With the recent, untimely death of Michael Jackson, a very intriguing dialogue has emerged. While mentioning his passing, anchors on the news stations have included such names as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra. All icons that deservedly have their place in our cultural lexicon. However, their passing did not face the environment of social media and citizen journalism of which Mr. Jackson’s departure is now the target.

Reports that arrived immediately following the announcement of Jackson’s death flooded the airwaves (that term’s still relevant when referring to TV and the Internet together, right?). It was in fact via Twitter that we here at the LAMP first learned of this occurrence. It didn’t take long before these reports started to dissect this newly deceased man’s life, pulling up stories, images and videos of his various missteps and malfunctions off the stage. Somehow this was appropriate to mourning the loss of one of the biggest impacts in the last quarter century on our global culture - both entertainment-wise as well as with regards to humanitarian efforts. The public debate became one about his legacy - how it should be framed and what should be its content.

What now emerges, just as the wicks in the mourning candles lit last night in remembrance of this man start to cool, is another debate. What damage is news coverage of his passing doing to other important stories? Is his death newsworthy? In the wake of the protests in Iran, does the sidetracking of the focus the Western media had put on the uprisings harm the cause of the protesters (this of course presumes that media coverage in the West has helped the protesters and not hurt them)?

We do not take a particular position on this matter. Frankly, we’re delighted that people are even debating what is newsworthy and what isn’t. It speaks to a much more prevalent media literacy that exists, and it doesn’t escape our notice that the same media folks are choosing to participate in this polemic (social networks, Twitter) are the same ones that informed us of these current events to begin with.

We’ve been manning an account on Twitter since early 2008, and at first we were merely using it in our workshops to demonstrate to our students the different social media in the Web 2.0 arsenal. Gradually, over time, we started to use the platform to engage in conversations with others about our work but also about the subject of media literacy, which led to us trying to specifically address the medium of Twitter through Twitter itself. Through this implementation, we’ve discovered some incredibly dynamic and beneficial qualities to Twitter, however, none more than Twitter’s search function. Type any term you want, and you receive a realtime, updated stream of tweets from everyone who mentions that term in their tweet. Instantly, you can see what people all around the globe are saying through Twitter about “model airplanes” or “world cup 2010″. Recently, this function has served a much more prescient, geo-political purpose.

On Friday, general elections for Iranian President took place. Shortly after,  incumbent President Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, defeating his rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The reaction worldwide was astonishment and shock, but none more outraged than those within Iran’s borders. Gradually, demonstrations began to assemble on the streets of Tehran, growing in intensity, despite the threats of armed response from the government. Coinciding with these brave protesters, another demonstration has emerged on Twitter. Thousands of people are spreading information, links, pictures and other words of encouragement all with the hash tag of #iranelection, which means when you perform a Twitter search on that term, you can witness the constant stream of tweets it chains together. I encourage you to spend a few minutes reading through the long list of updates. It’s pretty incredible. You see hundreds and perhaps thousands of folks around the world using this “useless” medium to voice their support for those Iranians gathering to demand their voices heard and their votes counted.

While monitoring the events that are unfolding on Twitter (and on some other sites as well), several things occurred to me. Numerous messages are being forwarded about actions by the Iranian Government:

“They’re cutting off all connections now, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger Twitter..”

“CONFIRMED!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLEASE RT! URGENT!”

While monitoring this stream, I’ve encountered these repeated over and over by folks who probably have the kindest of intentions, but how do they possibly know that what they are spreading is accurate information? There have been several photos posted via TwitPic that depict some gruesome scenes, but again, how are we certain these photos are coming from these harrowing events? Another item was posted several times in Twitter that the BBC’s website had changed it’s colors to green in order to show solidarity with Mousavi’s supporters (”2mw: rt@omasciandaro: The BBC web site just went green in support of Iraninan opposition. Small gesture, huge message. Go green! #iranelection“). However, this isn’t true. The BBC’s website has been these colors for a long while.

We asked several questions on Twitter about this subject:

-How many of you are following #iranelection? How many of those tweets w/that label can you trust? What % need to be dismissed? % heeded?

-Twitter + #iranelection = first Internet uprising? http://bit.ly/ZQYDc But who’s in command? Are there guiding principles?

-How do you trust the “factual” ones? are those twitpics really pics of #iranelection? Who’s factchecking?

While this is by no means a statistically significant sampling, the only responses we got to our questions were of the nature that factchecking, guidance and critical analysis weren’t important to what was being attempted through Twitter. This response brings up a whole bunch of other questions: What constitutes an uprising? Do these well-intentioned folks really understand Iranian politics and the positions Mousavi held in the election?

Maybe we’re seeing the first Internet uprising, and perhaps other uprisings also dealt with this amount of misinformation being disseminated, but one thing is for sure: Twitter is more than just telling others about the chili cheese dog you had for lunch.

I forgot how much fun it is to do show and tell.  As a first grader I loved to bring something special from home to show my classmates:  something I made, something I thought was interesting, or sometimes any old thing at all, just so I could command their attention while I nattered on enthusiastically at the front of the classroom about the little bag or rock or book I brought from home.  What a rush that was.

 The LAMP got to do a show and tell of our own last week at Media Conversations IV, a media literacy/media education conference held at several venues in Manhattan from June 4-6.  Our show and tell was at Fordham, Lincoln Center from 1-3 pm on Saturday afternoon.  Conference organizers Lance Strate of Fordham University and David Walczyk of Pratt Institute invited us to be part of a conference that included pretty much a who’s who of media literacy, media education and media ecology scholars in the New York City and surrounding area. 

 We just loved telling our audience what the LAMP has been doing for the past two years, and showing them a selection of videos from our media scavenger hunt, our advertising, documentary and news workshops, and from other special events (all available on our youtube channel).  We even got to whine a bit about the challenges we’ve faced trying to bring an enlightened, reasoned media literacy education to our fellow New York families, educators and the like. 

 On the one hand our show and tell was a great way to strut our stuff for educators for whom I have deep respect, and on the other it was a wonderful chance to reflect on all that we’ve been able to accomplish on a shoe-string. 

 Our particular show and tell was flanked by two spectacular panels that same day at Fordham.  The morning panel consisted of panelists working on media literacy issues internationally.  It was a most impressive presentation and discussion about the media literacy work Hofstra University’s Paul Mihailidis is doing at the Salzburg Institute, that Holly Morganelli of Pratt and Sister Mary Bosco Amakwe of Seton Hall have done in Africa, and that Jordi Torrent is doing via the Media Literacy Education Project through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. 

 The panel following ours included esteemed media literacy pioneer Renee Hobbs of Temple University, Dan Latorre, Martin Levinson, Bill Petkanas, and Thom Gencarelli.  With their opening remarks, the five of them, an interesting mix of academics, consultants and a former President of the Institute of General Semantics, set the stage for an inspiring philosophical conversation about the direction of media growth, how we talk about and think about media across generations, and how all of us, as educators in one sense or another, face amazing challenges in our quest to come to terms with what media are and what they will become. 

 I was flattered that the LAMP had the chance to showcase our media-literacy-on-the- ground amongst this stellar group.  What a rush.

Katherine G. Fry

In my last writing here on LAMPpost, I talked about how my husband and I are in the process of moving and decided to get rid of our old television set. Like many other people, though, we have much more than a TV that we need to dispose of. As we went through our things, we found various random electronic items like old routers, phone cords, frayed extension cords, chargers and the like. We’ve set this e-waste aside (I call it my e-landfill) and yesterday I started looking for e-waste dropoff sites and Department of Sanitation events where I can bring a shopping bag full of stuff to one place and know that it will all be taken care of–reused, recycled, whatever. But, I came across a disturbing piece of news: All of these events, which were coordinated with the DSNY, private companies and nonprofits, have been cancelled until further notice due to budget cuts.

Of course there are alternatives. I can take my stuff to EplanetEwaste and pay for the convenience of more or less handing them a bag of stuff and walking away. One excellent option is to bring unwanted e-waste to the Lower East Side Ecology Center, although their e-waste events are currently on hold until September. Another is RecycleThis!, which was formed in 2002 in response to Mayor Bloomberg’s recycling program budget cuts, but their event calendar is empty. Outside of that, I can investigate buyback or donation programs for every individual piece of e-waste I’ve stockpiled.  This can be done, but it’s time-consuming and inconvenient for me to have to make separate trips for each item.

That’s not necessarily an excuse not to recycle my e-waste, but what I hate is that it is at all difficult. A densely-populated city like New York, where mp3 players, laptops and cell phones can seem like standard issue items, should make it as easy as possible for me and everyone else to make responsible choices. I could just stuff it all in a garbage can; that won’t be illegal until July 2010. PLANYC has a lot of great ideas for reducing carbon emissions, but–and please correct me if I am wrong–basic recycling isn’t part of it. I understand that nobody likes making budget cuts, but it’s counterproductive to try to build a healthy city in a modern age where electronics recycling is not sponsored or more widely promoted by the city. Let’s hope that when the downturn starts to turn up, the DSNY e-waste programs will be restored.

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?

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).

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.

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

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