Mass Media and Society

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

2007-12-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

We've studied 16 categories of First Amendment law this semester. Choose the one that interest you the most. Pick one case . Read the original court opinion for each case. (You might find it on the Internet, or you can go to the library and ask the librarian to help you.) Look up scholarly and/or periodical articles about the case. Read them. Write an essay of 1000-1200 words about the case, why it's important and what can be learned from it. Please use APA style and attach a bibliography. Please use at least three sources besides the court opinion. Due by 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12. E-mail to me.

CONSIDER EUROSPRING 08

2007-05-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

I HOPE YOU WILL THINK ABOUT EUROSPRING 08 AS A POSSIBILITY IN YOUR ACADEMIC FUTURE. I WILL BE THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR NEXT SPRING, AND THIS TRIP SHOULD BE THE BEST ONE EVER!!

Eurospring was the first study abroad program at BSU, begun in 1979. Having done the trip two times, I can personally attest to its high quality and its power as a life-changing experience. You leave in mid-March for five weeks of study at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, England. Then you travel to Paris to begin an incredible 3-week tour of central Europe, including Switzerland, Florence, Rome, Venice, Austria and Germany. You earn 15 credits for the two months of the program. Financial aid is available. The cost will be approximately $6000, which includes airfare, most meals, accommodations, etc. All you need is spending money. Tuition is extra. That may sound like a lot of money (and it is!); however, keep in mind that you could never do such a two-month trip to Europe on your own for that price. In addition, the value of this experience appreciates over the years, unlike a $6000 car, for example, which depreciates the moment you leave the car lot.

We are having an informational meeting Wednesday, May 2 at 3 p.m. in HS 112. If you can't make that meeting, contact me for more information, or next year's academic director, Prof. Pat Donnay (pdonnay@bemidjistate.edu) or LaMae Ritchie in the International Program Center in Deputy 103 (lritchie@bemidjistate.edu).

Also keep in mind that the Eurospring head lecturer, Prof. Allan Chapman of Wadham College in Oxford, will be here September 24 for his annual lecture. He's the most dynamic lecturer you'll ever meet and that experience may help you make that decision. Watch for more information on that even when classes resume in the fall.

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY!!

2007-05-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Attend this event. Write a 500-word summary and response that a) proves you were there and b) discusses how such a live event is different from mass communication and c) tells what you learned.

Gary Clayton Anderson, Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma,
will speak on Monday, May 7, at 7 pm in the American Indian Resource Center.
His talk, entitled "Ethnic Cleansing & American Indians," is free and open
to the public. Faculty should encourage their students to attend.

Professor Anderson is a preeminent scholar of American Indian history. His
book, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land,
1820‑1875 (2005) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and his other works
include studies of the Dakota in Minnesota and biographies of Sitting Bull
and Little Crow.

If anyone has questions, contact Tom Murphy in the History Dept at 4355 or
jmurphy@bemidjistate.edu.

The lecture is sponsored by the College of Arts and Letters, College of
Professional Studies, Indian Studies, Department of Education, Department of
History, and Department of Sociology & Social Work.

ASSIGNMENT FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 27

2007-03-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

Read the following article and be prepared for a brief quiz about it:

"A State's Files Put Doctors' Ties To Drug Makers on Close View: Debating Whether Payments Affect Patient Care"
By Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts
The New York Times
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Page A1

EXTRA CREDIT -- FILM FESTIVAL!!

2007-03-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

See the link on this blog for the 2nd Annual Northern Lights Indigenous and Independent Film Festival right here in Bemidji. Volunteer or attend at least 2 hours of the festival and write up a 500-word report for extra credit points.

ONE MORE EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY!!

2007-03-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

TO EARN YOUR EXTRA CREDIT POINTS, ATTEND THE EVENT AND WRITE A 500-WORD SUMMARY AND RESPONSE. THIS SHOULD BE VERY INTERESTING!!!

Jentz to Tell Survivor’s Story March 26
3/13/2007

26
BREAKING THE SILENCE CONFERENCE SPEAKER FEATURES
SURVIVOR TELLING OF 15-YEAR SEARCH FOR ATTACKER

On June 27, 1977, college students Terri Jentz and friend Shayna Weiss were seven days into an 80-day bicycle trip across the United States.

They never made it back on their bikes for day eight.

That evening, a stranger in a high-clearance pickup drove over their tent as they slept in a state park in Cline Falls, OR. After exiting the vehicle, the man in western cowboy attire attacked them with an ax, and disappeared into the night.

Both Weiss and Jentz survived, but carried scars for the rest of their lives.

On March 26, Jentz will tell attendees of the Breaking the Silence Conference at Bemidji State University of her 15-year journey to uncover the facts of that June evening as she searched for and eventually confronted her alleged attacker. Her session is scheduled during the 4-8 p.m. evening program.

The presentation will take place as part of the March 25-26 conference to build a civil community through the comprehension, education and prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault. Open free to participants, Breaking the Silence will be held in the American Indian Resource Center and Hagg-Sauer Hall on the BSU Campus.

Jentz, plagued by memories and the knowledge that no one was ever arrested for the crime, returned to the scene of the attack in 1992 to, “solve the crime that would solve me.”

Through extensive interviews over many visits, she discovered a small community traumatized by the violence that had cost Jentz her youth. Along the way, she came to terms with the wounds that broke her life and ultimately found herself face-to-face with the alleged assailant.

Her story became a best-selling book, “Strange Piece of Paradise,” that both reflects on the violence and the myth of American individualism as well as records a brave journey from violence to truth.

The Breaking the Silence conference has been designed for victims, volunteers and students as well as professionals in law enforcement, health care fields, advocacy roles, and education. The schedule includes panels and individual talks on sexual assault, abuse, surviving, rape, and legal issues.

The event is co-sponsored by the Sexual Assault Programs of Beltrami, Cass and Hubbard counties; Anishinabe Legal Services; and Bemidji State University’s Women’s Studies Program, Criminal Justice Department, Social Work Program, Psychology Department, Counseling Center, Student Health Services, and Women’s Center.

ANOTHER EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY

2007-03-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

FOR EXTRA CREDIT, ATTEND THIS EVENT AND WRITE A SUMMARY AND RESPONSE OF AT LEAST 500 WORDS

Irony in Film is Topic of March 21 Lecture
2/20/2007

IRONY IN FILM IS TOPIC OF
MARCH 21 HONORS LECTURE

Virgil Bakken will explore the use of irony in film as social criticism during a March 21 Honors Lecture in room 112 of Hagg-Sauer Hall at Bemidji State University.

The 7 p.m. program is open to the public at no charge.

An assistant professor of mass communication at BSU, Bakken feels ironic humor in film is one of the most effective tools for understanding today’s values and norms.

“Currently, cinema serves as the primary mode of communal storytelling in American popular culture,” he said. “Therefore, exploring the use of irony in film as social criticism is quite valuable in understanding how we view life in these United States.”

During the lecture, Bakken will address film irony as a tool for translating real-life experience, as a vehicle for understanding cultural values within an increasingly post-modern society, and as a communal space that promotes mutual understanding.

Bakken joined the BSU faculty in 2005 after a career as a screenwriter, producer and director in broadcast and film. He is the owner and operator of Montage Creative Group, a network of media professionals working together to promote local and international non-profit and human service organizations through film and digital media.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communications from Evangel University in Springfield, MO, and a master of arts in film from Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. He is currently enrolled in the doctoral program at Regent University.

Sponsored for 32 years by the Honors Program, Honors Lectures are designed to cultivate interest and promote discourse among faculty, staff, students and the public.

More information is available by contacting the Honors Program, Hagg-Sauer Hall, Bemidji State University, 1500 Birchmont Drive NE, Bemidji, MN 56601-2699 (218-755-3984).

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY!!!

2007-03-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

TO EARN EXTRA CREDIT, ATTEND THIS EVENT AND WRITE UP A SUMMARY AND RESPONSE OF AT LEAST 500 WORDS.

The College of Social and Natural Sciences, the Criminal Justice Department and the Psychology Department have joined together to sponsor an important offering. Susan Macpherson from the National Jury Project--Midwest will be coming to BSU on March 26th for a presentation on jury work. She has been conducting jury research as a staff member of the National Jury Project since 1976. She is a founding member and Vice-President of National Jury Project's Midwest Regional Office. Ms. Macpherson specializes in research on jury decision making in complex civil and criminal cases. Her other current professional activities include chairing the American Society of Trial Consultants' committee on Jury Trial Innovations, and working with national and state bar organizations on those issues.

The National Jury Project is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1973 to conduct jury research and to advise attorneys on a variety of issues including: case presentation strategies, venue surveys, voir dire and jury selection procedures, and procedures designed to improve juror comprehension. National Jury Project staff members have been qualified as experts on venue surveys and voir dire procedures in state and federal courts.

Bemidji State University is extremely fortunate to have Ms. Macpherson here to present information on various topics, including current statewide practices and policies related to jury selection and function. She brings with her great experience in jury work, tremendous knowledge of the legal system and a desire to share her understanding with interested students and faculty.

The presentation will be held from 6:00-7:30/8:00 in Hagg-Sauer, room 100. All students, faculty and the public are welcome.

NOTE: Final Exam Time

2007-03-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

The final exam will be Thursday, May 10 at 10 a.m.

FINAL PAPER TOPIC NOT DUE UNTIL MARCH 9

2007-02-28T19:22:00.000-08:00

Please hand in your topic idea the last day before spring break. We will respond when you return with our take on whether you're on the right track or not. We will also be available to consult with you during April while you're working on it. We look forward to reading what you have to say!

THE GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB

2007-02-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

Only one person in class thought this documentary did NOT qualify as alternative media. His reasons? HBO is a subscription ENTERTAINMENT channel aimed at a targeted audience, not a broad one; and the structure of the movie is very traditional. It breaks no new ground.

One person expressed a bit of doubt, but everyone else was pretty certain. Your reasons? In order of how often they were mentioned:

1. Treats viewers as citizens, not primarily consumers
2. Not made primarily for profit
3. Challenges the status quo, specifically the policy of the US Government and/or our attitudes toward the US military and war
4. Goes beyond or in a different direction than conventional media coverage
5. Interested not just in facts, but in finding out the truth even though it might be unpopular
6. Exposes truths we don't necessarily want to know -- "harsh" things
7. Unbiased
8. Biased
9. Uses ordinary people on both sides of the war as sources
10. Tries to educate

Interesting comments:

"I had no idea this place existed."

“If Rumsfeld watched this, he’d turn Miller loose on those who participated in its production.”

FINAL PAPER GUIDELINES

2007-02-11T15:46:00.001-08:00

Final Research Paper due Monday, May 14 by noon. Please drop off either at my office (Bg 214) or in my mailbox in Bg 201. We will not accept e-mailed papers except in true emergencies.

This paper should be a reflection on the questions addressed in this course:

*How is each of us individually being affected by these thousands of hours of messages received by the mass media every year?
*How is our society being affected by these same messages?
*How, if at all, can we control these effects?
*What, if any, power do we have to affect the media promulgating these messages?
*If we do have any power to affect the media, to what end do we want to use that power?

You should pick a topic, and then try to answer these questions using the assigned readings, including the New York Times. (Please do NOT discard your newspapers as you use them!) For example, you should choose a specific kind of message (i.e., advertising, horror films, news, reality TV, etc.) Then discuss the effects; then discuss how you as an individual and how society can control these effects. Please use APA style and include a page listing all your references. You are expected to use AT LEAST 25 different sources. For example, you might reference 8 references from the two books we read in class, and 17 different articles or ads or photos from the New York Times. Minimum length: 1500 words. Your paper should have a title and subtitle.

Examples:

1. What kinds of messages am I getting about the war in Iraq from the Times? How many messages am I getting? How am I affected by these messages? How do I think society is being affected? How can I control these effects? What is my purpose in doing this?

2. What kinds of message am I getting about what’s important enough in the news to be in the front-page photo of the Times? How am I affected by these messages? How do I think society if being affected? How can I control these effects? What is my purpose in doing this?

Topic due: end of February
Hypothesis due: end of March

Katie Carter and I are available to meet with you individually if you need help with your paper during the month of April. Please e-mail one or both of us to set up an appointment if you wish.

TIMES TALK

2007-01-29T20:54:00.001-08:00

Don't forget! Mondays at noon in the Scandinavian Room -- Free lunch if you bring your Times to discuss the news. E-mail me to sign up by Monday morning, and I'll send you the topic for that week.

What Concerns You About Mass Media?

2007-01-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

MASC 1100 Responds
Spring ‘07
It’s hard not to come in contact with mass media today!
It will only keep growing. It’s possible to find any kind of information you need, mainly through the Internet. . .The possibilities are endless.
Media seem to be taking a wrong turn. . .
They are focused on too many negative things. Yes, there is a war going on, but I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear about Paris Hilton anymore as well. If we are going to talk about something negative like global warming, let’s turn it to some-thing positive, like how to get rid of the problem.
Mass media is making our world smaller
Not in a physical sense, but by making it easier to communicate and spread information to other areas of the world. What other countries are doing and how they are utilizing their information and resources affects our economy as well.
Dependence on new media
More traditional forms of mass media will become obsolete. There will be no more use for paper newspapers, free radio, etc. Eventually, our lives will be consumed by electronics.
Good and bad influence
When media are abused and become corrupt and do not portray the truth. . .when they are biased. . .
The media these days are going to hell, in my opinion
All you see is people dying in the war in Iraq. There is nothing but negativity. It’s no wonder that our generation seems so lost and hopeless. The media also have some part in our recent childhood obesity rates. . .Mass media have made us lazy.
I use the Internet to avoid public contact
Yet I can retain as much worldly information as possible. My cell phone alerts keep me posted when new occurrences develop and I need to “plug back in.” I’ve become dependent on my “artificial” friend. I would be lost without him.
In today’s society, fast and easy is what everyone is looking for
However, I fear that through such convenient ways of gathering information, we’re losing a sense of culture. Nobody is in touch with anyone because we’re so in touch with machines. Our machines run our lives. I wish people still took the time to interact with each other.
Money has a lot to do with mass media
I don’t have a cell phone, Internet or cable. I am out of touch.
I have actually taken this class before (years ago), and it is surprising how little I must have learned because I don’t really remember anything. It should be interesting to see what I do remember and what is new.
Privacy
My concern is that soon there will be no privacy in anyone’s life. Also, that withholding any important information from certain people will soon be impossible and many people’s lives could be financially ruined.
The Internet and TV
I think I look at both forms of media with my guard up because the press seems to twist things in order to get the reaction that they are hoping for.
I think mass media are great
They give more people information anytime and anywhere they want. Some down points are that people depend on such things and it could lead to laziness and lack of exercise.
I am a big user of the Internet
The Internet is getting to the point where it’s almost scary. Everything is found on-line, whether it’s right or wrong. Newspapers and magazines are going by the wayside, but are, for the most part, more reliable than the Internet.
I greatly dislike commercials
So I rarely watch TV or listen to the radio. I use the Internet if I need to find something. I would like to figure out how and why our nation got to where it is.
Newspapers and radio are so optionless
I find them non-individual and also too mainstream for me to enjoy. Although television has its limits and is also a mainstream-fueled machine, there are more options on what kind of shows and channels are available to choose. MySpace is a nice vessel for my need to interact with like-minded people.
The mass media isa good thing
It helps get the main points out to the public. Sometimes mass media can be bad because it might persuade people to something different from what they believe in.
I enjoy the whole idea of the mass media
I think it brings the whole world together and makes faraway places seem like they’re right next door.
What I don’t like about the mass media
It can corrupt things that used to be free of it. It takes advantage of certain things in life which should be free of mass promotion and uses its popularity to get messages across to large audiences. I do find the advancement of cellular technology fascinating. I like the artform behind the media.
Soon there will be no free media
TV and radio are going to be on-line for a price. Regular broadcast media will meet the same fate as the newspaper industry: on-line subscriptions.
There is so much information available
It makes it too easy to do things like steal people’s identities.
News channels don’t always correctly portray stories
For example, if a car falls through the ice, then all ice is automatically unsafe.
I don’t really like things like MySpace
People become obsessed with it and need to check their accounts 20 times a day. Also, I wish that more positive stories would be heard on the news. Usually it is nothing but negative stories.
I don’t like the media
It’s nothing but a huge smear campaign. I get sick of hearing about how many soldiers died today or which celebrity is cheating on whom. After all the b.s. news stories, the last article I read was “Iran continues nuclear program.” I think that should be more important than Paula Abdul being drunk at an interview.
I like Internet, TV, radio, newspapers & magazines
I don’t like tabloid newspapers and magazines, but still find myself buying them for something to do.
I enjoy the Internet
But it’s starting to get too crowded. So many people are filling the Internet with rumors or personal opinions that look like facts that it makes credible sources harder to find.
Not all media are appropriate for children
Another concern: teenage girls today. They base whey they are “supposed” to look like from the media. Not exactly the best representation of “normal” people. Another concern: much of what you hear or see is cold, hard facts. Most of it has some sort of bias -- the coverage of the war, for example. We do not hear everything.
I don’t really like the media
It’s too liberal.
Print media
My concern is that it will disappear. It is my passion. I love picking up a newspaper and reading it. I don’t know what the world would be like without it. I’m also concerned about what is shown on TV. . .violence, sex, social problems, etc.
My concern
Reporters get too involved with the political system and vice versa.
Another concern I have is infotainment. I don’t like it.
I’m not quite sure what to think
About all this new technology and mass media. I don’t understand it all, so hopefully, by the end of this course, I’ll have more of a thought about it.
What bothers me
Almost every mass media is a business. So they tell you stories you WANT to hear, not the ones you NEED to hear. So you keep giving them money so they can make profits. It’s all about money.

SYLLABUS: MASC 1100 (Spring '07)

2006-12-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

Syllabus for MASC 1100: Mass Media and Society
Spring 2007, 10:00-11:40 TTh, HS 102 (Class ends March 29 except for final exam)

Instructor: Louise Mengelkoch Grad Asst: Katie Carter
Lmengelkoch@bemidjistate.edu kudracarter@hotmail.com
Office Hrs.: TTh 1-5 & by appointment Office Hrs.: By Appointment
Office: Bg 214 Office: Bg 214
Phone: 755-3358 Phone: 755-3358
Overview:
"According to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, in 1999 the average American spent 3,405 hours -- the equivalent of 142 days or 85 40-hour work weeks -- consuming mass media messages."
Annual Editions: Mass Media 05/06

“Given the accelerated rate of media expansion and fragmentation, some industry executives have begun wondering whether we could reach a point where there simply is too much media. Not necessarily too much from a marketplace point of view, but from the perspective of consumers who might become oversaturated with the number of media options available. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case. According to a wide variety of studies, the more media that's available to them, the more time consumers spend with media.”
(From an e-mail news update sent to your instructor)
*********************
The mass media are the means used to communicate messages to large numbers of connected, interdependent people, which we call society. The interplay between this communication and the recipients of these messages is complex. There was a time when this process was considered to be a one-way street: that is, there was little or no feedback from society to the media, or if so, the effect was minimal.

We know now that is not the case, and the situation has become even more dynamic, even volatile, given the continuing emergence of new technologies and our ability to process feedback and respond to it. For example, the 24-hour news cycle, along with the sophisticated techniques used in polling and other audience analysis has created a faster and faster looping process that can be both overwhelming and frustrating to the deliberative process necessary for a democracy.

You all have had a lot of experience with the mass media, whether you realize it or not. What you may not have, however, is a broader framework for understanding how and why it affects you and everyone else the way it does. With that in mind, we will be exploring the answers to the following questions through readings, discussion and our own research:

*How is each of us individually being affected by these thousands of hours of messages?
*How is our society being affected by these same messages?
*How, if at all, can we control these effects?
*What, if any, power do we have to affect the media promulgating these messages?
*If we do have any power to affect the media, to what end do we want to use that power?

Required texts and supplies:

*At Ground Zero: 25 Stories From Young Reporters Who Were There, ed. by Chris Bull and Sam Erman, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002, ISBN: 1-56025-427-0

*The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, 1967 (re-published by Gingko Press in 2001), ISBN: 1-58423-070-3

*M-F subscription to the New York Times (available through campus bookstore). Sign up immediately.

Please check the COURSE BLOG on a regular basis (www.masc1100.blogspot.com). This is where we will post your syllabus, any PowerPoint presentations used in class, quiz assignments, any changes to our schedule and other important information, including extra-credit opportunities.

The New York Times:
You will often be assigned a quiz question about something in a recent edition of the Times. If you miss class, check the blog, because I will post any quiz questions there.

Jan. 23, 25, 30; Feb. 1, 6:
Living With Media (or Without Media) -- That is the Choice
Topics for discussion: the meaning of literacy, media violence, children and the media, McLuhan’s theory of electronic media and its effects on us, other social issues related to entertainment media

*Media avoidance exercise: Try to avoid as much mass media as possible for any three consecutive days before Feb. 1. You will write about the experience in class Feb. 1.

*Read: The Medium is the Massage, by Marshall McLuhan. Be prepared for quiz Feb. Jan. 30.

Feb. 8, 13, 15, 20:
Covering (or not covering) the News
Topics for discussion: the definitions of news, tabloid news, investigative reporting, political coverage, international reporting, war reporting, TV news vs. print vs. radio, news you need vs. news you want, why you should care

*Read: assigned stories in Bull and Erman

Feb. 22 and 27:
Players and Guides: who owns what and how it affects you
Topics for discussion: media ownership, regulatory policy, legal rulings and ethical guidelines

March 1 and 6:
Alternative Media -- Is there a way around the corporate stranglehold?
Topics for discussion: Definition of alternative media, origins, cultural and societal significance, examples. This could open up a whole new world to you! Stay tuned.

*Read and view alternative media sources as assigned.

March 12-16: Spring Break

March 8, 20, 22: A Word From Our Sponsor
Topics for discussion: financial backers, advertising, media content

March 27: The Shape of Things to Come: What are your predictions?
Topics for discussion: new media technologies, changing landscape of mass media form, consumption and regulation, where we fit in.

Final Research Paper due Monday, May 14 by noon. Please drop off either at my office (Bg 214) or in my mailbox in Bg 201. We will not accept e-mailed papers.

This paper should be a reflection on the questions addressed in this course:

*How is each of us individually being affected by these thousands of hours of messages?
*How is our society being affected by these same messages?
*How, if at all, can we control these effects?
*What, if any, power do we have to affect the media promulgating these messages?
*If we do have any power to affect the media, to what end do we want to use that power?

You should pick a topic, and then try to answer these questions using the assigned readings, including the New York Times. (Please do NOT discard your newspapers as you use them!) For example, you should choose a specific kind of message (i.e., advertising, horror films, news, reality TV, etc.) Then discuss the effects; then discuss how you as an individual and how society can control these effects. Please use APA style and include a page listing all your references. You are expected to use AT LEAST 25 different sources. For example, you might reference 8 different essays in the Gorham textbook, 4 references from the other two books we read in class, and 13 different articles or ads or photos from the New York Times. Minimum length: 2000 words.

Final exam time: Thursday, May 10 at 10 a.m.

Attendance is of the utmost importance. Every day in class you will have a short quiz. It might be on assigned readings, a response to a class presentation or film, or some other kind of reflection. The quiz may be given at the beginning of class, in the middle or at the end. Each day I will tell you what material will be covered in the quiz question for the next class. If you keep up with the readings you should have no problem. We will discuss which sections of the New York Times it is important to read each day.

If you come late to class you will not have time to take the beginning-of-class writing assignment. If you leave class early you will not have time to take the end-of-the-class writing assignment. In other words, punctuality and attendance and keeping up with the daily work is most of your grade. There is no way to make up this work outside of class, unless you are absent because of a school-sponsored activity or a medical or family emergency. Documentation must be provided in order to make up points in such cases. If you know you will have trouble with attendance, I suggest you drop the course.

You will have a number of opportunities for extra credit points. They may be announced in class or posted to my webpage. You may earn up to a total of 5 extra credit points for the semester.

Grading:
91-100 points = A
81-90 points = B
71-80 points = C
61-70 points = D
Fewer than 61 points = F

Possible Points to be Earned:
Daily quiz and/or reflection questions 60 points
Final Research Paper 25 points
Final 15 points

Upon request, this document can be made available in alternative formats. Please contact the Department of Mass Communication at 755-2915 for assistance.

A WORD ABOUT SLEEP-DEPRIVATION, HANDWRITING, ETIQUETTE:
I do not allow sleeping during class time. If I see you sleeping, I will ask you to leave. This is college, and you do not receive credit for seat time. Enough said. You will be writing a lot in class. This means with a pen and paper. If I can’t read your handwriting, you will not receive credit for the great answers you give. If you have terrible handwriting, consider purchasing a copy of Handwriting for Dummies (I’m assuming there is such a book1) and start practicing. Also, please don’t hand in notebook paper with ragged edges, and do not write in pencil. No need to double-space. You may also write on both sides of the paper.

If you arrive late to class or if you need to leave early, please try to enter and leave the room with as little disruption as possible. It would be greatly appreciated.

9/11: A Documentary by James Hanlon and Ron Klug

2006-10-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

9/11
Was it objective?
How do you define a documentary?
MASC 1100: Fall 2006 Responses
Was it objective?
Yes or mostly so: 29 No or mostly not: 25
Objective: Having actual existence or reality
Uninfluenced by emotion, surmise or personal prejudice, presented factually
Based on observable phenomena
Bias: An uninformed or unintentional preference or inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment; prejudice
Source: American Heritage Dictionary, 2d Ed.
How is a documentary different from news?
More personal and emotional
More detailed, more thorough
More in-depth, more opinions shown
Truthful, biased, artful, has a point of view, has characters, edited
Tells a story, gets you involved, told from within, shows instead of tells
Narrator, not an anchor
Excellent insight #1
“News is designed to update, to give us a look at the world. A documentary is designed to preserve something -- facts, events, emotions. I would say news exists in a state of flux and documentaries are stabilized, congealed news.”
Excellent insight #2
“Straight news is fact. A documentary is not as objective as straight news. An individual’s feelings may not be the actual truth of the matter, but how they feel at a given moment. Straight news are facts that happen in our world, not people’s feelings.”
Excellent insight #3
“It was different from straight news because it wasn’t about facts and numbers; it was about people and situations.”

“McLuhan’s Wake” notes

2006-04-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” (Kirkegaard)

The E. A. Poe theory (“The Maelstrom”)
We must free ourselves from “oblivion” by abandoning our ship and “studying the action” of the maelstrom. That way we survive.

“The human vortices of energy created by our media present similar possibilities of evasion, consequences and destruction. By studying the pattern of the effects, it may be possible to program a strategy of evasion and survival.”

The four big questions
What will this technological tool enhance?
What will this technological tool obsolesce?
What will this technological tool retrieve from all the things we’ve lost?
How will this technological tool reverse on you when it’s pushed to its outer limit?

“The things you make, they mimic you”
Every tool extends your body, your senses, your mind, your fingernails, your skin

Containers extend your arms

The chair extends your bone and spine

Tools change the way you touch and are touched

The alphabet extends the eye

The printing press extends the alphabet

Literacy
Literacy marches steadily in the direction of classifying data.
Highly sequential, rigid: We arrange our whole lives this way without being aware of this

The visual (literate) world is connected, homogeneous, rational, logical, private, individualistic, civilized, integrated

The myth of Narcissus
Narcissism means narcosis, numbness, drugged
That image outside himself was something else; he did NOT fall in love with himself

We are just like him
We don’t think gadgetry is just a part of ourselves

When we extend a new part of ourselves into a new technology, we protect ourselves by numbing that area. Why?

Who was the real McLuhan?
He had to go back and study everything from the beginning
Loved literacy, civilization, literature
He came to believe the history of culture was the struggle between three alternate ways of looking:
Rhetoric, logic and grammar
Grammarians look at the world as a book

More on McLuhan
Intensely religious -- Catholic
Believe in two books:
the Bible and the World
When he started teaching, he realized he was a “dweeb”
The way to get their attention was to show them things they thought they knew and show them they didn’t

What did he want?
“I’d like to be in any period as long as we stay in it for awhile. I’m opposed to all change, but I want to understand it. Anything I talk about is something I’m resolutely against, but the best way to understand it is to study it.”

The maelstrom
Poe’s story is about a place that’s always moving, and you’re being massaged, but you don’t know how. You can’t stand back. You can’t see the pattern.

Something ventured, something lost
You do away with the ancient rhythms of day and night every time you flick on an electric light. This environment alters all human affairs. Do you still recall the mystery of the dark?

The Internet?
“What we’ve done is put our nervous systems outside ourselves globally and stuffed our physical selves inside. Every private operator can own a hunk of our nervous system. He can stand on our eyes, nose and manipulate them. We now have media that use up all our senses and we have no education to cope.”

Back to the tribal cycle
We’ve become involved with each other. It’s anarchy. The right hemisphere is “way up.” The “old left hemisphere” world looks very foolish.
Not everything about tribalism is positive
The world is now like a continually sounding tribal drum where everybody gets the message at the same time
Our ancestors lived in a mythic world because they had no literate means of classification
Jeans are a tribal costume

Wins and losses
Speech retrieves old stories as adventures -- much more than when they were lived
The things you used to to just get by come back to you as art
The more you get the faster you go -- The more you strive to retrieve a time before any you have ever known.

Bonanza-land
If you’re curious about the future, study the present because what we see is really what appears in the rear-view mirror. Content is always the previous medium and that is all that we can see. We can’t look straight at the present. It’s too terrifying. We look at the wake and we see troubled waters. We live by the revival. It tells us who we are -- or were.

The individual
The user of electronic media loses his privacy and physical body
TV is a serious, inner medium. You are the vanishing point. It’s a trip.
Technological determinism: the machines make the rules
When everybody becomes totally involved in everybody else, how is one to establish identity?

The laws of media
There ARE laws, and if we can discover them, we can control the media
Be able to answer the four questions about every technology and act on the answers
We MUST disengage in order to stand back and see how the media work
We need to develop a media ecology or equilibrium

Reversals
The speed and freedom of your auto starts to reverse the minute you leave the commercial
Too much of anything, however sweet, will bring you the opposite of what you thought you were getting.
All those bricks (books) in the castle of knowledge reverse into best-sellers that crush all the rest
The satellite is a proscenium arch that turns the globe into a stage. You become an actor

Violence
Violence is the only way people have ever learned how to assert or define identity. Hijackers, terrorists are people without identity. They are determined to make it somehow to get coverage, to get noticed.

What are alternative media? (Powerpoint)

2006-02-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

A working definition
Proposed by Michael Albert for FAMAS
(Federation of Alternative Media
and Institutions)

What alternative media are NOT
-Just topical or special interest publications
-E.g., BSU alumni newsletter, hunting magazine
-Just liberal or conservative in their politics
-Appealing just to an elite, narrow audience
-Structured in accordance with an to help reinforce society’s defining social relationships
-Controlled by and controlling of other major institutions, particularly corporations
-Focused on maximization of profits
-Just mainstream media with economic problems

What alternative media ARE
-Democratic in internal structure and in their relationship to readers, viewers, etc.
-Seek broad, non-elite audience who want an alternative to some other general news source
-Structured to subvert existing social and/or economic power structure
-See themselves as part of a project to establish new ways of organizing media and social activity
-Interested in more than profits; sees audience not as consumers, but as citizens and constituents

Websites to check out
www.altermedia.org
www.indypress.org
www.zmag.org
www.indymedia.org
www.papertiger.org
www.thirdworldtraveler.com
www.thenation.com
www.mediareform.net
Check out the national conference on media reform June 2005
www.alternet.org

A few MN alternative media
Ojibwe News
Native American Press
Common Ground nspr
Northern Student
Ripsaw (Duluth)
City Pages (Mpls.)
Asian American Press
Lakeland Public TV
MN Women’s Press
High Plains Reader
(Fargo)
Insight (Afr. Amer.)
Various Twin Cities neighborhood nsprs
Minnesota Daily
(U of M paper)
Northern Herald

Media Merger Notes

2006-02-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

“Media Mergers: The Danger Remains”
By Catherine Yang
“The government has always imposed antagonism between media, but that is coming to an end.”

How big are big media?
2001: 311 deals valued at $113 billion were announced
Highest amount for ANY industry
Local TV stations: 39% cash flow margin
Cross-ownership is seen as VERY desirable
Vertical integration

“Behind the Mergers”
“Big isn’t necessarily bad, but big contains the seeds of mischief that can hurt a republic like ours.”
Neil Hickey, Editor, CJR, 2002
“The widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.”
Associated Press v. U.S. (1945)

So what, exactly, is wrong with the merger mania?
The 35% limit stops the networks from buy up all the independently owned affiliates; controls what they put on the air
Many stations have profit margins of over 50%
Synergy: more stations to reach more viewers with promos for their evening newscasts, news magazines, morning shows and entertainment, which builds audiences, which allows their ad rates to be higher

What else is wrong?
Newspapers and TV stations would merge and no longer be competitors
Duopoly rule already shot down: now okay to own two stations in one market
No longer a 30% cap on the number of U.S. households a cable co. can reach.

Can this be a good thing? Yes
Newspaper buying a TV station may impose more rigorous standards
Rich media buying something in the boondocks may improve quality
Major media better able to fight nuisance lawsuits
“You can’t be journalistically vigorous if you aren’t economically strong.”
Michael Gartner
former President, NBC

Worst-case Scenario?
If all the following are owned by one company in your area, it would allow endless cross-promotion and very little hard news on anything related to their interests:
Newspapers cable system video stores
Theaters Publishers of books/mags
Pro sports teams

“What Now?” By Michael Epstein
Evolution of digital technologies, convergence have pushed this trend
Perceived higher profits -- economy of scale
Fragmentation of audiences make it desirable
Bush Administration tolerant towards it
Sense of public service fading
Jay Schwartzman
Pres., Media Access Project

Schwartzman’s Vision (public-interest lawyer)
“Over-the-air broadcasters should each be required to carry some minimum amount of locally produced, locally originated programming that addresses the needs of the community, including controversial issues. . .”

Schwartzman’s question
Are media properties any different from any other entity in the economy?
Historical answer: yes
FCC does not need proof that actual harm has already happened to act under the public interest standard; that’s different from monopolies being broken up by the FTC or the Justice Dept.

The diversity question
Diversity in ownership brings diverse programming
Vertically integrated program producers may not share it with competitors; should be required
Program access a problem
Fairness doctrine not being enforced
Reserved capacity for non-commercial uses
Low capacity radio should come back

Media issues in the news
Headlines from fall semester ‘03
What do they mean for society?

Artist/reporter issues
Actors rally to protest non-equity road shows
An award for Stephen King? Horrors!
Trying to bypass the good-news filter

FCC Rules
FCC plan to ease curbs on big media hits Senate snag
Viacom cuts forecast as local advertising is slow to rebound
No-call list dealt setback in court ruling
Court rules FCC erred in decision on net access
(Internet access providers who sued to get the right to lease lines from cable companies)

Piracy
Studios moving to block piracy of films online
Hollywood is facing online piracy, but it looks like an inside job
Fighting the idea that all the Internet is free
Rules near on TV piracy; critics press their case

Privacy, copyright
Clinton ‘history’ doesn’t repeat itself in China (censoring of her memoir)
Cameras watching students, especially in Biloxi

The media business
New scrutiny for Liberty Media’s Starz deal
Unhappy shareholders because of stock drop
Head of BSkyB quits, with Murdoch’s son possible heir
Media grow, but they can’t hide
Industry facing problems that mergers alone won’t solve
Day in court for bid to end WorldCom’s bankruptcy (MCI)

More media business
GE finishes Vivendi deal, expanding its media assets
Pixar-Disney talks said to show progress
SEC pursues Time Warner investigation
Executives subpoenaed in accounting inquiry
The media critic who would be a mogul
(NY magazine critic trying to buy it)

Hardware for media
The talking e-mail blues
(Problems with voice recognition programs)
Sony is selling convergence, but will Europe buy it?

Advertising
To see the ads, eager magazines write the copy
Call centers in survival mode in face of do-not-call rules
Advertising: Shows like ‘Nike Training Camp’ widen the scope of product placements
Criticism arises over the way calling plans advertise rates

More on advertising
CA is set to ban junk e-mail
Ad buyers cold to TV season, but still plan to spend big
For $166 million, official NY beverage
A change of habits to elude spam’s pall

Music
A game player that happens to be a phone
Cable’s new giant flexes his muscles (Comcast)
Europe’s antipiracy proposal draws criticism
Audible service could teach music industry a lesson
Universal Music to cut jobs as industry slump lingers
With Cable TV at MIT, who needs Napster?
New parent-to-child chat: Do you download music?

More on Music
Is legal action against file swappers good business?
Is it wrong to share your music?
Teens, the record industry’s tastemakers, come to grips with being its adversaries
For music industry, U.S. is only the tip of a piracy iceberg
Crackdown on copyright abuse may send music traders into software underground

Television entertainment
NBC’s affection for ‘coupling’ cools as Thurs. night viewers wander
At a television bazaar, a glut of shows
Two HBO shows lose viewers after starting strong
Advertising: the absence of TV viewers has network executives scratching their heads
With no knockouts, NBC’s champ faces jabs (lackluster entertainment season)
New fall TV season is mostly underwhelming

Newspapers
New papers hope free and brief will attract younger readers
A media chain keeps it all in the family (Freedom Communications)
Sparring Seattle papers can’t even agree to break up
The Times chooses veteran of magazines and publishing as its first public editor

The Ad and the Ego - PowerPoint

2005-12-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

The Ad and the Ego
Appeals to our unconscious (id), the creation of our ego (identity) and our super-ego (image)

Advertising: A powerful form of education and propaganda
Doesn’t allow itself to be seen as either one, so it becomes even MORE effective
Considered too trivial to study because individual ads are stupid; therefore it’s not important
Individuals feel exempt from effects (“tune out”)
It includes a myriad of basic assumptions about how the world works: what’s “normal”
Encourages us to participate in cycles of consumption and disposal
It sells not only products, but values, images

A hypercommercial world, a “total environment”
We view at least 1500 ads per day
Effects are cumulative and unconscious
Water wasn’t discovered by a fish
Try getting a fish to think about water
(Remember McLuhan’s maelstrom?)
What is the impact of living in an ad-infused environment?
How can we know when we’re inside it?

Profit: A central organizing principle
To be consumers means that happiness can be bought
It’s an effective tool of socialization
We’ve been made uncomfortable in our own skins, our own lives
Mass production of discontent
You’re not ok -- you need salvation
Message you’ll never hear -- “you’re ok”

A brief history of advertising
19th c. advertising was informational
Assumed people were rational
1920s: less about products, more about lives
Mass production of markets (consumers)
Too many goods, need to produce buyers
1950s: material utopia
“Not enough cheese consumed”

Case Study: WWI
Propaganda first used to build support
This is well documented
It was used as a lab for persuading the masses
People were no longer seen as rational
Remember Freud? Pavlov & his dog?
Real motivation was unconscious urges
People don’t respond as easily when they think; get them emotionally involved

Psychological impact
The effect of advertising is the opposite of therapy
Designed to create an inner conflict
You’re competing with everyone around you to be noticed, just like an ad
A “de-skilled” work force depends on selling yourself as a package

“Killing Us Softly” Jean Kilbourne
There’s always been an ideal of feminine beauty
However, it’s now thrust into our faces constantly, and it’s the same face; replicated by the millions
The ideal is not for spiritual inspiration
It’s only for selling products
If women don’t try to reach this perfection, the penalties are tremendous

Words vs. Images:
McLuhan’s right brain vs. left brain?
Truth & falsity are not important
Only the image (Marlboro Man)
Rational gives way to the irrational
Journalism gives way to advertising
Words give way to images
(“seeing is believing”)
We process images differently from words
We are a species searching for meaning through symbols, metaphors and images
Ads seek to become the “dreamlife” of the culture

People as objects
The first step toward becoming violent is to think of a person as not human
We value humans less when we are surrounded by images of them as objects (tribal cultures & photos?)
When women’s body parts are displayed separately from them as humans, they become devalued

What do we really want?
Things with social answers
A good social life
A good, strong family life
Romance
Leisure time
Meaningful work
Autonomy

How advertisers get us to think they can give these to us
They inject value into objects
We’re purchasing entrance to a magical, supernatural, technologically powerful world if we buy their products
More and more of our cultural space is co-opted by commercial interests
Limits other priorities, answers, questions

Consumption as destruction
Actually makes the process of our own destruction sexy, desirable, powerful
“Human destruction disguised as intense sensual experience”
Consumption = erotic spectacle
Power = beauty
Environmental consequences? Bad!
McLuhan: What does it flip into?

Where does it lead to when pushed to its limits?
We end up viewing our own destruction as entertainment
We see power as beauty
We see danger as an intense sensual experience
We see consumption as erotic
“premeditated waste”
We consume to find meaning and destroy meaning in the process
A healthy economy = sick environment

How are we affected?
Where things come from and where they go to is invisible to us
We believe that by buying more, we save more
Our consumption habits depend on scarcity in other parts of the world

What can we do? Does fun = commercial transactions?
Decontextualize advertising
Study it away from its environment (as we are)
Circumvent the mass media
Create your own media, use alternative media
We need MORE free speech, not less
Disengage, break the monopoly on speech
Consumer culture is not the ONLY culture
Where does advertising end and “I” begin?
Focus on quality of relationships, meaning of work

Alternative Media PowerPoint

2005-11-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

What are alternative media?
A working definition

Proposed by Michael Albert for FAMAS
(Federation of Alternative Media and Institutions)

What alternative media are NOT
•Just topical or special interest publications
–E.g., BSU alumni newsletter, hunting magazine
•Just liberal or conservative in their politics
•Appealing just to an elite, narrow audience
•Structured in accordance with an to help reinforce society’s defining social relationships
•Controlled by and controlling of other major institutions, particularly corporations
•Focused on maximization of profits
•Just mainstream media with economic problems

What alternative media ARE
•Democratic in internal structure and in their relationship to readers, viewers, etc.
•Seek broad, non-elite audience who want an alternative to some other general news source
•Structured to subvert existing social and/or economic power structure
•See themselves as part of a project to establish new ways of organizing media and social activity
•Interested in more than profits; sees audience not as consumers, but as citizens and constituents

Websites to check out
•www.altermedia.org
•www.indypress.org
•www.zmag.org
•www.indymedia.org
•www.papertiger.org
•www.thirdworldtraveler.com
•www.thenation.com
•www.mediareform.net
–Check out the national conference on media reform June 2005
•www.alternet.org

A few MN alternative media
•Ojibwe News
•Native American Press
•Common Ground nspr
•Northern Student
•Ripsaw (Duluth)
•City Pages (Mpls.)
•Asian American Press
•Lakeland Public TV
•MN Women’s Press
•High Plains Reader(Fargo)
•Insight (Afr. Amer.)
•Various Twin Cities neighborhood nsprs
•Minnesota Daily (U of M paper)
•Northern Herald

the medium is the MASSAGE notes

2005-09-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

the medium is the MASSAGE
an inventory of effects (1967)

by marshall mcluhan
And quentin fiore
produced by jerome agel

What do you think?
•“Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. ‘Time’ has ceased, ‘space’ has vanished. We now live in a global village. . .a simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions from which a few centuries of literacy divorced us.”

How do our media shape us?
•“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men (sic) communicate than by the content of the communication. . .The alphabet and print technology fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, a process of specialization and detachment.” (8)

Everything is changing
•“Innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transitions. . .Youth instinctively understands the present environment -- the electric drama. It lives mythically and in-depth. This is the reason for the great alienation between the generations.”

Can we learn through humor?
•“Learning, the educational process, has long been associated only with the glum.
We speak of the ‘serious’ student. . .Students of media are persistently attached as evaders, idly concentrating on means or processors rather than on ‘substance.’”

How it affects you
•“Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance are causing a serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community‘s need to know. The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions. . .are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval.”

Your family: all the world’s a sage
•“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by electric media. . .far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear.”

Your neighborhood
•“Electric circuitry. . .has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale. . .The old civic, state and national groupings have become unworkable.”

Is this your education?
•“Today’s television child is attuned to up-to-the-minute ‘adult’ news. . .and is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects and schedules.”

Your government?
•“The public, in the sense of a great consensus of separate and distinct viewpoints, is finished. Today, the mass audience (the successor to the ‘public’) can be used as a creative, participating force. . .Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.”

Isn’t this now global?
•“. . .minority groups can no longer be contained -- ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. . .We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other.”

Do you agree?
•“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”

“All media work us over completely”
•“They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical,, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.”

All media are extensions of some human faculty
•The wheel is an extension of the foot
•The book is an extension of the eye
•Clothing is an extension of the skin
•Electric circuitry is an extension of the central nervous system
•The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act -- the way we perceive the world

How we learn is how we think
•Pre-alphabet societies
–Hearing is believing (intuition prized)
•Literate societies
–Seeing is believing (objectivity prized)
•Technological societies
–Instantaneous, multisensory (all-at-onceness)

Art: the graphic translation of a culture
•“Primitive and pre-alphabet people integrate time and space as one and live in an acoustic, horizontlesss, boundless, olfactory space,, rather than in visual space. Their graphic presentation is like an x-ray. They put in everything they know, rather than only what they see. . .Electric circuitry is recreating in us the multi-dimensional space orientation of the ‘primitive.’”

The new ‘allatonceness’
•“Time has ceased, space has vanished. We now live in a global village. . .a simultaneous happening. . .We must no know in advance the consequences of any policy or action, since the results are experienced without delay. . .We can no longer wait and see. . .Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another.”

Public vs. the Mass
•“Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. . .Print technology created the public. Electric technology created the mass.”

The end of the line
•“The circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis.”

The past went that-a-way
•“When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in Bonanza-land.”

Invisible environments
•“Their groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns elude easy perception. . .We impose the form of the old on the content of the new. The malady lingers on. . .Our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old.”

The teach-in:
from instruction to discovery
•“The young today live mythically and in depth. . .It is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word.”

Socrates, “Phaedrus”
•“The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external characters and not remember of themselves. . .they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing.”

Authorship unknown
in medieval times
•“The invention of printing did away with anonymity, fostering ideas of literary fame and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property. . .As new technologies come into play, people are less and less convinced of the importance of self-expression. Teamwork succeeds private effort.”

Does TV do this to you?
•“In television there occurs an extension of the sense of active, exploratory touch which involves all the senses simultaneously, rather than that of sight alone. . .Television demands participation and involvement in depth of the whole being. It will not work as a background. It engages you.”

The television generation
is a grim bunch
•“Most often the few seconds sandwiched between the hours of viewing -- the ‘commercials’ -- reflect a truer understanding of the medium. There simply is no time for the narrative form, borrowed from earlier print technology. The story line must be abandoned.”

Whose fault is it?
•“The main cause for disappointment in and for criticism of television is the failure on the part of its critics to view it as a totally new technology which demands different sensory responses. These critics insist on regarding television as merely a degraded form of print technology.”

Hot wars are fought
in backyards of the world
•“Real, total war has become information war. It is being fought by subtle electric informational media -- under cold conditions, and constantly. The cold war is the real war front -- a surround-involving-everybody--all the time--everywhere.”

Propaganda ends
where dialogue begins
•“You must talk to the media, not to the programmer. To talk to the programmer is like complaining to a hot dog vendor at a ballpark about how badly your favorite team is playing.”