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Media Mediatation #8 Isn’t Everything News to Somebody?

Why not blog about blogging in my blog? First off, about this video I found, “Blogs in Plain English”. The video is just that, it simplifies (simple solutions!) the whole idea of blogging and why people do it pretty simply. The production techniques used are pretty simple yet they were probably pretty time consuming for the producers to put together. A voiceover speaks over pieces of paper that are labeled and color coded symbols to get across the point. A real live finger can be seen moving the pieces around in a logical matter while a marker draws paths connecting necessary points. 

I wasn’t so much into the idea of creating a blog for myself in this class because I wasn’t sure who (other than Rob) would read it. I never thought I was very interesting to read let alone had interesting things to talk about but as this video points out, that’s okay. “People like you have the power of the media, a personal kind of news that appeals to a high number of small audiences.” In this web 2.0 world, blogs allow us, anyone, to get a message out there. It’s amazing that we never had this power before; Neil Postman wouldn’t know what to think about it! When he was writing his text, the "news" was chosen and writen by a reporter and then went to a tiny group of people who decided what would be broadcasted to the masses. While we still see this way of reporting today, it's not the only method we have thanks to things such as blogs.

I don’t follow too many blogs other than some of my fellow classmates, teachers and friends that I know personally. I feel as though people only read blogs if they know the person writing them or if they care about the content. I find myself skimming through Tweets clicking on links of blogs that sound as though they have an interesting new post up, often the topic has to do with social media. Next, I find myself not only skimming that blog, but clicking on hyperlinks they have and other sites and authors they recommend. Before too long, I have 10 windows open and don’t even remember which Tweet I started at.

Here's a cool list of 25 Social Media Blogs.

Media Meditation #7 Burton Does It Again

So the first thing that really got me about this video is the fact that it is a video at all! When I think about clothing lines, I think right away of catalogs, glossy, paper catalogs that I find in my mailbox, technological shift to be able to see a catalog on youtube.com. In this video, Burton is showing off their 2010 women’s line. What better way to showcase these jackets than to allow customers to see exactly how they fit on someone, how they move and how they zip or button up. No words are spoken, just images, an epistemological shift. The production technique used in this video is pretty unique as well, each girl puts on a jacket and then takes it off and tosses it out of the camera shot, the next scene, showcasing a totally different back drop has a new jacket falling from the angel the previous girl threw it. Cool tricks, simple yet clever.

The 4 minute long video catches the attention of my limbic brain right off with the repetitive beats that are playing in the background, Davey Rocket's “Upbeat Heartbreak” to be exact. Another thing that catches me (and my limbic brain) in the video are the gorgeous backdrops that change every time the jacket changes. I would expect to see all snow but Burton is keeping it fresh by showing that their jackets and apparel can be sported not just on the slopes with their shots of fields, tunnels and streets in the flick. (Tapping into people’s emotions here with a bit of emotion transfer as they view each scene? I think so)

I found out about this video via Twitter when not only Burton Snowboards tweeted about it, showing us a personal shift but some others who had worked on it or were just giving shout outs to some of the girls in it. Another case of Twitter being a great marketing tool and way to spread a link around the Internet. The girls in the video are professional riders on the Burton Women’s Team along with some of the Shop Girls. Pretty cool to see people you look up to modeling a coat you could be wearing… persuasive technique of using beautiful people. 

Rad. Corporate. Good day.

Media Meditation #6 Is What You See Really What You Get?

Food, everyone loves it. So much so that there is even an entire television network dedicated to it, Food Network. On this channel shows vary from how to cook a certain recipe, to how certain foods are made and packaged in a factory to what restaurant you can find the best cheeseburger at. There are even reality challenge shows over food where multiple chefs will battle it out to be judge on their final products. 

Often these shows use production and persuasive techniques such as humor and beautiful people (see Paula Deen above) to make the food and cook process more entertaining. Neil Postman talked a lot about turning things into forms of entertainment and the Food Network has certainly done so when it comes to the kitchen.

With my brother being a culinary major, my family has taken a particular liking to the channel. Also, we thankfully (my parents especially) have the opportunity to travel a lot so we look to the station for different dinning ideas. The fact that we can do this and use the Internet is certainly a technological shift rather than just getting a recommendation from a friend or seeing an advertisement for the place in the paper. The past Thanksgiving break we traveled to Buffalo, NY to see family and tried to eat at a place called Grovers that was featured as an awesome burger joint in the show, Diners, Drive Ins, Dives.  

  The small restaurant ended up having a huge wait, something my dad pointed out that he had read on a message board online. Apparently after the show featured the place, they had a huge increase in customers, so much so that they stopped doing take out orders!

I asked my parents if they have ever made special trips to check out some of the places they see on TV or read about in books but the answer was not usually. They will however know that they are traveling somewhere for a conference, vacation or family and pay special attention to see if any places from that area are featured. My dad, who loves planning things ahead of time, will often check out the website RoadFood.com (pictured above) to get idea on places to eat while we travel.  

Although my brother and I always pick on him for planning ahead, we’ve always been really pleased with the outcome. One of my favorite places that we have gone after seeing it featured on the Phantom Gourmet was the East Coast Grill in Boston, MA… check it out on the video below and tell me you wouldn't be tempted to try it!  (Come on, they have a make your own bloody mary bar!)

Here are some of the other places they have tried out and where they learned about them...

Paula Deens – Savannah Georgia (Food TV Network Show)

Grovers – Buffalo, NY (Diners, Drive Ins, Dives)

Holy Canoli – Worchester, MA (Phantom Gourmet)

East Coast Grill – Boston, MA (Phantom Gourmet)

Super Duper Weenie – Fairfield, CT (RoadFood.com)

Peter Lugers Steakhouse – Brooklyn, NY (Steak Paradise)

PJ Clarke’s – New York City (Hamburger Heaven)

Media Meditation #5 Wait... WHAT?

Caila and I went in to Elaine Young’s office the other morning to have her answer some questions for us and we left her office with even more questions than we started with. Elaine brought to our attention the news of a recent study that was released by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issuing new breast cancer screening guidelines. “The task force now recommends against routine mammography screening for women before age 50 years and suggests that screening end at age 74 years." Although I strongly disagree with this whole recommendation, this media meditation is more about the different places on the Internet you can get your information. Who should you trust? Who should you listen to?

Elaine made her Facebook status (and sent a Tweet) saying, “WTF? Don’t teach BSE, no screening til 50! Imagine impact on “preventative” health care coverage.” And then included a link to an article about the issue on Medscape.com. As Clive Thompson tells us in his text, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy”, once you post something on the News Feed feature on Facebook, it is available for all your friends to see whether they click on your page or not, what a great way to get the word out about this new reccomendation. Elaine also included the hashtag, “#womenshealth” which I’m sure draws huge numbers on the search feature of Twitter as we learned in the text, “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live”. So now, all of Elaine’s followers know the facts, but where do people turn too next? My guess is they will visit their most trusted websites and blogs for more information and viewpoints, this shows a personal shift of the Internet.

This recommendation from the USPSTF really hit close to home for me because of everything I do for the non-profit organization, Boarding for Breast Cancer. Our goal is to inform people how crucial it is to perform BSE and live an active lifestyle and now this article is going against those value messages of ours that. For me, I next went to B4BC.org to see what the standpoint is there.

B4BC opposes the plan which then makes me want to get a viewpoint from another source in order to figure out my own individual meaning. Also, Blair who runs the B4BC official Twitter and Facebook put out little notes saying to check out the website here for more information on their standpoint on the issue so that people who didn't actively seek out the information could still stumble across it.

I figured another source people may go to in order to find out more information and form their own individual meanings would be the American Cancer Society’s website. The interface of the website had a link front and center leading you to their viewpoint on the matter. Interesting to me that you somewhat had to scan the page in order to find the link but at the same time, it was front and center compared to the other links across the top.

What do you think? It's important to not just read one thing on the Internet and close your case. Poke around, see what other people are saying and doing and when mixed with your own values, you can often come up with a pretty solid and thoughtful opinion.

Well, I still believe BSE and mammograms are pretty... well, really important... here's a video from B4BC filling you in a little more about some steps you can take to help keep yourself safe.

7 Steps To Stomp Out Breast Cancer

Boarding For Breast Cancer [B4BC] | MySpace Video

Media Meditation #4 Perez Hilton, My Mom & The Dude at the Bar on Adam Lambert

"You know honestly, if I offended some people… it's apples and oranges. I'm not an artist that does things for every single person. I believe in artistic freedom and expression, I believe in honoring the lyrics of a song, and those lyrics aren't really for everybody either." - Adam Lambert (Taken from PerezHilton.com, interview with Ryan Seacrest)

Unfortunately (or not) I didn’t catch the American Music Awards on Sunday night but I sure caught all the highlights. Whether it was from skimming through Tweets, reading Facebook status updates or looking at YouTube.com videos, I couldn’t miss hearing about all the drama of the night from Jennifer Lopez’s fall and Lady Gaga’s outfit (check out my friend Corey's blog here to hear more about what Lady Gaga has been up too) to Adam Lambert’s risqué performance. “Everyone” posting about it online is an example of a personal shift in the way information is passed around. Just like in Feed, even though I wasn’t searching for this information per say, it was sure being given to me. Even outside of the Perez Hilton social media world, my mom asked me if I saw Adam’s  debut performance of his new single and so did my male friend at the bar on Monday night. (Bar on a Monday night? It’s Thanksgiving break… come on!) It’s amazing to me how everyone in America seems to know about this gay man’s provocative performance during a music awards show on TV yet we don’t know how many of our own citizen’s are being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan right now. This is an example of one of our seven basic principles, “reality” construction; the media shows us clips, photos and words on Adam’s performance to put us into this world where that is the most important news fact.

Many people enjoyed Adam’s performance on Sunday night but at the same time, many disagreed with it. A good example of individual meaning here, some people look at his performance as him being a positive gay role model, others think it was . Lambert performed his newest single, For Your Entertainment. During the gig, he simulated oral sex with a male dancer as well as made out with one of the male band members. He also grabbed his crotch multiple times. Lambert responded to the backlash of this performance by saying, "There's a big double standard, female pop artists have been doing things provocative like that for years, and the fact that I'm a male, and I'll be edited and discriminated against could be a problem. People are scared and it's really sad, I just wish people could open their minds up and enjoy things, it's all for a laugh, it's really not that big of a deal." (Taken from PerezHilton.com) This is interesting to think about the double standard because remember when Britney Spears and Madonna made out on national television? Yup, everyone loved it and posts online were nothing but praise.

When I Googled Adam Lambert’s name to try and out more information on the performance and what happened, I was bombarded with articles about it. Perez had an opinion (of course) and so did many “news sources” such as MTV, USA Today and ABC News. The AMA are produced by ABC, also important to note is the fact that ABC apparently got 1,500 complaints about the performance after it aired on the east coast. Turns out, they didn’t air the performance when the show played for the west coast audience and it’s interesting to note that I could only find the video of the performance on Perez’s website! I searched Google videos and Youtube.com and couldn’t find one of his actual performance at all, only something that was previous rehearsal for the live performance which I have embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Surprise, surprise, the performance of Adam on ABC’s morning show, Good Morning America scheduled for the morning after the AMA’s was suddenly cancelled. The network didn’t officially announce any reason for the cancellation but it’s pretty obvious that the network for nervous for what Lambert would do on live, morning television. CBS however picked up the performer to appear on their morning show, The Early Show the following morning to be aired on Wednesday, good move on their part I think. 

Most important to note throughout all this is although Adam made a lot of people upset with his performance, he made thousands talk about him.

Media Meditation #3 Finding Your Place on the Book

I have recently been focused on editing my resume for my Internship search. (Well search no longer since I will be interning at Brandthropology during the Spring 2010 semester. Woot woot.) But anyways, the updates to my resume included examples of the social marketing projects I have implemented for two of my employers, past and present. In this post I'll show you what I have been up too, the differences between the both pages and what I have learned from managing them.

I worked at Six Flags New England for 5 summers lastly as a Supervisor in the Rides department. The Rides department can be broken down simply by explaining that there are team members who vary in age from 16 years old to 50 who come to the park for a fun summer job with friends, then there are team leads or trainers who hold a bit more responsibility and above them come the seasonal supervisors, usually about 12 people. Then the details get murky but above the supervisors are their bosses and then their bosses and so on. The rides in the park are divided into 6 sections and each section has two supervisors, a handful of team leads and then a whole lot more team members. You work closely with this group of people and by the end of the summer, close friendships are established. 

Six Flags really depends on retention to continue staffing the numerous positions available summer after summer. Also, repeat employees are easier to train, know the ropes and often gain the skills to achieve promotions. I figured a good retention aid would be to establish a place that team members could go to during the off season and see all their friends in "one place"...

I created a Facebook account specifically for the Rides Department. I had to do this because I found out that in order to put together a "group" you needed to link the group with a specific account and I didn't want everyone to see that I was behind the group so that it would look a bit more official. Also, I knew I wouldn't be working there forever so having my own account behind the group would hinder others having the access to take over maintaining it. The group was and still is a success. It's interesting to me because the actual account has more friends than the group has followers. When I started the account and group, I would post questions to get team members talking such as....

"Who's coming back next season?"

"Did YOU get rehired yet?"

"Suggestions for a ride night?"

This past season, my old boss and good friend Jen took over maintaining the site and she did a really good job with it. She would post about different employee ride nights, award ceremonies, special events and even a wiffle ball game that was being organized between the divisions. Jen has even been using the page to promote a Rides Department Blog called All Clear, super exciting!

 

99.9 The Buzz has a website that is pretty actively being updated as promotions, events and artists are constantly changing however they didn't have an "official" Facebook page until I made one a few months ago. I am still in the process of making it concise enough to pass on for someone else to maintain post graduation but it's coming along nicely. This set up is a bit different than the Six Flags one because this one is for fans where the other one was for employees. For the Buzz Facebook, I want to let the fans know what's going on in the studio and what's going on as far as events we are putting on. For example, Matisyahu just came today  and did a private performance in the Buzz studio... a fellow employee sent a picture of him to her Facebook account right from her cell phone, I tagged it as the Buzz and through up a status update about the performance, now our fans are informed just like that!

The News That Didn't Make the News

A look at Project Censored 2010's 18th story,
Ecuador's Constitutional Rights of Nature...

Quick recap, Ecuador is located along the North West side of South America. It's population is approximately 13.2 million people and it's a Spanish speaking country.

The story of Ecuador's constitutional rights of nature outlines as followed...

• In September 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare constitutional rights of nature. These rights installed a new system of environmental protection on the country by redefining people's relationship with nature. The laws asserted that nature is not just an object but rather a rights-bearing entity that should be treated with parity under the law.

• Other countries are becoming interested in this constitution and beginning to draft plans of their own however it's not all working out as perfectly as planned. "I expect them to fight it, their bread and butter is based on being able to treat countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels. Multinational corporations are dependent on ravaging the planet in order to increase their bottom line" says Mari Margil, associate director of the Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

• A mining law introduced by the president of Ecuador, Correa, and backed by Canadian companies is proof that although the constitution looks good on paper, it really comes down to money and how it can be obtained. The President argues that allowing this extensive mining will bring "well being and relieve poverty" on his people which "overrules the rights of nature".

• Many are disappointed with the mining law that takes the "loopholes" in the rights-to-nature and "widens them" to get away with such extensive destruction. These indigenous leaders have filled a lawsuit deeming the project as unconstitutional yet as of now, nothing is being changed due to the loose wording of the constitution.
• The Los Angeles Times was the only US media outlet to cover the story. The published story trivialized the act by suggesting it sounded "like a stunt by the San Fransisco City Council" and that it seemed "crazy".
• Although there are struggles to ensure that the true meaning of the constitution is upheld, many believe that the nature laws could offer a path to an ecologically sustainable future and that all countries should be monitoring and learning from what is going on in Ecuador.

So I first threw the title of this story into a Google search and within .34 seconds had over 176,000 links appear in front of my face. Most of the links lead me to individuals blogs where they focused on topics such as nature, climate change, sustainable environments and different government bills and laws. Most of the sites I clicked around simply addressed the fact that Ecuador was passing this constitution and then either praised or dissed the idea and questioned if it was something all countries would see in the future. It was reassuring to see that individuals in the United States were aware of this story and pondering if the US could even instate such regulations and whether or not they would work.

I clicked on a link that brought me to Ecuador.com, the countries websites created by a group called "Ecuador Channel" along with a group called Paley Media. The website includes an article about the constitution reform and what it plans to say. It also says that the reform comes with mixed reactions but it gives people the opportunity to decide where they stand on the issue.

I next came across a blog called "Climate and Capitalism" that is an online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative that is published by Ian Angus. Ian wrote multiple books on the subject of climate change and previously hosted a blues music program called "Let the Good Times Roll" on CIUT-FM in Toronto. He states what the constitution actually says and how its being implemented and doesn't really throw his opinion into it, rather he allows readers to comment with their own thoughts.

Finally, I conducted a full search of all publications on Lexis Nexis and was surprised and glad to see 706 articles come up on the topic. I realize that not all of these articles covered the new constitution but the fact that it can be found at all is positive.

I then narrowed the search down to include only "major US and world publications" and the search was quickly narrowed down to three. Three newspapers, The New York Times, Korea Times and the Globe and Mail which is based in Canada. The New York Times article that was published Dec 14, 2008 is a bit skeptical about how the laws will actually be followed because of the poverty in Ecuador and also the fact that the scope of nature's rights is really unclear how it is written. "The text puts less emphasis on defending specific species than on the rights of ecosystems in large." The Times does say that this idea is a milestone for environmental organizations that seek to rewrite our treatment of nature. They also write that this constitution was passed in Ecuador by nearly 70 percent of voters.

The article in The Globe and Mail from Canada is extremely positive about the movement Ecuador has made. They acknowledge that it is the first country to have passed such laws and further explain that the new constitution gives many of the same rights to rivers, forests, plants and animals as it does to people. "People do not have to claim damage to themselves or their property in order to file a claim against those that harm the environment".

I was a little disappointed to find out that the article published in the Korea times didn't even have relevance to the topic at hand...

Media Meditation #2 Birds' Eye View vs. Back to High School

I've been fortunate enough to attend not one but two concerts at Higher Ground recently. Neither of them did I have to pay for... for two different reasons though. Those two reasons allowed me to have two completely different media experiences and no better way to be able to remember them than to blog about them!

On October 7th I had the chance to see Matt & Kim perform. I found out about the concert from a long lost friend named Mikey via Facebook. He left me a message asking me if I was planning going to the show because he remembered I lived in Burlington now. Turns out my old friend from Western Mass was now touring with this band. What are the odds. Mikey was able to put us right on the guest list for free entrance to the show. Once we entered, we headed over the merch table where Mikey was responsible for selling T-shirts, posters, buttons, stickers and CDs for the band, talk about synergy on a smaller scale. It's important for bands these days to branch out from just selling music as often music can be found for free online while a T-shirt isn't as accessible. As Media & Society discusses, much of a bands income comes from the sales of things other than their music. 

As the band began to play, Mikey had another surprise for us. He gave us passes to watch the band from a behind stage balcony. I have been to Higher Ground many times but never viewed a show from up here. It was a really fun but different experience. I wasn't surrounded by hundreds of random people all excited and as amped up as I was but rather just a few close friends. Here are some pictures of the band performing from our view that were taken with my cell phone, uploaded right to Facebook from the venue and now they are embedded in this blog. Technological shift!

A few weeks later I had the pleasure of seeing New Found Glory at the same venue, Higher Ground. I probably wouldn't have gone to this concert if 1. I wasn't able to receive tickets through my work or 2. my best friend Carrie wasn't going to make the trip there from Boston, MA. Good thing both things happened. I got some of my friends to come with me, jumped in the car and headed to the venue. This time we weren't allowed even close to backstage (important note: it's all about who you know) but I was okay with that. As soon as the band came on, I felt myself get carried back to my high school days and with a huge smile on my face,Carrie and I got as close to the stage as possible, surrounding ourselves with the other fans. The energy of the crowd was so apparent all around us and it added so much fun to the experience. Live music will never go away just for this reason. Tours are important for a band to get their name out and to make money for themselves so support your favorite artists, it'll be well worth it no matter where you view the show from.

Just to add to my media experience here, I got home from the show after saying my goodbyes to my Boston friend Carrie and logged into Facebook (obviously). Carrie had uploaded the following picture from her Blackberry just 20 minutes after I left the venue. The caption read "NFG set list and drumsticks. My life rules." I smiled as our mutual high school friends pushed the "like" button underneath this picture.

Here is Matt & Kim's music video for their song "Daylight"

And here is New Found Glory's music video from Carrie and I's favorite High School throwback track "Hit or Miss".