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Archive for May, 2009

Without A Set

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

When my husband and I decided to move, we looked around our current apartment and started to think about what would come with us, and what we would sell or give away. One of the first things we landed on was our television set. At 32 inches and seven years old, it has served us well, but we both felt like it was time to move on and enter the modern world of the flatscreen. The current set is bulky, very heavy and takes up a lot of space, but the living room in our new home is a little bit smaller than where we reside at the moment. Space-saving decisions have had to be made, so we chose to upgrade to a flat-screen which we’ll mount on the wall. The problem? Our move-in date is June 5, but we agreed that the best day for a stoop sale was on Memorial Day, May 25.

We ended up giving away the old TV set to an elderly neighbor whose equally elderly television had died; truly, we could not find anyone who wanted to buy our practically ancient device. In the meantime, we’re watching TV shows and movies online from a laptop, and it’s a different experience. Years ago, as a graduate student living just above the poverty line, I went without television at all and just watched DVDs on the set I bought with my college graduation money. It was kind of great not having ads and chatter being brought into my home, but instead I was in control. So, it’s surprising to me that I miss television at all, knowing firsthand how great life can be without it.

Even with the rise of sites like Hulu and YouTube, the percentage of people who prefer to use their computer as their television remains rather low; a recent study by Pangea and YPulse found that only 10% of teens opt to watch shows on their laptop rather than on a TV set. In some ways, I can see why. The form does change the way you view content, however so slightly. While watching a movie last night, it didn’t have the same larger-than-life feel that lingers on a big screen. I had to keep hitting the mousepad every 5 minutes when the screen went blank to energy-save mode, lulling me out of my couch potato state. And since the computer is something I typically use to do work, the impulse existed to catch up on email with the movie playing in an inset window. Sure, I check email in front of a regular TV, but the difference is that I don’t feel like it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, since that isn’t the purpose of a television. It’s different on a laptop. I had more distance from what I was watching, and couldn’t quite commit in the same way.

I suppose the real test would be to ban myself (and my husband) from watching anything at all on the computer, and spend two weeks with no movies or videos whatsoever. But, come on. Moving is stressful enough, right?

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American Idol – Most brilliant idea, evah?

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

idol

As 28.8 Million American television viewers crowned Kris Allen the latest American Idol, thus potentially launching the young man onto stardom, the conversation about whether he deserved his crown didn’t end. It happened in the newscasts that evening, on the radio the next morning, and throughout the country’s newspapers. It happened at the water cooler, and for me, even at lunch. That’s where it occurred to me how brilliant the show ‘American Idol’ truly is.

Simon Cowell created the show, which just completed its eighth season. The show offers the view that they are making someone’s dream come true (i.e. the winner), but the real accomplishment is Simon’s growing fortune. In every episode, the show essentially goes to the consumers themselves, in their living room, and asks them to pick the future popstars they will want to listen to, download their music and attend their concerts. This is taking the guess work out of the process that used to occur in the privacy of the music company’s board room. And on top of that they are making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in advertising revenue, doing this before the Idol sells a single album. Like i said, the conversation about these Idol champions do not end as the final vote is cast. People all over the country, on Twitter, and during their lunch hour are debating whether Kris should’ve won over Adam (the runner-up), thus continuing the work for Idol beyond their living room.

Simply brilliant. And I wouldn’t have come to this understanding if I myself hadn’t been part of a conversation about a TV show (that admittedly, I’ve never caught an episode of).

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Have Your People Bill My People: Launch of Billmyparents.com

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Yesterday saw another step in the move towards enabling a child-as-consumer consumer: Billmyparents.com. Essentially, it’s PayPal, but without that silly age restriction that bars minors from using it. With Billmyparents, instead of entering credit card information for an online purchase, kids click a billmyparents button. The parent then receives a text message or email notification telling them that their child wants to purchase something, but the purchase will only be completed upon the parent’s approval. Currently, billmyparents is only available on a special shop with Amazon.com.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I like the idea that parents have the opportunity to talk to their teens about what they are buying and why they want it. It’s important for everyone to learn that just because you want something, that doesn’t mean you should have it, and it’s safer than giving your kid a copy of your credit card to use unrestricted. Speaking from personal experience, when I was a teenager, both of my parents worked, meaning there often wasn’t time for them to join me on shopping for school supplies or clothes, and the task of picking up groceries was sometimes delegated to me and my siblings. I’ll admit right here that (sorry Mom and Dad) not every single one of my purchases made with the card was ethical, but for the most part, I didn’t abuse the privilege. After all, my parents did look at the bill each month. I appreciated their trust in me, and it was helpful in a hectic household for other people besides my parents to spend money.

On the other hand, I don’t love that the credit industry is now extending to young people. It’s one more channel for kids to be told that they can (as it says on the shop) “get stuff now, no credit card required.” This is a horrible statement, both because it is misleading and because it is irresponsible. If billmyparents.com could brand itself as a helpful service doing some kind of good, instead of just one more way for kids to pester their parents, then I might feel differently. Besides, in reality, there are already plenty of ways for kids to shop online; all they have to do is use an account created with a parent’s credit card info. Billmyparents is simply codifying an existing practice, but bringing the credit card holders into the mix–which I think is a good thing, as long as it does lead to conversations about want, need and fiscal responsibility.

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Maybe the News Business Shouldn’t be a Business

Monday, May 11th, 2009

More consolidation, less money, resource sharing, the threat of closing down altogether. Sounds like many businesses these days. And some households. What I’m talking about in this particular case is the business of news. A business it is, still, at least right now. And it’s in trouble, not only because of the current economic turmoil, but also because of money troubles combined with digital technologies allowing many more players into the game (not wanting to mix my metaphors, let’s just go with the concept of the market-as-a-game. Everyone else does).

Another recent reminder that news as we traditionally conceive of it is losing the battle with our current economic/social/technological circumstances is the New York Times report that in many TV markets news studios are either pairing up with local newspapers or are sharing resources (equipment and talent) with other competing studios. Or they’re doing both. More and more news businesses are losing money because advertisers don’t have many advertising dollars to invest these days. And they pay for most of the news we get via the traditional outlets such as TV and newspapers/news magazines. They even pay for a lot of web news content.

Pair that situation with the fact that , for a longer period of time, journalists, journalism educators and public advocates of all types have been concerned about what happens when everyone is a journalist, and whatever anyone posts through any digital platform is considered news and treated as news by any number of fractured audience groups. What happens to cohesion? What happens to journalistic standards like fairness, balance and truth? What happens to people getting good information that they can use to make sense of the world? What happens to shared information? What happens to making lots of money from the news?

Maybe news shouldn’t be a business at all. Seems hard to imagine since news has followed a business model in this country for literally centuries. Journalists have been trained, either in school or on the job at newspapers, in newsmagazines, at radio stations, on television and for many websites (sponsored by the CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NY Times, etc. brands) to create news that will sell audiences to advertisers. News is a product. Even the news for PBS and NPR is a product fit for the public broadcast brand, though less so than within the for-profit world. The point is that now we need a new paradigm for thinking about news and information.

The digital realm is forcing us into a new paradigm deeply, though the current economic situation is making us feel it more acutely at present. Unfortunately paradigm isn’t a word that sits well with many people because it, accurately, suggests a revolution in thinking, then practice. Maybe we’ll just go with model for right now. That’s a more palatable word, especially for those who think like business folk. The business model for news is on the way out. It’s time to face that fact. What a journalist does is going to change. What a journalist is will change as well. Maybe we won’t have the word journalist eventually.

But I’m taking a very long view, as I prefer. Starting with baby steps, let’s consider the proposal by long-time journalist and journalism educator Len Sellers. In a recent interview published in Miller-McCune Magazine, he’s suggesting that the solid sources of accurate, responsible, cohesive reporting ought to be centered in the nation’s leading journalism education university centers pairing up with big money foundations. In other words, the centers for solid reporting will be journalism students and their seasoned mentors working at universities which are funded by foundations, not corporations. This is a shift in the business model, and will change the relationship of advertising dollars to audiences. The news generated from these sources could be created for all platforms, and more time could be spent preparing in-depth investigative reporting. Hallelujah.

I’m on board with that kind of news future, but I think it would necessarily be paired with a good slew of citizen journalists doing their own investigative, local, even micro reporting across many different platforms as well. News and information have to come from lots of different sources. Everyone needs to be a consumer as well as participant.

And that’s where I give my spiel for news literacy. No matter what the paradigm–or model–everybody’s got to know how to evaluate news and information, and everyone’s go to know how it’s put together, how the arguments and facts are arranged to convey meaning, whether using words, images, sounds or various combinations of all these.

Maybe some will still make money from news in this transformed news and information order, but many will not. It will require a shift in thinking and practice. But that’s where we’re headed. In the long view.

–Katherine G. Fry

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Mega-City Hero

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Last night, Executive Director D.C. Vito and I attended the demonstration of an exciting new video game, Mega-City Hero, created by a nonprofit organization called The Ten Project. Aimed for kids who are roughly ten years old, the game was created on the premise that today’s youth will be building tomorrow’s cities, and that the innate creativity and imagination of young people can be harnessed for urban planning solutions. Each player chooses one “mega-city” in which to play; a few choices are New York City, Lagos, Jakarta, Shanghai and Mumbai. Once the city is selected, that player is sent on a mission, which is decided upon by a real-life expert in architectural or urban planning.

One example of a mission was, “How can fisherman only catch the kind of fish that they can sell?” The player on this mission would then work to solve the problem, perhaps by designing a new kind of fishing net, or by going out to talk to fishermen about the obstacles that keep them being more profitable while also sustainable. The player would then create a design using the game’s platform, and that design would be shared with the expert, who could potentially put the ideas into practice. Players earn points for missions, and can also work in “tribes” to collaborate on a mission–for example, a player who has chosen to play in Mexico City but who actually lives in India might do well to partner with someone with someone in Mexico. As players gain more points, they move up on the leadership board, and have the opportunity to win sponsor prizes. The difficulty also increases with the more missions players accept.

The director of The Ten Project is John Tattersall, who also administered the demo. He has filmed 16 seasons of “Survivor,” been nominated seven times for an Emmy in cinematography, worked with various philanthropic organizations throughout the world, having visited 90 countries and lived in 18. He certainly has a great idea with Mega-City Hero, and hopes that it will be an after-school program in urban and rural schools all over the world. I personally love the empowerment it brings to young people to have an impact on their world, and the interaction between players and professionals who can use some of that creativity to work on problems in their city. I love that the kid in India and the kid in Mexico can work together and share ideas about how urban problems are solved or viewed differently in each of their countries. When we at The LAMP talk about working with teachers to integrate and explore new media in their classrooms, this is the sort of thing we’re talking about.

My concern is the territory of need that may prove an obstacle to the game being a success. In particular, I wonder about access. The teacher sitting next to me was saying how she loved the game but wasn’t sure if her students would be able to participate, because the game is Web-based and her school doesn’t have a decent Internet connection. In addition to needing the Internet connection, players also benefit from having access to things like digital cameras that they can use to present and share their ideas, and interact with each other across the globe. There is also the issue of how media literate the children and teachers are in a certain area. Low-income schools and communities may be able to get computers with government grants or philanthropic support, but the machines are useless if they are not also provided with the media literacy that is necessary for them to be productive, responsible citizens of the digital world. In his presentation, Mr. Tattersall spoke about wanting to engage squatter communities and slums with the game, but I’m not sure yet about how they would be able to do that without expensive equipment.

To be fair, Mega-City Hero is not going to solve all the problems of the world, nor does it intend to–I don’t think it was created to address or solve the issue of access or poverty. In order to have the greatest impact with the broadest spectrum of players worldwide, Mega-City Hero will need to incorporate organizations like The LAMP, One Laptop Per Child, Kiva and many, many more doing similar work in their countries. Truly, this is a project of gigantic proportions, and I think it is an incredible opportunity for young people to make a positive change and consider the impact they have on the world around them. Because it is so large, it will move in baby steps at first in relation to the scope of the vision Mr. Tattersall described for us last night. Yet they will nonetheless be giant steps to a world of empowerment, creativity, understanding and growth.

–Emily Long

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Are we really still talking about Janet Jackson’s nipple?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Five years ago, a respectably-sizable furor broke out when, performing with Justin Timberlake in the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime show, Janet Jackson suffered a “wardrobe malfunction” that resulted in the exposure of her nipple on national television for nine-sixteenths of a second. The FCC was displeased, and received complaints from viewers all over the country. A back-and-forth argument ensued in the courts, with CBS saying the incident was virtually impossible to predict or prevent, and the FCC claiming that the CBS had willfully violated standards of decency and 20 CBS stations should pay a fine of $550,000 for the mishap. In July of 2008, a unanimous Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia overruled the FCC, and suggested that the FCC did not have sufficient evidence that CBS caught the nip slip on purpose, and so was protected by First Amendment. Two days ago, however, the case was sent back by the Supreme Court to be reviewed once more by the same Circuit Court that unanimously found CBS not guilty of any intentional wrongdoing, and free of paying the fine imposed by CBS.

My gut reaction is, why are we still talking about Janet Jackson’s nipple? It was exposed for a very brief period of time, and CBS and Justin Timberlake apologized for the whole thing, as did Janet Jackson, saying the stunt went further than she intended. I would happily make the argument that most all people in the world have two nipples of their own, but I do get the argument about context.

And yet, my head reacts differently than my gut when it comes to this. Taken in the grand scheme of things, this case could set an important legal precedent when it comes to the limits of both the First Amendment and the FCC for accountability of fleeting moments of indecency. And yet, this case doesn’t seem terribly complex from a legal standpoint. I wonder what it is we’re really talking about now when we talk about Janet Jackson’s nipple. A decline in American values? Celebrity? Sexism?

Whatever it is, let’s talk about that instead. I don’t care to see this dragged out over many years at a cost to taxpayers (during an economic collapse, no less), all so we can decide if the brief exposure of a woman’s nipple on national television was profane. There are much bigger things happening in media that deserve far more legal scrutiny–take, for example, cases like that of Michael Savage. His 15 years broadcasting hate on San Francisco radio has gotten him banned from Britain, and we’re told a “wardrobe malfunction” lasting less than a second is worth over five years of legal toil and our tax dollars? Puh-leeze.

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The LAMP hits the conference circuit, meet Megha Kohli, check out Finding Dulcinea: It’s The LAMP’s May Illuminations!

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

The LAMP Illuminations

May 2009

In This Issue

Headlight

Spotlight: Megha Kohli

Highlight: FindingDulcinea.com

Gaslight: This Month in Media History

Headlight

MOUSE conference

On April 30, The LAMP was proud to be part of the 5th Annual MOUSE Squad Educators Conference at Rockefeller Center. Education Director Katherine Fry and Executive Director D.C. Vito led a workshop about media literacy, historic uses of media, and how media and people have adapted to changing needs. Fry and Vito will also represent The LAMP on Saturday, June 6 at another media literacy conference hosted by Fordham University and Pratt Institute, talking about LAMP workshops and our efforts to promote media literacy. In addition, The LAMP is developing an exciting new partnership with Girl Scouts New York, and is also busy planning LAMPcamp plus other special summer events! Be sure to check The LAMPpost and follow us on Twitter (@thelampnyc) for details!

Spotlight: Megha Kohli

Occupation: Student at NYU (and the very first LAMP intern!)
Hometown: Tulsa, OK

Favorite blogs: Jezebel, Epicenter on Wired.com,NYU Local

Favorite websites: Wired.com, Wikipedia, Twitter

Favorite books: Brave New World, Amusing Ourselves to Death, anything by David Sedaris

Favorite meme: LOLCats, without a doubt. Fail Blog is a close second.

How do you see new media being used in the classroom? As a media student, most of my classes involve some level of discussion about new media and its effect on society. I had one class in particular, however, that took this further by with a class blog. We would publish our assignments on the blog and comment on each others’ posts, allowing our classroom discussion to continue throughout the week when we weren’t in class.

What is your favorite LAMP workshop story? I loved working with the kids at PS 107 in the short-form documentary workshop. I was really blown away by their insight and perspective on the different issues they were confronting in their documentaries. They were very opinionated, but also more informed than I would’ve expected–certainly more informed than I was at their age!

Highlight: Check this out!

Web publisher findingDulcinea is a free research and teaching tool dedicated to presenting the best information and resources on the Web. FindingDulcinea ’s education e-newsletter directs educators, parents and students to credible and quality online resources. Topics covered in recent weeks: theworld’s greatest libraries ; the original 13 British colonies ; and the history of basketball . School Library Journal’s Joyce Valenza reviewed and recommended the site : “What does findingDulcinea do right? It organizes. It evaluates. It creates context. It is conscious of design. It GETS media.” If you’re not able to visit findingDulcinea’s education section every day, have it come to yours: sign up for theeducation newsletter.

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.

Want LAMP in the fall?

We know it may seem like a long time away, but it is not too early to start thinking about LAMP workshops in the fall! Our calendar fills up quickly, and we need time to arrange for the resources we need. If you want your child’s school or community to host LAMP workshops,send us an email and we’ll be in touch!

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Gaslight: This Month in Media History

May 7, 1946: Tokyo Telecommunication
is formed, later renamed Sony.
May 19, 1912: The Associated Advertising Clubs of America held its first conference in Dallas, TX.
May 25, 1994: Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns home after a 20-year exile. He was expelled in when his three-volume work exposing the Soviet prison system, The Gulag Archipelago, was published in the West. It later won the Nobel Prize.