Around the country this week, students have been protesting and standing up for causes they believe in, from actively participating in the election primaries to protesting and demonstrating. I have linked to just a few examples below: 1.) Hundreds of students marched in protest at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this week after a number of racially charged incidents occurred on and around the campus, including the arrest of a student protesting racism. 2.) At UC-Davis, students occupied the office of school chancellor Linda Katehi for 36 days, demanding her resignation. The protest culminated in Katehi being put on administrative leave while she is being investigated, among other things, for spending at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of bad publicity after the notorious pepper spray incident. See the YouTube video below. 3.) At Northern Arizona University, students were arrested as they participated in a sit-in. The protest is part of a national movement to force universities to divest from fossil fuels. 4.) United Students Against Sweatshops is a national organization of students who are protesting unjust labor conditions. They have joined with local protesters at 150 campuses across the United States. These are only a few examples of students becoming involved in the shaping of their world. In our 5-step process--describe, analyze, interpret, evaluate--the fifth step is taking action. I hope it has become clear over the course of this semester that a key part of taking action is coming together with others, forming groups with like-minded people, and using the marvelous tools at our disposal to effect change. So my last set of questions of the semester is this: 1. What do you care about? What, in your opinion, are the great priorities of our time? What problems, issues, or challenges are important enough to get you to become involved in some way? 2. What actions can you take? Who could you join with? What groups are already out there that are fighting for things you believe in? How could you find them? 3. What media do you trust? Where will you go for accurate and true information? How can the Internet and social media aid you specifically in connecting and joining with others to take action? Post your response below. I have also provided a link to the incredible silent protest of Chancellor Katehi, by students, after peacefully protesting students were pepper-sprayed by campus police officer Pike. Note that this protest occurred several years ago.
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Note: we got so few comments on the blog last week that I am leaving this up for another week. Please post an ad of your choice here, and comment on other people's ads. Good analysis so far.
To complete the ad analysis exercise we did in class on Thursday, please post links to your sample advertisements here, along with the strategy or strategies the advertisers are using. Reminder: strategies you are looking for might include famous person testimonials, the association principle, plain folks pitch, snob appeal, bandwagon, hidden fear, and irritation advertising (note that is should be purposely irritating, not just something annoys you personally). You can look for other appeals as well, and always, of course, the myths and stories the ads are telling and/or appealing to. Have fun! For this week's blog, I'm going to ask you to do a quick exercise with Wikipedia.
1. Look something up on Wikipedia. It can be anything you like. Put in a search term and pick a page to review that interests you. 2. Read over the page and answer the following questions: - What page are you looking at? Provide the topic and URL in your post. - What information is included? How is it presented? How is the information organized, and how easy it is to find on the page? - What secondary sources, evidence, or other documentation is provided? How credible do you find this page? - Do you notice anything that is NOT included? Does the page seem to discuss the topic thoroughly, in other words, or is anything missing? - Describe, in as much detail as you can, the tone of the page. How would you characterize the author(s)' voice? Whose point of view is the article written from? - Can you identify any bias in the way information is presented, or does the page seem neutral? What examples of language demonstrate either neutrality and objectivity, or, on the other hand, bias or at least a specific point of view or perspective? Due by midnight on Friday, April 15th. Look at the above image. Without knowing anything about the picture, where or when it was taken, or the context in which it was shot, talk about what you see. Use the steps we talked about in class on Thursday--describing, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating, What do you think the picture might be about? What does the picture say to you?
We will discuss the photo in class when I get back. Note that I will give you until midnight on Sunday to post to last week's blog, and until next Friday to post about this picture. Don't forget to comment to two of your classmates for full credit. Have a great week! Clink on the links below and read the articles about the six corporations that control at least 90% of all the mass media in America. Then answer the questions below.
1. Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 2. Investment Watchblog: http://investmentwatchblog.com/only-six-corporations-own-all-mainstream-media-in-the-united-states/ Please think about the articles and then answer the following questions: 1. Briefly describe the situation in the U.S. the articles are discussing. 2. Do you think that the concentration of media control in the hands of a few is a problem? If so, why? 3. What are the implications of this situation? What does this mean for our democracy, and why? 4. What could be done, in your opinion? Essentially, your task is to describe - analyze - interpet - evaluate We're taking a break this week. Have a wonderful Spring Break, everyone!
Best, Dr. D Don't forget to blog your media comparison, if you haven't done so already! Due by midnight on Friday, March 11th.
For this coming week, take a look around your room and do an inventory of how many items you have that you consider to have a well-known brand such as Nike, Apple, Tommy Hilfiger, Gucci, etc. Consider also food items such as Skippy peanut butter, Nestle's chocolate chips, etc. List at least two or three items you own that you consider your favorite brands, and then answer the following questions: 1. Why are these brands your favorite? What does the brand mean to you, say about you, or say to you? 2. Would you pay more money for this brand than for the same product without that brand? If so, why? 3. Rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 5 in terms of being brand oriented, where 1 means you pay little to no attention to the brand (e.g. perhaps more to the price) up to 5, which means you pay a lot of attention to certain brands. Note that you may be highly brand-oriented in one area (such as laptops) but not in another (such as shoes). We will discuss this in class after Spring Break. Don't forget to post comments on other people's entries! An ancient Chinese curse says, "May you live in interesting times."
As we have discussed in class, a lot is happening in our world at the moment, from Supreme Court Justice Scalia's sudden demise at a luxury ranch, to the refugee crisis in Europe, more mass shootings in Kansas and elsewhere, and the U.S. presidential primaries and the 2016 election season. Your blogging task this week is to pick one news event that interests you, and then find two news sources that discuss that event. It can be local, national, or international as long as you can find two different sources--ideally from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum--that talk about the same thing. The Newsprism site we looked at in class should help you decide where your sources stand. Then below, compare how the media describes and characterizes your chosen event. Look for biases, loaded words, hidden emotion, and ideological assumptions in the language, etc. One example of differences in language is the use of the term "pro-choice" versus "pro-abortion"; another is "estate tax" versus "death tax." There are many other examples; see if you can find one or more, Briefly describe the event, and then write 1-2 paragraphs comparing and evaluating the way each source discusses the event. Answer the following questions in a 1-2 solid paragraphs (150-250 words): - How does each of your two sources present the event? How do your sources characterize the people involved? Do you see a bias in the description of the event? - What differences, if any, do you see between the discussion in the two sources? - What about language? Play close attention to word choices as well as the use of images. Before we dig into evaluating news sources and their ideological perspectives, it's good to get a sense of who you are and where you stand.
Below are links to two websites, each of which will ask you to take a short test that asks for your opinion on a variety of issues of the day. (Note that one test allows you to stand in the middle, on neutral ground, but the other does not.) Once you have taken the test, the site will evaluate your political orientation and also provide information on which political leaders in history share your political orientation. 1. Political Matrix: http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/POLMTX/ 2. Political Compass: http://www.politicalcompass.org/ You do not have to share your results here if you don't want to, although you certainly can (feel free!), but once you have taken at least one of the tests (you can take both, of course--it might be interesting to compare your results), I do want you to answer the following questions: 1. Which test did you take, or did you take both? Were you surprised by the results, or did you already know where you stand? If not, what surprised you? 2. How would you characterize the difference between the left (Democrats, liberals/progressives) and the right (Republicans, conservatives, libertarians)? Does taking this test change your mind in any way, and if so, why? 3. If you took both tests, were your results roughly the same for each, or were there discrepancies in your final profile? 4. Which of the issues presented in the tests, if any, were most important to you? What did you care about most? What did you care about the least? If none of the topics seemed relevant, important, or interesting to you, why do you think that is? 5. Finally, please rate your interest in politics--including the issues in question on the test(s) you took--from 1 to 5, whereby 1 is not at all interested and 5 is extremely interested. Post your responses by midnight, March 4th, and responses to your classmates by midnight on March 11th. Note: blogs for the week, and comments to the week before, are now due every Friday night by midnight. The new blog for every week will go up on Fridays by 6 p.m. Should Apple be forced to locate and hand over private IPhone data? On Dec. 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, CA, American-born Pakistani Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Pakistani Tashfeen Malik, shot and killed 14 people who were attending a holiday party at their place of employment, a non-profit health center for people with disabilities. During the initial investigation, the FBI found Farook's encrypted IPhone. Attempts to unlock the phone and access the data have so far been unsuccessful, so prosecutors went to court to force Apple to unlock the phone. The judge ordered Apple to build the technology to do so, but last Tuesday night, Apple CEO Tim Cook published an open letter declaring that the company would refuse the court order. Cook wrote, "Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone." The FBI director, James Comey, says Apple's refusal is interfering with their counterterrorism work and the investigation. On the other hand, according to ACLU lawyer Alex Abdo, "What the government is asking for in this case is a bridge too far. It’s an unprecedented demand that Apple not just give the government information it has, but that Apple write software that hacks into one of its users’ phones. And that is an unprecedented authority that the government seeks, and it’s not an authority that you can limit to just this case. This is not just about this one phone, it’s about every phone." What do you think? Should Apple be forced to build software that could open any phone, even protected and encrypted phones? Should our government be allowed to force corporations to reveal any information the government wants? Bear in mind that setting a legal precedent for the U.S. government to have that power also sets a precedent for any government to do so. Most importantly, what do you see as the larger implications (questions) about this case? We will discuss this in class next week, as you begin working on your research projects. If you'd like to listen to an interview with Alex Abdo or read more, here's a link: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/18/apple_vs_the_fbi_inside_the UPDATE: This story is apparently heating up, and Donald Trump has weighed in: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35314-former-apple-stockholder-donald-trump-calls-for-an-apple-boycott-as-he-tweets-from-iphone |
AuthorGreetings! This is Dr. Dani Weber, your instructor for HUM 1912-01. I will be your guide on this semester-long exploration of the interactions (or, if you prefer, the interface) between media, society, and the individual. Archives
April 2016
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