc.), a book showing Time magazine covers from 1923 to the
1990s. We noted differences in how people were portrayed in magazines in the past. I talked about and showed examples from the magazine categories: consumer, public relations, trade, literary, scholarly/academic journals, professional journals.
DISCUSSION: We discussed how magazines and their images affect people, as illustrated in the cartoon in WB in the magazine section.
These two articles discuss research on how magazine ads affect women
http://www.frankwbaker.com/magazine_ads_study.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070326152704.htm
This article discusses a content analysis which indicates that magazines send mixed messages:
http://www.frankwbaker.com/magazines_mixed_messages.htm
This article shows how fake pop-news magazines use strategies to fool the public and sell
http://www.frankwbaker.com/fakenews.jpg
VIDEOS: We watched two videos on images created in the media: The Dove Evolution ad and a parody of it. We discussed how images in the media correlate with stereotypes.
 
CLASS EXERCISE:
Students chose a magazine they had never seen before from a selection I
brought in, then did the content analysis exercise in the magazine section of the WB. Then each student table reported their results to the class.
LECTURETTE: I reviewed the EPS (elite, popular, specialized) model of media evolution and discussed a scholarly article suggesting a fourth stage: individualized.
QUIZ: Magazines
HOMEWORK: See assignment sheet.
==============
Class 6 - Jan. 25/26: NewspapersEXERCISE:
Students looked at copies of college newspapers from other collleges
and found examples of: byline, column (both types) ear/teaser,
editorial, feature story, hard news story, inverted pyramid, graphic,
lead story & a story's lead, newsprint, opinion story, sidebar.
Included discussion of history of inverted pyramid style and why it's
still in use.
SHOW & TELL: I
passed around a variety of newspapers (foreign and historical from the
1800s to the 1970s), some lead type (in Hebrew), a CMYK separation, and
collections of different papers covering the same event (Mark McGwire's
62nd home run, 9/11).
I showed a copy of the Nov. 25, 1734 "New York
Weekly Journal" in which John Peter Zenger writes that he has been
imprisoned and charged with libel, and a copy of the Sept. 30, 1784
"New York Jacket" which contains classified ads for runaway slaves.
Here are similar examples:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/bookmarks/zenger/zenger1.html http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/runaway_ads/balt-intro.html
DISCUSSION/VIDEO:
WB p.11 #1,4,6 on how newspapers can make print editions more popular with younger readers, the importance of diversity among journalists, arguments for and against pubic journalism. We watched a video segment about Northwestern journalism students practicing civic journalism, who freed a man
from death row as their class assignment.I'm not able to find the video online, but here are two stories about it: http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/undergrad/page.aspx?id=59507
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/03/11/national/main38390.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
VIDEO: Simpson's Your Medium is DyingVIDEO:
We saw a 1981 TV news report about the early days of newspapers going online. There were no graphics or photos, and it took two hours to download a newspaper, at a cost of $5 an hour:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ)
 VIDEOS: We looked at two interpretations of what future digital newspapers may look like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B28SHBmMNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq_2LiTxhls  Added to
QuicklistAdded to
Quicklist
INTERNET: I showed how to sign up for Turnitin to turn in the Internet Search Project. Go to http://turnitin.com and follow the instructions for new users/students. The log in number and password is in the syllabus.
QUIZ: NewspapersHOMEWORK: See assignment sheet==============Class 5 - Jan. 20/21: Books
SMALL GROUPS:
Students worked in small groups to come up with a list of their opinion
of the most influential books (WB p. 9). They wrote their lists on the
board and explained their choices. We then looked at Martin
Seymour-Smith's listing of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written and The Boston Public Library's list of The 100 Most Influential Books of the Century, and compared/contrasted them with our lists.
SHOW
& TELL:
I passed out a variety of unusual, historical, challenged (banned) and
books in
foreign languages. Included were books mentioned in the text:
MyGuffey's Eclectic Reader, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,"
and "Satanic Verses." We talked about the influence "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
had on American society: it was the first "bestseller," and various
historians attribute it to starting the movement to end slavery.
DISCUSSION:
WB p. 9 #5, Types of controversies in the book publishing
business include plagiarism, copyright violation, censorship.
INTERNET: We looked at the American Library Association's Web site for the most Banned and Challenged Classics and followed the link to look at some of the reasons for the challenges.
We looked at the censored and non-censored versions of Where's Waldo: http://waldo.wikia.com/wiki/Where's_Waldo%3F
(Scroll down to see the two versions.)
VIDEOS:
We watched a news segment about a student and parent who wanted to ban
the book "Fahrenheit 451" (a science fiction book about banning books)
from a Texas high school and "Introducing the Book," a spoof about a
man's call to the tech support help desk (perhaps in the late 1400s,
after the invention of the Guttenberg Press) to get help on how to
operate his new book.
 
DISCUSSION:
We reviewed WB p. 10 #6,7,9 on the mechanical and social reasons the
printing press was a revolutionary invention and the difference in
modes of communication between the 1400s and the present. We also discussed whether print books would exist in the future.
PROJECT EXPLANATION: I went over how to do
the Internet Search Project -- that it's easiest if you print out a
copy of the assignment to use as instructions, then open two windows on
your computer: one to the assignment online and another for your word
processing document, so you can cut and paste. For short answers and
definitions you may copy and paste from the original; longer answers, or if I ask you to explain something, should be in your own words. We went through several of the questions in class, spending most of the time on Snopes.com, investigating urban legends on helping Haiti and on hidden sexual messages in Disney movies. We took a photo hoax test. The M/W class got 80 percent.QUIZ: BooksHOMEWORK: See Assignment Sheet. Keep working on blogs and the Internet Search Project==============Class 4 - Jan. 13/14: Media Impact
OPENER:
In small groups, students discussed the small group discussion topics on the bottom of WB p. 5, listing positive and negative behaviors learned from TV as a child. We then discussed answers in class.
MAKE-UP QUIZ INFORMATION: I returned Quiz 1, and I explained the process for make-up quizzes. I am more interested in helping students learn than I am in judging/grading them. Since we don't all learn the first time we try something, I give students three chances to demonstrate subject matter knowledge. The first chance is taking the quiz closed book. The second chance is reviewing your quiz, before handing it in, with the textbook and your notes. Then, the 10 question quiz is graded with one point per correctly answered question.
If students miss any questions (receive less than a 10 on a quiz), they can make up those points by answering any of the self-quiz questions in the blue rectangles in the same chapter of the textbook, at one question per point. (If a student is absent, s/he should answer 10 self-quiz questions.) Students may choose any question from the corresponding chapter, and should write out the question and the answer. All the make-up questions/answers should be turned in at the end of the quarter with the WB. Students are limited to 50 points worth of make-up questions for the quarter.
DISCUSSION: We went over WB p. 8, discussing our views about the impact of violent video games on violence in society, the "global village" phenomenon, media professionals' responses to the charge that violence in society causes violence in society, the difference between causation and correlation, and why we never use the word "prove" when talking about research studies. We talked about Bandara's study using Bobo the clown (Text, p. 42).
VIDEO: We watched George Gerbner's presentation on TV Violence and You while students answered questions in WB p. 30. (This link is to a description only; the video isn't available online.)
DISCUSSION: We talked about the concepts from the video: happy violence, TV as a currency of conversation, TV creating stereotypes, TV contributing to the erosion of civility, the wholesale manufacture of mistrust, "jep" scenes, the difference between fiction by invention and selection, and why violent TV sells so well when it's not the most popular kind of TV programming.
GAME: Each of eight student groups received a name of a media effects theory from the social science perspective. Each student group created a skit illustrating the theory, without using the theory's name. Students then performed their skit to the rest of the class, who guessed which theory was being demonstrated. Theories were: social learning, individual differences, cultivation, agenda-setting, uses and gratification.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- No class next Monday or Tuesday
- Students who are adding must submit their add codes by Friday
- The Internet Search Project is posted, and students should start it soon, as it may take up to 10 hours to complete.
QUIZ: Quiz 2 - Media Impact
HOMEWORK: See Assignment sheet; start Internet Search Project
==============
Class 3 - Jan. 11/12: Introduction: Media in a Changing World
OPENER: In small groups, students reviewed WB answers for chapter 1.
DISCUSSION: We discussed concepts in WB bottom of p. 2 and pages 6-7 as a class: media distorting our culture, media convergence, uses of the mass media (disseminator of news, information and miscommunication, a transmitter of culture and customs, a vehicle for welling, a mass entertainer), how technology has changed/stayed the same over students' lifetimes and their parents'/grandparents' lifetimes, cultural imperialism, media and audience influence.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Students should check their "Link to Student Blogs" page to see if their link works -- if not, please e-mail me with the correct link.
Students late with their first blog should still do it.
The "Aha" assignment in the WB p. 2: students should list one interesting bit of information they learned from each chapter when the chapters are due.
Students should fill out the media log on the bottom of WB p. 3.
SHOW & TELL: I passed around a Stereoscope from the late 1800s/early 1900s and a satellite car phone from the 1970s.
DISCUSSION: Role of the audience (receiver) in the basic model of (mass) communication as an intro to the video. In the textbook, p. 23, four audience roles are discussed. One is that the audience is the final arbiter of meaning, which means that it is the audience (receivers), not the producers (senders) who decide the final interpretation of the message.
VIDEO: We watched an episode of All in the Family, "Sammy's Visit." I gave some background on "All in the Family" and of this particular episode.
VIDEO DISCUSSION:
- "The audience is the final arbiter of meaning" can be seen on two levels: (1) as stated in the textbook, the producer intended to make fun of Archie, which worked for some audiences, but others in the audience identified with Archie, and (2) within the content of the episode, Sammy Davis Jr. insults Archie, but Archie sees his comments as compliments (e.g., "the whitest guy I know").
- Societal, Cultural and technological differences between 1972 and today can be seen (showing that media transmits cultures and customs, even when we are using it for another reason, such as entertainment). Examples include a guest smoking in the house without asking (I said that when I was in college in 1972, we had ashtrays in the classroom and could smoke in class!), the black, corded rotary phone, playing Solitaire with cards rather than on the computer, leaving a briefcase in the cab rather than leaving a cell phone or laptop, etc.
- Stereotypes portrayed included Blacks liking certain foods, dumb blonds, ditzy housewives, etc. Even though this episode had scenes that made many of us uncomfortable, a popular story is that "All in the Family" was Sammy Davis' favorite TV show and this episode was designed specifically for him.
QUIZ: Quiz 1 - Introduction
HOMEWORK: See Assignment Sheet (read chapter 2, do WB chapter 2), Complete Media Log in WB p. 3
==============
Class 2 - Jan. 6/7: Introduction to Mass Communication
OPENER/VIDEO: Simple Simon cartoon from the mid 1930s. (This was before TV was available; cartoons like this and newsreels were shown before movies in theaters.) In a "content analysis" exercise, we counted the number of violent acts in the first few minutes of the cartoon. (Content analysis: a research method in which observers systematically analyze media subject matter.)
CLASS INFO: Use links on left to download a syllabus, to access student or professor's blog. Use class Facebook group page to ask questions and communicate with one another.
LECTURETTE: Definitions of communication, mass communication, mediated communication; Ways to categorize communication:
- by size: intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, organizational, public, mass
- verbal and non-verbal
- mediated and non-mediated
- point-to-point and point-to-multi-point
BOARD DRAWING/LECTURETTE:
Basic model of communication (sender, message, channel, receiver,
feedback, gatekeeper, noise) with discussion on feedback loop and types
of mechanical, environmental and psychological noise.
VIDEO: We watched The Simpsons "Itchy, Scratchy & Marge"We looked for, then discussed topics in the video that are related to our class and recorded in Workbook p. 31, e.g.:QUIZ: Practice quiz (doesn't count)
HOMEWORK: See assignment sheet for reading to prep for quiz. Don't forget to set up your blog, send me the URL (Web address) and write your blog by Sunday midnight.
==============
Class 1 - Jan. 4/5: Welcome to class
HANDOUTS: Syllabus, Student Information Sheet, Mass Comm Workbook
INFO SHEET: Students filled out and handed back in an information sheet.
VIDEO: We watched "A Vision of Students Today," a 5 minute video made by a an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class at Kansas State University about what it's like to be a college student today. Students jotted down concepts from the video they thought were interesting or relevant to their lives and discussed them.
SYLLABUS: I reviewed the syllabus and class requirements.All assignments and due dates are on the last page of the syllabus. Students who need access to an online computer can use either of two computer labs on campus -- one in the Media Lab in the lower level of Learning Center West (in back of the Library) or in rooms 102-103 in the lower level of the Advanced Technology Center. Attendance is important because I don't run the class in the traditional lecture style, but collaboratively, where we spend a lot of time in discussion.
CLASS EXERCISE: We did the Mass Media Scavenger Hunt in the WB p.3, in order to memorize the eight types of mass media we are studying this quarter (books, newspapers, magazines, recordings, radio, TV, movies, Internet), and to learn a bit about the media habits of the students in our class.
DEMO: We "unveiled the fraud" of the model on the front of the fake magazine "Metropolitan" by looking at the steps the artists took to create her. (Click on "Unveil the fraud," then move the button at the bottom of the page along the scale.)
ANNOUNCEMENT: If you cannot make class, you may attend the other class section -- I do the same thing in each class.
TERMS: Conversational currency, media literacy, bibliophile, alliterate, LinkedIn, terrestrial radio.
HOMEWORK: See Assignment Sheet to prepare for practice quiz next class
NOTE: I let the class out early so students could go buy or rent the textbook, which is needed to do the homework.
|
