A Nation Of Filmmakers

Each moment is caught within a frame, both in view and in time.  With the rapid ascent of telecommunications' devices complete with video/audio capability, we have become a culture of mise en scene---the society of setting.  But are we, as amateur documentarians, capable of ascertaining the power and importance of the images we collect?  Maybe, we save the moment just to save the moment with no chance of reflection or remorse.

As a nation of filmmakers, we hurry to upload gold to YouTube, only to find that gold is merely a color on the vast palette of the electronic universe.

Can Music Build A New Social Order?

George Counts, noted 20th century educational philosopher, wrote that schooling could build a new social order.  In this order, we would become learned citizens who worked toward democratic and economic success.
But have Counts' schools been replaced with media as that paramount creator of social cement and happiness?  More importantly, the medium of music has a history of fulfilling that role. In the Depression Era, the folk music of Woody Guthrie was used by unions, President Roosevelt and the swelling masses of poor to evoke some hope in the American Dream.  "This Land Is Your Land" was more than just a song we learned in fifth grade music class; rather, it had a universal appeal as a plea to challenge yourself, and your country, to improve and fulfill.  This same notion was depicted in the Counterculture music of the Sixies.
One can argue that Hip Hop, Alternative and Country genres all possess these same qualities.  For in these difficult times, music can be our linkage to a new promise.

Music as Communication and Culture

Our taste in music defines us. It informs the way we dress, the way we talk and the way we view the world. Whether you like Kanye or Taylor, prefer Nirvana to Led Zeppelin or simply like all forms of music, you are not alone. Americans love their music and we will do anything to collect all versions of every song created by our beloved icons.
Just look at the new stereo and digital remix of the Beatles library and then add in the power of a videogame aimed at a video-proficient generation. This is not the Fab Four seen only on fading reels of the Ed Sullivan Show or the stark Black and White film of "A Hard Day's Night". No,it is the digital and dimensional world where aging Baby Boomers and youthful iPod-Google-DS experts converge and appreciate musical, cultural legends.
It is truly a new day in the life.

Two Paths For Newspapers

Robert Frost wrote about two roads that diverged in a yellow wood.  The end of each path was unknown, yet one road appeared to be preferred by more people.  Frost, the poet, chose the one less likely and it made all the difference in life.

Newspapers now face a similar decision.  Do they continue to produce content along a well-traveled path or do they choose a new course?  Certainly, the question evokes opinion on all sides.  Technology, or online presence, appears to be the obvious solution.  After all, aren't we all on the web?  But could the two paths really be a metaphor for the choice made by two different sized newspapers?

Recently, small local newspapers have looked to Congress for help as they debate a move toward non-profit Public Broadcasting-style status.  Larger city papers are exploring online "toll booths" for readers as a method of revenue generation. 

From my view, the two roads appear to be about non-profit and profit construction.  Which is the one less traveled?

Life Beyond The Social Network

Are we too tired to use social networks?

Online sociability fatigue is growing among users of Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and other social networks. Perhaps it is overuse, or a desire to maintain privacy lost in an ocean of peering, driving a new movement away from 24/7 access.

A recent Pew study found that 7 percent of social network users are feeling conflicted about staying in constant contact via the new electronic communities. This group is afraid of missing important communication, yet so exhausted by the attention, and time, required to maintain social network presence. Maybe they wish for an organic life beyond a digital Second Life or Linked-In.

Maybe too much of a good thing is too tiring.

Engaging The Engaged

Daily lectures about media and mass communication have me pondering the role of future media professionals.  As we delve through the history of each medium, I observe a keen interest held by the students for the stories that shaped our media past.  They are engaged in the total concerns--historical, political, economic, cultural, technical--which serve as the foundations of our business.  Their questions are sharp, concise and cogent.  Clearly, this is a generation enveloped within media, but not frightened by it.

I am so hopeful for the mass communication and media future because of these clear-minded students.  Insightful minds who bring laptops to class and who search the web while hearing a new media term or viewing a new concept within a PowerPoint.  They are engaged researchers already at this stage of their academic careers.

Every professor questions the methodology of her or his own teaching.  This illustration points to the very root of pedagogy; however, it is the engaged mind of the learner that is the summation of education.

Are We Media Literate? Part Two

Are we, as a society, media literate? Certainly, we have embraced media technology and mastered it. But do we know the power and meaning of embedded messages and images within media? Perhaps we need some method or learning path to enable our profiency in this new literacy form.
Marshall McLuhan, noted media analyst and scholar, once wrote that "the medium is the message" and our interpretation of that message, or content,was critical to understanding our mass culture.

The effect of mass media on American culture is as powerful as cave drawings were to tribal societies of prehistory. Both forms told stories and relayed important cultural impressions upon the public. Both forms compelled viewers to understand, in a literate way, icons and images. Only through the intellectual appreciation of a medium (eg, cave drawing, photography, music or television)can a society be fully literate.

In essence, our focus on learning and decoding mediated messages enables social literacy.

Are We Media Literate? Part One

One's language is learned at a very early age. To communicate with family, friends and community folk, a person needs to master both the oral and written grammar of that language. This concept is traditional literacy, which is the entry point to success in school, in work and in life.

But is there another literacy to master? Since Gutenberg's mass production of printed material began, the rise of messages within a medium perplexed the public. What did the author mean by this word or this sentence? Questions such as this one abounded for readers and eventually for audiences. Today, many people get their information via complex combinations of text, images and sound. To make sense of this vast media environment, we need to master new essential literacy skills. These skills, called MEDIA LITERACY, are based on the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and create media messages.

The Education of Mass Communication Students

Fall semester draws near.

With the approach of the next academic year, I am reminded about the purpose of education. For students, the atmosphere of learning enlightens the promise of the future. Careers and knowledge about subject and life converge in this environment. Growth and discovery are, like John Dewey stated, the full measure of learning.

As I revise my syllabus for an Introduction to Mass Communication course, I reflect upon the role of the professor. Are we the "sage on the stage" or the "guide by the side" in this educational process? Faculty, clearly, must be experts on their subject---researchers, practitioners, innovators. If students are to fully learn, then professors must do more than profess, or tell, about a discipline. Guiding, and therefore mentoring, students needs to be an important objective of all instructors. Supporting intellectual and creative discovery should be paramount to the teaching-learning dynamic.

No discipline requires this feature more than Mass Communication, with ample opportunities for project, presentation and portfolio experiences. As I craft my teaching plan, the excitement that students will read new material, research unknown areas, speak on media-related issues and learn more about themselves cannot be contained.

Tuesday morning cannot arrive soon enough.

ePortfolios

Save your work. Don't throw it out!

We all remember a time when we searched our house or apartment looking for a missing item. We could never remember where we put it. Then the shock wave came over us because we realized that it was tossed a month ago. Perhaps it was an old shirt or a letter from an old friend. We wished we held on to that now valuable piece of memory. Maybe that missing item was a wonderful article that we wrote, a documentary video that we created or a spellbounding photo of a sunset that we shot.

This documentation is the value of an ePortfolio. The idea behind an ePortfolio is to manage and save creative learning evidence (ie, class projects) for a resume. Students are the creators and managers of their own ePortfolios as artistic, text-based, research, video production or aural messages are kept as evidence of work during a collegiate career. Moreover, it allows students an opportunity to organize and convey important work.

To document is to decide the fate of one's future.

Are Social Media The New Mass Media?

Are social media the new mass media?

We like to live in definitions, those little boxes that form our awareness of the world. Neat packages that make us feel comfortable and necessary. Conventional thought enables humans to create patterns which, in turn, shape our culture.

The terms we give to mass media are no different. Mass media are cultural industries. Mass media are the channels of communication. Mass media are movies, radio, books, newspapers, music and television. Upon further reflection, can we make a case that social media are forms of mass media and therefore, they are the next generation of mass media?

Maybe with our foundational thought, we have ceded the term mass media to a one-way street where corporations provide us the content. We merely consume it. But social media are different. Social media allow us to be the creators and distributors. We seek out new friends, communicate in 140 characters, and display our creative works to a potential world wide audience with unfettered freedom. We make our own media texts and we circulate them while creating the grammar of communication.

Like Webster, our new grammar has purpose. Like McLuhan, our new grammar breaks from conventional ways. We, in our social media universe, become the next Gutenberg's.

Beyond iPhone?

Can it be that a good thing cannot last forever?

For AT&T the future appears to be one without the cozy partnership with Apple's iPhone. Despite making scads of money since the introduction of the iPhone, AT&T is looking beyond mobile phones for growth. That growth might include an electronic-book reader, a camera or another wireless media technology.

If the choice is to roll out an electronic reader, then the main competition will be Amazon's Kindle. It will be a bold new world for AT&T, however, the pairing with Apple was a risky, bold and innovative venture. Perhaps the pairing could remain solvent as electronic-book media technology could shape up to be the next iPhone.

Nonprofit newspapers

Today's paper is brought to you by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

It seems unreal that an institution driven by the public's quest for knowledge has fallen on hard times. That morning paper, read with a coffee cup in hand, is disappearing from our sight. Not long ago, its cousin, the afternoon paper met a demise fueled by the competition of television news. Now the morning journal is sinking due to the technological marvels of the internet.

Perhaps some relief is in sight as a Senate subcommittee seeks to find a proven measure to save daily print journalism. That measure would let struggling community newspapers become nonprofits similar to local public broadcasting stations. The idea would prohibit papers from making political endorsements but still allow reporting on all issues, including political races. All advertising and subscription monies would be tax-exempt and patron contributions, like public broadcasting fundraising campaigns, could be tax deductible.

This notion is intriguing. Could it lead to a solvent structure for local journalism publication? Or would it create the merging of both public newpapers and public electronic media stations? Or is it the last gasp of an elderly media technology?

Les Paul Remembered

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Les Paul died the other day. Who was Les Paul, you might ask? Paul, a guitar virtuoso, created a technology that made him stand above all others as the original master of rock and jazz innovation. Clearly, he was one of the most important people in the creation of American popular music.

Les Paul invented the solid-body electric guitar, an instrument played by Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Justin Hayward among other notables. An iconic figure beyond description, Paul developed technology that would become the cornerstones of rock, pop and jazz recordings for the second half of the 20th century. His use of multitrack recording that allowed for multiple layers of "overdubs" spawned the careers of Buddy Holly, the Beach Boys and the Beatles.

Paul was a futurist who acted upon his ideas. Les Paul, who passed away at 94, was the first visionary of rock-n-roll.

MassMediaZone

We live in curious times. The rapid pace and ascent of media and communication technology mystifies us, beckons us and engages us in ways we cannot ascertain. We live in the MassMediaZone.

With this subject in mind, I started the blog to challenge my students and myself to a search along a path of discovery. The path is full of historical, current and future perspectives on media and our culture. As we proceed, we grow.