.
Now THAT’s Truthiness!
All:
FYI: A great “Truthiness/Truth” project by a team in Brenda Cooper’s Media Smarts class examining how the media frame the illegal immigration debate, and incorporating constitutional precepts, mass communication theories, journalistic ethics codes, and reporting by the news media. The assignment—in the context of the central Smarts question, “How do we know what we think we know about the world?”—asks students to take a controversial topic and find out how the media frame the debate, and then to fact-check using PolitiFact and other nonpartisan fact-checking organizations.
Among the mass communication theories the students used to evaluate media performance in this case: framing, agenda-setting, cultivation. What I like about this kind of project—an this team’s effort in particular--is that it requires research, fact-checking, evaluation and critical thinking, sense-making and synthesis, and incorporation of a wide range of theoretical and real-world issues, presented persuasively with evidence in an effective package. Very nice work. We will post it as well to the JCOM website.
The team—Pizza Feasters United—created a 16-minute multimedia video, which has been posted in two parts to YouTube. Team members: Ryan Parkinson (filmmaker), Angelica Drumm, Kellen Knowles, Teresa Nield, and Torie Welsh.
The video is too long for YouTube, so it’s posted there in two parts:
Part 1
Part 2
TP
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Gatekeeping and Framing
.
Privacy, Taste or the Public’s Right to Know?
One of the most hot-button issues in news occurs when the press publishes or airs images that are emotional or violent or express grief.
Throughout the Bush administration, for example, photographers weren’t allowed to shoot images of flag-draped caskets coming home from the Iran or Afghanistan wars. The argument was thaat such photos violated the families’ privacy, even though many families wanted their loved ones honored as they returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice. (Cynics, critics and tree-hugging Democrats said the real reason was that the Bush administration didn’t want public support for the war eroded by reminders that bad things were happening over there, in our names).
Ironically, some TV networks were accused of routinely sanitizing the news for squeamish audiences, even as their international feeds contained much more graphic images and commentary. For example, bodies and injured from bombings rarely showed up on CNN, while CNN International broadcast much more horrific stuff.
Here’s discussion of a recent example: the photo of an American GI shortly before and after he was shot and killed.
What do you think? How can you relate this to a) what mass communication theories tell us about how news and perception work? and b) to what you consider the expectations of ethical journalists and their obligations to readers and viewers and citizens?
.
Privacy, Taste or the Public’s Right to Know?
One of the most hot-button issues in news occurs when the press publishes or airs images that are emotional or violent or express grief.
Throughout the Bush administration, for example, photographers weren’t allowed to shoot images of flag-draped caskets coming home from the Iran or Afghanistan wars. The argument was thaat such photos violated the families’ privacy, even though many families wanted their loved ones honored as they returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice. (Cynics, critics and tree-hugging Democrats said the real reason was that the Bush administration didn’t want public support for the war eroded by reminders that bad things were happening over there, in our names).
Ironically, some TV networks were accused of routinely sanitizing the news for squeamish audiences, even as their international feeds contained much more graphic images and commentary. For example, bodies and injured from bombings rarely showed up on CNN, while CNN International broadcast much more horrific stuff.
Here’s discussion of a recent example: the photo of an American GI shortly before and after he was shot and killed.
What do you think? How can you relate this to a) what mass communication theories tell us about how news and perception work? and b) to what you consider the expectations of ethical journalists and their obligations to readers and viewers and citizens?
.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
First Thing—Read this!
.
Dear Media Smarties:
Welcome to the online edition of JCOM 2010—Media Smarts: Making Sense of the Information Age at Utah State University. This is only the second time this class is being offered online, so it will be a learning experience for all of us. Please bear with me and, as always, when confused, ASK!
To make sure that everyone receives these instructions, they are being sent to you via email, as well as being posted here. If you are reading this on email, please click here now and finish reading this on the blog: Media Smarts—JCOM 2010.
As discussed in the syllabus, this is the same as the standard face-to-face Smarts class, but with some important differences. For one thing, because it is an online class, it requires considerable self-discipline and responsibility on the part of students. You HAVE to keep up with readings and assignments.
Before we get into all that, however, you all need to read these files carefully. There will be a GRADED QUIZ this week! on the syllabus (consider the syllabus your first lecture) and on these opening instructions, because it’s essential that everyone understand how the system will work.
Most of your work will be done using materials posted on our own dedicated Media Smarts blog. Some work also will be required on the JCOM 2010 site on USU’s Blackboard, which provides links to all course requirements and assignments, but most of our time will be spent on the blog for readings, links and discussions.
If you look at the Smarts Index, which appears on the upper left-hand side of the blogsite, you will be teleported to the complete listing of course materials and week-by-week assignments for the first five weeks. Investigate this.
Assignment: The first requirement is to read the first five files in the blog index to get up to speed. (Note: clicking on these links takes you to other ebsites. Just his the return arow to go back to the Smartsblog.)
1. First Thing—Read This! (nice work—you’re already reading it!)
2. Syllabus
3. Info on the Online JCOM Minor
4. Dear Students: LISTEN UP! (Some good start-of-term advice.)
6. Please also visit Blackboard and make sure you can navigate our course there. These two links —Blackboard Tech and Blackboard Tools—give you information on using Blackboard. Please explore the various Blackboard tabs.
In case you're curious, here’s some background information about the instructor—me. Part of this week’s assignment is for you to go the the About Us page and tell us a little about yourself (note: crazy or funny is good!)
Please familiarize yourself with all this material by the end of Week 1. Consider the syllabus the first class lecture. There will be a quiz!
Finally, once you’ve gotten yourself acclimated, click on Week 1 in the Index for the first week’s assignments.
A note about email and communicating: This is an online class, so nearly all communication with be on the blog and via email for individual questions. For questions, please use my USU address—ted.pease@usu.edu (not the Blackboard email). Every time you email me, please put JCOM 2010 in the subject line so your message isn’t misplaced.
OK? Questions, ASK!
Let’s get Smart!
Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff
Dear Media Smarties:
Welcome to the online edition of JCOM 2010—Media Smarts: Making Sense of the Information Age at Utah State University. This is only the second time this class is being offered online, so it will be a learning experience for all of us. Please bear with me and, as always, when confused, ASK!
To make sure that everyone receives these instructions, they are being sent to you via email, as well as being posted here. If you are reading this on email, please click here now and finish reading this on the blog: Media Smarts—JCOM 2010.
As discussed in the syllabus, this is the same as the standard face-to-face Smarts class, but with some important differences. For one thing, because it is an online class, it requires considerable self-discipline and responsibility on the part of students. You HAVE to keep up with readings and assignments.
Before we get into all that, however, you all need to read these files carefully. There will be a GRADED QUIZ this week! on the syllabus (consider the syllabus your first lecture) and on these opening instructions, because it’s essential that everyone understand how the system will work.
Most of your work will be done using materials posted on our own dedicated Media Smarts blog. Some work also will be required on the JCOM 2010 site on USU’s Blackboard, which provides links to all course requirements and assignments, but most of our time will be spent on the blog for readings, links and discussions.
If you look at the Smarts Index, which appears on the upper left-hand side of the blogsite, you will be teleported to the complete listing of course materials and week-by-week assignments for the first five weeks. Investigate this.
Assignment: The first requirement is to read the first five files in the blog index to get up to speed. (Note: clicking on these links takes you to other ebsites. Just his the return arow to go back to the Smartsblog.)
1. First Thing—Read This! (nice work—you’re already reading it!)
2. Syllabus
3. Info on the Online JCOM Minor
4. Dear Students: LISTEN UP! (Some good start-of-term advice.)
6. Please also visit Blackboard and make sure you can navigate our course there. These two links —Blackboard Tech and Blackboard Tools—give you information on using Blackboard. Please explore the various Blackboard tabs.
In case you're curious, here’s some background information about the instructor—me. Part of this week’s assignment is for you to go the the About Us page and tell us a little about yourself (note: crazy or funny is good!)
Please familiarize yourself with all this material by the end of Week 1. Consider the syllabus the first class lecture. There will be a quiz!
Finally, once you’ve gotten yourself acclimated, click on Week 1 in the Index for the first week’s assignments.
A note about email and communicating: This is an online class, so nearly all communication with be on the blog and via email for individual questions. For questions, please use my USU address—ted.pease@usu.edu (not the Blackboard email). Every time you email me, please put JCOM 2010 in the subject line so your message isn’t misplaced.
OK? Questions, ASK!
Let’s get Smart!
Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff
Mediated America
.
Dear Smarties:
The basic premise of this class is simple: That much (if not most) of what we “know” about the world—about people different from us, other nationalities, about gender roles, about traditions and beliefs and “normal” behavior—comes to us through the mass media. Sure, our parents and families teach us as children, and so do our schools and churches and friends, but most of what we learn about things distant and strange to our everyday lives come to us through the mass media, especially television and, increasingly, the Internet.
The writer E.B. White, whom you may know as the author of children’s books like Charlotte’s Web, was also a wonderful columnist and essayist for The New Yorker and Harper’s magazines throughout a long career. In 1938, he visited the World’s Fair in New York City and saw one of the first demonstrations of an amazing new invention—television. It was a tiny, grainy picture, but in the snowy screen one could make out human figures and heard them talk. White wasn’t so sure this was a step forward. He wrote this in a Harper’s essay in 1938:
“Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the distant and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”
“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”
“...I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.” (E.B. White, “Removal,” One Man’s Meat, New York: Harper & Row, 1938)
That’s pretty prescient, I think, for someone in 1938 to worry about how television would change the world.
In Media Smarts we examine how media messages sometimes skew the way we “know” ourselves and our planet, and we’ll discuss whether television—and other mass media—have been, in White’s words, an “unbearable disturbance” or a “saving radiance.”
The following quiz explores some of what the media have taught us, and how they teach us things that may not be entirely accurate about the world around us. As we start trying to “make sense of the Information Age,” these items provide an illustration of just how screwy the world may sometimes look through the mass media’s lens.
This quiz is supposed to be fun—it doesn’t “count.” So enjoy picking the answers, and involve your friends and family if you like, because discussing these things is fun and maddening. I suggest you print this out and complete it by the end of the week (don’t send me your answers). I will provide the answers next week, and we can discuss some of these things, and where these “media myths” come from and what impact they might have—comment below in the “Comments” section if you like.
Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff
I. MEDIA TRIVIA: Media & Society
1. In 2007, American adults and teens consumed an estimated ______ hours of media.
a. 1,500 hrs b. 2,500 hrs c. 3,500 hrs d. 4,500 hrs e. 5,500 hrs
2. American 1-year-olds watch an average of how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs
3. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends children under 2 watch how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs
4. T/F Kids who watch four hours or more of TV daily are more likely to be bullies than kids who watch less.
5. Who spends more time watching TV—women with young children or single men? (circle one)
6. T/F The average U.S. household has more TVs than people.
7. What percentage of U.S. households has an Internet connection?
a. 51% b. 61% c. 71% d. 81%
8. Americans buy almost _____ movie tickets per day.
a. 1 million b. 2 million c. 4 million d. 6 million e. 7 million
9. How many DVDs are rented from Netflix per day?
a. 1½ million b. 2½ million c. 3½ million d. 4½ million
10. Before Clairol introduced its 1950s ad campaign for home hair color with the slogan, “Does she or doesn’t she?” what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%
• Three years later, what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%
11. Which U.S. city is the nation’s “vainest,” based on amounts spent on plastic surgery and cosmetics?
a. Los Angeles b. Salt Lake c. San Diego d. Louisville e. New York
12. Ooo-lala! Which country is the world’s leading producer of pornography?
a. U.S. b. France c. Sweden d. Japan e. Italy f. India
13. T/F Teens surveyed in 12 countries believe the violence, crime and sex portrayed in U.S. media accurately depicts life in America.
14. It takes how many trees to publish Cosmopolitan magazine each year?
a. 28,000 b. 128,000 c. 228,000 d. 328,000 e. 428,000
15. _____ % of Cache Valley residents responding to a Logan Herald Journal survey believe that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was an internal U.S. government plot.
a. 1% b. 9% c. 22% d. 52% e. 82% f. 92%
II. MEDIA TRIVIA: Politics
Clearly, there is a strong and growing connection between American politics and the mass media. Given the assumption that the mass media are more powerful than most or many other information sources in our lives, spending on political advertising takes on some ominous implications.
16. The top-three Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses spent $____ per voter just on TV ads.
a. $178/voter b. $140/voter c. $100/voter d. $87/voter e. $47/voter
17. TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
18. Four years earlier, TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2004 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
19. Mix ’n Match: Which presidential campaign spent how much on TV ads ALONE in Iowa?
Clinton..............$1.4 million
Edwards............$4 million
Huckabee..........$7.1 million
Obama..............$7.5 million
Romney............$9.5 million
20. In July 2008 alone, how much did McCain and Obama spend on media advertising?
a. $73 million b. $54 million c. $24 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
21. Percentage of people ages 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51% e. 61%
22. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most negative coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney
23. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most positive coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney
24. Percentage of Americans who believed in 2008-09 that Barack Obama is not only unpatriotic, but also a secret practicing Muslim.
a. 2% b. 5% c. 10% d. 12% e. 15%
25. U.S. rank among 100 nations in terms of women holding national political office:
a. 32nd b. 52nd c. 72nd d. 82nd e. 92nd
26. Of 172 nations that held elections in 2006, U.S. rank in voter turnout:
a. 13th b. 39th c. 79th d. 119th e. 139th
27. Whose press coverage in the 2000 presidential election was more negative?
Democratic nominee Al Gore or Republican nominee George W. Bush
28. Percentage of people age 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51%
29. Was President Barack Obama born in the United States?
• 30% of ______ are not sure.
• 93% of ______ and 83% of _______ do believe he was born in the U.S.
• 28% of _____ do not believe he was not born in U.S.
a. Democrats b. Republicans c. Independents
III. MEDIA TRIVIA: News
30. Which of these news magazines are in the top 10 best-selling mags in the U.S.?
a. Time b. Newsweek c. U.S. News & World Report d. The Nation e. none
31. The average American newspaper subscriber spends ____ reading the daily paper.
a. None (don’t read at all) b. 20 minutes c. 45 minutes d. 60 minutes
32. How many Americans 18 to 24 years old do not read, watch or listen to any news on a daily basis?
a. 10% b. 15% c. 25% d. 30% e. 40%
33. The average American 18 to 24 years old spends less than ____ a day reading newspapers.
a. 5 minutes b. 10 minutes c. 25 minutes d. 30 minutes e. 40 minutes
34. Approximately ___ % of all Americans watches TV network news every night.
a. 10% b. 30% c. 50% d. 75% e. 89%
35. How many Americans under 30 say they get their news primarily from late-night comedians?
a. 13% b. 23% c. 33% d. 43% e. 51%
36. T/F Regular viewers of comedy shows (e.g., The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc.) are just as well-informed about news as consumers of more elite news (e.g., PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, newspapers, etc.).
37. One-in-eight American families lives in poverty. One-in-nine American households goes from day to day without being sure they’ll have enough to eat. How much time do nightly network newscasts spend covering poverty in the United States, on average?
a. 2½ seconds b. 4 seconds c. 2½ minutes d. 4 minutes
38. America viewers who rely on (which TV network?) for their news are most likely to believe that the U.S. found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11.
a. ABC b. CBS c. CNN d. Fox e. NBC f. MSNBC
39. T/F A recent research study found that conservatives believe Steven Colbert shares their conservative values, and uses his program to make fun of liberals.
40. T/F Most news reporters consider themselves to be political liberals.
41. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that the U.S. had evidence of weapons of Iraqi mass destruction (WMD). In the two weeks before Powell’s speech, CBS, NBC, ABC & PBS ran 392 stories about Iraq, Saddam, WMD and war. How many of these stories questioned the evidence that Iraq had WMD?
a. 1 b. 3 c. 5 d. 10 e. 20 f. 50
42. During 2007, how much of U.S. news coverage was devoted to reporting on the Iraq war?
a. 3% b. 13% c. 23% d. 33%
43. In 2008, through the end of June, how much U.S. news coverage focused on Pakistan?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 3% d. 4% e. 5% f. 8%
44. Buxom celeb Anna Nicole Smith died of drug overdose in June 2007; how much of total news coverage focused on her during the two days after her death?
• On cable news
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In all news sources
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In newspapers
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
45. In the first 28 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, U.S. news outlets devoted _____ of their coverage to the story.
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 60% e. 80%
46. Which U.S. newspaper did billionaire Rupert Murdoch recently purchase?
a. The Wall Street Journal b. LATimes c. New York Daily News d. USA Today
• Can you name another major news outlets owned by Murdoch?
47. How many newspapers have failed since January 2009?
a. 25 b. 50 c. 75 d. 100 e. 125
48. Over the past two years, how many major U.S. metropolitan daily newspapers have closed or adopted hybrid online/print versions or online-only models?
a. 10 b. 20 c. 30 d. 40 e. 50
49. Veteran CBS newsman and anchor Walter Cronkite died this summer. During his career, he was considered “the most trusted man in America.” Since his death, a Time “Click” poll reports that Americans voted who the new most trusted newsman in the U.S.?
a. Brian Williams, NBC c. Jim Lehrer, PBS e. Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
b. Katie Couric, CBS d. Charlie Gibson, ABC f. Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
50. Which story generated the biggest worldwide Internet coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)
51. Which story has generated the most U.S. news coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)
IV. MEDIA TRIVIA: Race, Ethnicity & Gender
52. T/F Fox News pundit Glenn Beck recently told viewers that President Obama is a racist who hates white people.
53. People of color make up about 38% of the U.S. population. With the exception of sports and coverage of Barack Obama, what percentage of the news appearing in newspapers is about people of color in America?
a. 5% b. 10% c. 20% d. 30% e. 35%
54. Between 1995-1998, TV network evening news ran 48,000 stories; how many were about Hispanics?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%
55. In 2003, Hispanics were the focus of _________ stories airing on ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN newscasts.
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%
56. What percentage of nightly network-news stories was reported by whites in 2000?
a. 49% b. 59% c. 69% d. 79% e. 89% f. 99%
57. What are the chances that a U.S. film with male Arab or Muslim characters made before Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11), depicts them as greedy, violent or dishonest?
a. 1 in 20 b. 5 in 20 c. 8 in 20 d. 15 in 20 e. 19 in 20
58. ______ % of children say criminals on TV shows are usually played by a African-Americans.
a. 19% b. 29% c. 39% d. 49% e. 59%
59. ______ % of children say bosses on TV shows are usually played by a white actors.
a. 21% b. 41% c. 51% d. 71% e. 91%
60. Percentage of entertainment and news media decision-makers who are white men.
a. 20-25% b. 45-50% c. 70-75% d. 90-95%
61. Who is most likely to be pictured in TV news stories about youth crime?
a. African-Americans
b. Latinos
c. Asian-Americans
d. Native Americans
e. Caucasians
f. Mexicans
62. How many black men have appeared on the cover of Men’s Vogue since it launched in 2005? a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
63. How many black women have appeared on Vogue’s cover since it was founded in 1892?
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
64. Percentage of ads in bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-04).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
65. Number of covers of bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-2004).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
66. About 52% of Americans are women. Excluding Hillary Clinton coverage, how much of the news in U.S. newspapers is about women?
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 50%
67. Men reported what percentage of nightly network news stories in 2000?
a. 46% b. 56% c. 66% d. 76% e. 86% f. 96%
68. How many U.S. newsmagazine covers (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report) in 1996 featured women who were not princesses, murderers, or models?
a. 0% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 22%
69. Between 1987 and 1997, Time magazine published 574 issues. How many Time covers featured women who were not entertainers, wives of politicians or Princess Diana?
a. 29 b. 59 c. 79 d. 99 e. 159
70. Total number of news stories during three months in 2006 that mentioned ex-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was a grandfather:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306
71. Total number of news stories during the same three months that mentioned new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a grandmother:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306
72. Which of the following terms has been used by print & broadcast journalists to describe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
a. “Wicked Witch of the West” b. “Shrew” c. “castrater” d. “Squeaker of the House ” e. all
73. Which media talk show host referred to Hillary Clinton as a “She-Devil”?
a. Rush Limbaugh b. Chris Matthews c. Bill O’Reilly d. both a & c
V. Miscellaneous
74. T/F The majority of people worldwide are followers of Christian religions.
75. One-fourth of the world’s population lives in the United States. How much of the world’s natural resources are consumed by Americans?
a. 25% b. 33% c. 50% d. 67% e. 75%
76. Number of plastic grocery bags used in a year by the average U.S. family of four.
a. 500 b. 1,000 c. 1,500 d. 2,000
77. Americans recycle what percentage of plastic bags?
a. 1% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 20%
78. How long does it take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill?
a. 10 yrs b. 100 yrs c. 500 yrs d. 1,000 yrs e. 1,500 yrs
79. Debate over health care reform has dominated the news and talk shows in recent weeks. According to the World Health Organization, which country(s) ranks in the top 10 nations that provide the best health care to citizens?
a. U.S. b. France c. Japan d. Costa Rica e. Slovenia
Dear Smarties:
The basic premise of this class is simple: That much (if not most) of what we “know” about the world—about people different from us, other nationalities, about gender roles, about traditions and beliefs and “normal” behavior—comes to us through the mass media. Sure, our parents and families teach us as children, and so do our schools and churches and friends, but most of what we learn about things distant and strange to our everyday lives come to us through the mass media, especially television and, increasingly, the Internet.
The writer E.B. White, whom you may know as the author of children’s books like Charlotte’s Web, was also a wonderful columnist and essayist for The New Yorker and Harper’s magazines throughout a long career. In 1938, he visited the World’s Fair in New York City and saw one of the first demonstrations of an amazing new invention—television. It was a tiny, grainy picture, but in the snowy screen one could make out human figures and heard them talk. White wasn’t so sure this was a step forward. He wrote this in a Harper’s essay in 1938:
“Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the distant and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”
“...I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.” (E.B. White, “Removal,” One Man’s Meat, New York: Harper & Row, 1938)
That’s pretty prescient, I think, for someone in 1938 to worry about how television would change the world.
In Media Smarts we examine how media messages sometimes skew the way we “know” ourselves and our planet, and we’ll discuss whether television—and other mass media—have been, in White’s words, an “unbearable disturbance” or a “saving radiance.”
The following quiz explores some of what the media have taught us, and how they teach us things that may not be entirely accurate about the world around us. As we start trying to “make sense of the Information Age,” these items provide an illustration of just how screwy the world may sometimes look through the mass media’s lens.
This quiz is supposed to be fun—it doesn’t “count.” So enjoy picking the answers, and involve your friends and family if you like, because discussing these things is fun and maddening. I suggest you print this out and complete it by the end of the week (don’t send me your answers). I will provide the answers next week, and we can discuss some of these things, and where these “media myths” come from and what impact they might have—comment below in the “Comments” section if you like.
Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff
§ § §
I. MEDIA TRIVIA: Media & Society
1. In 2007, American adults and teens consumed an estimated ______ hours of media.
a. 1,500 hrs b. 2,500 hrs c. 3,500 hrs d. 4,500 hrs e. 5,500 hrs
2. American 1-year-olds watch an average of how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs
3. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends children under 2 watch how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs
4. T/F Kids who watch four hours or more of TV daily are more likely to be bullies than kids who watch less.
5. Who spends more time watching TV—women with young children or single men? (circle one)
6. T/F The average U.S. household has more TVs than people.
7. What percentage of U.S. households has an Internet connection?
a. 51% b. 61% c. 71% d. 81%
8. Americans buy almost _____ movie tickets per day.
a. 1 million b. 2 million c. 4 million d. 6 million e. 7 million
9. How many DVDs are rented from Netflix per day?
a. 1½ million b. 2½ million c. 3½ million d. 4½ million
10. Before Clairol introduced its 1950s ad campaign for home hair color with the slogan, “Does she or doesn’t she?” what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%
• Three years later, what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%
11. Which U.S. city is the nation’s “vainest,” based on amounts spent on plastic surgery and cosmetics?
a. Los Angeles b. Salt Lake c. San Diego d. Louisville e. New York
12. Ooo-lala! Which country is the world’s leading producer of pornography?
a. U.S. b. France c. Sweden d. Japan e. Italy f. India
13. T/F Teens surveyed in 12 countries believe the violence, crime and sex portrayed in U.S. media accurately depicts life in America.
14. It takes how many trees to publish Cosmopolitan magazine each year?
a. 28,000 b. 128,000 c. 228,000 d. 328,000 e. 428,000
15. _____ % of Cache Valley residents responding to a Logan Herald Journal survey believe that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was an internal U.S. government plot.
a. 1% b. 9% c. 22% d. 52% e. 82% f. 92%
II. MEDIA TRIVIA: Politics
Clearly, there is a strong and growing connection between American politics and the mass media. Given the assumption that the mass media are more powerful than most or many other information sources in our lives, spending on political advertising takes on some ominous implications.
16. The top-three Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses spent $____ per voter just on TV ads.
a. $178/voter b. $140/voter c. $100/voter d. $87/voter e. $47/voter
17. TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
18. Four years earlier, TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2004 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
19. Mix ’n Match: Which presidential campaign spent how much on TV ads ALONE in Iowa?
Clinton..............$1.4 million
Edwards............$4 million
Huckabee..........$7.1 million
Obama..............$7.5 million
Romney............$9.5 million
20. In July 2008 alone, how much did McCain and Obama spend on media advertising?
a. $73 million b. $54 million c. $24 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million
21. Percentage of people ages 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51% e. 61%
22. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most negative coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney
23. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most positive coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney
24. Percentage of Americans who believed in 2008-09 that Barack Obama is not only unpatriotic, but also a secret practicing Muslim.
a. 2% b. 5% c. 10% d. 12% e. 15%
25. U.S. rank among 100 nations in terms of women holding national political office:
a. 32nd b. 52nd c. 72nd d. 82nd e. 92nd
26. Of 172 nations that held elections in 2006, U.S. rank in voter turnout:
a. 13th b. 39th c. 79th d. 119th e. 139th
27. Whose press coverage in the 2000 presidential election was more negative?
Democratic nominee Al Gore or Republican nominee George W. Bush
28. Percentage of people age 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51%
29. Was President Barack Obama born in the United States?
• 30% of ______ are not sure.
• 93% of ______ and 83% of _______ do believe he was born in the U.S.
• 28% of _____ do not believe he was not born in U.S.
a. Democrats b. Republicans c. Independents
III. MEDIA TRIVIA: News
30. Which of these news magazines are in the top 10 best-selling mags in the U.S.?
a. Time b. Newsweek c. U.S. News & World Report d. The Nation e. none
31. The average American newspaper subscriber spends ____ reading the daily paper.
a. None (don’t read at all) b. 20 minutes c. 45 minutes d. 60 minutes
32. How many Americans 18 to 24 years old do not read, watch or listen to any news on a daily basis?
a. 10% b. 15% c. 25% d. 30% e. 40%
33. The average American 18 to 24 years old spends less than ____ a day reading newspapers.
a. 5 minutes b. 10 minutes c. 25 minutes d. 30 minutes e. 40 minutes
34. Approximately ___ % of all Americans watches TV network news every night.
a. 10% b. 30% c. 50% d. 75% e. 89%
35. How many Americans under 30 say they get their news primarily from late-night comedians?
a. 13% b. 23% c. 33% d. 43% e. 51%
36. T/F Regular viewers of comedy shows (e.g., The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc.) are just as well-informed about news as consumers of more elite news (e.g., PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, newspapers, etc.).
37. One-in-eight American families lives in poverty. One-in-nine American households goes from day to day without being sure they’ll have enough to eat. How much time do nightly network newscasts spend covering poverty in the United States, on average?
a. 2½ seconds b. 4 seconds c. 2½ minutes d. 4 minutes
38. America viewers who rely on (which TV network?) for their news are most likely to believe that the U.S. found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11.
a. ABC b. CBS c. CNN d. Fox e. NBC f. MSNBC
39. T/F A recent research study found that conservatives believe Steven Colbert shares their conservative values, and uses his program to make fun of liberals.
40. T/F Most news reporters consider themselves to be political liberals.
41. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that the U.S. had evidence of weapons of Iraqi mass destruction (WMD). In the two weeks before Powell’s speech, CBS, NBC, ABC & PBS ran 392 stories about Iraq, Saddam, WMD and war. How many of these stories questioned the evidence that Iraq had WMD?
a. 1 b. 3 c. 5 d. 10 e. 20 f. 50
42. During 2007, how much of U.S. news coverage was devoted to reporting on the Iraq war?
a. 3% b. 13% c. 23% d. 33%
43. In 2008, through the end of June, how much U.S. news coverage focused on Pakistan?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 3% d. 4% e. 5% f. 8%
44. Buxom celeb Anna Nicole Smith died of drug overdose in June 2007; how much of total news coverage focused on her during the two days after her death?
• On cable news
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In all news sources
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In newspapers
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
45. In the first 28 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, U.S. news outlets devoted _____ of their coverage to the story.
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 60% e. 80%
46. Which U.S. newspaper did billionaire Rupert Murdoch recently purchase?
a. The Wall Street Journal b. LATimes c. New York Daily News d. USA Today
• Can you name another major news outlets owned by Murdoch?
47. How many newspapers have failed since January 2009?
a. 25 b. 50 c. 75 d. 100 e. 125
48. Over the past two years, how many major U.S. metropolitan daily newspapers have closed or adopted hybrid online/print versions or online-only models?
a. 10 b. 20 c. 30 d. 40 e. 50
49. Veteran CBS newsman and anchor Walter Cronkite died this summer. During his career, he was considered “the most trusted man in America.” Since his death, a Time “Click” poll reports that Americans voted who the new most trusted newsman in the U.S.?
a. Brian Williams, NBC c. Jim Lehrer, PBS e. Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
b. Katie Couric, CBS d. Charlie Gibson, ABC f. Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
50. Which story generated the biggest worldwide Internet coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)
51. Which story has generated the most U.S. news coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)
IV. MEDIA TRIVIA: Race, Ethnicity & Gender
52. T/F Fox News pundit Glenn Beck recently told viewers that President Obama is a racist who hates white people.
53. People of color make up about 38% of the U.S. population. With the exception of sports and coverage of Barack Obama, what percentage of the news appearing in newspapers is about people of color in America?
a. 5% b. 10% c. 20% d. 30% e. 35%
54. Between 1995-1998, TV network evening news ran 48,000 stories; how many were about Hispanics?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%
55. In 2003, Hispanics were the focus of _________ stories airing on ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN newscasts.
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%
56. What percentage of nightly network-news stories was reported by whites in 2000?
a. 49% b. 59% c. 69% d. 79% e. 89% f. 99%
57. What are the chances that a U.S. film with male Arab or Muslim characters made before Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11), depicts them as greedy, violent or dishonest?
a. 1 in 20 b. 5 in 20 c. 8 in 20 d. 15 in 20 e. 19 in 20
58. ______ % of children say criminals on TV shows are usually played by a African-Americans.
a. 19% b. 29% c. 39% d. 49% e. 59%
59. ______ % of children say bosses on TV shows are usually played by a white actors.
a. 21% b. 41% c. 51% d. 71% e. 91%
60. Percentage of entertainment and news media decision-makers who are white men.
a. 20-25% b. 45-50% c. 70-75% d. 90-95%
61. Who is most likely to be pictured in TV news stories about youth crime?
a. African-Americans
b. Latinos
c. Asian-Americans
d. Native Americans
e. Caucasians
f. Mexicans
62. How many black men have appeared on the cover of Men’s Vogue since it launched in 2005? a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
63. How many black women have appeared on Vogue’s cover since it was founded in 1892?
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
64. Percentage of ads in bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-04).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
65. Number of covers of bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-2004).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10
66. About 52% of Americans are women. Excluding Hillary Clinton coverage, how much of the news in U.S. newspapers is about women?
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 50%
67. Men reported what percentage of nightly network news stories in 2000?
a. 46% b. 56% c. 66% d. 76% e. 86% f. 96%
68. How many U.S. newsmagazine covers (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report) in 1996 featured women who were not princesses, murderers, or models?
a. 0% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 22%
69. Between 1987 and 1997, Time magazine published 574 issues. How many Time covers featured women who were not entertainers, wives of politicians or Princess Diana?
a. 29 b. 59 c. 79 d. 99 e. 159
70. Total number of news stories during three months in 2006 that mentioned ex-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was a grandfather:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306
71. Total number of news stories during the same three months that mentioned new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a grandmother:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306
72. Which of the following terms has been used by print & broadcast journalists to describe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
a. “Wicked Witch of the West” b. “Shrew” c. “castrater” d. “Squeaker of the House ” e. all
73. Which media talk show host referred to Hillary Clinton as a “She-Devil”?
a. Rush Limbaugh b. Chris Matthews c. Bill O’Reilly d. both a & c
V. Miscellaneous
74. T/F The majority of people worldwide are followers of Christian religions.
75. One-fourth of the world’s population lives in the United States. How much of the world’s natural resources are consumed by Americans?
a. 25% b. 33% c. 50% d. 67% e. 75%
76. Number of plastic grocery bags used in a year by the average U.S. family of four.
a. 500 b. 1,000 c. 1,500 d. 2,000
77. Americans recycle what percentage of plastic bags?
a. 1% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 20%
78. How long does it take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill?
a. 10 yrs b. 100 yrs c. 500 yrs d. 1,000 yrs e. 1,500 yrs
79. Debate over health care reform has dominated the news and talk shows in recent weeks. According to the World Health Organization, which country(s) ranks in the top 10 nations that provide the best health care to citizens?
a. U.S. b. France c. Japan d. Costa Rica e. Slovenia
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Syllabus—JCOM 2010 Media Smarts
.SYLLABUS
JCOM 2010 • MEDIA SMARTS
Making Sense of the Information Age
JCOM 2010 • MEDIA SMARTS
Making Sense of the Information Age
Professor Ted Pease (ted.pease@usu.edu)
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Spring 2010
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Spring 2010
• Email: Ted.Pease@usu.edu
• Website: Blackboard; Blog: Media Smarts—JCOM 2010 (additional materials at AskDrTed)
• Required Text: John McManus, Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (www.gradethenews.org, 2009) Purchase (or “rent”) online. Go to the Detecting Bull website and click on “BUY” link at left. Follow the directions. Permanent copy of entire book: $23.95. Temporary copy (18 weeks): $14.95.
• Other Resources: Look at the INDEX on Smarts blog. See also Today’s WORD on Journalism and AskDrTed; postings on “Teddy TV” on Blackboard.
• Office: 308B Animal Science (435-797-3293)
Preamble: Wise Guys
1. Whose Reality?
“I don’t fret about TV because it’s decadent or shortens your attention span or leads to murder. It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, masks
and drowns out the subtle and vital information that
contact with the real world once provided.”
and drowns out the subtle and vital information that
contact with the real world once provided.”
—Bill McKibben, author, The Age of Missing Information, 1993
2. Critical Thinking
“Question Authority!” –1970s slogan
3. The Power of Words
“Words are sacred. They deserve respect.
If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
—Tom Stoppard, playwright, 1967
4. How Do We Know What We (Think We) Know?
“I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world,
and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover
either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover
either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
—E.B. White, author, 1938
• • • • •
What we’ll do:
Welcome to Media Smarts, where we try to equip you to make sense of the information age—journalism, movies, advertising, books, TV, the Internet, radio. Some issues we’ll explore:
1) We’re being lied to, boys and girls.
2) The way we are told to see the world is not necessarily the way it really is.
3) Trying to operate in a free and participatory democracy without accurate knowledge and information is like piloting a boat through the fog without radar or GPS.
The central question driving Media Smarts is this: How do we know what we (think we) know about _____________? (the economy? Iraq? Ryan Seacrest? Hillary Clinton? Hair care? fill in the blank).
In this information age (which author Bill McKibben said should more correctly be termed an age of missed information), nearly every waking moment is somehow affected by the mass media, which teach us to see the world in particular ways. The media teach us to value certain lifestyles and norms and to reject others; to desire certain products—food, cars, gadgets, political candidates; how to perceive different groups of people based on their gender, racial background, skin color, height, weight, or religion.
This constant diet of mass media images and values skews how we as individuals and we as a society see and understand the world.
The goal of this course is to help you see past the mass media’s version of the world, and to give you the analytical and critical thinking skills you’ll need to make sense of the world for yourself.
During the semester, we will critically explore whether, when, how, and to what extent the mass media—both news and entertainment—can influence people’s worldview and events, focusing on how mass media messages can cultivate perceptions, perspectives and attitudes, particularly in areas of gender, racial diversity, violence, children, and as regards how Americans “know” their own history. We’ll start with general principles of media literacy, and then focus specifically on how the mass media present “reality”—political, social and cultural.
Course Goals: To expand students’ recognition of the role of mass media versions of “truth,” and their critical thinking and analytical skills to make them more savvy consumers of mass media. In particular, the course will ask students to analyze and evaluate various mass media versions of historical events, cultural norms, and individuals in society.
The core question for this course is, How do we know what we know about the world and the people and events in it, and how sure we are of those “facts”?
We will examine the unique and essential social interaction between the individual and the mass media:
a) How do mass media—from newspapers to TV and radio to Hollywood and the Internet—frame the world and the people in it?
b) How does this affect the press, culture, societies and participatory democracy?
c) What stories about cultural norms (race, gender, society, politics, etc.) are told?
d) And how do we learn to “see” and understand the world through such lessons?
Children, of course, are the most susceptible victims of media images and messages. Humor columnist Erma Bombeck once said, “In general, my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.”
Most Americans under the age of 50 were raised on such a diet; the world has been created for us, and isn’t real unless we’ve seen it on the tube, or on YouTube. In predicting more than 40 years ago how the information age would change the world, Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan used the analogy of a fish. He said he didn’t know who discovered water, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t a fish.
Hunh?
Well, like fish, McLuhan suggested, most residents of the information age are equally unsuspecting and uncritical about the mass media environment in which they live. We eat TV, we breathe news, we absorb advertising and cultural attitudes through our gills.
This represents an enormous responsibility both for the producers of mass media messages, and for the individuals who consume them.
As beat-era poet Allen Ginsberg said, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” The fundamental assumption of Media Smarts is that most of us are so accustomed to the mass mediated world of the 21st century that we don’t even notice the environment in which we live, the mass media diet that we consume and digest, and which becomes part of what and who we are, and how we think about and perceive the world.
“Television tends to be the main centerpiece in our culture,” says Professor Gary Edgerton. “TV in a sense creates instant history . . . that shapes how we think about an event.”Even beyond the sit-com or reality show fads, Edgerton asserts, most Americans know what they think they “know” about historical events and people from how they are depicted and framed in TV or movies. For example, students can “understand” the events of Pearl Harbor only with Ben Affleck in the middle of them.
Many Americans “know” what they (think they) know about the death of President John F. Kennedy from Oliver Stone’s movie. The story of D-Day is told by Tom Hanks going ashore at Normandy to find a soldier named Private Ryan.
This is how many college students today “know” the world. I believe that today’s students—you guys—are so steeped in mass media that you need remedial skills to help you recognize how entertainment media affect perceptions of both current and historical “reality.”
Media content-producers—which means not only newspapers and Hollywood producers, but anyone with an Internet connection—decide what to include and exclude, what to highlight or downplay. They make such choices to achieve their own goals, which may transcend simple things like “truth” and “facts.”
“Truth” is in the eye and mind of the beholder—often diluted, distorted and even fabricated by the media to sell you something, to privilege social class, to distort gender and race, and otherwise to reshape social reality.
In the process, in a mass media marketplace that has become more “real” for most Americans than reality itself, the stories we tell and the stories we learn through films, TV and more broadly in popular culture pre-empt truth, and reshape reality for most American media consumers.
In Media Smarts, students also will examine the various contemporaneous economic, political, and cultural environment that influence the ways in which society is depicted and limited by the mass media. By the end of the semester, students will have practiced critical and analytical skills in several areas that will help them become more critical consumers of all media products.
Texts and course materials:
Because this course exists within a context of journalism and the role and performance of the press and the mass media, our readings will generally be assigned as “new media”—online articles or other materials placed on the class website.
Aside from assigned online readings, which you will find listed from week to week on the blog, you will need a CD “book,” which you can purchase or “rent” for the semester:
• John McManus, Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (www.gradethenews.org, 2009) The e-book can be purchased at the Detecting Bull website for these rates: Permanent copy of entire book: $23.95. Temporary copy (18 weeks): $14.95.
Go to there immediately and get it. You’ll need a computer with Adobe Flash.
Other assignments will be posted at through Blackboard, which will take you to the weekly assignments on the Media Smarts blog, with other stuff linked to AskDrTed.
Assignments and Grading: (Subject to change)
This is a critical thinking course. It’s also a talking and writing course. Students will present their thoughts on the mass media and the readings in weekly posts in the discussion area (which we’ll call “SmartTalk”) of Blackboard. Details on this requirement to follow.
Other stuff:
1. Quizzes on readings/news 25 pts
2. Critical essays/reaction papers or blog projects 10 pts/20 pts
3. SmartTalk participation 15 pts
4. Midterm Exam 15 pts
5. Final Exam 15 pts
Total = 100 pts
• Critical Essays: Two short (750 wds) essays—or, alternatively, create a blog—on assigned topics.
• SmartTalk: Every week you will encounter readings or come across stuff on your own that push your buttons about the intersection of mass media and your life. When this happens, I want you to post your rants on that week’s assignment site on the blog (for example, click here the Week1 posting—if there were something that you wanted to rant about, you would click on “comments” and write your rant in the little box. You can “comment as” there either using your gmail address (or aggiemail, I think), or anonymously). You can comment on the readings, on Today’s WORD on Journalism (which you will receive daily) or on anything else that strikes you in the media. I expect you to comment substantively (more than, “Yeah! I agree!”) at least 10 times during the semester, both initiating your own subjects and responding to others’ rants. Check Week1 and I’ll give you an example.
• Exams: Comprehensive midterm and final exams. Short answer and essays.
• Other grading issues: The instructor takes no prisoners when it comes to writing, grammar, spelling, mechanics, etc. Fair warning. Obviously, DEADLINES ARE ABSOLUTE. That’s why they’re called deadlines. In the real world, missing deadlines means you don't get in the paper; in this class, missing deadline means zero for the assignment.
Housekeeping Details:
Some cautions, instructions and threats. Ask anyone; Pease is an irascible old poop and can be testy at times.
Academic Honesty: The University expects students and faculty alike to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty (for a complete definition, see University Catalogue or the Code of Policies and Procedures for Students at Utah State University, Article V, Section 3). The policy states:
“[C]heating, falsification or plagiarism can result in warning, grade reduction, probation, suspension, expulsion, payment of damages, withholding of transcripts, withholding of degrees, removal a class, performance of community service, referral to appropriate counseling" or other penalties as the university judiciary may deem appropriate.
Because public trust and personal credibility are essential to journalists and other professional communicators, I adhere to the JCOM department’s zero-tolerance policy regarding academic dishonesty: Cheaters fail the class and are expelled from the JCOM major. As per the USU Student Code, any documented form of academic dishonesty—including plagiarism—will result in an automatic F in the course and a report to the dean of the college and the USU vice president for student services. If you have questions about what’s acceptable work under strict codes of academic honesty, see the USU Code of Policies and Procedures for Students, or consult your professor. Any suspicious work may be submitted to a web database. For guidance on plagiarism and how to avoid it, see this website.
Decorum: It’s a funny thing about email and other online communication—people often type things that they would NEVER say in a face-to-face setting. So please read your emails out loud to yourselves (this also will help with typos and stoopid language) and count to 10 before sending or posting. We’re all in this together. That means that we will need each other in order to succeed. And that means that everyone is expected to treat everyone else with fairness, courtesy and honesty. Central to this subject matter is the willingness to examine our own beliefs and how we arrived at them, and to acknowledge that others may see the world differently. So I hope we all will be able to express and consider opinions collegially, in the spirit of open inquiry. Let us agree to disagree, if necessary, and to accommodate contrarian viewpoints and differing perspectives. Disruptive or abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Disclaimer: The instructor has no desire to offend anyone’s personal or cultural beliefs, and he apologizes in advance if he does so inadvertently. But students should be aware that journalism (and advanced education) often deals with issues and content that some may find disagreeable—from profanity and offensive attitudes and perspectives that may make you uncomfortable. But that’s the business or examining society and becoming media-savvy and making sense of the world. It’s a critically important job for every citizen of a free society. Please do tell me if you have problems with any of the material, and we will try to accommodate if possible.
Finally, any rumors that you may have heard that Professor Pease is a heartless, obdurate, irritable, demanding, tough, pugnacious, unpleasant SOB probably falls short (and wide) of the truth. The fact is that I will press you hard this semester to develop an advanced level of critical thinking and analysis required for success in the information age. But if you're having a problem—with this class or anything else—please feel free to call or email me, or for those of you on-campus, come find me in my office, for a talk, a coke, career advice, a crying towel or whatever.§ § §
SCHEDULE
The advantage to online courses is that you can do the work as your schedule permits, and in your pajamas if you want. In fact, Professor Pease may be in his jammies even now (picture that! Well, actually, don’t....). But you do have to complete the assignments when they are due. Students who wait until the end of the semester to submit everything in a pile will flunk.The weekly assignments will appear as a single hotlink (ex: Week 1...) on Blackboard, linking to details on the Media Smarts blog. There is an INDEX link in the upper lefthand corner of the main blog page, and the week-by-week links also appear in that column. There’s a lot of other fabulous stuff there, too, for the curious or bored.
• SmartTalk: Comment/kibbitz/rant regularly on the blog. Sometimes Professor Pease will start a thread. Sometimes the WORD will push your buttons (like this one, which makes me CRAZY....) Everyone must initiate a substantive thread on the readings or a current media issue, as well as comment/respond substantively to someone else’s post.
• Quizzes will be posted periodically on readings. Details to follow.
• The Midterm Exam will be no later than Week 8 (Feb. 28). I’ll give you fair warning.
• Other Key Dates: Click here for USU calendar.
§ § §
JCOM 2010 (online edition)—Media Smarts Schedule F09 (subject to change)
NOTE: Here’s a start on our readings schedule, which I will add to after Week 4, and may change before then. You should check the online syllabus and the Weekly links regularly
for updates—this is your responsibility.
for updates—this is your responsibility.
WEEK 1 January 11
• Get acquainted with our Blackboard site and the Media Smarts blog.
• Read “First Thing—Read This!” orientation posts and syllabus closely.
• Order McManus CD online at Detecting Bull.
• For inspiration as you start the school year, watch this five-minute video from Steven Colbert, on professors’ unreasonable expectation that you learn to think critically.
• When you have read the introductory materials, send Professor Pease an email message at ted.pease@usu.edu introducing yourself, and with any questions you may have. Send me this email by Friday 1/15 so I know you’re in the class and that you know how to get around Blackboard and the blog.
• Quiz on syllabus will be posted on the blog on Thursday. Copy it into an email and send it to Professor Pease at ted.pease@usu.edu by Saturday midnight.
• Students file introductions of themselves in “comments” under the “About Us” post on the blog. Tell us a bit about yourself: Who you are, age, hometown, what kinds of stuff you like to do, what you want to do when you grow up, one weird/funny thing you’ve done. I’ll start with my own self-disclosure. Look at each other’s posts to get to know your classmates.
.
WEEK 2 Jan. 17
How Do We Know What We Think We Know?
READINGS:
• McManus, Intro Chapter (pp. 1-4)
• Reading: What Is Media Smarts? “Media Smarts—Making Sense of the Information Age,” by Ted Pease & Brenda Cooper
• Mediated America—Myths from the Mass Media Click here or on “Mediated America” in the index list at left and select your best answers. This doesn’t “count,” so have fun—involve your family or friends if you want, and see what you come up with. Don’t send it back to me: I will post the answers and a “Teddy TV” video on Blackboard by Friday, 1/22.
• SmartTalk on blog: Discuss any of the readings or the “Myths” quiz.
• Quiz.
WEEK 3 January 24
• READINGS: Media Literacy
• “What is media literacy?”
• “Some principles of media literacy” and Handout: Some Principles of Media Literacy
• Lecture: Media Literacy—How do we know what we think we know? (Note: These are the lecture notes. Lecture will be available as “TeddyTV” BB).
• Click here to view Billy Joel and student Ye Li’s take on 50 Years of History in Pictures.
• SmartTalk on blog (below).
• Quiz
WEEK 4 January 31
READINGS:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10) & Other readings for the Truthiness Project
• Read Pease’s column about McLuhan’s Fish
• Readings on Press Performance: NOTE: These readings will provide you with context and background for your first project on Truth vs. Truthiness, which will be due Monday, Feb. 22.
• Where the News Comes From -- And Why It Matters
• 29% - Say Press is Generally Accurate
• Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low
• The Wikiback Effect: If you’re a journalist who cribs from Wikipedia, it will get you back.
• “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”
• “How to detect bias in news media” (#1)
• “How to detect bias in news” (#2)
• Fox News is cable champ
• “Seek and Ye Shall Find: How to Evaluate Sources on the Web”
• Book Review: How the Bush White House Handled the Press
“Truth v. Truthiness”
• “Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?”
• “Young adults eschew traditional nightly news for ‘The Daily Show’”
• “What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart”
• It’s official: “The Daily Show” really is “the most important television program EVER”
• Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster?
• Jon Stewart: The new most trusted man in America?
• In Jon We Trust
• NBC’s Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News
• Beck's Misinformer of the Year defense rests on falsehoods
• SmartTalk on readings and course content
• Quiz
• Teddy TV on Mass Comm Theories (on Blackboard—to be announced)
WEEK 5 February 7
READINGS: Journalism Ethics—NOT an Oxymoron! A Free & Responsible Press
• McManus, Ch. 3 “The Trouble with Truth”
Codes of Ethics
• Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
• “Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Radio-Television News Directors Association”
• Principles of Journalism
• Public Relations Society of America Member Code of Ethics
• Code of Ethics of Al Jazeera
• Guidelines for a Free & Responsible Press (The Hutchins Commission & its Antecedents)
• “Ask These 10 Questions to Make Good Ethical Decisions”
Media Ownership & Consolidation
• The Clout of Media Giants
• Media Giants
• SmartTalk on blog
• Quiz
WEEK 6 February 14
This week we continue our pursuit of truth as you put together your Truthiness Projects (due Monday, Feb. 22!)
READINGS: Detecting Bull, Ch. 6: “If Not Objectivity, What Standard Should We Hold News Providers to?” and Ch. 7: “How to Detect Bias in News and Opinion Articles”
ALSO:
• Essay: On Objectivity, By Dr. Ted
• Principles of Journalism
• Would-Be Political Candidates Get Bully Pulpit on TV “News”
• Revisit the News Bias articles from FAIR and the Media Awareness Network (Week 4)
• Revisit Glenn Beck: “Misinformer of the Year”?
• SmartTalk on week’s readings.
• Quiz
WEEK 7 February 21
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 8 February 28
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Midterm Exam
WEEK 9 March 7
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
Spring Break March 14-20
WEEK 10 March 21
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 11 March 28
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 12 April 4
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 13 April 11
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 14 April 18
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 15 April 25
• SmartTalk—Comments on readings and course content.
• Quiz
WEEK 16 May 2
FINAL EXAM details to be announced.
.
Week 1
.
.
Assignments for Week 1 (Aug. 30)
• Get acquainted with our Blackboard site and the Media Smarts blog.
• Read “First Thing—Read This!” orientation posts and syllabus closely.
• Order McManus CD online at Detecting Bull.
• For inspiration as you start the school year, watch this five-minute video from Steven Colbert, on professors’ unreasonable expectation that you learn to think critically.
• When you have read the introductory materials, send Professor Pease an email message at ted.pease@usu.edu introducing yourself, and with any questions you may have. Send me this email by Friday, Sept. 3 so I know you’re in the class and that you know how to get around Blackboard and the blog.
• Quiz on syllabus will be emailed to you as a Word attachment on Thursday. Open and save it as YourLastName2010Quiz1. When you’ve completed it, attach it to an email to Professor Pease at ted.pease@usu.edu by Sunday 9 a.m.
• File introductions of yourself in “comments” under the “About Us” post on the blog. Tell us a bit about yourself: Who you are, age, hometown, what kinds of stuff you like to do, what you want to do when you grow up, one weird/funny thing you’ve done. I’ll start with my own self-disclosure. Look at each other’s posts to get to know your classmates.
.
.
Assignments for Week 1 (Aug. 30)
• Get acquainted with our Blackboard site and the Media Smarts blog.
• Read “First Thing—Read This!” orientation posts and syllabus closely.
• Order McManus CD online at Detecting Bull.
• For inspiration as you start the school year, watch this five-minute video from Steven Colbert, on professors’ unreasonable expectation that you learn to think critically.
• When you have read the introductory materials, send Professor Pease an email message at ted.pease@usu.edu introducing yourself, and with any questions you may have. Send me this email by Friday, Sept. 3 so I know you’re in the class and that you know how to get around Blackboard and the blog.
• Quiz on syllabus will be emailed to you as a Word attachment on Thursday. Open and save it as YourLastName2010Quiz1. When you’ve completed it, attach it to an email to Professor Pease at ted.pease@usu.edu by Sunday 9 a.m.
• File introductions of yourself in “comments” under the “About Us” post on the blog. Tell us a bit about yourself: Who you are, age, hometown, what kinds of stuff you like to do, what you want to do when you grow up, one weird/funny thing you’ve done. I’ll start with my own self-disclosure. Look at each other’s posts to get to know your classmates.
.
Week 2
.
.
Assignments for Week 2 (Sept. 6)
READINGS:
• McManus, Intro Chapter (pp. 1-4)
• Reading: What Is Media Smarts? “Media Smarts—Making Sense of the Information Age,” by Ted Pease & Brenda Cooper
• Mediated America—Myths from the Mass Media Click here or on “Mediated America” in the index list at left and select your best answers. This doesn’t “count,” so have fun—involve your family or friends if you want, and see what you come up with. Don’t send it back to me: I will post the answers and a “Teddy TV” video on Blackboard.
• NEW! Read Dr. Ted’s rant in the USU Statesman: The Decline of the Inquiring Mind
• SmartTalk on blog: Discuss any of the readings or the “Myths” quiz.
• Quiz
.
.
Assignments for Week 2 (Sept. 6)
READINGS:
• McManus, Intro Chapter (pp. 1-4)
• Reading: What Is Media Smarts? “Media Smarts—Making Sense of the Information Age,” by Ted Pease & Brenda Cooper
• Mediated America—Myths from the Mass Media Click here or on “Mediated America” in the index list at left and select your best answers. This doesn’t “count,” so have fun—involve your family or friends if you want, and see what you come up with. Don’t send it back to me: I will post the answers and a “Teddy TV” video on Blackboard.
• NEW! Read Dr. Ted’s rant in the USU Statesman: The Decline of the Inquiring Mind
• SmartTalk on blog: Discuss any of the readings or the “Myths” quiz.
• Quiz
.
Week 3
Assignments for Week 3 (Sept. 13)
.
• READINGS: Media Literacy
• “What is media literacy?”
• “Some principles of media literacy” and Handout: Some Principles of Media Literacy
• Lecture: Media Literacy—How do we know what we think we know? (Note: These are the lecture notes. Lecture will be available as “TeddyTV” BB).
• Click here to view Billy Joel and student Ye Li’s take on 50 Years of History in Pictures.
• SmartTalk on blog (below).
• Quiz
.
Week 5
Assignments for Week 5 (Sept. 27)
READINGS: Journalism Ethics—NOT an Oxymoron! A Free & Responsible Press
Codes of Eth
ics
• Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
• “Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Radio-Television News Directors Association”
• Principles of Journalism
• Public Relations Society of America Member Code of Ethics
• Code of Ethics of Al Jazeera
• Guidelines for a Free & Responsible Press (“The Philosophical Underpinnings of Free Expression in Society,” by Edward C. Pease. The Hutchins Commission & its Antecedents)
• “Ask These 10 Questions to Make Good Ethical Decisions”
• SmartTalk on blog
• Quiz
READINGS: Journalism Ethics—NOT an Oxymoron! A Free & Responsible Press
Codes of Eth
ics• Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
• “Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Radio-Television News Directors Association”
• Principles of Journalism
• Public Relations Society of America Member Code of Ethics
• Code of Ethics of Al Jazeera
• Guidelines for a Free & Responsible Press (“The Philosophical Underpinnings of Free Expression in Society,” by Edward C. Pease. The Hutchins Commission & its Antecedents)
• “Ask These 10 Questions to Make Good Ethical Decisions”
• SmartTalk on blog
• Quiz
Week 4
.
.
Assignments for Week 4 (Sept. 20)
READINGS:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10): “Truth vs. Truthiness”
• Read Pease’s column about McLuhan’s Fish
• Readings on Press Performance: NOTE: These readings will provide you with context and background for your first project on Truth vs. Truthiness, which will be due Friday, Oct. 15. Details to come.
• Where the News Comes From -- And Why It Matters
• 29% - Say Press is Generally Accurate
• Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low
• The Wikiback Effect: If you’re a journalist who cribs from Wikipedia, it will get you back.
• “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”
• “How to detect bias in news media” (#1)
• “How to detect bias in news” (#2)
• Fox News is cable champ
• “Seek and Ye Shall Find: How to Evaluate Sources on the Web”
• Book Review: How the Bush White House Handled the Press
“Truth v. Truthiness”
• “Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?”
• “Young adults eschew traditional nightly news for ‘The Daily Show’”
• “What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart”
• It’s official: “The Daily Show” really is “the most important television program EVER”
• Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster?
• Jon Stewart: The new most trusted man in America?
• In Jon We Trust
• NBC’s Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News
• Beck's Misinformer of the Year defense rests on falsehoods
• SmartTalk on readings and course content
• Quiz
• Teddy TV on Mass Comm Theories (to be announced)
.
.
Assignments for Week 4 (Sept. 20)
READINGS:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10): “Truth vs. Truthiness”
• Read Pease’s column about McLuhan’s Fish
• Readings on Press Performance: NOTE: These readings will provide you with context and background for your first project on Truth vs. Truthiness, which will be due Friday, Oct. 15. Details to come.
• Where the News Comes From -- And Why It Matters
• 29% - Say Press is Generally Accurate
• Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low
• The Wikiback Effect: If you’re a journalist who cribs from Wikipedia, it will get you back.
• “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”
• “How to detect bias in news media” (#1)
• “How to detect bias in news” (#2)
• Fox News is cable champ
• “Seek and Ye Shall Find: How to Evaluate Sources on the Web”
• Book Review: How the Bush White House Handled the Press
“Truth v. Truthiness”
• “Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?”
• “Young adults eschew traditional nightly news for ‘The Daily Show’”
• “What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart”
• It’s official: “The Daily Show” really is “the most important television program EVER”
• Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster?
• Jon Stewart: The new most trusted man in America?
• In Jon We Trust
• NBC’s Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News
• Beck's Misinformer of the Year defense rests on falsehoods
• SmartTalk on readings and course content
• Quiz
• Teddy TV on Mass Comm Theories (to be announced)
.
Week 6
.
.
Assignments for Week 6 (Oct. 4)
EVENT NOTE: For those of you who are on the Logan campus, please try to attend the Morris Media & Society Lecture this week by Alicia C. Shepard, the ombudsman for National Public Radio, Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Oct. 5, noon-1:15 p.m. Venue tba.
This week we continue our pursuit of truth as you put together your Truthiness Projects (due Friday, Oct. 15)
READINGS: Detecting Bull, Ch. 6: “If Not Objectivity, What Standard Should We Hold News Providers to?” and Ch. 7: “How to Detect Bias in News and Opinion Articles”
ALSO:
• Essay: On Objectivity, By Dr. Ted
• Principles of Journalism
• Would-Be Political Candidates Get Bully Pulpit on TV “News”
• Revisit the News Bias articles from FAIR and the Media Awareness Network (Week 4)
• Glenn Beck: “Misinformer of the Year”?
• Fox v. Obama: Obama AdministrationTakes on Fox News. National Public Radio, Oct. 14, 2009.
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
.
.
Assignments for Week 6 (Oct. 4)
EVENT NOTE: For those of you who are on the Logan campus, please try to attend the Morris Media & Society Lecture this week by Alicia C. Shepard, the ombudsman for National Public Radio, Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Oct. 5, noon-1:15 p.m. Venue tba.
This week we continue our pursuit of truth as you put together your Truthiness Projects (due Friday, Oct. 15)
READINGS: Detecting Bull, Ch. 6: “If Not Objectivity, What Standard Should We Hold News Providers to?” and Ch. 7: “How to Detect Bias in News and Opinion Articles”
ALSO:
• Essay: On Objectivity, By Dr. Ted
• Principles of Journalism
• Would-Be Political Candidates Get Bully Pulpit on TV “News”
• Revisit the News Bias articles from FAIR and the Media Awareness Network (Week 4)
• Glenn Beck: “Misinformer of the Year”?
• Fox v. Obama: Obama AdministrationTakes on Fox News. National Public Radio, Oct. 14, 2009.
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
.
Week 7
Assignments for Week 7 (Oct. 11)NOTE: Truthiness Projects due this week!
READINGS: McManus, Detecting Bull, Ch. 5
• Read this: Principled Journalism; Hutchins Commission
The Truthiness Project is intended both to be fun AND to be an outrage. How are the issues you’ve selected framed in the various media? Beyond that aspect of the project, however, and an examination of how the mass communication theories we’ve studied can help us understand what the heck is happening, is the issue of some substantive expectations of journalism. These are contained, in part, in the Hutchins Commission, which called for a “socially responsible” press, and are reflected in various journalistic codes of ethics (see, for example, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.) So as you examine the varied aspects of your truthiness projects, remember to reflect on how well the media reports you examine fulfill expectations of society for a responsible press that minimizes harm, tells truth, is responsible to common goals and values. After we laugh at outrageousness, don’t forget that we also have a responsibility to be outraged at how the mass media can (and do) mislead society.
• Stuff on Truthiness: Colbert Clips
1. The Word—Truthiness Anyone can read the news to you; Stephen promises to feel the news at you. (2:40)
2. Word of the Year “Truthiness” receives the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year award. Stephen receives no credit. (3:04)
3. BANNED! Lake Superior State University has added “truthiness” to its list of banned words. (0:55)
• This Just In: Campaign 2010 Political Ads
• And this: Jon Stewart interview on his Oct. 30 March to Restore Sanity
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
Week 8
Assignments for Week 8 (Oct. 18)
This Week: Including “The Other”
The Media—Race, Gender, Ethnicity and People Who Don’t Look Like Us
This week we turn to the larger question of the mass media’s—not just the news “press”—roles and responsibilities in a free society. In America, ironically, we take for granted what “free society” means and, in many cases (like voter turnout) ignore both our rights and responsibilities as citizens. Take one look at other nations, including those where we say we’re trying to “export democracy,” and you’ll find people who value the free flow of information and the constitutional rights of free expression much more than we do ourselves. Naturally, for someone who is thirsty, water is a much more valuable commodity than it is for someone who lives on a lake. For Americans, glutted with information, we wouldn’t much notice if there were less of it. Not so for Haitians or Iraqis or North Koreans.
The sub-head on this week’s topic deals with minority races and peoples, but that will be the second subject of this conversation. To begin, we have to look back into our history and intro to mass comm readings to remember some of the philosophical antecedents to the First Amendment. Then we look at how to apply those to what in the 1940s came to be known as a “socially responsible” perspective on the press, enunciated in the Hutchins Commission of 1947. Once we understand how a press can (or should) be both free and responsible, we can look at one hot-button area in which the press (in)famously did (and has?) not fulfill its duties to the public: racial diversity. The Hutchins Commission in some ways spawns the Kerner Commission 20 years later, when President Lyndon B. Johnson angrily asked, in general, what the heck’s going on here!? when America blew up into a cataclysmic race war. How did this happen? President Johnson wanted to know. And how can we keep it from ever happening again. Race is still America’s rawest nerve, and the mass media’s role is important. See what you think.
If I can book the padded cell, a TeddyTV segment on this material will be available early next week (or sooner).
MIDTERM EXAM: The exam will be emailed to you by the end of this week, due next week.
READINGS:
• A Philosophical Framework for a Responsible Press, by Ted Pease
• Resources on Race & Gender
1. Kerner Commission
2. What is Racism?
3. 10 Things to Know About Race
4. Racism Lives in Cache Valley—two columns
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
.
This Week: Including “The Other”
The Media—Race, Gender, Ethnicity and People Who Don’t Look Like Us
This week we turn to the larger question of the mass media’s—not just the news “press”—roles and responsibilities in a free society. In America, ironically, we take for granted what “free society” means and, in many cases (like voter turnout) ignore both our rights and responsibilities as citizens. Take one look at other nations, including those where we say we’re trying to “export democracy,” and you’ll find people who value the free flow of information and the constitutional rights of free expression much more than we do ourselves. Naturally, for someone who is thirsty, water is a much more valuable commodity than it is for someone who lives on a lake. For Americans, glutted with information, we wouldn’t much notice if there were less of it. Not so for Haitians or Iraqis or North Koreans.
The sub-head on this week’s topic deals with minority races and peoples, but that will be the second subject of this conversation. To begin, we have to look back into our history and intro to mass comm readings to remember some of the philosophical antecedents to the First Amendment. Then we look at how to apply those to what in the 1940s came to be known as a “socially responsible” perspective on the press, enunciated in the Hutchins Commission of 1947. Once we understand how a press can (or should) be both free and responsible, we can look at one hot-button area in which the press (in)famously did (and has?) not fulfill its duties to the public: racial diversity. The Hutchins Commission in some ways spawns the Kerner Commission 20 years later, when President Lyndon B. Johnson angrily asked, in general, what the heck’s going on here!? when America blew up into a cataclysmic race war. How did this happen? President Johnson wanted to know. And how can we keep it from ever happening again. Race is still America’s rawest nerve, and the mass media’s role is important. See what you think.
If I can book the padded cell, a TeddyTV segment on this material will be available early next week (or sooner).
MIDTERM EXAM: The exam will be emailed to you by the end of this week, due next week.
READINGS:
• A Philosophical Framework for a Responsible Press, by Ted Pease
• Resources on Race & Gender
1. Kerner Commission
2. What is Racism?
3. 10 Things to Know About Race
4. Racism Lives in Cache Valley—two columns
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
.
Week 10
Assignments for Week 10 (Nov. 1)
This week, I’d like everyone to pay close attention to how the news media report Saturday’s join Rally/March to Restore Sanity and/or Fear by Mssrs. Stewart & Colbert on the Washington Mall. Please send to this blog items that frame the story in particular ways that you find of interest in the context of Media Smartiness, with your commentary on how the event is being framed (truthiness)? Was this just a big gag? Do media reports seem to think it was a joke, a spoof, a real thing?
Also this week: Midterm Elections! (no, not an exam....!) Tuesday is election day, and the results might (probably) completely change Congress. Keep an eye out for how the press is spinning this story as well. How are the press and pundits telling us how to think about the election results? What is your analysis of the role the mass media in the run-up to the elections and how they want us to understand them?
COMING ATTRACTIONS: The general schedule for the last five weeks of the semester includes the following special assignments:
I. Project #2: Your choice of
a) Editorial Cartoons: How cartoonists frame an issue
b) Hollywood: How movies reinvent history
c) children and mass media
(Due Dec. 6; details posted separately—click here.)
II. Final Exam will be emailed to you on Monday, Dec. 6, and will be due by Monday, Dec. 13.
THIS WEEK’S READINGS:
• Essay: On Objectivity
• Examples: Gatekeeping & Framing
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
This week, I’d like everyone to pay close attention to how the news media report Saturday’s join Rally/March to Restore Sanity and/or Fear by Mssrs. Stewart & Colbert on the Washington Mall. Please send to this blog items that frame the story in particular ways that you find of interest in the context of Media Smartiness, with your commentary on how the event is being framed (truthiness)? Was this just a big gag? Do media reports seem to think it was a joke, a spoof, a real thing?
Also this week: Midterm Elections! (no, not an exam....!) Tuesday is election day, and the results might (probably) completely change Congress. Keep an eye out for how the press is spinning this story as well. How are the press and pundits telling us how to think about the election results? What is your analysis of the role the mass media in the run-up to the elections and how they want us to understand them?
COMING ATTRACTIONS: The general schedule for the last five weeks of the semester includes the following special assignments:
I. Project #2: Your choice of
a) Editorial Cartoons: How cartoonists frame an issue
b) Hollywood: How movies reinvent history
c) children and mass media
(Due Dec. 6; details posted separately—click here.)
II. Final Exam will be emailed to you on Monday, Dec. 6, and will be due by Monday, Dec. 13.
THIS WEEK’S READINGS:
• Essay: On Objectivity
• Examples: Gatekeeping & Framing
• SmartTalk
• Quiz
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