Choosing Your “Area of Media Specialty”
Your “media specialty” will be an area of more intense scrutiny in your media studies. Be especially alert for events occurring in your area. The class will be looking for you to bring these items “to the table”, at least once a week.
Try to choose an area of interest. In some cases there may be overlap. Michael Jackson, for example, falls under “Legal & Trials” as well as “Music” and “Celebrity Watch” (not to mention “Realm of the Bizarre”).
Some topics will undoubtedly be more popular than others. Ties will be broken by random chance (coin flip, die roll, etc.). Please indicate your top four choices, by number (1 – 4).
_____ “AT THE MOVIES” Oscar nominations came out recently (January 22nd). I know what you’re thinking. No “Best Picture” for The Dark Knight? Frost/Nixon – are you kidding me? Have you seen any of the five nominees for Best Picture? Now, although Springtime is a slow time for movies, they will
start gearing up for the big summer season, and the Christmas season, too, for that matter, so we’ll be looking ahead to that.
_____ “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING” Not the reality tv show, but George Orwell’s Big Brother from the novel 1984, closely monitoring what the public was allowed or not allowed to see and know. “Domestic Spying” or “Terrorist Surveillance”? Should the government be able to take a look at where you’ve been on the internet lately? Why is Hasan Elahi putting is life on the internet for everyone to see? Do you know who Admiral Poindexter is? DARPA? Total Information Awareness? Don’t you think it’s time maybe you should?
_____ “BEHIND THE WHEEL” Automotive Issues. This time next year, will there be any American companies making automobiles? I hope so, but who knows.
_____ “BUSINESS & ECONOMICS” This one is not for the faint of heart. We’re in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the great depression, it’s said. How did we get here? More importantly, how do we get out? Our new president wants to spend close to a trillion dollars to jump start the economy, but the Republicans are digging their heels in. How are we supposed to know who’s right?
_____ “CELEBRITY WATCH” So what’s the latest with Brad and Angelina? I heard she may be pregnant. How about Jessica & Nick – any hope of a reconciliation. What’s the over/under on Britney Spears marriage lasting the year? And what’s that Paris Hiltonup to now? This AMS will focus on our fixation with the famous.
______“DEATH & DISMEMBERMENT” The famous headline in the New York Daily News screamed “HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR”. Now who doesn’t like that? Or how about this recent headline in People: “Horrifying New Details Emerge in Caylee Anthony Case”? If you like the gory details, this one is all yours. (And there will never be any shortage of material, believe you me.)
_____ “EARTHWATCH” The polar icecaps are melting, hurricanes are geeting more numerous and more destructive, species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. And nobody seems to care! (And if you do, you’re written off as some tree-hugging, New Age wack-job!) Maybe that’s because nobody is bothering to tell us about it. Somebody needs to keep us informed.
_____ “EDUCATION” So, how’s “No Child Left Behind” working out for you? The Attorney General of the state of Connecticut is suing the federal government over it, and other states are joining in. Are more standardized tests the answer? But if they aren't the answer, how else are we going to bring schools in Hartford and Bridgeport more in lines with those in Tolland and Farmington? Are charter schools the answer? School vouchers?
_____ “FASHION” Do you like clothes? Do you watch Project Runway? How much would you pay for a pocketbook? Over $500? $1,000? How about $550 for a wallet. (I was just on-line with Louis Vuitton.) I haven’t got a fashionable bone in my body, but to some people, it matters.
_____ “FEMINISM ON THE MARCH” Well, Hillary didn’t get to be president, but Secretary of State is not bad (this is one secretary who won’t be running out to get anybody coffee, that’s for sure). Some women are getting very powerful – Oprah – , but look at Congress, look at the boards of major corporations and what do you see – middle-aged white men!
_____ FURRY, FINNED, & FEATHERED FRIENDS” Animal issues. This could run the gamut from animal rights to baby panda cub stories. I’m sure you saw that YouTube of the little doggie dragging his friend to safety on that six lane highway?
_____ “HEALTH & MEDICINE” Another huge problem effecting our rapidly aging country. How to pay for all this health care. How many kids are going without? Remember Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17 year-old who died in 2007 when her insurance company refused to pay for her liver transplant. (Well, they did change their mind, but too late.) Well, good news – our new Surgeon General, the chief health officer for the United States, was the house doctor on CNN. (Speaking of “house doctors”. . . )
_____ “IN THE COURTROOM” There are no big trials on right now that I can think of, but the are smaller but important cases going on all the time. And, if you get lucky, maybe Bush and/or Cheney will be accused of war crimes. This AMS covers not only trials, but laws made by Congress, the state.
_____ “IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, (& IRAN)” It’s been nearly six years (and over 4,000 dead) since President Bush landed on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and assured us that major combat operation had ended. And when he landed, the Media cheered! (Now, not so much.) We don’t hear (or see) so much about the war these days. So how’s it going over there? Should we stay or should we go? When we leave, should we redeploy to Afghanistan? Meanwhile, next door in Iran, the government is trying to build nuclear power plants (and nuclear weapons). Can we let this happen? Can we do anything to stop it? I don’t mean to be dramatic, but your future depends on the outcome.
_____ “LI’L TYKES” That is, children. How are little boys and girls influenced by the tv they watch? The music they listen to?
_____ “LOCAL NEWS” If you can find any. “Nothing ever happens in this town” kids tell me, and according to the Hartford Courant, it’s true. But we also have the JI, and the Reminder News(of which I am a former coverboy, I might add). Do you think Denise D’Ascenzo could find Tolland on a map? What’s being reported in Tolland? More importantly, what’s not? Maybe it’s time for some Citizen Journalist to come to the fore.
_____ “MADISON AVENUE” That’s a street in New York where the bid ad agencies used to be, and it’s shorthand for the whole advertising industry. Of course, we’ll all be watching the Super Bowl. The game usually stinks, but the commercials can be great. Of course, who remembers what they’re selling, but they’re good none-the-less. (At $100,000 per second, it would be nice if we remembered them.) Maybe you watched Madmen – all about hard-drinking, chain-smoking, skirt-chasing ad executives in the early 1960’ – over the summer. It won a slew of Emmys. If that’s too long ago for you, there’s a new show on TNT (Trust Me) that just premiered on Monday. Oh, and then there’s infomercials.
_____ “MEDIA PERSONALITIES” Edward R. Murrow. Eric Sevareid. Walter Cronkite. In those days giants walked the earth. Those were trusted voices (all male) who brought us the news. Things are changing now. Did you see Katie Couric take down Sarah Palin? And what about that new girl on MS-NBC: Rachel Maddow? Not that there aren’t still a lot of boys around: Larry King, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Mathews, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann. Rush! Ann Coulter! And it’s not just news. Oprah, goes here, for sure, and Dr. Phil.
_____ “MEDIAWATCH” The media watches the politicians for us. Who watches the media? Well, there are people who do this for a living. Some can’t stand the New York Times, and some can’t stand Bill O’Reilly and Fox News, and there might even be one of two who are neutral! And of course nobody watches the media any closer than Jon Stewart.
_____ “MIDDLE EAST” Of course, that’s where Iran and Iraq are, but there’s a lot more where they came from. Israel. Palestine. Israel just went into the Gaza Strip, killing over a thousand people (over half civilians, including children) – to protect themselves against Hamas rockets. America and American media support Israel (ask Jimmy Carter what happens if you speak up against Israel) – but if you watch Al-Jazera you’ll see very different culture. It’s a tinderbox, and remember – according to the Bible, the world ends here!
_____ “MINORITY REPORT” Well, we’ve just elected an African-American president, but that doesn’t mean that racism and prejudice are dead. Arabs are the new Russians. If terrorists on “24” are Arab, is that bigoted, or just realistic? And whichever it is, what is the overall impact? Then of course, we have other racial issues to contend with. Is Omar Minaya really trying to field an all-Latin team at Shea Stadium this year? This AMS will look on all sorts of stereotyping in the media: race, nationality, sex, sexual preference, age, etc., etc.
_____ “MUSIC” I’m telling you, music was so much better in my day. And you’re too young to remember, but MTV used to show videos – all day long! You’re too young to remember, but music used to come on the big vinyl circles – and we used to pay for it!
_____ “THE MYSTERIOUS ORIENT” If the 20th Century was “The American Century”, the 21st may well be “the Asian Century”, or “The Chinese Century.” Will the next Bond villain be a Chinese industrialist? And don’t forget North Korea (on the axis of Evil), Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines. How can we overlook this huge continent?
_____ “NEW MEDIA” When I was a kid, things made sense. There were 3½ channels and you always knew what was on TV which night. Then came cable, then video, DVD’s; now you can get Family Guy
on your PSP, and this is just the beginning. But that’s just entertainment. Journalism is undergoing a sea-change, with Blogs, and video-journalists. This is cutting edge stuff right here, so we need somebody who’s going to keep us up to date.
_____ “OUT OF AFRICA” Things are still a mess in Darfur. Not much better in Rwanda. It’s a huge continent, with millions of people on it, but we know very little about it. (A lot of my ideas about Africa come from the Tarzan movies I watched as a kid, I’m afraid.)
_____ “POLITICS IN THE CAPITOLS” That would be Hartford, and Washington, D.C. How will our new President do? Will the Republicans try to work with him, or try to undermine him? How long before the Media starts turning on Obama. (The media is supposed to be liberal, but look what they did to Bill Clinton!)
_____ “POLITICS – FROM THE LEFT” If you think George Bush is maybe the worst President ever, you’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there who agree with you. Certainly out there on the fringes, but you know a lot of people think that the media in general is overly liberal. Fight back!
_____ “POLITICS – FROM THE RIGHT” If you think Fox News is “fair and balanced”; that W. is maybe even greater than Ronald Reagan; that Rush Limbaugh really does have “talent on loan from God”, then maybe this is your AMS. If you do think that the media is full of liberals who hate America (are you listening, Ann Coulter?), here you go.
_____ “REALM OF THE BIZARRE” Well, you could go with “44 deodorants found stuffed in man’s pants” or “Teen accused of killing gal-pal's rabbit after bongs bashed” or “Woman hits man on scooter, drives straight to the hair salon” or “Teen arrested for hitting mom with taco in video game dispute”.
_____ “RELIGION AND MORALS” Let’s see: Pope Bendict XVI has welcomed back to the church Richard Williamson, a “Holocaust-denying bishop” (according to the Jerusalem Post). Ted Haggard, a hugely successful pastor in Colorado and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, is in trouble (again). On the other hand, the Pope has started a special YouTube channel for the Vatican. Seriously, this is a very important and timely topic.
_____ “SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY” President Obama has promised to “restore science to its rightful place”. (President Bush seemingly didn’t have a lot of use for science.) You would also want to consider how accurately the media reports this information (in many cases, not very!)
_____ “SENIOR MOMENTS” You know, whenever I see old people depicted in the media, they’re usually decrepit, or senile, or both. I mean, they’re stereotyped in ways that people would never dream of doing anymore to blacks or gays or other minorities. But maybe that will be changing as the Baby Boomers become seniors. (The fast-changing media, though, seems to be for the young.)
_____ “SOUTH OF THE BORDER” Mexico, Central America, South America. What’s going on down there. Does anybody care? Unless it’s something about illegal immigrants – (and how do we feel about them?) – you don’t hear much about our vecinos to the south.
_____ “SPORTS” ‘Bout time. The Super Bowl! Truck Day! The World Baseball Classic. The NCAA’s! Dodgeball? Steroids? Greenies? Huge contracts (for players and for TV). Athletes as role models? What’s wrong with this picture?
_____ “TV – PROGRAMMING” I don’t watch that much TV, outside of sports and news. I tried watching “24” once, but I missed hour #5, so now what’s the point. I don’t watchDesperate Housewives, though, or any of those reality shows, but I know they’re out there. February is a sweeps month, so we ought to expect some especially trashy tv then. And of course May will bring us both Sweeps and the Upfronts (where the networks sell advertizing time for the upcoming fall season). We need somebody to keep us in the know.
_____ “THE WAR ON TERRORISM” “ You say potato, and I say potahto; you say torture and I say “enhanced interrogation technique. . .” Say, who’s the Director of Homeland Security, anyway? And does anybody know what color it is today? That’s not just Iraq, you know. It’s going on here at home, too (see “Big Brother is Watching”, above).
_____ “WORKING CLASS HEROES” Issues of class, especially the working class.
_____ “YOUTH ISSUES” Well, from what I see on MTV, kids these days are just promiscuous drunks who can’t say two #%$*ing sentences without saying &#^$(% half a dozen times. But maybe there’s more to what we see in the media, or more to the media than MTV.
_____ “YOUR CHOICE” I can’t believe it. All those choices and you can’t find one that interests you? I suppose you can come up with something better?! (See me if you can.)