Links for online readings next week

Grossman, Lev. 2006. “Time’s Person of the Year: You.”

Hesse, Monica. “Facebook's Easy Virtue 'Click-Through Activism' Broad but Fleeting,” The Washington Post, 7/2/09.

Also, I'd like you to take this quiz from the Pew Internet & American Life Project by FRIDAY: "What kind of tech user are you?"

Please post your results in your blog or as a comment to this post. You could even fashion one of your blog posts as an examination of these results.

Politics, Consumerism, and Technology

Your blogs for this section of the course should cover some of the following topics:

• Politics
• Consumer Culture and Advertising
• Postmodernism
• Technology

In terms of consumer culture and advertising, you may continue to explore the issues connecting Dan Sarmiento's advertising presentation with the Holt and Schor readings. Some questions you might consider:

1) Can you identify other cultural brands today? What sorts of societal tensions do current advertisements seek to heal?

2) What do you think of alternative consumption movements? What are some examples? Do you think we can change the way we consume?

3) How do you see advertising changing? Can you find some examples of advertising expanding beyond the old boundaries of advertisements and into culture?

Keep blogging!

Just a reminder that you should still be adding to your blogs. The next blog grade will be on posts made through Sunday, November 8.

I'm surprised no one has written about the "Balloon Boy" story that's been dominating the media (or as one of my friends said, Shouldn't we start calling him "Attic Boy"?) Isn't this just a perfect example of a news cycle that promotes non-news? Why did the news outlets cover it intially? How is it that this story got so big, and why are we still talking about it? What else aren't we paying attention to while we keep looking into the strangeness of the Heene Family?

I'm listening to a Talk of the Nation segment on media hoaxes right now, addressing some of these very issues.

More Sociology advice

Another helpful video from Karen Sternheimer: advice for students taking sociology exams and writing sociology papers, just in time for mid-terms.



I especially like what she adds at the very end:

"You never want to include these words in a sociology exam or term paper: 'It's just human nature.' 'That's just the way it is.' or 'We shouldn't read too much into things.' Sociologists read things into things. That's what we do. We dig deeper. We look to find connections between sociological phenomena and everyday life."

Politics in the Media

There are many issues you might want to explore in your blog posts on the intersection of politics and the media. Think about the different relationships and levels of relationships at play:

• -the relationship between politicians and the state and the media: How do politicians use the media? How does the media relate to politicians? What do Clayman et al. and McChesney have to say about this?
• -the relationship between the media and the political views of the public: How much influence does the media have on people's political attitudes? Do you think there's a difference between news coverage of politics vs. entertainment coverage/commentary of politics?

Further explore some of the questions and concepts we didn't get to spend much time on in class. What do you think of McChesney's overall analysis of Iraq War coverage? What are Clayman et al. looking at when they study Presidential news conferences? How do these two articles compare?

You might also write a blog post (now or perhaps next week) sharing your findings from the assignment that's due Monday.

Protests and Power

In other news, you may have heard about the Gay Rights March that happened on Sunday in Washington D.C. (partly to send a message to President Obama that he hasn't delivered on his promises to the cause of gay rights). That event, and the reaction to it by openly gay Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, highlighted some of the issues we have looked at recently, with regard to power, the media and pseudo-events.

We generally regard a protest like the Gay Rights March to be a way for media and political attention to be brought to important but marginalized issues, whether we deem it a "pseudo-event" or not. What is more powerful than thousands of people coming together in solidarity to make their voice heard? This march certainly garnered some mainstream news media attention. Yet Barney Frank called the march "a waste of time" and said the cause would be better served by lobbying elected officials, if they really want to pressure Congress. The march, he said, would fall on deaf ears, especially seeing as most lawmakers were not in D.C. because of the holiday.

What is really interesting is who Frank said the gay rights movement should be more like:

"Gay rights advocates should borrow from the playbooks of the two most effective interest groups, the National Rifle Association and the AARP, said Frank.

'Call or write your representative or senator, and then have your friends call and write their representative or senator,' Frank said. 'That's what the NRA does. That's what the AARP does.'"

Does Frank have a point? The NRA (National Rifle Association) is undoubtedly a powerful lobby in D.C.- power accumulated through money, organization and connections. They don't have to hold rallies in D.C. because they are already on the inside. Their pseudo-events take the much more cost-effective and repeatable form of press releases, conferences, etc., coming out an office with ties to the government and the mass media. Basically, Frank is telling gay rights advocates to work within the system- write letters, develop a lobby. Is that really the most effective way to go? Are protests and marches useless when it comes to changing legislation?

The other question is whether the gay rights movement is even in the position to acquire the type of power leveraged by the NRA (or the AARP)? Both groups have constituencies that are already dominant in society: largely white, middle to upper class, male and heterosexual. Can a group coming from a position of great marginalization in our society, like homosexuals, form an equally powerful lobby?

SNL and the End of the Obama Honeymoon?

As we talk more about the connection between the media, politics and the masses, I wanted to bring a couple of items to your attention.

First, a news media interpretation of the importance of another mass media form's political influence: the comedy sketch show. Here, CNN considers whether a recent sketch on Saturday Night Live that seemed to be critical of President Obama meant that his "honeymoon" period was over, presumably because during the election season, SNL was much more critical of his competitors. Here is the sketch in question:



I know many of you are aware of the growing prominence of parody, satire and comedy in political media today (and that many of you are fans of The Daily Show). What I find interesting about this article is not so much whether Obama's honeymoon really is over, but that shows based in comedy/entertainment are so powerful and relevant when it comes to political discourse and public opinion. Is this because shows such as these are where most people get their political information? Do the opinions of comedians more accurately represent the pulse of America than the news media? Or, as the pop culture professor in the article, Robert Thompson says, is comedy just about going after people in power, whoever they may be? How powerful is humor in political criticism?

And the case may be that the suggestion that this sketch matters that much is just something being stirred up by those in the media who would like to see more criticism of Obama. After all, they note, the sketch wasn't that funny, and didn't get great ratings.

All the news that's fit to print

(click to enlarge)

For your blog posts this week, here are some suggestions of things to think about. Your blogs this week can also easily tie into the work you will be doing for your assignment.

1) Think more about the pseudo-event. Can you find any more example of pseudo-events? Who or what is behind the event and why? What is its purpose?
2) Where is the line between entertainment and news these days? Between publicity and news? Should there be a difference?
3) Draw on Gilliam and Iyengar's experiment and results to think about other examples of how the construction of "news" can affect how audiences interpret the world.
4) What do you know (or what can you find) about the current problems in the newspaper industry? What do these problems have to do with the system we have been looking at?

Interesting posts about media as business

*Note* - Please give your blog post a title. It helps with linking to the post.

I wanted to highlight some of the posts recently about the media industry:

Logan talks about the death of the album as a result of a new emphasis on downloading single songs as result of technological changes. This is an interesting example of how technological change results in changes in cultural products. It's also interesting how we attach nostalgic value to technologies of the past, and tend to distrust the effects of new technologies even as we embrace progress. There are more and more collectors of vinyl records these days, for instance.

Chris explores the potential of the internet to aid new artists.

Matt takes a look at MTV, while Logan also examined the current Billboard top 20.

For Monday

In the syllabus, I ask you to check out two censored stories from Project Censored.org. Here is the link for easy clicking: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/

You just need to check them out, pick a couple that look interesting to you, and note them.