Advertising and Society Summer 2009 CMN 2173

Play me . . .

1. Course Blog
2. Advertising and Society Course Outline
3. Mid-Term Project Instructions

‘Climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated’: New York Times

if you follow climate science, what has been striking is how insistently some of the world’s best scientists have been warning — in just the past few months — that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago. Indeed, if Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows.

Consider just two recent articles:

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1, that “the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said. ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,’ Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said.” — Mother Nature’s Dow

Industry Leaders on Cell Phone Trends

A good view of trends from people like Chad Hurley.

Examples of Excellent Blogging: Update #1

Herewith are examples of excellent blog entries by your peers this semester:

• Barbie’s 50th.
  Excellent use of images and analysis.
• Sexy American Apparel.
  Excellent use of images. Good analysis.
• Say whaaat!?!
  Excellent typography and layout. Good analysis.
• Using the song structure or breaking grounds?
  Excellent use of the text and theory to analyse songs.
• creep me, please …
  Good use of ethnographic observation and connection to media theorist.
• Hook-up Culture
  Good use of images and data. Good extension of a topic mentioned in class.
• From the “Pale Blue Dot” to the “Little Glass Dot”
  Thoughful reflection on media experience.
• Evolution of Dance
  Thoughtful, good use of typography
• Reality Class Notes
  Extra impressive — uses video to duscuss the medium of video!
• Raw Chicken
  Note the clever subtitle that frames the blog content.
• Can’t A Kid Just Dance?

On Parody as a Core Cultural Script of YouTube

Here is an excellent parody by a University of Ottawa student:

MySpace Has 90,000 Registered Sex Offenders

From the New York Times,

“MySpace Turns Over 90,000 Names of Registered Sex Offenders.” by Jenna Wortham.

MySpace provided two state attorneys general the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders it had banned from its site in response to a subpoena.

The figure is 40,000 more than the amount previously acknowledged by MySpace, according to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut . . .

TV and Video Games Increase Teen Depression

From: “TV and video games increase teen depression risk: study“

Spending more hours watching television or playing video games as a teenager may lead to depression in young adults . . .

participants had significantly greater odds of developing depression by follow-up for each hour of daily television viewed . . .

those reporting higher total media exposure had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily use . . .

Young women were found to be less likely to develop symptoms of depression than young men when exposed to the same amount of electronic media.

Join me on FaceBook

I have created a Facebook page under the name Doc Strange
so students can join my page and I can have a million friends.

See you on Facebook.

Electronic Bullying

From the New York Times:

Teaching Teenagers About Harassment

This month, three teenage girls, students at Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, Pa., were charged with disseminating child pornography.

They had sent nude pictures of themselves by cellphone to their teenage boyfriends, who were charged with possessing child pornography.

The legal consequences in this case may have been unique, but the behavior is not. About 20 percent of teenagers have posted or sent nude cellphone pictures of themselves, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit group.

Context: The Disciplined Society

In one more of countless such examples, the police have been caught spying on ordinary citizens engaged in peaceful civil liberties. This story, from the Washington Post, shows the erosion of civil society into a post 9/11 police state, and demonstrates the very narrow degree of actual liberty in the disciplined social order of capitalism. New media will enable counter-surveillence strategies.

The petty and pernicious spying operation of Maryland’s state police

American governments have an inglorious history of spying on domestic dissidents; compared with FBI operations during the Red Scare, the Maryland State Police seem like Keystone Kops. But it’s a mistake to dismiss Maryland’s police espionage against its own residents as the work of hapless bunglers. In fact, it is pernicious and symptomatic of a post-Sept. 11 erosion of respect for fundamental civil liberties…

Justice Department regulations explicitly prohibit police from gathering information on groups and individuals unless “there is reasonable suspicion that the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct or activity.” But with state and local law enforcement agencies awash in federal money meant to root out domestic terrorist plots, civil libertarians have warned that police will start seeing potential terrorists and plots everywhere, “reasonable suspicion” be damned. The Maryland episode and other recent cases in Colorado and Massachusetts suggest their concerns are justified.

If the authorities equate dissent with criminal intent, they undermine the impulse for free speech and political activity itself. The specter of police infiltration can sow suspicion and paranoia and prompt people to keep their mouths shut. Could anything be more anti-American than that?

The police, invoking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, suggest that any operation undertaken for any reason is legitimate. “In a post-9/11 world,” said Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, officers are duty-bound “to protect the citizens of Maryland from threats foreign and domestic.” But if they cannot distinguish five middle-aged peaceniks from criminals, the police themselves become the real threat to American society.