Contact: Emily Long, Communications Director
The LAMP
718-789-8170

http://www.thelampnyc.org

Financial Crisis May Be Tied To Lack of Media Education

“Deceptive” advertising misled consumers

New York, New York: The collapse of the subprime mortgage market may have been enabled by a media illiterate public, according to D.C. Vito, Executive Director of the LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project).

“Without a strong presence of media education in our schools and communities, consumers are easily lured by misleading advertisements,” says Mr. Vito. “When people are not thinking about the media around them, they don’t read the fine print and ask questions. The current situation is one example of how media education, consumer education and financial literacy are all linked.”

Michael Calhoun, director of the Center for Responsible Lending, has denounced ads from online mortgage lenders like lowermybills.com as “the classic definition of a deceptive ad.” However, the ads appear to persist; according to reports from Nielsen Online, the Financial Services industry maintained its position in Q2 2008 as the highest spender in online advertising. Online lending services also appear to remain popular, with current web traffic to eloan.com alone stabilized at around 250,000 unique visitors per month.

“We don’t expect companies to stop advertising,” continued Mr. Vito, “but we do believe in a media environment where consumers are making informed choices. Media literacy is crucial in helping people learn not to take everything they see at face value.”

Efforts by the LAMP to provide media education include workshops in which students break down an ad and then create one of their own, and others where they learn how to recognize persuasion techniques. All of the workshops are provided free of charge to participants, and reached over 130 students last year alone.

About The LAMP:
The Learning About Multimedia Project (The LAMP) is a non-profit organization which strives to provide critical media literacy skills to the inter-related groups of youths, their parents and educators throughout New York City. Free media education workshops and events offered by the LAMP demystify the constant flow of media these three groups encounter, bridge the digital divide, and provide workforce development skills for future generations. The LAMP is incubated by the Fund for the City of New York.

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For Immediate Release

Contact: Emily Long, Communications Director

The LAMP

718-789-8170

http://www.thelampnyc.org

The LAMP Announces LAMPlit Series

Resource guides offer real-world ideas for cyber-world issues

Brooklyn, New York: The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) launched the first volume in its LAMPlit series of multimedia resource guides, entitled “LAMPlit: A Beginner’s Guide to Going Online.” All of the guides in the LAMPlit series will be available for free download from the LAMP’s website at www.thelampnyc.org/lamplit. The guides are written and disseminated by the LAMP without corporate sponsorship.

The first guide focuses on helping adults and young people have a safe and positive experience online, and is released in coincidence with National Cyber Safety Awareness Month. During Symantec’s Norton Online Living Report in 2007, 1 in 5 children reported doing things online that their parents would disapprove of, while only 50% of parents have spoken to their kids about practicing safe online habits. One reason parents may be hesitant to get involved is because parents tend to hear more about the bad things that can happen online, says LAMP Executive Director D.C. Vito.

“The stories about online predators and cyberbullying tend to be the ones that get the most coverage,” says Mr. Vito. “It creates a culture of fear around the Internet and new media, and we’ve seen a lot of emphasis on the negative. We wanted to create a guide that is balanced and fair, that does not deny any of the bad things that potentially can happen online, but that also hits on the ways that the Internet is really a great thing. People just have to know what they’re doing.”

In addition to addressing privacy concerns, LAMPlit also aims to support parents who might avoid getting involved in their children’s online activities because new media can be overwhelming.

“It can be difficult for parents to start a conversation with their kids about what they’re doing online, but it’s absolutely imperative,” says Katherine Fry, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Media Studies at Brooklyn College and Education Director for the LAMP. “Too often, adults are intimidated by new technology, so they just ignore it. They miss using media as a chance to bring their family closer together instead of farther apart.”

All of the guides in the LAMPlit series will be available for free download from the LAMP’s website at www.thelampnyc.org/lamplit.Future LAMPlit guides will target gaming, social networking, Internet ethics, news, advertising and more.

About The LAMP:

The Learning About Multimedia Project (The LAMP) is a non-profit organization which strives to provide critical media literacy skills to the inter-related groups of youths, their parents and educators throughout New York City. Free media education workshops and events offered by the LAMP demystify the constant flow of media these three groups encounter, bridge the digital divide, and provide workforce development skills for future generations.

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Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679 or Susan Crawford, 202-669-0430

*OneWebDay Brings Internet Visionaries to New York City*

*Workshops for the Public, a Teach-in for Seniors and a Rally Starring Hon.
Gale Brewer, Sree Sreenivasan, Craig Newmark, John Perry Barlow, Tim
Westergren, Lawrence Lessig *

*and Others*

New York, NY – On the third annual “Earth Day for the Internet”, communities
across the country are holding events to learn about and advocate for that
marvel of modern infrastructure, the Internet. It happens in the United
States and around the world on OneWebDay, Monday, September 22, 2008, with
New York City, where it launched three years ago, the epicenter of this
year’s celebration.

“Earth Day was the model when I founded OneWebDay in 2006,” says Susan
Crawford, a professor of law specializing in Internet issues at the
University of Michigan.  ”In 1969, one man asked the people to do what their
elected representatives would not: take the future of the environment into
their own hands.” According to Crawford, “people’s lives now are as
dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy
supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted, and we
must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality
personally.”

The theme of this year’s OneWebDay is online participation in democracy,
coinciding with the U.S. elections, and that will be the central focus of
events in Washington, DC.

The online hub for OneWebDay 2008 is www.onewebday.org, but New York hosts
the biggest real world events on September 20 and 22, including a cyber-star
studded rally where audience members will text questions to the moderator.
All events are free and open to the public.

*New York City Events*

* *

*(1) WHAT*: Rally for the Internet Main Event

*WHEN*: Monday, September 22, 11:45 A.M. – 2 P.M.

*WHERE:* Washington Square Park Teen Plaza, W. 4th St. @ University Pl.

*WHO*: Susan Crawford, Founder of OneWebDay;

Hon. Gale A. Brewer, New York City Council;

Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism and WNBC-TV;

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora free Internet radio;

Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law and author of “Code V.2″;

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist;

Dharma Dailey, Research Director at Ethos Wireless consulting;

John Perry Barlow, founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation;

Andrew Baron, producer at Rocketboom video news blog;

Samuel J. Klein, Director of Community Content at One Laptop Per Child;
others TBA.

*Details at:* http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/New_York

*(2) WHAT*: Seniors Rally for Digital Inclusion, City Hall

*WHEN*: Monday, September 22, 11 A.M.

*WHERE*: New York City Hall, 260 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

*WHO*: Older Adults Technology Services (OATS)

*Details at:* http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/New_York

* *

*(3) WHAT*: Workshops on E-activism, E-journalism, E-citizenship

*WHEN*: Saturday, September 20, 2-4 P.M.

*WHERE*: NYU’s Courant Institute, 251 Mercer @ West 4th St., Rooms TBA

*WHO*: Katherine Fry, The LAMP, NYC – media literacy; Charles Lenchner,
DemocracyInAction – tools for nonprofits; Grassroots.org – easy website
building for nonprofits; NYC Wireless – build your own router, etc.; Fred
Benenson, Creative Commons; Dean Jansen, Open Video; Mike Verrilli -
Wikipedia; Mike Meyers – citizen journalism; Kevin Lee – SEO/Google Grants.

*Details at:*
http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/2008_Workshops_Planning

*(4) WHAT*: Tech Demos for Online Democratic Participation

*WHEN*: Saturday, September 20, 7-9 P.M.

*WHERE*: NYU’s Courant Institute, 251 Mercer, @ West 4th St., Room #101

*WHO*: Matt Cooperrider and other Grassroots Web experts

*Details at:* http://web.meetup.com/27/calendar/8642107/

*****

OneWebDay, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. It has a Board made up of
online luminaries (Doc Searls, David Weinberger, David Isenberg, Mary
Hodder), business people (Kaarli Tasso, Allison Fine, David Johnson, Rick
Whitt), a NYC PR person (Renee Edelman, Edelman), and a former state AG (Jim
Tierney, Maine). Its president is Susan Crawford, a professor at the
University of Michigan Law School. She is committed to working on this
holiday for the next seven years.