When Politicians Attack

Few people enjoy political attack ads, but they are apparently effective according to a leading expert on the subject. Psychological Researcher Drew Westen claims in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that voters may consciously think an attack ad is unfair and ineffective, not realizing that the ad has triggered a subconscious reaction.

This medianote will also include the YouTube video of a 2008 negative campaign ad that Dr. Westen studied.

Here are the discussion questions...

•Do attack ads cause people to vote, or do they cause people to not vote?
•What kind of attacks create an emotional negative reaction?
•How does the anti-McCain ad create ridicule?
•Does the ad create a negative image through more than one channel?

Seeing Everything

Your Humble Blogger has a friend (I know, you're surprised already) who is a Smart Guy Engineer at JPL. He believes the pace of technological innovation is moving ever-faster and we are nearly at the point where technology will change our everyday lives dramatically.

I can't wait to ask him about Google Goggles.

Google is apparently close to introducing a device that puts the Internet in a heads up display in your goggles. Look at a restaurant and the goggles will pull up some reviews from Yelp. Look at a mountain and the goggles will give its name, history, and the location of hiking trails to the peak.

The possibilities are endless, NPR reports.

Here are some discussion questions...

•Is this more like an iPhone that everyone wants, or is it more like a Segway that only a few people want?

•What are the good things that Google Goggles could cause?

•What are the bad things that Google Goggles could cause?

•Is this the end of education as we know it?

Attention UC Transfer Students!

Your Humble Blogger got the following email from Dr. Kevin Meza of the Transfer Center today, and I want to make sure that all MC101 students know about this fun and informative trip to some great University of California campuses. Here is Dr. Meza's email...

Greetings!

I am pleased to announce that we secured funding (thank you ASGCC) and will be going on the Northern California College tours during spring break (April 9-11). Based upon student interest we will visit UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, and UC Santa Barbara. The trip will include admissions presentations, college tours, student panels (featuring former GCC students), and sightseeing in San Francisco.

The tour cost is $25 (includes transportation and housing). Students are responsible for their own meals.

Students can either come by the Transfer Center (SR building, second floor) or download the application from our website: www.glendale.edu/transfercenter. The priority deadline is Tuesday, March 6th at 6:00pm.


Kevin A. Meza, PhD
Transfer Center Coordinator
Glendale Community College
1500 N. Verdugo Road
Glendale, CA 91208
(818) 240-1000 ext. 5820

Turning the Page on Books

Books are changing. Paper is fading out, ebooks are growing quickly. This National Public Radio story takes place at an ebook trade show, where they meet a lot of interesting people with some forward-looking ideas about books.

Discussion questions for this MediaNote...

•What do they mean when they say that ebooks "democratize" publishing?
•No editing? What is good about that? What is bad?
•What kinds of book could be made better by developing it with online feedback from readers?
•What kinds of book could be made better through constant updates?

Insanity Plates

Sometimes, trying to be funny can get you thrown off an airliner--or a bunch of tickets that you don't deserve.

Danny White of Washington D.C. thought it would be funny to get vanity license plates for his Chevy that said NO TAGS. Seemed harmless at the time. The DMV must have agreed, because they issued the plates. But then the increasingly hapless Mr. White began to get tickets--many, many tickets--issued to cars without license plates. Why? Because police officers in those cases wrote NO TAGS on the citation in place of the license number.

The NBC station in Washington did a story about Mr. White and his unusual legal problem.

Discussion of this Medianote should be pretty brief. Thinking back to the communications model we recently went through in Chapter 1...

•Who is the source of the NBC story?
•Is it interpersonal communication or mass communication?
•Of the three types of noise mentioned in the communication model, which type did Mr. White cause with his NO TAGS license plate?
•Why is Mr. White's unusual problem a news story?

YouTube Dad

Don't like the rant your teenage daughter posted online?

A North Carolina dad responded with a video of his own ... and gunfire. On camera, he shot up his daughter's laptop, generating nine million hits on YouTube and fleeting national fame.

Here are some questions...

•What sort of things do you see on YouTube that you don't typically see on TV?

•TV is believed to have had a standardizing influence on American culture. Does the Internet do the same?

•Does the Internet encourage extreme behavior?

•Is this video true, or is it a hoax? How do we know?

Welcome Spring 2012 Students

Your MediaNotes will be posted here, with links to the original source material.

Hope you enjoy Mass Comm 101.