Why you should read journalism...

This is just to make it easier for you to find interesting things to read.  I know how busy you are, scratching your nether regions and trying to work out what you had for dinner last night by sniffing your own emissions.  This bloke has gone to the trouble of collecting about 100 interesting pieces of journalism from 2010.  I salute him!

Have a look!  There's all sorts of stuff.  Drugs, Jesus, violence, all your favourite things!

AS Class Identity - The Great British Class Survey

What social class are you?!  I don't think you're even human, I doubt you can even legitimately class yourself as a 'mammal' BUT WHY NOT PROVE ME WRONG BY TAKING THIS BBC SURVEY ON CLASS!  YEAH!

Do the Class Survey!

You can read about the survey here. You won't, you're too lazy, but the offer still stands.

Too stupid to complete a survey?  HERE'S SOME VIDEOS INSTEAD!  Let me hear you grunt your approval!

Videos! Grunt! Grunt!

Mass Media - Agenda Setting

For the A2 class...

Agenda Setting Theory    

THE AGENDA-SETTING FUNCTION OF MASS MEDIA this is one of the big studies, by MAXWELL E. McCOMBS AND DONALD L. SHAW

Agenda Setting theory



Examples of agenda setting

This site has lots of stuff you should look at in general regarding Mass Media for revision etc

And here are a couple of  links 1  2 that relate specifically to agenda setting


and also this one looks interesting!

Media Effects - Psywar - Chomsky

A loose assortment of links for you, starting with some straightforward stuff about media effects:

1   2

Here's an essay by Mr Chomsky on  What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream

The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. "We" take care of that.


And a documentary called PSYWAR which may or may not be made by a conspiracy theorist/911 truther.  Here are a couple of reviews discussing it 1   2

Media Effects - FILM - David Cronenberg VIDEODROME

A2 lesson - This film is almost 30 years old but it's worth a look.  Your task is to read all about it, there are links below, then watch it via the medium of youtube (link below 'Videodrome Part 1') as part of homework.

1  2   3   4  5   6   7

Videodrome part 1


Reading up on Marshall McLuhan and his books such as 'The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects' (1967) might not be a bad idea, as well.

Is the Internet really good for democracy? BOOK 'The Net Delusion' by Evgeny Morozov

We've been looking at media control and power in A2 lessons and 'The Net Delusion' is a good example of the argument that the new media forms are not going to be as much as a force for freedom as we might hope.  The author argues that the internet is not as close to samizdat as we might have been led to believe.

“Where new media and the Internet truly excel is in suppressing boredom.  Previously, boredom was one of the few truly effective ways to politicize the population denied release values for channeling their discontent, but this is no longer the case.” (p. 80)  He continues on: “Those of us rooting for the further spread of democracy around the globe must stop dreaming and face reality: The Internet has provided so many cheap and easily available entertainment fixes to those living under authoritarianism that is has become considerably harder to get people to care about politics at all.” (p. 81)




Check out the links for reviews and discussion, and there's a video of the author discussing 'How the net aids dictatorships' as well. 

Book website     Excerpts from the book   Review in The Guardian   Review from Behind The Spin

More detailed review and discussion here, with more links included at end

VIDEO The Author talks

Is digital activism an effective medium for change? Malcolm Gladwell 2010


AND as an added bonus, taken from the list in the post below this one, here's ANOTHER TED TALK that seems to be taking the OPPOSING VIEW!  How cool is that?!  (answer: very).

How cellphones, twitter, facebook can make history   a TED Talk by Clay Shirky that demonstrates how emerging social tools “help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors.”

Influence of Media on Society: GOOD FOR AS AND A2 - websites and videos

This blog here is the shizzle for videos and whatnot. I've taken the really relevant stuff and posted it below to make it easier for you to access.

Influence of Media on Society:

 Killing Us Softly 3 – Jean Kilbourne’s popular presentation on women in advertising.

 Dove Evolution – This is a popular advertisement from Dove’s ‘Campaign For Real Beauty’. While the video is well done, there has since been some criticism of Dove’s ownership of Axe with it’s very contradictory style of advertising.

Dove Onslaught – Also from Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, this video illustrates the incredible impact of advertising on adolescent girls.

Birth Control: Current – Comedian Sarah Haskins has developed an excellent series of videos that take a humorous look at ads targeting women. For a complete list of Haskins’ videos, view this previous post on the subject.

 Video Games & Sex – This is an excellent presentation by Daniel Floyd regarding the place of sex and sexuality in video games as a media genre. The video covers a brief history of sex in gaming which has been primarily exploitative and superficial. Floyd then argues, if video games are to be seen as an emerging artistic medium, the treatment of sex in video games needs to be more sophisticated and mature. (Note: this video may not be suitable for minors.)

 Boys Beware – This was an anti-homosexual propaganda film from the 1950′s. In light of recent anti-gay marriage ads, it (unfortunately) appears similar propaganda continues to be broadcast.

 How Cellphones, Twitter, Facebook Can Make History – This is an excellent TED Talk by Clay Shirky that demonstrates how emerging social tools “help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors.”

 Story of Stuff – This video doesn’t directly look at how media affects society. Rather, it takes a very critical and eye-opening look at the life cycle of goods and services. It is definitely worth watching and sharing.


There's also some related MEDIA stuff here which is probably more relevant to the A2 class:

History of Technology & Media:

The Growing Phenomenon of Internet – This is a 1993 CBC report on the emergence of the Internet. It is interesting to watch this early media account of the Internet and to think about how much has changed in only 16 years. Additionally, the techno-utopianism of this report is striking.

 A Communications Primer – The ephemeral piece is an instructional film created in 1953 for IBM by Ray & Charles Eames with music by Elmer Bernstein. The video presents communications theory that is remarkably accurate, even before the age of the Internet.

 Internet Power – This is a 1995 educational video about the entertainment value of the Internet. While parts of the video demonstrate the great technological gains we have made, other parts make me question the gains regarding the mindset of the majority of Internet users.

How the News Works – This is a short, anti-corporate explanation of how the mainstream media functions.

The Internet in 1969 – This is a late 1960′s video describing futuristic technologies that resemble today’s Internet affordances.

Television Delivers People – This video is purported as “a seminal work in the now well-established critique of popular media as an instrument of social control that asserts itself subtly on the populace through ‘entertainments’, for the benefit of those in power-the corporations that maintain and profit from the status quo.” The style of this video is just ripe to be emulated.


AND ONE MORE I PICKED OUT!...

Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Consent' documentary on Propaganda