Today's Bon Bon: Why Blog When You Can Vlog?

One of the remarkable and cool and downright fun things about teaching Mass Comm 101 is that I get a box seat (OK, maybe Loge Level, but still pretty darn good) at the media revolution. And a lot of the gadgets the revolutionaries are using are available to the average student, or even their teachers.

A few months ago I went to the Apple Store at the Grove on L.A.'s Westside (I was probably the un-hippest person there, which was fun in an odd sort of way) for an event called "Meet the Vloggers." I was introduced to the concept of vlogging, or video blogging. The vloggers were a remarkable group: creative, energetic, and filled with the sense that they were pioneering a new kind of online communication that the big media companies hadn't yet sunk their accountants into. Take a look at FreeVlog for a glimpse into vlogging's soul.

It was a terrific evening. I learned a lot. The Apple Store at the Grove is having another "Meet the Vloggers" (why does that remind me of a movie?) event, coming up soon. Here's the scoop straight from the Apple's, um, core:

Special Event
Meet the Vloggers
Saturday, April 8, at 7 p.m.
Learn what video podcasting is and how to create, distribute, and subscribe to digital video feeds using a variety of Apple technologies.

The event is free and all are welcome to attend. When I went, nobody made me buy anything or say anything bad about Microsquish. And if you want to do an extra credit project on vlogging, hit me with a proposal before this event.

The Latest Political Powerbrokers: DJs

La Opinion, the leading Spanish language newspaper in Los Angeles, provides next day coverage of a protest march in Downtown Los Angeles that drew an estimated half-million persons. It is believed that Spanish-language DJs were important players in generating the massive turnout.

Today's medianote is based on a March 28 article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "How DJs Put 500,000 Marchers in Motion." Last Saturday, a rally protesting immigration law changes drew an estimated half-million people Downtown for one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history. The article outlines the pivotal role of Spanish-language disk jockeys in publicizing the event and turning out the massive crowd.

The article is the latest piece of evidence that entertainers--because of their massive popularity--are sometimes more powerful at highlighting political and social issues than journalists or politicians. For example, there is scholarly research indicating that late-night talk show hosts are becoming major sources of political information and attitudes. This trend is the strongest in viewers under 30.

***REPLACEMENT FIELD TRIP NEXT WEDNESDAY: After our field trip that wasn't to a TV show that I don't care to name, some MC101s asked if I could set up another extra-credit field trip to a TV taping. Well, I've got something. Next Wednesday afternoon (April 5) we will go to Glendale's Alex Theatre for a taping of Last Comic Standing. Details will be provided on a field trip flyer that will be handed out in class on Thursday and Friday during the quiz. We're partnering with AGS (the student honor society) on this field trip. Our attendance will generate a check for student scholarships.

The Latest Tool for Social Activism: Cellphones

Today's medianote is based on a National Public Radio story about protests of a questionable court decision in India. Young middle-class workers and college students were at the center of this protest, and they registered their displeasure through SMS text messaging via their cellphones. MC101 students discussed the potential for text messaging as a social and political tool. For example, one student noted that during recent elections in South Korea text messages were used to urge younger voters to make a difference by turning out at the polls.

Blogging Workshop Participants... Post Here!

On Saturday, March 25 a group of Mass Comm 101 students will go to the Museum of Television & Radio.

Beverly Hills will be graced with the presence of Mass Comm 101 students (not to mention yours truly) on Saturday morning March 25. We will travel to the Museum of Television & Radio to attend an event entitled "Blogging and Journalism: Where Do Their Paths Cross?"

The purpose of this Club MediaNote entry is to give the MC101s a place to post their comments on the topic "Will Blogs Be a Major Source of News, Opinion and Information in the Years Ahead?" Remember, to get extra credit for this outing you must

1. Attend the event and sign the sign-in sheet, and
2. Post a comment of 200-250 words on the question above.

Hit the comment button at the end of this post.

***POSTSCRIPT, SATURDAY 1:45 P.M.: We had a turnout of 19 MC101s and guests. We listened to a very interesting panel that compared and contrasted blogs and bloggers with mainstream journalism and journalists. I'm interested in reading your comments. Hopefully they will be as lively and varied as the panel's opinions.

Here's part of our blogging group at the Museum of Television & Radio. The quote is from media theorist Marshall ("The Medium Is the Message") McLuhan.

A Different View of Scholarship

Today's Medianote was a discussion of the University of Southern California's new Visual Studies Certificate. Open to doctoral students from a variety of disciplines, the program will train scholars to examine the historical, cultural and social aspects of images. It is an attempt to expand scholarship from its historic roots in the written word. Or as one MC101 student put it, "Why should we be restricted to using only the communications tools that were available long ago?"

USC's emphasis on visual studies dovetails quite powerfully with the university's Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. The foundation has digitized 120,000 hours of on-camera interviews of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. The video is searchable by nearly 50,000 keywords and phrases. There is hope that such initiatives will attract greater collaboration with organizations such as the Armenian Film Foundation, which has an archive of more than 400 testimonies related to the Armenian genocide of 1915.

For an example of what this new generation of image-driven scholarship looks like, see the Urban Icons Project.

Presidential Hopeful or Used Car Salesman?

Staffers for Virginia Gov. Mark Warner were not amused by this picture of their boss on the cover of the New York Times Magazine.

Today's medianote rolled newspapers and magazines, photography, politics and journalistic ethics into one compact little package. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was the subject of a recent cover story in the New York Times Magazine. The cover photo was somewhat nontraditional, creating colors and other features that weren't quite real. After listening to a National Public Radio story about the incident, we discussed how real (or not real) photojournalism is and what ethical responsibilities news organizations should live up to in an age where photos can be altered in a variety of ways. Some students also commented that an unfortunate byproduct of our image-saturated mass media is that politicians are sometimes judged by things as irrelevent as unflattering photos.

***ABOUT TONIGHT'S FIELD TRIP: I got a call from On-Camera Audiences, the company that has arranged for us to attend "The ShowBiz Show" this evening (Wednesday, March 22). The taping will start a little later than expected, so come at 6:30 instead of 6. Out time will be around 9:30 instead of 9.

***POSTSCRIPT THURSDAY, 3/23, 9:20 A.M.: Many apologies for last night's field trip that wasn't. Apparently The Showbiz Show is a bigger draw than anyone realized. We booked a group of 60. A total of 78 MC101s and guests showed up. We all stood on the sidewalk on Bronson Avenue for a while. Then the folks whose job it is to make sure the audience is full for every taping (audience recruiters, they are called) told me that they were already full and were turning us away despite our group reservation. We will, however, receive our full attendance payment, which will be turned over to Food For Thought. Everyone who signed the sign-in sheet will receive full field trip credit.

To those of you who were there, thanks for not beating me senseless when I got the bad news and had to break it to you.

Movies Without Film ... In 3D!

I'm up for digital 3D movies. How 'bout you?

Today's medianote is about the movie industry's historic conversion to digital projection in movie theaters. This comes at a time when audiences at theaters are dwindling and DVD releases are rapidly becoming more profitable than theatrical releases of movies.

According to a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter, the movie companies and the theater owners are working through issues related to technical standards including, no doubt, security. The studios' worst nightmare has to be that an unguarded hard drive--whether it be in Iowa or Iran or just down the street--could lead to endless bootlegging of perfect copies of that film. Also, the two parties have to work out an economic model where both the studios and the theater owners share the costs of the changeover and reap its benefits.

Besides the uniformly crisp audio and visual quality, the digital rollout will also include some digital 3D films. Sounds like fun. Gimme a pair of those dorky cardboard 3D glasses.

An Otherworldly Bon Bon for a MediaNoteless Day

Thursday and today have been exam days (Quiz #1) in Mass Comm 101, so no medianote. On days like this I post a Bon Bon, which is usually something fun to look at or listen to while you are unwinding from the unspeakable rigors of a Mass Comm 101 exam.

Big thanks to Shea Smith for emailing me a link to this 30-second version of "War of the Worlds" as recreated by bunnies. This is oh-so-timely since we just listened to scenes from Orson Welles' immortal 1938 radio version earlier in the week.

Payola Today, Placeola Tomorrow

Payola--that unseemly union between record companies and radio companies--is back in the news. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has uncovered the latest pay-for-play scheme, as reported in this National Public Radio story. The class then weighed in on whether they think payola deserves to be illegal (most said yes). We also had an interesting discussion of how payola may change when the music industry moves to a business model centered around paid downloads. Some said the payola of the future will be pay for prominent placement on iTunes and other paid download sites. Placeola, I guess.

AudioBlogger Acting Weird, Film at 11

Friday was our Downtown Doubleheader: field trips to the Los Angeles Times and the L.A. Central Library. Some of us began our day with breakfast at Philippe's, a downtown fixture since 1908.

Today's media note is from Los Angeles City Beat, an alternative weekly newspaper that I picked up at Philippe's. The lead article in the March 9-15 issue is entitled "And Now the News." It points out that while mainstream newspapers are facing dwindling audiences in the United States, ethnic newspapers are an area of growth. And the Los Angeles area, thanks to its spectacular diversity, is a hotbed of ethnic newspapers.

This growth may not last, though. Students who had some contact with ethnic newspapers generally said that their parents or grandparents read them, while they were significantly less likely to do much more than occasionally glance at them. This mirrors the generation gap that mainstream newspapers face.

I should note that cyberspace has its little problems too. The audio post I did on this media note is apparently floating around on some server somewhere. When it up--if it turns up--I will connect it to this post.

***POSTSCRIPT: Late Tuesday afternoon my audio post finally showed up. With no further ado, I present it below...

***LET'S DO BRUNCH IN BEVERLY HILLS -- Mass Comm 101 students are invited to a seminar entitled "Blogging and Journalism: Where Do Their Paths Cross?" It will be held at the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills on the morning of Saturday, March 25. The event is sponsored by MT&R and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists. I'll have a flyer out in class with details of the event and how to reserve a spot.

But Wait, There's More...

Save Friday, June 2 on your calendar. I've bought a heap 'o tickets to see Garrison Keillor and company do A Prairie Home Companion at the Hollywood Bowl.


In about 12 hours MC101s will begin to mass in Downtown Los Angeles for tours of the L.A. Times and the L.A. Central Library. Add a short historic walking tour and a couple of meals in cool Downtown places and I'm predicting a great day of field trips (if the weather cooperates). Class is not being held on campus on Friday, so no medianote until Monday. I'll slip a photo from our Downtown exploits into Monday's post.

Several days ago, a new field trip opportunity dropped into my lap (or, more precisely, my email) and I have added it to our already ambitious schedule. Garrison Keillor will be the headliner at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl on Friday, June 2. I bought a large number of $5 tickets at the top of the Bowl. I'll sell them at cost to MC101s as soon as I get them (April?), so start thinking about who you might want to take for a night of music and comedy under the stars.

Five bucks to get into the Hollywood Bowl. Life is good. Details to follow in class.

Nervous Time in the Student Newsroom

Today's medianote was about the Hosty v. Carter case, the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to review it, and what it means for student publications on public college and university campuses. This decision, although not binding in California, has the potential to pave the way for censorship of student publications by deans and other college administrators.

***WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF NEWSPAPERS... A student reporter from the El Vaquero has interviewed me for a story about the MySpace craze. I think the story will be in Friday's edition.

Future Stars of the Sliver Screen

We talked about the rush to create video programming for cell phones and video iPods. Media companies don't really know what type of programming will work, but there is a belief that it will make sense to take advantage of the immediacy and interactivity of cell phones. The MC101s generally felt that cell TV will be used mostly for those occasions when we have small amounts of time to kill: waiting for an appointment or for food to come in a restaurant or for class to start.

You Heard It Here First: Tom For Prez in 2008

We had a nice turnout for the Paley Television Festival program last night in Hollywood. Chris Rock and cast members of Everybody Hates Chris were on hand.


MySpace is unbelieveably popular at the moment. I see articles about it online, in the newspaper, on TV and have even heard stories about it on a normally stodgy newsradio station. So the time is right to discuss it as a medianote.

It's gotten so absurdly big that I have this vision of the 2008 presidential election. The major party candidates are slinging mud at each other and voters are getting more and more disenchanted. Suddenly, about a month before the election, Tom (of MySpace fame) declares his candidacy. Tom campaigns completely through MySpace, adding more and more friends. Younger voters turnout out in droves. Tom wins and gets us all free wi-fi and broadband. The nation rejoices.

Maybe the guy who did MySpace The Movie could do a sequel about this.

Or we could test out this concept at Glendale College. It'd be cooler than cool if one of my Mass Comm 101 students became the Tom of a MySpace site for GCC students, promoted it heavily and gathered a staggering number of friends. Then everyone's GCC MySpace friend could run for student body president and wage the campaign online. Anyhow, that's a free idea for someone.

OMG, Students Were ROFL (JK)

Today we listened to a National Public Radio story about the growing use of Instant Messaging slang by teens and young adults, and its implications for the English language. I recommend listening to the story by clicking on the link above before moving on to my audio post.

BTW: I forgot to mention in my audio post that one of my students (an online gamer) made a very interesting point. He said that at the sites he goes to the gamer slang is so thick that you'd be completely lost if you didn't know the lingo.

***NO, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE CARDED: Students have asked me if they will be asked to show their Glendale College ID cards tomorrow night at the Chris Rock event. I've been assured that students who have reserved tickets will not be asked for student ID cards at the event.

TTYL