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.