Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. Hebrews 11:1
The most difficult task that a human encounters is the search for truth. Every time we grasp for it we find someone who can speak or write to challenge our grasped beliefs. In a world filled with "truth," an information superhighway running through every class, living, and bedroom, how are we to extract The Truth. We have watched to see how easily we can be manipulated to believe, how can we guard ourselves against deception?
Reflect on how we determine what is true, both in the media and in the rest of our lives.
It is easy to believe in the mind, but belief in anything only gains credibility as a belief when it is put into action. Discuss how we then should live in a world of mass media.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Assessing the Front Page
Use the Front Page of the Newspaper to answer the following Questions. Be ready to present your findings to the class.
1. Which Items had the largest headlines and why?
2. Which Items had the smallest headlines? Why?
3. Which Stories had Photos? Why?
4. Consider the placement of the articles. Does the position of a story (above the fold, below the fold etc.) affect your attention?
5. What other information is on the front page in addition to major news stories How does this affect your attention?
6. How many stories are on the front page? How many are local? How many are national? How many are international? List article headlines.
7 What do you find appealing about the front page? What would you change?
1. Which Items had the largest headlines and why?
2. Which Items had the smallest headlines? Why?
3. Which Stories had Photos? Why?
4. Consider the placement of the articles. Does the position of a story (above the fold, below the fold etc.) affect your attention?
5. What other information is on the front page in addition to major news stories How does this affect your attention?
6. How many stories are on the front page? How many are local? How many are national? How many are international? List article headlines.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Noo noos
Select a story from the following list of topics
Your assignment is to find out what the story's history is. And then follow the story to the present. Aside from the research into past stories on the subject, you will also be required to conduct an interview with a person directly involved in the story. You will need to prepare a set of thoughtful well researched interview questions to ask. After all of your research and interviews have been finished write a 400 word news article presenting the story for the school or local newspaper.
Here are the possible stories:
Resource Use Stories
Water Rights between Canada and the US:
Land being pulled out of the ALR in Langley.
What does the Sign across the street mean "Improving Farmland through Urban Development."
Where did all the Sockeye go?
Olympics
Homeless forced into shelters "when its cold."
Olympic village over budget
Iraqi athlete snubbed at games.
Is beuracracy going to kill the Games.
School
Where does our teachers Coffee come from?
Who makes our gym strip?
What is our school's carbon footprint?
What are the hidden cost of the Invisible Children Campeign
Langley Stories
Sale of Property for the 208th overpass
Why is Langley a large parking lot
Is Google Streetview an invasion of privacy.
Drug production and sale in Langley
Vancouver Stories
The new boat people; should they be allowed to stay?
H1N1 should we get the vaccine?
How many students at LCS have had H1N1?
....if you have another story you would like to chase that is related to issues of social justice just ask
Your assignment is to find out what the story's history is. And then follow the story to the present. Aside from the research into past stories on the subject, you will also be required to conduct an interview with a person directly involved in the story. You will need to prepare a set of thoughtful well researched interview questions to ask. After all of your research and interviews have been finished write a 400 word news article presenting the story for the school or local newspaper.
Here are the possible stories:
Resource Use Stories
Water Rights between Canada and the US:
Land being pulled out of the ALR in Langley.
What does the Sign across the street mean "Improving Farmland through Urban Development."
Where did all the Sockeye go?
Olympics
Homeless forced into shelters "when its cold."
Olympic village over budget
Iraqi athlete snubbed at games.
Is beuracracy going to kill the Games.
School
Where does our teachers Coffee come from?
Who makes our gym strip?
What is our school's carbon footprint?
What are the hidden cost of the Invisible Children Campeign
Langley Stories
Sale of Property for the 208th overpass
Why is Langley a large parking lot
Is Google Streetview an invasion of privacy.
Drug production and sale in Langley
Vancouver Stories
The new boat people; should they be allowed to stay?
H1N1 should we get the vaccine?
How many students at LCS have had H1N1?
....if you have another story you would like to chase that is related to issues of social justice just ask
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Freedom of the Press
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/taryn_simon_photographs_secret_sites.html
Note the way in which Taryn Simon lays down a concise relationship between image and word. The image gives the illusion of a truth, or perhaps is at least a threat to fantasy. But as art it is abstract, open to thousands of interpretations. Her written texts that accompany the images give the viewer a concrete reality from which they understand the images. Like a newspapers relation between story and image.
Her subject gives rise to questions about accepted realities in society. It allows us glimpses behind the curtain of American society into strange chambers that beg for more questions to be asked and answered. This is the role of the Journalist to press for answers to the quetions that should be answered, however uncomfortable they make those asked.
The Freedom of the press to ask questions and search for answers is one of the foundations of democratic society. And it is something that is not ever guarunteed but must be continually maintained.
Take a story from the 25 top censored stories of 2009. Give a summary of the story. Seek more information on the story is it reported by legitimate news agencies? Are there discussions on newsgroups with apparently intelligent participants? Are there voices proving or disputing the story? What are their arguments? Why might this story be censored?
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/
Provide a written report of your findings.
Note the way in which Taryn Simon lays down a concise relationship between image and word. The image gives the illusion of a truth, or perhaps is at least a threat to fantasy. But as art it is abstract, open to thousands of interpretations. Her written texts that accompany the images give the viewer a concrete reality from which they understand the images. Like a newspapers relation between story and image.
Her subject gives rise to questions about accepted realities in society. It allows us glimpses behind the curtain of American society into strange chambers that beg for more questions to be asked and answered. This is the role of the Journalist to press for answers to the quetions that should be answered, however uncomfortable they make those asked.
The Freedom of the press to ask questions and search for answers is one of the foundations of democratic society. And it is something that is not ever guarunteed but must be continually maintained.
Take a story from the 25 top censored stories of 2009. Give a summary of the story. Seek more information on the story is it reported by legitimate news agencies? Are there discussions on newsgroups with apparently intelligent participants? Are there voices proving or disputing the story? What are their arguments? Why might this story be censored?
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/
Provide a written report of your findings.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I've Begun Asking
I’m breaking my habit of asking strangers, “What do you do? As if they’re no more than what they do.
I’ve begun asking
“What are your dreams and your dreads?”
“What moves you excites you, alarms you?”
“What drains you or sustains you?”
“What interests or bores you, amuses or grieves you?”
“Where do you go when you’re homesick?”
“Where do you rest when you’re tired?”
“Who are you when you’re alone, and whom do you miss?”
“And who misses you?”
But when were dealing with questions,
Perhaps it’s not really what
Or where,
Or who,
But whose.
Whose are you?
And whose am I?
(Gerhard Frost) Journey of the Heart
I’ve begun asking
“What are your dreams and your dreads?”
“What moves you excites you, alarms you?”
“What drains you or sustains you?”
“What interests or bores you, amuses or grieves you?”
“Where do you go when you’re homesick?”
“Where do you rest when you’re tired?”
“Who are you when you’re alone, and whom do you miss?”
“And who misses you?”
But when were dealing with questions,
Perhaps it’s not really what
Or where,
Or who,
But whose.
Whose are you?
And whose am I?
(Gerhard Frost) Journey of the Heart
Jacob Comp and Esau Tele
The relationship between these two twins is a historical marvel. Watch the following video to gather an understanding of the 60 year struggle between Hairy and Heal Grabber.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/peter_hirshberg_on_tv_and_the_web.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/peter_hirshberg_on_tv_and_the_web.html
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Paradigm Shift
What happens to a culture when new technologies enter everyday lives and change the way we participate in that culture?
Television brought the wide world into the homes of almost every North American. Voices from far away talking at you, telling you stories from all over. Stories that in the end created the mythologies of your time. It was so powerful in capturing eye balls that ten years ago, when every one was averaged out, we could say that if you lived an average length of time then you would, on average, have spent SEVEN years of your life watching TV by the time you were through. That was insanity; seven years of willful catatonia, and you can still watch examples of that mania everytime your parents or older siblings hunker down for an evening of turn-on-tune-out.
But a strange thing has happened.
You aren't as interested in that box of lights.
You have a new box of lights to play with.
And the best thing about this one... is you get to talk back.
And that is what is going to make all of the difference now, and forever.
The TV trained us to change with the channels
But the channels suddenly become innumerable
producers = consumers
Welcome to the....?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Goodnight and Good Luck
Who was Edward R. Murrow?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNq8LoYjG2E
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. - Edward R. Murrow. - See It Now -9th march 1954
Murrow is a symbol,a leader and the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose individual Communists and traitors. And I am compelled by the facts to say to you that Mr. Edward R. Murrow, as far back as twenty years ago, was engaged in propaganda for Communist causes.- Joseph R. McCarthy- See It Now - April 6, 1954
I always felt that Joe lived in a different moral universe. He asked himself only two questions. What do I want and how do I get it. Once he got rolling, you had to step aside. It was every man for himself, sort of what anarchy must be like.
-Edward Hart - 1983 - Lawyer who worked with Joseph MacCarthy
What happens next?
Monday, September 21, 2009
V for Vendetta
Study questions. Respond in your journal and be prepared to discuss them in class.
(For those of you who weren't here for the first half: Please, still answer all of the questions, discuss them with someone who saw the whole film.)
1.How do your opinions of the characters V and Evey change throughout the film?
2. Faith and christianity are not directly discussed, but, the film portrays a few characters as being religious. How are they presented, and why are they shown in that light? think particularly about the Bishop, and the Chancelor. What other referecnces to faith does the film make?
3. How do V's actions change his society, in other words what happens next?
4. How does the film show V as a hero? How is he the villain? Why is he shown as both?
5. If V is the Medium, what is the message?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Technocratic Democracy
One of the extensions that new media has provided is an extension to the volume and distance that a single voice can travel. Facebook allows users to tap (or poke) the shoulders of long lost acquaintances worldwide, and then reconnect. Through twitter networking even the most banal of activities, such as the walk out your front door, can be nationally announced events. It is difficult to wade through the volumes of noise that all of the social networkers make in order to hear the tones of culture, the message that follows the medium. It is important to see two opposing realities with regards to all of this.
1. If information is power and you allow many people, organizations, governments and marketers access to "your" information you increase their power. This can have the effect of increasing the manipulation of your world through more consumer specific marketing, or the implications of more sinister uses of power. If these others work for good than you lend your voice to theirs.
2. You are given acces to a larger, higher and louder platform of international discourse. You have access to endless amounts of information to inform your speach on that level and are therefore far more powerful than individuals of previous generations.
It is into this context of immense possibility and cultural dissemination through new media that you are coming into adulthood. And so what will you do? Where will you spend your efforts in this culture.
"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsability that comes with his freedom" -Bob Dylan
"Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life." -Mary Oliver
1. If information is power and you allow many people, organizations, governments and marketers access to "your" information you increase their power. This can have the effect of increasing the manipulation of your world through more consumer specific marketing, or the implications of more sinister uses of power. If these others work for good than you lend your voice to theirs.
2. You are given acces to a larger, higher and louder platform of international discourse. You have access to endless amounts of information to inform your speach on that level and are therefore far more powerful than individuals of previous generations.
It is into this context of immense possibility and cultural dissemination through new media that you are coming into adulthood. And so what will you do? Where will you spend your efforts in this culture.
"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsability that comes with his freedom" -Bob Dylan
"Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life." -Mary Oliver
Friday, September 11, 2009
Extend and Amputate
When considering a new medium McLuhan suggests that the answers to the following questions will predict what kind of a culture it will grow.
1. What does it extend?
2.What does it make obsolete?
3. What is retrieved?
4. What does the Technology reverse if it is over-extended?
assignment:
consider facebook through the lens of these questions.
To understand what these questions mean read the following article.
Once on the page, hit ctrl and the letter F and enter the subject you want to read about.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html
1. What does it extend?
2.What does it make obsolete?
3. What is retrieved?
4. What does the Technology reverse if it is over-extended?
assignment:
consider facebook through the lens of these questions.
To understand what these questions mean read the following article.
Once on the page, hit ctrl and the letter F and enter the subject you want to read about.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html
The Medium is the Message
In 1895 a theatre was filled to watch the following film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cUEANKv964&feature=related
The finely dressed movie goers did not react to the feature film as you might suspect. Instead of complaints about it being short, or just responding with bored incredulity, these movie goers rose, screaming and fleeing from their seats, into the street. I wasn't there, but that's what I've read and the reason for their panic, I think, is that they expected this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cUEANKv964&feature=related
The finely dressed movie goers did not react to the feature film as you might suspect. Instead of complaints about it being short, or just responding with bored incredulity, these movie goers rose, screaming and fleeing from their seats, into the street. I wasn't there, but that's what I've read and the reason for their panic, I think, is that they expected this!
They did! They had not seen a moving picture before and everything they believed drove them to expect this result, and so they fled in panic. Having no frame of reference to deal with this new media they ran. In some ways this still happens today.
Now for something completely different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
That was Marshall McLuhan, professor at the University of Toronto back in the mid 1900's. He came up with the idiom "the medium is the message," and it may have made him feel profound but what does it mean? Try and work it out for yourself. What might he mean?
Lights out. Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
A medium is like a substance in which things can be grown. Think of a medium in your bio lab's petri dishes growing bacterial cultures.
A message is not so much the words or slogans that make the message but rather what that slogan is supposed to do. Jesus said "Love your neighbor as yourself", not to make a popular phrase but, so that it would effect change, and people would love their neighbors.
So, a television, which is a fertile ground for developing culture, has an effect on culture, and so that is what it's message is. If you watch TV there will be other effects, social changes, changes to the way your living room is set up, changes to what you do in the evening etc. That is the message.
For a very thorough explanation of this idea check out this website.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm
Here are some videos that let you hear Marshall McLuhan talk about it himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
The Medium is.
And you can quote me on that.
Welcome to the online Journal tracking the activities of one High School class through a year of study in the field of Media and Culture. It will be a place for myself, the teacher of said class, to share with my students the material presented in the class. It will be a place for that material to be shared with those around us. It will be a place to find out what happened while they had the flu. But it will mainly be an exercise in culture creation, a way to not be mere observers, but rather shifters of culture. This brings me to the title. It may be ill fated to call it so, for I believe that the activities of culture shaping are less defensive and more active by nature. But I desire to see students capable of holding a gaze with culture, not so as to be lulled to sleep by it, but rather that they may stare into its heart and understand its power. A power for ill? Sometimes yes; but a power of creative human spirits, made in the image of a creative God, to live out a call to create wondrous things. And the combination of all these things, cameras, gardens, usb keys, loaves of bread and dance routines, is nothing more or less than Culture.
Mr. deGroot
September 9, 2009
Welcome to the online Journal tracking the activities of one High School class through a year of study in the field of Media and Culture. It will be a place for myself, the teacher of said class, to share with my students the material presented in the class. It will be a place for that material to be shared with those around us. It will be a place to find out what happened while they had the flu. But it will mainly be an exercise in culture creation, a way to not be mere observers, but rather shifters of culture. This brings me to the title. It may be ill fated to call it so, for I believe that the activities of culture shaping are less defensive and more active by nature. But I desire to see students capable of holding a gaze with culture, not so as to be lulled to sleep by it, but rather that they may stare into its heart and understand its power. A power for ill? Sometimes yes; but a power of creative human spirits, made in the image of a creative God, to live out a call to create wondrous things. And the combination of all these things, cameras, gardens, usb keys, loaves of bread and dance routines, is nothing more or less than Culture.
Mr. deGroot
September 9, 2009
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