Sports Fun

Had enough culture for the day? Good, let's have some fun. Here are 32 Great Calls. No, not blown calls by the referee. Great calls by announcers covering some of the most memorable sporting events of the last 60 years. Some of the clips I've seen many times before, but check out number 6 Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes in 1973. I don't even care about horses, but I know greatness when I see it. The other clip not to be missed is number  7, Victor Hugo Morales on the greatest goal of all time, Diego Maradona’s second goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. You don't have to love soccer to enjoy this one, trust me. What's your favorite clip?

More Film Fun

Think you know your movies? Think again …  This one is from The Guardian UK. Name all 26 films referenced in this short video.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/sep/23/film-season-video-challenge

The next link is a more artistic endeavor by Philip Scott Johnson.
 A short history of Women in Film. http://vimeo.com/1455935 If you like it, don't miss Men in Film. http://vimeo.com/1456206

The New Face of Marketing

Here is an article published in "Marketing Daily" discussing new trends in marketing. If you can wade through the buzz words here is what you should learn.

•There will be a shift from buying impressions to acquiring user data.


This translates into marketers mining your data acquired from
registration forms, Facebook/Open ID plug-ins, web searches etc. and delivering that information to marketers and producers.
•Seamless experience across multiple media.
According to a recent Nielsen study 32% of all mobile activity is related to social media. Marketers will design advertising campaigns to find you no matter where you are and what media device you are using.
•Growth of Apps
The article talks about the change from a wide open web to semi closed platforms. Marketers will try to get you to use the web in the manner that benefits them, not you.

Browser beware!

The Great Depression Ends (75 years too late)

In class we looked at Depression era photographs by Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans. These photographs helped document the migration of farmers from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life. Now the trend is reversing on a somewhat smaller scale, as California migrants to Oklahoma increase. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-10-12-oklahoma12_CV_N.htm Happy days are here again!

No Boundaries

When I was a young lad I thought art was something you went to a museum to see. It hung on a wall in a frame, or perhaps as statue on a pedestal. Then one day I opened a magazine and saw a picture like the one above. I had heard a description of "Running Fence" and thought "give me a break - that's not art". Then I saw the pictures. It was a life changing experience. For me, it removed so many boundaries of what art could be, but also the boundaries of what I could be. The act of viewing this picture gave me permission to be creative. I found out the artists name were Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Their website describes their work as "temporary large scale environmental works that include elements of painting, sculpture architecture and urban planning". I would describe their work as surprising, lyrical and powerful.

I've been lucky enough to see one of their works in person. In 2005 I drove to New York City in a blinding snow storm to see "The Gates". Here was a work of art so powerful that it made jaded New Yorkers behave nicely towards tourists. You can see that work at Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's website. The Smithsonian American Art Museum is currently holding an exhibition entitled "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence". The exhibit ends September 26th, 2010. While it is not the same as seeing the work in person, it is probably the next best thing. Go.

Film Links

People love to compile lists of their favorite things; movies, novels, rock bands etc. They then proceed to argue about what was left out, what was included and how the order you listed them in is all wrong. Here is my short list of lists of what some critics and viewers rate as the best movies of all time.
First a list of lists - http://www.filmsite.org/greatfilmssummary.html

This one is by the American Film Institute
It is one of the most quoted and well thought of, but it concentrates on American film. Here is a totally slanted list by the voters on Internet Media Database – people had their favorites and stuffed the ballot box, and here are the results.
This is also from IMDB. If money talks, then these are the two lists for you.
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide
This list is adjusted for inflation.
This one is a list of lists from Channel 4 in England.
Here is a list by of all things, George Clooney’s dad. Unlike Spinal Tap, it goes all the way up to 20.
Here is another truly bizarre list from Merry Olde England. When I say bizarre I mean that “There Will be Blood” is not number two on any list, with the possible exception of a list of over the top Daniel Day Lewis roles – “Gangs of New York” would of course be number one.

This one is also oddly skewed because it is the work of only two people: Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel of Time Magazine. The best thing about this list is that it includes many foreign films and list all films alphabetically, therefore listing Aguirre: the Wrath of God as the greatest movie ever made.
A great place to go for movie reviews and info - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
One of my favorite film critics Roger Ebert - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/

"Dog Bites Man" is News, Why Photography Matters

 Photographer Charles Moore passed away on March 11, 2010. He is noted for his photographic work documenting the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Many readers may not recognize the name of Charles Moore, but his photographs found a nationwide audience in Life Magazine, and are credited in helping hasten the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is hard to imagine now in our multichannel media wonderland what an impact an 11 page photo essay in Life Magazine could have in the United States. With circulation topping 13 million, it is estimated that half the adult population, including the political leaders of the country read Life Magazine. According to noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, “The photographs of Bull Connor's police dogs lunging at the marchers in Birmingham did as much as anything to transform the national mood and make legislation not just necessary, . . . but possible."


Charles Moore was born and raised in the south, and was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. While photographing the Civil Rights Movement, he was both beaten and arrested by supporters of segregation. Moore’s photographic style included the use of wide angle lenses that required him to get closer to the action than many of the other photographers. According to a March 2005 interview in The Montgomery Advertiser, Moore recalled some of the events of the “Bloody Sunday” riots in Birmingham during 1965. After witnessing a policeman club a black woman with a wooden baton Moore recalled “that was a moment that really made me angry that someone would club a woman…made me angry that people could treat other people like that. It was emotional. I thought it was important to photograph those police with dogs attacking people.”

Many of the landmarks of the civil rights movement were covered by Moore while under contract to the Black Star Publishing, Inc. In 1989 Moore received the first Kodak Crystal Eagle Award For Impact In Photojournalism. From the arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama in 1958 and James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962, to protests in Birmingham, Alabama and marches in Selma his photographic images form a road map of the Civil Rights Movement.

Free Laptop!

Would you trade the privacy of your own home or bedroom for the use of a free laptop? We all know that one of the drawbacks of living in today's technology rich society is our loss of privacy. We knowingly trade a portion of our private life to Google, News Corporation, Microsoft and the like for a brave new world of media rich content. The trade that the Lower Merion School District made with its students had a hidden clause.  The students each received a laptop for home use, a shiny new Mac with a webcam. The problem was that the school district had an undisclosed policy of locating stolen or missing laptops by secretly activating the computer's webcam. If you brought the laptop into your bedroom, bathroom, wherever - sorry! School officials admit that the paperwork parents and students signed did not disclose this bonus feature included in every laptop they gave to students. The school district also claims that they never "spied" on students. They go on to state that they activated the cameras 42 times in the past 14 months in order to recover 28 missing laptops. "Activated" a camera in a teen's home somehow differs from spying. It turns out that this became news when the school officials called in a student and confronted the student with pictures of him in his bedroom allegedly doing drugs. He claims they were his favorite candy "Mike and Ikes". There is some very good balanced coverage of this case form the tech site arstechnia. You can also see how mainstream media covers the topic.

Gatekeeping in action

The secret profiles commissioned by the Pentagon to rate the work of journalists reporting from Afghanistan were used by military officials to deny disfavored reporters access to American fighting units or otherwise influence their coverage as recently as 2008, an Army official acknowledged Friday... From the Stars and Stripes 8/29/09.

In studying the media you often hear the word Gatekeeper. Imagine all the news items of the day as flock of sheep in a holding pen. The shepherd is the editor, publisher, cameraperson, reporter etc. that decides which sheep make it through the gate to get fleeced/published.  Not satisfied with that simple arrangement the United States Army decided to hire a Public Relations firm to be Gatekeepers to the Gatekeepers. According to Maj. Patrick Seiber, spokesman for the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, "We’re not trying to control what they report, but we are trying to put our best foot forward.” In other words "we are trying to control what they report." Unfortunately the Pentagon forgot to control the reporters for The Stars and Stripes. As stated on their web site "Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community....Editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command. " For their reporting on this subject  Charlie Reed, Kevin Baron and Leo Shane III won a George Polk Award for Military Reporting. If you are interested in excellence in journalism and current affairs go to the List of all the Polk Awards for 2009.

In the Heat of the Marketplace, Media Conglomerates

With the economy swirling away down the toilet, Iran enriching uranium to 20% and the nation surrounded by terrorists, perhaps news of yet another media merger does not do enough to pin the fear meter to make it to the top of the news cycle. One of my favorite media critics thinks differently though. Lisa de Moraes, who writes ”The TV Column” for the Washington Post, took on the exciting job of covering a Senate subcommittee hearing on the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC. Yes that is correct; the cable delivery system wants to be your primary content provider. What could go wrong? You can learn more on Ms. Moraes' take on the proposed merger.

My favorite part is when Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says with a straight face, “Our success will stimulate our competitors to be more innovative, too. So this joint venture should be good for consumers, innovation and competition”. Translated from CEO to English that reads - “by buying out our competitors we hope to make even more money, forcing the other media moguls to do the same and leaving the consumer with even fewer choices.”


Wasn't this all settled by the Paramount decision of 1948, when the United States Supreme Court declared it illegal for movie studios to own the theaters in which the movies that they produced were shown?

Blogging in Class

Today I added 25 blogs to the blogosphere, though I did have help from 25 students in my Intro to Electronic Media class. I went into class not knowing what to expect. Yes I did the usual walk through of how to create a blog on blogger.com or wordpress.com, but I did not really know what I would get. Every student emailed me a link to their blog after they created it in class. There was almost no time to review the blogs in class, so I went home and opened up my email account. Suffice it to say I was absolutely amazed. I now know more about my students after one week, than I usually know about them after a semester.

I had spent the morning surfing the web about educational theory, implementation of web 2.0 technologies and the inability of educational bureaucracies to adapt in a meaningful way to the 21^st century. I don’t want to say “who cares?”, because I care. But to all the educators out there wondering “Can I implement Web 2.0 into my classroom in a meaningful way?” the answer is a resounding - Yes! When can I do it? Now!

A special note to my students – You are astounding. If you don’t believe me just check out each other’s blogs at the link to our class wiki that I will post in class.

In the meantime here is a link to a video by created by Professor Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University. According to Professor Wesch, "this short video summarizes some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime." Think about how some of the descriptions and statistics might fit you, or someone you know.

Who Owns our Media? Why Should You Care?

On January 29th, 2010 ABC World News chose Steve Jobs as its "Person of the Week" presumably for the introduction of the iPad. What's wrong with this picture you might ask? Here is a short answer to that complex question. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Company. The largest shareholder of the Walt Disney Company is (wait for it) Steve Jobs, this week's "Person of the Week". Talk about brown nosing your boss. Couldn't you just buy the donuts at the next staff meeting? Don't get me wrong, Steve Jobs is amazing with couple of career's worth of highlights. The question is not "Is Steve Jobs' Life amazing?" Instead the question I would like to ask is - "Does Disney's ownership of ABC News affect the content of ABC News?" I have my answer, what's yours?
Here is the ABC "Person of the Week" story on Steve Jobs -
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/abcs-world-news-diane-sawyer-person-week-steve/story?id=9699563

By way of contrast, here is the NBC Nightly News story run the same days as the Jobs story. NBC calls their segment "Making a Difference." NBC chose not to profile their largest shareholder, but instead did a profile on an ER nurse helping the relief effort in Haiti. Her name is
Gabby McAdoo.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tom Shales on the Muck and Mire at NBC

When I was a young lad growing up watching the world in black and white on the RCA console TV, there aired a poor man's version of Abbott and Costello. The show was called "Mack and Myer for Hire". Now as the NBC television Network settles into the "Muck and Mire" of its own design, NBC threatens to become a poor man's version of a television network.

Read what my favorite television critic, (Tom Shales) has to say about NBC by clicking on his name at the top of the post.

Welcome to the classroom blog of Introduction To Electronic Media - CMM101-2. This blog will serve as a meeting place and will allow students to communicate with the instructor and each other outside the boundaries of the classroom. For this semester (2010) it will not replace our Blackboard site. To successfully pass the class you must still log onto Blackboard.

What this blog will do is allow us to share information. We can share our likes and dislikes about what is happening in the media today. We will be able to share our favorite websites, links, gadgets and all the other items that make navigating the media world in the 21st century such a challenge and so much fun.