Media and Information Overload

Here are some treats from the Columbia Journalism Review. One of our tasks in this class is to consider not just how media impact messages--things we may wish to say or hear--but how media impact us, our thinking, and our relationships with other human beings.

The video clip below is a short description of the research Maggie Jackson is doing on our ability to pay attention to the world around us. Watch the clip and consider two different ways we can apply our mental energy: in a focused, precise way, or in a diffuse and complex way. We can think of it as the difference between meditation and multi-tasking.

The structure of digital media and the aggressive way advertising solicits our attention pulls our mind into a natural state of diffusion--our thoughts change rapidly, and no thought remains very long.

The above photo: Scientists quantifying the mental energy of a Buddhist monk meditating. source: TheBuddhistblog.blogspot.com

Ad Analysis Assignment

I've posted today's slides on Blackboard that deal with Wednesday's Ad Analysis assignment and the Radio as a Medium slides. The Ad Analysis is pretty straightforward if you just follow the format below:

1. Description:
–The medium of the ad (TV, print, radio, web...)
–The source of the ad (the TV station, or magazine, for example)
–All the elements that help tell the story of the ad
•Music (happy, sad, vocal, instrumental, genre….)
•Visual images (what objects, what style, colors…)
•Text (including fonts, size, location, information…)

2. Analysis
–Why is it constructed the way it is (how does the design of the ad help persuade the audience)
–Who is the targeted audience
–What is the argumentation form
•Logos (logical argument providing evidence)
•Ethos (persuasion based on someone’s reputation)
•Pathos (persuasion based on an emotional appeal)

3. Evaluation
–How well do you think the advertisement worked?
–Is the argument persuasive?
–What were the specific strengths of the ad?
–What could be improved?

More Resources

Once you open the floodgates to a topic like independent media--individuals telling their stories through film, radio, animation, music, and on and on--then it can be hard to stop passing along more material. Take a look below at a few sites which will not only give you access to great storytelling (and much of it by young adults), but the resources to create your own stories.

Everyone in this class has a compelling story to tell--one that would make us stop and think quietly about it, or would double us over in laughter, tears, or both--most likely both.

The world will be a better place to the extent that you tell these stories.

Your production assignment can be about anything. And it's just your next step in a longer series of stories to tell.

http://www.listenup.org/index.php

http://transom.org/

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

Two Things...

One:
I mentioned the link to Daniel Levitin's lecture on ideas from his book: This Is Your Brain On Music. The link is here:

http://content.digitalwell.washington.edu/msr/external_release_talks_12_05_2005/13826/lecture.htm

http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/



Two:
Here's a site to browse for production assignment inspiration. One of your classmates alerted me to Outta Your Backpack Media--take a look at their short films, made in the span of a few hours to a few days.

There's something comically satisfying about the phrase Revenge Tastes Like Panda. Say it a few times to someone you love.

http://www.indigenousaction.org/





While we're at it: check out the student-made media at Spy Hop Productions in Salt Lake:

http://www.spyhop.org/gallery.html

A great site for student video, audio and web-based media. Mother Superior was screened at Sundance in 2007.

Just in time for Chapter Three

Our next class discussions will revolve around recorded music. We'll discuss the music industry, recording technologies, and different genres of music.

When you get the opportunity, read through the Underground Hip-Hop paper that is new on Blackboard. Read it for the sake of appreciating the most globally dominant form of music, but also as an example of thinking deeply about a topic from pop culture. We have, in this class, the opportunity to write about cartoons, Johnny Cash albums, the social impact of the Halo video game series, or anything else that we can link to mass communications. However, a paper about country music or video games should be as well thought-out as a paper about the Spanish-American War or the role of ATP in photosynthesis.

Those of you who follow Hip-Hop will find the material to be a few years old, but it still does a great job of going beneath the surface. Your papers for this class don't have to be nearly so long, but they should show interest in the subject, be well-researched, and should allow the reader to walk away with a new perspective.

Happy reading.

This too...

Perhaps the most useful thing about this blog is the chance it gives me to shore up the gaps when I forget things in our class discussions. As we spoke about the Radio West broadcast, we covered some ideas about growth through new ideas, and that breaking down our tendency to cluster into comfortable groups can help us gain new points-of-view (or at least appreciate the humanity of those with opposing points-of-view).

What I forgot to go back to is something called consistency theory--which is the idea that despite our access to many different points-of-view in the media, and particuarly online, we tend to not choose to access those different ideas. Instead, we often return to what is known and what is comfortable. This isnt' to say we don't like new media messages--we consume them voraciously. But typically, we get 'new' messages from tried-and-true sources, with slight variance from what we think we'll like.

Example: If I have every Scorpions album ever printed and I'm starting to get bored of them, I may end up loading up on Iron Maiden MP3's. I may also end up buying the Guitar World magazine with Metallica on the cover, rather than Wired, Better Homes and Gardens, or Elle.

Of course, this is a generalization, like just about everything else we'll study. I noticed quite a few of you who combined vastly different musical genres and other wide-ranging ideas on your blogs. Just remember consistency theory as another way to talk about things general media audiences do generally.

5 key questions assignment

Select any media message from TV, radio, video games, recorded music or the web, and apply our 5 key questions (from the first weeks of class) to that message. Answer each of the five questions after giving each careful consideration and backing your answers up with outside quotes, statistics, etc. where appropriate.

1. Who created this message?
2. What techniques are used to attract my attention? How might the medium's rules of communication have impacted the message?
3. How might different people understand this message differently from me?
4. What lifestyles, values, or points-of-view are represented by this message? What have been omitted?
5. Why was this message sent?

Take a look at a sample I put on Blackboard. As you read through it, consider how well it answered the questions, and what could be improved.

You can pick any media message you wish for your assignment. Consider video games, recorded music, advertisements, magazine articles, etc. Pick something you are really interested in, or something you really aren't--something with which you fundamentally disagree. Picking something with which you are already bored won't make this any easier.

Whenever possible, do some research to answer questions that arise while you are working, and cite your sources.

Post, e-mail, submit to Blackboard, or bring to class by January 26th.

Have fun.