understandmedia blog http://www.understandmedia.com/blog media literacy on the web Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:25:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 iCelery http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=98 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=98#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:56:11 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=98 And now, a message from our CEO, Steve Layoffs.

Hello, and thank you for joining us on this glorious of all days – the best day of your lives!

We have something really special to share with you today. You already know all about it, because our marketing department has been leaking information to the eager press about it for months! We were just testing to see if you would actually want this thing we’re introducing today, and it seems you’d at least spend your money on it, so we went ahead and created it to sell to you.

Have I mentioned yet how this is the best day of your lives? You’ll tell your grandchildren about today, that’s for sure.

This new product is groundbreaking. So groundbreaking, in fact, that it defies categorization. Yes, we’ve just created a new product category for this. You didn’t need this before today, but after we introduce it, we’re sure you’ll be trampling each other in our stores, Black Friday style, just to buy this beauty on that overdrawn Visa card.

Before we begin, let’s just start by stating the obvious. Music is dying. Movies are dying. Books are dying.

Just kidding! They’re not, because we’ve created new ways for you to re-buy your entire music collection, and watch your favorite TV shows over and over again – all using your shiny silicon box. Soon, we’ll tell you how you’ll be reading books and magazines in the future. We hold no inventory, and it doesn’t cost us any more to sell one song, or a billion. The future is digital, and we control it! Yes!

Today is a glorious day.

Isn’t America a great place? We have so much innovation. It’s right out of old sci-fi movies. At Celery, we pride ourselves at making things right out of sci-fi movies, making you want them, and then taking your money. We take cash, checks, or credit. We don’t care how you pay, and you don’t either. Today, society isn’t about who has the most money, it’s about who has the neatest gadgets. Everyone from millionaires to welfare recipients can afford one of our products and look like a million bucks.

There’s a Celery device for everyone!

So forget about the unemployment rate, inflation, the cost of living, housing prices, the cost of education, and retirement. I don’t care and neither should you. Just spend, and you’ll be happy. Buy a Celery product and be cool. Trust me, people will like you. All your dreams will come true, if you buy one of our products.

Oh, yeah, our new device is a stone tablet. Let the frenzy begin.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=98 0 Copyrights in the Classroom http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=75 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=75#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:07:23 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=75 A friend of mine recently presented at the K12 Online Conference on the issue of copyrights in the classroom. I thought I would expand on this, and discuss how copyrights come into play in college and university classrooms.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is acceptable in regards to using copyrighted materials, and what isn’t. As someone who deals with copyright issues on a daily basis, both in the role of college professor and as founder and executive producer of Carmelina Films, I feel a responsibility to dispel the myths surrounding copyrights, and to ensure that other people’s copyrights are being respected.

Although I’m not a lawyer, I do believe I understand when it’s OK to use copyrighted material, and when it isn’t.

Reading materials

There seems to be an overriding belief that reading material used for instruction is safe to copy and use freely. Some teachers photocopy news articles and pass them out to students. And some go as far as putting copyrighted material online for anyone to download.

This, like most areas of copyright, is a gray area. Although copyrighted material is generally not supposed to be copied and used without the author’s permission, copyright law in the US allows for some exceptions under fair use.  There are conditions that must be met for something to fall under the fair use doctrine, and these conditions are intentionally vague.

For example, let’s say your class is having a discussion on the possibility of finding a vaccine for HIV. Then, let’s say, you find an article about a research group who may have had some success in testing their HIV vaccine. Is it OK to photocopy the article and pass it out in class to have a discussion? From my understanding, this is permissible under fair use. Can you save the article as a PDF and upload it to your own website, making it available to students and anyone else who comes along? Probably not.

Using existing sound or video in school projects

The use of music and video in school projects is probably the most misunderstood part of copyright in education. Can a teacher use a clip of their favorite song or movie in a class video or to show to the class? Ready for the answer? Yes and no.

Yes, if the teacher is trying to illustrate a point he or she is making about the topic at hand. Let’s say you’re discussing the way advertisers use sex to sell everything from clothing to food. You can show a TV commercial illustrating your point, but only as much as is needed to prove the point. The same goes for in-class movies. You can show a movie clip (or clips) that relate to the main point of your discussion, but you can’t show the whole thing, and you can’t just play a video with no relevance or just as a “reward”.

No, you shouldn’t show more than is needed to prove your point. The fair use doctrine DOES NOT specify a minimum or maximum number of seconds, bars of song, or scenes in a movie you can or can’t show. But the material must be relevant to your instruction, and it must not replace or take away from the market of the film or song. So you can use a short clip of that Green Day song to prove your point about political activism in modern pop music, but you can’t use it as the background music for your in-class editing project. This is also why you can’t show a whole movie as a reward – after seeing the movie in class, students now don’t have to go out and buy it or rent it, effectively taking away from the film’s market.

Citing sources in papers

When doing academic research, it’s important to cite your source material. Not only are you plagiarizing the work if you don’t cite your source, but you’re also infringing on copyrighted material. The fair use doctrine allows for inclusion of copyrighted material in works of criticism or analysis, but again, only enough to make your point, and only if it is clearly distinguished from your own work. Putting quotation marks around the sourced work, along with a citation somewhere in the paper, is usually enough to distinguish the original work from your own.

Conclusion

As you can see, using copyrighted works in the classroom can be frustrating, and it can cause confusion when trying to figure out if you’re using something legally or not. As with all things related to copyright, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Although you probably won’t go to jail for copyright infringement, your school can be sued and fined, and you can get into trouble.

If you’re looking for materials you CAN use in your classroom with minimal copyright hassle, look into using works in the public domain, or works licensed under the Creative Commons license (like the image in this post).

As a reminder, I’m not a lawyer, so do your own research before deciding if it’s OK to use copyrighted material.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=75 0 Comm 10 Student Blogs – Winter 2010 – 12:30pm http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=60 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=60#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:26:21 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=60 Each semester, my Comm 10 students are required to have diversity media blogs. This assignment requires students to make a blog entry each week about their media consumption. The are supposed to analyze media that they encounter, especially media related to race or gender stereotypes and biases.

Below is a listing of the students’ blogs.

Ryan W. – http://ryanwald.wordpress.com

Miguel – http://legendaryproducer.wordpress.com

Faraz – http://farazsa.wordpress.com

Dennis – http://whatdoesdennisthink.wordpress.com

Alica – http://winterhymnal.wordpress.com

Sam – http://tengandco.wordpress.com

Allie – http://missoquendo.wordpress.com

Marthe – http://amend73.wordpress.com

Odelia – http://freefallin18.wordpress.com

Catherine – http://catchristy.wordpress.com

Kevin – http://alexanderdgreat.wordpress.com

Jessenia – http://simplycreativeme.wordpress.com

Aja – http://ajamarie.wordpress.com

Monica – http://monica4life.wordpress.com

Anuhea – http://whitereflection17.wordpress.com

Chari – http://charikay.wordpress.com

Zach – http://zoro21.wordpress.com

Denise – http://denisem19.wordpress.com

Chanuch – http://chanuch.wordpress.com

Kate – http://heiikate.wordpress.com

Sara – http://saraafghani.wordpress.com

Logan – http://logwall.wordpress.com

Norman – http://nstokes22.wordpress.com

Shaun – http://sundaysbest4.wordpress.com

Ryan K. – http://ryankatzer.wordpress.com

Jennie – http://jenn90.wordpress.com

Narae – http://lee1115.wordpress.com

Alexandra – http://alexperri.wordpress.com

Jung – http://watzgoinonbuddy.wordpress.com

Sally – http://sdhernandez.wordpress.com

Dahna – http://dahna17.wordpress.com

Matt – http://mattaftalion.wordpress.com

Abdallah – http://mansour7.wordpress.com

Kari – http://kariproto7.wordpress.com

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=60 0 Comm 10 Student Blogs – Winter 2010 – 8:00am http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=57 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=57#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:23:55 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=57 Each semester, my Comm 10 students are required to have diversity media blogs. This assignment requires students to make a blog entry each week about their media consumption. The are supposed to analyze media that they encounter, especially media related to race or gender stereotypes and biases.

Below is a listing of the students’ blogs.

Carle – http://carlyscomm10.wordpress.com

Kelly – http://royalesoterica.wordpress.com

Sukhoon – http://chobbaga.wordpress.com

Megan – http://meganmark.wordpress.com

Kyle – http://speakyomind20.wordpress.com

Annette -  http://annettex.wordpress.com

Pengyang – http://coreyeatchildren.blogspot.com

Jesse – http://speedi106.wordpress.com

Thomas – http://agentrogue34.wordpress.com

Maricela – http://mcortez08.wordpress.com

Shoji – http://kin29.wordpress.com

Lisa – http://lisacomm10.wordpress.com

Nestor – http://stockton209.wordpress.com

Michael – http://michaelbates425.wordpress.com

Maureen – http://maureenqi.wordpress.com

Elizabeth – http://elleprater.wordpress.com

Nathan – http://ngawronsky.wordpress.com

Fernando – http://ferny4.wordpress.com

J – http://wizkid07.wordpress.com

Zulfiqar – http://zulfiqarchagany.wordpress.com

Yuxing – http://yuxingzhao.wordpress.com

Katina – http://korginos.wordpress.com

Kristina – http://koedman91.wordpress.com

Karla – http://karlabk.wordpress.com

Israel – http://imorel1984.wordpress.com

Richard – http://devildog25.wordpress.com

Charles – http://csmelshenker.wordpress.com

Cleo – http://adderalldoll.wordpress.com

Alice – http://norwegianace.wordpress.com

Uriel – http://uriel1991.wordpress.com

Kari – http://kariproto7.wordpress.com

Nury – http://leenury.wordpress.com

Mehrdad – http://mehrdadrazaghy.wordpress.com

Jhovanni – http://jhogarcia.wordpress.com

Sukhoon – http://chobbaga.wordpress.com

Marilyn – http://merarlette.wordpress.com

Maricela – http://mcortez08.wordpress.com

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=57 2 Failure: The New Success http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=37 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=37#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:46:38 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=37 I was especially impacted by this video. It illustrates why we need to fail before we can succeed.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=37 0 Welcome to January http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=25 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=25#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:35:39 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=25 Advertisers know what you’ve been up to over the holidays – gaining weight! They also know that you’ve been making new years resolutions aimed at taking off the weight you’ve recently (or maybe not so recently) put on. So, invariably, after the holiday music and endless marathons of A Christmas Story cease until next December, we begin seeing ads aimed to help us lose weight.

In fact, while retailers rack up the highest percentage of their sales in December, weight loss companies make most of their income in January and February. All of our favorites take part in the celebration – Bally’s, 24 Hour Fitness, Curves, Slim Fast, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and some newer favs like Alli, Jillian Michaels, and the Lapband.

Two things are very interesting about this phenomenon.

First, the advertisements are mostly, if not entirely, aimed at women. Advertisers know that women obsess over their bodies – of course, they and media producers are responsible for womens’ body image issues – so they place weight loss ads anywhere a woman will have a chance to experience it. This includes magazines like Cosmo and Glamour, and TV networks like Lifetime and (ironically) the Food Network.

The second very interesting aspect of this phenomenon is how these weight loss ads are interspersed with contradictory content and other ads. This afternoon I saw an ad for the Alli drug right before a McDonalds ad. And those issues of Cosmo have way more ads for chocolate and other fattening foods than ads for weight loss.

It really is no wonder women just can’t get ahead in their weight control efforts. The media is telling them to look like the girl on the cover, sells them the methods to achieve it, and then entices them to buy things to derail those efforts, ensuring an endless cycle of guilt… and spending.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=25 1 Kanye West – Idiot, Meanie, or Genius http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=7 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=7#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:41:31 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=7

A debate has begun swirling around the water cooler about Kanye West’s behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards. It’s not about whether he should apologize to Taylor Swift for his actions, or even whether radio stations should ban his music. This debate involves the notion that Kanye’s actions were nothing more than a publicity stunt, perpetrated by Kanye himself, or if he had help from the show’s producers and maybe even Taylor Swift herself.

The problem with this allegation, at least from a media observer’s perspective, is that it’s difficult to prove. Afterall, we face being labeled cynics or conspiracy theorists if we even question the mass media’s story that Kanye was just, as our president said, “a jack*ss”. But what if we didn’t see ourselves as cynic, but rather as a skeptic. We question the “truth” that’s fed to us by a media industry driven by sensationalism and profits.

The tough part is that we may never know the truth of why this really happened. All we know is that this year’s VMAs have received more media attention than they have in recent years. And isn’t media attention what gets people to buy records and visit MTV.com to view the clip (with an ad placed right before it)?

The fact is that these types of shows don’t have the audience or the influence that they once used to. In the old days, artists used to get a bump in sales when winning an award, but the effect is less prominent these days. However, it would be interesting to see if both Taylor Swift’s and Kanye West’s records begin selling more than usual in the next week or two. Afterall, radio stations have now been playing both artists in heavy rotation lately, in addition to talking about the controversy. All of this has to help record sales.

One last point is about reputations. Doesn’t Kanye West have a bad-boy “I’m loud and obnoxious” image to begin with? What better way to reinforce that image than to do something like this? And isn’t Taylor Swift’s image that of the young, innocent little flower? What better way to reinforce that image than to make her a victim, right in front of a TV audience? It couldn’t hurt on both accounts.

Again, it’s impossible for regular people to ever know if this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, or if it was a highly crafted attempt at getting us to notice these two artists and the network this show aired on. In the end, does it even matter? They got us talking, which was bound to happen either way.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=7 0 Comm 2 Student Blogs – Fall 2009 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=12 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=12#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:44:31 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=12

Each semester, my Comm 2 students are required to keep diversity media blogs. This assignment requires students to make a blog entry per week about their media consumption. The are supposed to analyze media that they encounter, especially media related to things we discuss in class.

Below is a listing of the students’ blogs. More will be added as their blogs are submitted.

Janice – http://janice86.wordpress.com

Madeleine – http://madeleineholmback.wordpress.com

Tony – http://urbansports33.wordpress.com

George – http://eurosoccer23.wordpress.com

Becka – http://rebeckajansson.wordpress.com/

Zulfiqar – http://zulfiqarchagany.wordpress.com/

Sarah – http://sarahtellier.wordpress.com/

Justine – http://venice2.wordpress.com

Tay – http://feministgrrrl90.wordpress.com

Daniela – http://grrrl211.wordpress.com

Edgar – http://princeoftherodeo88.wordpress.com

Sanam – http://sanam2.wordpress.com

Becky – http://beckyg.wordpress.com

Amber – http://tinyber.wordpress.com

Joseph -  http://jdavis22.wordpress.com

Stephen – http://LosAngelesUnderground.wordpress.com

Oleg – http://timershin.wordpress.com

Daryl – http://iplayrugby.wordpress.com

Janeen – http://janeeny10.wordpress.com

Steven – http://hiphopablogamus.wordpress.com

Kambria – http://leopardwarhead.wordpress.com

Nick – http://fishehead.wordpress.com

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=12 0 Comm 10 Student Blogs – Fall 2009 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=10 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=10#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:43:28 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=10 Each semester, my Comm 10 students are required to have diversity media blogs. This assignment requires students to make a blog entry each week about their media consumption. The are supposed to analyze media that they encounter, especially media related to race or gender stereotypes and biases.

Below is a listing of the students’ blogs.

Ariel – http://mediaspeculation.wordpress.com/

Mathew – http://matthewcomm10.wordpress.com/

Sydnee – http://downbyethecshore.wordpress.com

Abdul – http://duski50.wordpress.com

Alec – http://alecjenkins.wordpress.com

Jessica – http://jipblog.wordpress.com/

Suzanne – http://suzawoo.wordpress.com

Jasmine – http://jnallie357.wordpress.com

Jose – http://09brutalpunisher.wordpress.com

Frankchesska – http://chesska55.wordpress.com

Britanny – http://brittanywatson.wordpress.com/

Yvonne – http://rene1853.wordpress.com

Raul – http://raulherrerasmc.wordpress.com

Sean – http://masternak08.wordpress.com

Danielle – http://daniellecomm10.wordpress.com

Nicole C – http://checkthemirror.wordpress.com/

Gaby – http://gobynunez.wordpress.com

Christopher – http://chrisfabiancom10.wordpress.com/

Byron – http://bramirez90016.wordpress.com

Erin – http://erinjenkins.wordpress.com/

Eli – http://theopinionater.wordpress.com

Lupe – http://lupe1027.wordpress.com

Ricky – http://rruelas.wordpress.com

Renee – http://reneejoi.wordpress.com/

Mayra – http://mvcm5.wordpress.com/

Lucia – http://lucia1989.wordpress.com

Carla – http://carla1989.wordpress.com

Bobbi – http://h8t3.wordpress.com

Jesse – http://jdubbol30.wordpress.com

Elizabeth – http://elimorgut.wordpress.com

Nicole Q – http://siezeworld.wordpress.com

Christian – http:/armirezchristian.wordpress.com

Shardia – http://sharwade.wordpress.com

Rodolfo – http://rodolfotiscareno.wordpress.com

Kenia – http://kvchacon.wordpress.com

Alessandro – http://alessandrocalabrese.wordpress.com

Gaby – http://mediacommentary23.wordpress.com

Jessica – http:// jipblog.wordpress.com

Paige – http://paigemonster.wordpress.com/

Miguel – http://bastardbrownie.wordpress.com

Diana – http://ladydee213.wordpress.com

Maria – http://aguirre724.wordpress.com

Amohd – http://mahday.wordpress.com

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=10 0 Michael Jackson Dies – Why Should We Care? http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=14 http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=14#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:45:29 +0000 Understand Media http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?p=14

According to a variety of news reports, Michael Jackson has died.  After being found passed out at his Bel Air home, he was rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles, where he was pronounced dead.

But this post is not about the death of Michael Jackson.  It’s not even about the life of Michael Jackson.  You can read a ton of articles on that, if that’s what you want.  This is about the celebrity of Michael Jackson, or more like the celebrity of the death of Michael Jackson.

The news broke at around 2:00pm today.  TMZ was the first to report, the LA Times followed suit, and that was enough for every news outlet on the face of the earth to pronounce Michael Jackson dead.  Of course, there will be conspiracy theorists who will say he’s not dead, he faked his death, or that he’s been dead for a while not.  But that’s not what this blog post is about either.

The real purpose of this blog post?  Just look at the title and you’ll know it: Michael Jackson dies – why should we care?

Why do we focus so much on celebrity deaths?  When a celebrity dies suddenly, it’s shocking.  Take for example, the death of actress Miranda Richardson.  She died after a skiing accident.  We mourned her loss for a couple of weeks, and then moved on.  While we mourned her death, another 2 people died (on average) on slopes in the United States, but we didn’t focus on their deaths.  Why focus on this person?

Farrah Fawcett died today as well.  She had cancer, and we’ve actually been talking about her impending death for two months now.  But 562,340 people in the United States will die of cancer this year.  Why doesn’t the news focus on them at all?

The big question is, why should we care?  People are born, and people die.  Why is it news?  Maybe because these people are celebrities.  The news organizations will say “people want to know about their beloved celebrities.”  Maybe we care because so much attention is paid to them – they’re so in our faces – that we are forced to care.  But that’s not the real answer either.

The real answer is that we care because the media has made us care.  They put it on TV and online and tell us, “this is what you should pay attention to.” And why do news outlets make things important when they may otherwise be ordinary occurences?  Because these stories draw in an audience.  When news outlets have an audience, they make money – the bigger the audience, the more money they make.  The more sensational the story, the bigger the audience, the bigger the payoff.

So does the news media care because we care, or vice versa?  A little bit of both.  Afterall, I wrote this blog post because I knew you’d care to read it, and you read it because you care to know more about this story.

]]> http://www.understandmedia.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=14 0