Archive for April, 2009

Again With the Susan Boyle Youtube Video

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Oy.  I finally sat and watched the entire Youtube video of Susan Boyle performing recently on ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’  I had to.  I’d been reading about it all over the Internet.  Well, actually, I’d been reading comments from fellow media scholars on a listserv.  I try to shield myself from some forms of popular culture as long as I can.  I actually never watch American Idol or related programs.  But that doesn’t mean I’m some sort of pop culture snob.  I love the show “Brothers and Sisters,” and one TV season, years and years ago, I was absolutely hooked on a segment of “The Bachelor.”  It was like watching an amazing train wreck.  But I digress.

Susan Boyle certainly does have talent.  Her voice is beautiful.  Everyone was buzzing about her and especially about the video of her surprising the studio audience and panel of judges who, by the rolling eyes and snarky comments during her introduction, were expecting a train wreck of sorts themselves.  That she surprised them is quite an understatement, by the way.  They were shocked that a woman of her age, who looks the way she looks, could sing…. really sing.

The obvious comments here are that we should all be ashamed of that audience and those judges–and ourselves–for assuming that those who deserve to win on a TV program showcasing artistic talent should be physically beautiful by the standards set by over 100 years of visual media.  That we should never again assume that someone–a woman–who is 47 (gasp!) should dream of hitting it big through her talent and determination, despite the fact that she looks so completely like someone’s ordinary, middle aged mom.  Shame on all of us for our superficiality and our emphasis on a woman’s looks and youth.  We’ve all learned our lesson.

Of course, we haven’t.  That’s why this video has been given so much buzz.  Susan Boyle’s appearance on British TV, and her subsequent big win, will fade away quickly and she will be replaced on the program with more young, skinny, booby, plastic women who may be able to sing a little, but who don’t have nearly the raw talent that she does.

But all of that is not really what I was wrapped up in as I watched the video.  Though angry with Simon Cowell and all the rest of them for that matter, I was mostly amazed at the very fact of the video.  Who set up  those cameras that focused on Susan?  There was at least one backstage and one on-stage.  Why do we see such deliberate, focused footage of her backstage before she goes on?  And who were those guys waiting back there with her? Do all of the participants get the same coverage?  It all seemed a bit rehearsed to me, like a dramatization of an actual event.  Or the staging of a would-be event.  And what about that song, “I Dream A Dream?”

I’m not saying it was a dramatization of a would-be event.  Clever editing can create the illusion of events that didn’t exactly happen the way they are presented later on Youtube (or any other video venue).  There was something weird about those first cut-away shots to the audience and the panelists.  We were all visually set up to be surprised by the amazing transformation of this ugly duckling into a beautiful swan once she opened her mouth.

But as one media scholar pointed out, it wasn’t actually she who was transformed.  It was us, the audience.  She stayed the same.  We were transformed from a culture/media-shaped expectation that she would embarrass herself because she wasn’t physically fit to be on that stage, to an audience appreciative of her talent IN SPITE OF her physical shortcomings.  

This video on Youtube made us all into fools.  Or did it?

 Today’s New York Times Styles section article about Susan Boyle just put us right back into our naughty, looks-obsessed ways.  The article deals with the necessity, even the science, of stereotyping, and how snap judgments are made about people, things and situations because it has some sort of survival value that goes way back in time.  No room for history here.  In that article, Susan Boyle herself is quoted as saying that, with regard to people judging you on your looks, “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

All of this ignores how we’ve been shaped by our media.  To make a short point from what could be a very long diatribe, visual media such as television (and digital extensions like Youtube) have been training us for years to value appearance so that it becomes center stage.  Ask any young (or old) woman and she’ll tell you,  the pressure is on to look not just good, but hot.  

It wasn’t always that way.  Really.  Maybe that was a long time ago.  But Susan Boyle and her beautiful voice are around right now.  Let’s see how long we give her visual media attention that’s NOT ultimately about how she looks.  Oh, that’s right, we never did.

–Katherine G. Fry

Posted in News | No Comments »

Media, Speed (and the use of parentheses)

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

I’ve been reading quite a bit, lately, about media and thinking and speed and time.  And how it’s hard for many of us to find time for contemplation, quiet thought, and (good) writing (note the preceding very bad sentences).  My current read (when I have time for it), Howard Rosenbberg and Charles Feldmans’s “No Time to Think” (2008), explores how the 24-hour news cycle values speed more than anything, to the detriment of accuracy and even clear thinking.  An article I found at CNN.com  (hmmmm, one of those guilty 24-hour news speedsters) reports that some scientists are saying that Twitter, because it encourages speed and brevity, will turn us into news consumers unable to truly feel compassion for those suffering and in need because we’re so busy speeding through the information that overwhelms us all day long in short blips (well, tweets).  The idea is that eventually we’ll be so caught up in keeping up that we’re not able to develop compassion or to contemplate the bad things that are happening to other people that we (quickly) read about in our media stream.  

I think that information speed and overload have been vexing us for quite some time.  Twitter is not entirely to blame.  It’s only the most recent service in a long line of available media that have, gradually, allowed us access to more and more information in shorter bits.  And along the way we’ve been changing, for better or for worse, depending upon who you talk to.  It started with books, you know.  From there it’s just been one long road to more information in different forms–print, electronic, digital.   

I won’t go into the long, sordid, fascinating history here.  But it’s worth taking a long look back at developments in communication media to put into perspective the fears and widespread warnings that come with each new media development (Socrates was sure that writing signaled the end of Democracy).  A colleague, George Rodman, and I (briefly) cover the history of developing media in the Western world and accompanying changes in sense of individuality in the first chapter of an upcoming anthology entitled Technology and Psychological Wellbeing (shamelessly I plug) published by Cambridge University Press (you can pre-order it at Amazon.com). 

Most times, in my professorial mode of thinking, I can take solace in the fact that we’re in the midst of yet another change in communication media, that the warnings and laments of doctors, scientists and others is just part of the transition to new modes of communication that do, in fact, change us.  Sometimes, though, on a personal level, I feel too quickly overwhelmed by the changes in communication media.  I long for more contemplation, and less obligation to the electronic masters which I’ve allowed to re-shape how I work and even how I think.

Specifically, I’m finding it hard to find time to just think and write (at least write without using an excessive amount of parentheses, which indicates, I think, a need to display my  inner dialogue while I write. Or maybe it’s just insecurity.  Or maybe I’ve just grown to love parentheses).  Personally, I’m too terribly busy reading and responding to emails to actually compose my thoughts about communication media or anything else.  The emails come fast and furious and they demand my attention all day long.  I feel as if I’m obligated to jump instantly on the request of anyone who emails me for information, with a question or with information.  Soon my entire work day has been swallowed up by email demons.  I realize, of course, that  it’s my own fault for not carving out certain times in the day when I’m online doing email, and leaving other chunks for more contemplative communication-related activities (after all, I am a communication professional!).  I myself have  allowed the electronic emailing task to shape how I work.  I’ve not stepped away enough.

That said, I’m willing to concede that in five to ten years my work habits in relation to electronic media might be completely different.  All of ours might. By then I may find new ways to catch up with emerging communication media.  Or I might drop out altogether.  

There’s always the allure of a digital-free bike trek across one country or another (talk about a completely different way to get information).  But by then everything will be wireless, anyway.  

–Katherine Fry

Posted in News | No Comments »

Too young to have rights?

Friday, April 17th, 2009

It’s been over twenty years since DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince wrote their award-winning song “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” but you’d be hard-pressed to find a kid that it doesn’t resonate with. Arguing with your parents isn’t just a common experience for youth — it’s practically a rite of passage.

Granted I’m only a few years out of adolescence, and about five times as many from having my own kids, but I’ve always sympathized with teens. Before you turn eighteen, you have very little agency over your own life. Whether it’s your parents or your teachers, adults are pretty much always telling you what to do, from what you wear to school in the morning to what you eat for dinner to how much time you spend with your friends. And while most parents have their children’s best interests at heart, some don’t. Or they do, but their good intentions aren’t enough to mitigate their misguided attempts to do what they think is right.

Legally speaking, parents and schools still retain many rights over their children and students. But, if ratified, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child might change that. According to Politico, this treaty “sets international standards for government obligations to children in areas that range from protection from abuse and exploitation to ensuring a child’s right to free expression.”

Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, not everyone thinks so. Like Somalia, the only other country besides the US that hasn’t ratified the treaty. And Michael Farris, president of ParentalRights.org, who worries that

Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children. … A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed, … and children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.

Also, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who recently introduced a bill in the House — sponsored by 70 members of the House — that would cement a place for parents’ rights in our Constitution.

Don’t get me wrong — Although I am in support of the treaty, I am a little wary of any piece of legislation that might expand the reach of the government at the expense of citizens’ rights. I am certainly not suggesting we hand over our children to the government to rear — but neither is this treaty. It’s an interesting dichotomy that adults in our society will do so much to protect the safety and welfare of their children, but then dismiss and trivialize their personal concerns, interests, and ideas. In my opinion, any treaty that aims to protect — and therefore legitimize — youth expression deserves, at the very least, a closer look. And if nearly 200 countries manage to ratify this treaty without blood running in the streets, then I think we can handle it.

Unfortunately, chances are that this issue will languish in bureaucratic limbo for years to come. In the meantime, it’s my hope that all the teens out there can find solace in the wise words of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince:

You know parents are the same / No matter time nor place / They don’t understand that us kids / Are going to make mistakes / So to you, all the kids all across the land / There’s no need to argue / Parents just don’t understand

Posted in News | No Comments »

Help Hugh Jackman Help The LAMP!

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Hugh Jackman’s current twitter profile reads, “”I will donate 100K to one individual’s favorite non profit organization.Of course,you must convince me why by using 140 characters or less.” Of course, New York City’s only non-profit organization providing free media literacy training for New Yorkers would like that money. It would help us hire much-needed teachers and administrative staff, purchase equipment, expand to reach more people throughout the city, develop more programs, and a whole lot more. Even if you’re skeptical that it’s really him, it’s a fun challenge! Send a tweet to @realhughjackman, and tell him why we deserve his support!

Posted in News | No Comments »

Twitter in the classroom

Friday, April 10th, 2009

As the April 8, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education reported, an instructor at Penn State is encouraging his students to tweet in the classroom — during class.  That’s right.  He wants his students to use twitter to converse with each other and him during his class period.  How shocking!  How disruptive!  How nuts must he be?  Any sensible professor wants control in the classroom, which means students listen carefully, raise their hands one at a time when they have a thoughtful question or comment, and everyone remains calm and studious.  The professor is the one who gets to do most of the talking.  It’s a nice top-down arrangement that’s worked for hundreds of years of formal education.  What is this guy thinking?

What Cole W. Camplese, the instructor of a group of Penn State graduate students,  is thinking is that students need to engage.  We’re all trying to figure out what the onslaught of digital communication, and social networking in particular, means for our everyday living.  Those of us who spend many classroom hours with young adults know that digital media are changing our students who use them all the time.  We can’t expect to reach them the same way we did even a decade ago.   Clearly, the old education models aren’t always working, and inevitably are changing because of digital media.  I give credit to professors on the forefront of experimentation in the classroom with the tools of discourse that  students are engaging in outside the classroom.  

True, it’s hard to imagine how a focused discussion or imparting of information can take place when everyone in the class is sending quick bursts of thought in short text messages via their phones or laptops.  Obviously, what Professor  Camplese wants is for students to comment on the materials being covered, not writing about things personal or irrelevant to the class topic at hand.   But the technicalities of making the running stream of tweets available on screen for all to see, and analyze, throughout the class period bring difficulties: in setting up and in managing the stream throughout a fixed period of time.  How can so many things happen at once?  Will students actually be learning anything worthwhile?

Though this seems odd and certainly unprecedented, I admire Camplese’s approach.  After all, engaged students are happier, more attentive and more apt to learn. And those in the classroom who are too shy to speak might not be too shy to tweet.  Imagine if all of the students were building on each other’s ideas and comments–then had a recorded stream of their comments to look back on in subsequent class periods?  This could be a new model for classroom engagement.  Or it could be a huge bust.  Regardless, it’s worth a try.

Last Friday, April 3, I gave a workshop at the day-long Northeast Media Literacy Conference at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.  Near the end of our workshop, which I called “Media Literacy is Medium Literacy,” participants and I engaged in a discussion about the gap between generations when it comes to using digital media for social networking.  They, like I, grumbled loudly about Twitter.   Yet despite my personal feelings about tweeting, I told them, I can appreciate it as a form of communication highly valued by some.  I can be personally uninterested, even somewhat annoyed, but professionally interested in the means and uses of this form of contact.  We agreed, by the end of our discussion, that it’s best to try to understand technologies and services like Twitter because there’s no going back.  And the ways in which digital communication will (and has already) change learning and education requires new ways for teachers to think about their role in the whole educational process.  That is something I find very interesting.

It’s a time of experimentation, of open-mindedness, and of skepticism.  Ask any professor — it’s always a good time for skepticism.  But we shouldn’t let it get in the way of our open-mindedness.

If I get my technical act together I may try it in the classroom next fall.  But don’t–ever– expect me to tweet about my mundane personal stuff.  Not even I care about some of it.  

–Katherine G. Fry

Posted in News | No Comments »

Subservient Audiences

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Jump. Sit. Fight. Turn off the lights. Swim. Do the YMCA.

Type in any one of these commands at SubservientChicken.com, and you can watch, via prerecorded webcam footage, a person in a chicken suit obey. This bizarre website is part of an advertising campaign launched by fast-food chain Burger King in April 2004. The restaurant launched this viral advertising campaign after the reinstating of its signature motto, “Have it your way.” The Subservient Chicken was subsequently created as “Chicken the way you like it.”

Although the Subservient Chicken is old news, particularly by the standards set by our fast-paced Internet culture, I think it serves as a great example of the ways in which the advent of new media has allowed advertising to move in an entirely new direction.

Gone is the old model of mass marketing. Today, advertisers are focusing more and more on making advertisements that consumers can engage in. Considering the significant changes the digital age has brought along in the past ten years, it makes sense that advertisers would change their model. Consumers today are living in a media- and advertising-saturated environment; they’ve become smarter, more cynical and less accessible.

Think about the Superbowl. Every year, advertisers shell out millions of dollars to have their commercials play, and the rest of the country spends much of the next few days talking about them. But a week later, you probably remember maybe half of all the advertisements you saw. A month later, even fewer. By the time the next Superbowl rolls around, you might remember one or two specific ads, but for the most part, you’ve forgotten.

The model of Internet advertising is entirely different. First of all, the production and distribution costs are incredibly low. For example, to make the Subservient Chicken, all that was needed was an actor, a cheap webcam (to increase the sense of authenticity), a living room, a day or two to film the Chicken performing roughly four hundred commands, and a team to build the website. The cost was only $50,000. The website wasn’t promoted using any formal ad campaign. Instead, it was spread virally; the link was posted in various chatrooms and on different blogs. And as a marketing message, the commercial yielded a strong organic growth, where the message was easily sustained for a long period of time. So intrigued were viewers by the ostensibly “live” performance that they passed on the link to their friends, and by October 2004—a mere six months after the site had first been launched—the site had generated 338 million total hits.

So what does this mean for consumers? Well, it’s not necessarily a bad development. Advertisers are trying to steer away from the traditional methods of advertising, where ads are forceful and abrasive. Advertisements no longer need to interrupt what people are interested in; instead they have become what people are interested in. Ads are more engaging and relevant to the consumer–meaning I am less likely now to bump into those annoying commercials for Hefty trash bags, whereas my dad probably won’t be seeing ads for the new Judd Apatow comedy. Even better, advertising–which is arguably, in some ways, an artistic medium–are more creative and innovative, utilizing all the tools the digital environment has to offer.

But what’s dangerous about interactive advertising is the way in which the consumer ends up working for the producer–or, in other words, the Subservient Chicken has created a subservient audience. Interactive advertising has not stopped the efforts to control consumer decisions; rather it has gone about this task clandestinely, under the guise of entertainment. This is why media literacy is so important. We can enjoy watching a man in a chicken suit pretend to lay an egg at our command, but we need to be aware of what messages are being sent to us and who is sending them.

Posted in News | No Comments »

R.I.P., BCUE

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

This week we learned that one of our major partners, Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment (BCUE), shut its doors for good on April 1 due to financial reasons. (It was also sometimes called simply Center for the Urban Environment, or CUE.) The people at BCUE were extremely dedicated in their mission to promote sustainable living throughout the city, and bringing education services to at-risk neighborhoods. In the course of their 30+ years of existence, BCUE operated many more programs throughout the city–though it’s difficult to name them all, since their website is no longer functioning. The LAMP and BCUE had plans to develop several additional programs together, both of us expanding our reach and expertise. Now, none of those plans can happen.

At times like this, my heart goes out not only to the wonderful people who worked at BCUE, but also to the populations they served who will now be without the programs, activities, mentors and resources they came to rely upon to fill gaps of need in their communities and schools. The loss of such support during especially tough times is surely one of the greatest casualties of the economic crisis, and it is up to organizations like The LAMP to do their best to step in and make sure needs can still be met. All of us here feel a mandate to continue to serve the schools and communities we reached through our BCUE partnership, and believe in our goal to reach even more people.

However, as cliche as it sounds, we can’t do this alone. It is so important that all of us remember the importance of the non-profit organizations that bring services to our neighborhoods out of little else but love, hope and faith in change. None of us do this for money; there’s a reason we’re called non-profits. Imagine what New York City would look like if all of the local non-profits dried up–it wouldn’t be pretty, and that’s not the state we want to find ourselves in when the recession passes (which it will). Please remember that every little bit helps, and consider making even a small donation to The LAMP by using the “Donate Now!” button at the bottom of this page. We know there are many worthy and needy non-profits out there, but we firmly believe that a modern education is the only way we can live in harmony in a media-saturated digital world. Your support in our mission to bring media literacy to all New Yorkers is an investment in our collective future. Your help can ensure that there is indeed a brighter one ahead.

Posted in News | No Comments »

The LAMP’s April Illuminations!

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

 
The LAMP Illuminations
April 2009
In This Issue
Headlight
Spotlight: Kathie McKenzie
Highlight: Check this out!
LAMPcamp is coming!
Gaslight: This Month in Media History

Headlight
ps107If you’re not online with The LAMP, you’ve been missing out! We recently added several new videos to our YouTube channel, having finished our Family Video Workshop with P.S. 102 and our short-form documentary workshop with P.S. 107. We’ve also posted loads of new photos on our Flickr page, and you can click here to find pictures from our workshop with MOUSE  on persuasive advertising techniques. And, we were featured on Mashable.com with American Red Cross,The Humane Society of The United States and Greenpeace as a recommended nonprofit to follow on Twitter. See what all the fuss is about, and connect with us online using any of the links on the right-hand column!   

Spotlight: Kathie McKenzie

 
Occupation: Graduate student at FIT in a museum studies programkathy mckenziefocusing on textile conservation (and LAMP alum!). Also a wife, mother, PTA volunteer and intern at Cathedral of St. John the Divine at the Textile Conservation Lab.
Family: Husband: Greg Pitkoff, two children: Chloe (9) and Thatcher (7), crazy corgi: Missy (4) and my mother (Eileen McKenzie) is a frequent part of our lives.  

 
What did you discover in the Family Video Workshop? I really liked the purposefulness of the workshop. It wasn’t about catching an event or a cute moment. It was about what we would say about ourselves as a family. My daughter and son both had ideas about what they wanted to do and some of that was included. We did some short interviews as well, but in the end, it was pretty much the things we do on car rides and at the dinner table — which I thought really captured our family dynamic. I really learned that we all have completely different styles and ideas about things!
 
What was your favorite part of the workshop? I liked watching the clips of different families. It was interesting assessing each family and what was realistic and what wasn’t. It brought out the different dynamics (real and fictional) of families. And it made me think about the idealized version of your own family versus the reality of the individual personalities in the mix of our family. My children really loved actually making the video.
 
What surprised you in the workshop? For the “skit” our family was given characters: father & son, place: upstate NY, event: moving 100 miles away. I was surprised at how literal our family was. Also my son and daughter just couldn’t envision a family with just a father and son, so the plot they wanted to go with was that the father and son were moving to be with the mother and daughter. To them family is the make up of our family. Most other families came up with comedies, but we went with realistic drama! It hadn’t even occurred to us to be funny!
 
Do you and your family look at media differently since taking the workshop? I don’t know if we look at media differently — we were already skeptical viewers! But I definitely learned a good deal about our family. Each person had really different ideas about what our family video should say about us. My husband wanted the interviews, my son wanted to perform, my daughter wanted to play a game and I wanted it to be us interacting. In the end I think we all got what we wanted and the video hopefully would give someone a pretty good idea about who we are and what we value as a family.

Highlight: Check this out!
   funfunctionlogo

 Here’s an interesting interactive game for kids: A company calledFun and Function, which makes toys and equipment that help kids develop essential skills and provide therapies to kids with special needs, recently launched a website called ByKidsOnly.com. The site lets kids aged 5-13 design, post and vote on clothing, expressing their sense of style and personal sensitivities to things like fabric, tags, seams and other factors tied to the fit and feel of what they’re offered to wear. Every six weeks, a new category of clothing is highlighted, and registered participants on the site are able to submit and vote on ideas for that category. The current category is shirts, but dresses, skirts and pajamas are scheduled as well. The most popular designs have a chance of being incorporated into actual garments produced and made available for sale on the site. Check it out and tell your friends if you like it!  
    –Katherine Fry, Ph.D., LAMP Educational Director 

To help us continue our services as New York City’s only nonprofit organization giving free media literacy workshops to parents, youth and educators, please consider a small tax-deductible donation.

 

LAMPcamp is coming!
Lamp outside

It’s official: This summer, we will be offering a one-week media literacy summer camp through the Prospect Park YMCA! We will divide middle school-age students into separate boys and girls camp, and look at gender messages as perceived by them through the media they interact with. They’ll also learn the persuasive techniques marketers use to craft their message for each gender, and they will create their own media projects to address all of our findings. For more information about how to sign up, contact the Y at 718-768-7100.
Connect with The LAMP on:

LAMP delicious
LAMP SU
LAMP YouTube
LAMP Twitter
LAMP facebook
LAMP flickr
change logo

Gaslight: This Month in Media History
ginsberg

  • April 3, 1955: The ACLU successfully defends Alan Ginsberg’s Howland its publisher against obscenity charges.  
  • April 12, 2000: Napster Inc. is sued by Metallica for piracy and copyright infringement. 
  • April 13, 1964: Sydney Poitier becomes the first African American to win a Best Actor Oscar, for his role in Lilies of the Field. 
Explore our website!

Posted in News | No Comments »

Tuning out

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Recently, I had the pleasure of fulfilling my responsibility as a citizen of the United States by heading down to the Kings County Supreme Court building and serving jury duty. Once we were called into the the courtroom, the presiding judge walked us through the selection process as well as the particular trial for which we were being considered. During his introduction he made a comment that I found quite telling.

“And for those of you who are big Law and Order fans, forget that stuff. This is not like that.”

It got a chuckle from a few fellow jurors, but the notion of how media constructs our views on the world didn’t end there. During the voir dire process, the prosecuting attorney asked the selected 16 jurors if any of them enjoyed watching cop shows on TV. Almost everyone rose their hand. He again asserted what the judge had prior: that we should not let our impressions of a courtroom through a television show influence how we act as jurors.

I myself have never seen an episode of Law & Order but recognize its popularity. Once I was called up for consideration, I couldn’t help feel like I was sitting inside an episode of HBO’s The Wire. Was this the wrong thing to do?

We here at the LAMP believe that media are not merely things we can tune in and tune out of and then their influence ends. In fact, we believe that media informs all of our lives, informs how we interact with each other and informs how we look at the world – including a courtroom.

Posted in News | No Comments »

Grassroots.org
Creative Commons License