.
Learning Begins with the Tough Questions
By Edward C. Pease
© 1996
“Judge a man not by his answers, but by his questions.” Gender bias aside, that’s one of the mantras of the classroom—for the professor, anyway. Or it should be. And in the context of “values” and learning, it represents a crucial tenet of education: curiosity and critical thinking.
At USU, as at any good university, the quality of the end-product—education—is measured not so much by what the professor tells the student, as by what the student is motivated to ask. And the worth of the outcome is not necessarily just in getting the answer right, but in students having the freedom and the will to ask the question in the first place. In that freedom to ask questions resides an element of risk for both the student and the professor, because asking tough questions is an inherently subversive activity that, when done right, both implies a challenge to what is accepted as “conventional wisdom,” and reflects a desire to seek new answers.
When I moved to USU from New York City two years ago, some of my friends and colleagues thought I was nuts. Aside from the East’s regional chauvinism (stronger on the East Coast, which considers anyplace west of the Hudson or Potomac rivers “the hinterlands,” than in any other part of the country), I got the usual battery of Mormon jokes, and concerns from well-meaning people about how an avowed liberal Democrat would survive in the arid conservative climate of the land of Orrin Hatch. Was I doing “missionary work”? they joked.
In a way, that’s what any teacher does. But more than that, I have learned to appreciate more fully than before the text of a poster I got from a mail-order place in Minnesota: “Minds are like parachutes: they function only when open.” As a teacher, I am in the mind-opening business; and, over the past two years at USU, my students have served the same mind-opening service for me.
Take Amy. When she and I met, she was a sophomore political science major from Idaho who, after an internship in Republican U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne’s Washington, D.C., office, decided she wanted to become a lobbyist for conservative causes. Despite her misgivings about left-leaning journalists, she wanted a second major in communication to pursue her career goals.
Amy knew within the first five minutes we met that she disagreed with me on just about everything from politics to primetime. Over the past two years, I don’t think I ever changed her mind about anything, but we like each other, enjoy butting heads, and both have learned something in the process.
Amy lives to bait me: “Rush Limbaugh said...,” she’d say.
“Pompous windbag,” I snort.
“Where is he wrong?” she challenges.
“Where not, Ditto-Head?” I retort.
“Oh, you liberals....” She waves me away.
And we’re off to the races.
The reason Amy and I like to torment each other is the process, the exchange, the joy of disagreement, and, as the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill said, the value of defending what each we each know as “truth,” which makes learning happen.
This process of questioning, of disagreement, of examining one’s beliefs, and, finally, either reaffirming or altering them—that’s the joy of teaching and learning. It’s not that we professors necessarily know “the truth”; the best we can do (on a good day) is to force our students—kicking and screaming, if that’s what it takes—to learn facts (which are different from beliefs), and make them decide for themselves what they believe.
Amy is not the only student at USU whose worldview conflicts with my own, and she also is not the only one willing to debate me. In the process, both my students and I find our minds opening like parachutes, and discover a willingness to reexamine what we thought we “knew” in the context of each other’s new ideas.
For me, a child of the activist, anti-establishment 1960s and ’70s, this process recalls the counterculture mantra of my youth, “Question authority,” now reborn as my favorite teaching tool in the 1990s. In some ways, it is an alien concept in Utah, where so many young people are raised to do just the opposite. But for students like Amy, a willingness to distinguish between facts and beliefs, and a growing enjoyment in questioning everything (including whatever the professor says in class), healthy skepticism becomes a valuable tool for learning, and for life.
I despair when I see students relentlessly scribbling down everything I say, because I know they think they’re getting the answers without ever having had to figure out the questions. So when I sit in my office or classroom and have a student bristle at me, get in my face, disagreeing, pushing back, questioning what she’s been taught as “common knowledge,” starting statements with, “BUT...!” and trying to change my mind. Well, that’s a good day for teaching and learning.
This willingness to question and examine and then reexamine is particularly critical in my teaching area—the mass media. Because the journalist who simply writes down what the mayor or the police chief tells him is a scribe, not a watchdog on society. And the TV viewer to moviegoer or voter in a presidential campaign year who simply absorbs and unquestioningly accepts what he or she hears in the information age isn’t a citizen, but a sheep. For me, teaching about the mass media is the same as teaching about life. It is a playground for the curious and socially conscious. And, if done correctly, it is prime territory for teaching students to question what they think they know.
For example, if “more Americans get their news from ABC than from any other source,” as the network claims, what then? What about this new study that finds kids learn about sex from TV, not from their parents or schools or even the older kid next door? Will the Internet cause intellectual birth defects? If children spend more time with “Barney” than with Dad, will the next generation talk and walk like purple dinosaurs? Does the “v-chip” defend kids against TV violence, or against parental neglect, or both? Should women look like Barbie or Elle McPherson or Rosie O’Donnell? Can you believe anything politicians say on television? What about Martha Stewart? Do movies really make people go nuts and kill their parents? Why does TV portray African Americans as criminals or buffoons, and women as sex objects or Donna Reed? And so on.
Questioning what we’re told—whether in the classroom or on TV—is what learning and good citizenship is all about. And it is an especially crucial life-skill in an age when most of what we learn or think we know about the world comes to us second-hand, in soundbites and images transmitted to us from far from our own lives, by people we don’t know. For students like Amy, whose generation has been raised by the mass media, honing a healthy skepticism is new and exciting, and a critical survival skill in the electronic age.
And for teachers like me, who are lucky enough to have such students in their classrooms, this is the joy of the profession—watching students challenge what they’ve always accepted as the way things are, and seeing them come up with their own answers, arrived at not because that’s what they’ve always been told, but because they’ve done their own thinking about the questions, and not just memorized the answers of others. Provoking questions is a noble and enduring profession, and students, if they are engaged, ask better questions than professors do.
So when Amy wants to fight about politics, when Ken declares that he “gets it,” when Evan gets angry at the evening news, when my students ask tough questions for which I have no good answers...that’s a good day on University Hill.
• Edward C. Pease is professor and head of the Department of Communication at USU. This appeared in the USU Magazine, Fall 1996.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Column: Halloweinies
.
I’ll take Martians over media illiteracy
By Ted Pease ©1996
For students of mass communication, Halloween is a time of year to stop and ponder anew the public’s astonishing gullibility, and to reaffirm the media’s responsibility not to mislead.
The reason that the holiday is so revered has nothing to do with its attractions for most Americans (who now spend more money on Halloween than on any other holiday but Christmas). Journalists and media scholars love Halloween because it is the anniversary of one of the all-time greatest media hoaxes—the day that Martians invaded New Jersey.
You remember the story: On the night before Halloween 1938, radio director Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre actors reenacted H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel “The War of the Worlds” over 151 CBS radio stations nationwide. Unidentified flying objects had taken off from Mars and were “moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity,” landing near the farming community of Grovers Mill, N.J., according to breathless “newscasts” created by the Mercury Theatre cast in New York City.
Martian heat rays incinerated the innocent and destroyed Trenton, N.J. Giant Martian machines “as tall as skyscrapers” and emitting poisonous black smoke, marched on New York, wading across the Hudson River into Manhattan. The National Guard was called out, but the troops were helpless against the horrible Martian weapons. Other Martian spacecraft were reported near Buffalo, St. Louis and Chicago. By the time the Mercury broadcast ended, 40 minutes later, the aliens had taken over the country.
Big practical joke, right?
An estimated 6 million radio listeners heard the broadcast, and social scientists later said about 1 million of them believed it. In New York City, families rushed together to await their death. New Jersey farmers armed with shotguns crouched behind barricades of hay bales and grain sacks to repel the aliens. Police and National Guards troops mobilized all over the country. The New York Times received 875 phone calls from frightened citizens. The Memphis, Tenn., Press-Scimitar published a nighttime “extra” edition about the invasion of Chicago and St. Louis. Meanwhile, New York City police officers who rushed to the CBS studio were stunned to see the actors, “stoically before the microphones, reading their scripts, ignorant of the havoc they were creating throughout the land.”
Afterward, Orson Welles innocently expressed surprise that anyone had taken his broadcast seriously: “How could they?” he said. “They were told several times it wasn’t real.” The show was just the actors way “of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’” he said.
Today, 58 years later, I’m thinking that for all our sophistication in the “information age,” Americans actually may be less savvy about what we hear, see, read and experience in the media than we were in 1938, simply because media have become such an accepted part of our daily lives.
Sure, we probably wouldn’t buy into Orson Welles’ radio gag today (even though promotions for the movie “Independence Day,” about aliens attacking Washington, D.C., prompted similar hysteria in some markets), but in many ways we are even more malleable now than we were in the 1930s.
The reason is that so much of what we take as “reality” and common knowledge—whether political ads and spin-doctoring during election campaigns, or the importance of Barbie and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in our kids’ lives, or our insatiable need for new cars, clothes, appliances or other gadgets—comes to us through the mass media. Like the radio listeners that night in 1938, our daily lives are formed by the environment created for us by mass media messages, and our impressions of the world around us derive from the media’s version of “reality.”
Radio listeners of the 1930s generally knew to use the medium as entertainment, or as an “electronic hearth” around which families, friends and strangers gathered to form an extended national community. Radio helped hold a nation together during the Depression and World War II, and it became a part of the family.
Ironically, in 1996, for all our electronic sophistication, we are in some ways less critical consumers of mass media messages than we used to be. That’s because so much of what we do every day is based on knowledge we get from the mass media, which is no longer an activity we select but has become ubiquitous electronic wallpaper. There are nearly six radios in every American home, and more TVs than toilets. Aside from sleeping, we spend more time with television and radio than doing anything else. We eat, breathe, talk, think, swim in a biosphere of mass media messages, so much so that most of us think about our media diet about as much as we think about the air we breathe.
We might not fall for Martians in 1996, but ultimately we fall for much more. Item: 80 percent of fourth-grade girls say they are on diets, and the same percentage of American women think they are overweight. Item: More than half of white conservatives and 45 percent of white liberals think “blacks are aggressive or violent.” Where do you suppose those perceptions come from?
Most of what we think we “know” comes from the mass media. Here’s a true or false quiz:
T/F 1.) Rapists and welfare recipients are more likely to be black than white.
T/F 2.) Handguns are used more often for self-defense than for suicide.
T/F 3.) Violent crime in the United States is on the rise.
T/F 4.) Teen-age pregnancy rates are higher today than they were in the 1940s and ’50s.
T/F 5.) Most drug users in the United States are minorities.
T/F 6.) Most divorced fathers are “dead-beat dads” who don’t pay child support.
(See answers below.)
In 1996, much more than in 1938, we Americans learn about the world and about each other and about what matters most to us not from real people, but from the images and impressions we absorb from our mass media diets. This is not to condemn the media or technology, but it is a fact of life in the information age. Far from being savvier and more discerning in our use of information that comes to us from television and the Internet and newspapers and radio, we are increasingly likely to take such “knowledge” at face value. And—like oxygen from the air or vitamins from our diets—this “knowledge” is absorbed into our lives, and may warp our attitudes and skew how we see the world without our knowing it.
When Orson Welles and his radio actors dressed up in sheets and yelled “Boo!” for Halloween in 1938, the impact was much greater than anyone expected. In many ways, 1996 audiences aren’t much better informed than they were then, but the larger social consequences of such blind acceptance today may be much greater than the mere invasion of bloodthirsty Martians.
PS: (Quiz answers: All items are false.)
• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University. His column appears on the Opinion Page every other Sunday. This appeared in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 10, 1996.
.
I’ll take Martians over media illiteracy
By Ted Pease ©1996
For students of mass communication, Halloween is a time of year to stop and ponder anew the public’s astonishing gullibility, and to reaffirm the media’s responsibility not to mislead.
The reason that the holiday is so revered has nothing to do with its attractions for most Americans (who now spend more money on Halloween than on any other holiday but Christmas). Journalists and media scholars love Halloween because it is the anniversary of one of the all-time greatest media hoaxes—the day that Martians invaded New Jersey.
You remember the story: On the night before Halloween 1938, radio director Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre actors reenacted H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel “The War of the Worlds” over 151 CBS radio stations nationwide. Unidentified flying objects had taken off from Mars and were “moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity,” landing near the farming community of Grovers Mill, N.J., according to breathless “newscasts” created by the Mercury Theatre cast in New York City.Martian heat rays incinerated the innocent and destroyed Trenton, N.J. Giant Martian machines “as tall as skyscrapers” and emitting poisonous black smoke, marched on New York, wading across the Hudson River into Manhattan. The National Guard was called out, but the troops were helpless against the horrible Martian weapons. Other Martian spacecraft were reported near Buffalo, St. Louis and Chicago. By the time the Mercury broadcast ended, 40 minutes later, the aliens had taken over the country.
Big practical joke, right?
An estimated 6 million radio listeners heard the broadcast, and social scientists later said about 1 million of them believed it. In New York City, families rushed together to await their death. New Jersey farmers armed with shotguns crouched behind barricades of hay bales and grain sacks to repel the aliens. Police and National Guards troops mobilized all over the country. The New York Times received 875 phone calls from frightened citizens. The Memphis, Tenn., Press-Scimitar published a nighttime “extra” edition about the invasion of Chicago and St. Louis. Meanwhile, New York City police officers who rushed to the CBS studio were stunned to see the actors, “stoically before the microphones, reading their scripts, ignorant of the havoc they were creating throughout the land.”
Afterward, Orson Welles innocently expressed surprise that anyone had taken his broadcast seriously: “How could they?” he said. “They were told several times it wasn’t real.” The show was just the actors way “of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’” he said.
Today, 58 years later, I’m thinking that for all our sophistication in the “information age,” Americans actually may be less savvy about what we hear, see, read and experience in the media than we were in 1938, simply because media have become such an accepted part of our daily lives.
Sure, we probably wouldn’t buy into Orson Welles’ radio gag today (even though promotions for the movie “Independence Day,” about aliens attacking Washington, D.C., prompted similar hysteria in some markets), but in many ways we are even more malleable now than we were in the 1930s.
The reason is that so much of what we take as “reality” and common knowledge—whether political ads and spin-doctoring during election campaigns, or the importance of Barbie and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in our kids’ lives, or our insatiable need for new cars, clothes, appliances or other gadgets—comes to us through the mass media. Like the radio listeners that night in 1938, our daily lives are formed by the environment created for us by mass media messages, and our impressions of the world around us derive from the media’s version of “reality.”
Radio listeners of the 1930s generally knew to use the medium as entertainment, or as an “electronic hearth” around which families, friends and strangers gathered to form an extended national community. Radio helped hold a nation together during the Depression and World War II, and it became a part of the family.
Ironically, in 1996, for all our electronic sophistication, we are in some ways less critical consumers of mass media messages than we used to be. That’s because so much of what we do every day is based on knowledge we get from the mass media, which is no longer an activity we select but has become ubiquitous electronic wallpaper. There are nearly six radios in every American home, and more TVs than toilets. Aside from sleeping, we spend more time with television and radio than doing anything else. We eat, breathe, talk, think, swim in a biosphere of mass media messages, so much so that most of us think about our media diet about as much as we think about the air we breathe.
We might not fall for Martians in 1996, but ultimately we fall for much more. Item: 80 percent of fourth-grade girls say they are on diets, and the same percentage of American women think they are overweight. Item: More than half of white conservatives and 45 percent of white liberals think “blacks are aggressive or violent.” Where do you suppose those perceptions come from?
Most of what we think we “know” comes from the mass media. Here’s a true or false quiz:
T/F 1.) Rapists and welfare recipients are more likely to be black than white.
T/F 2.) Handguns are used more often for self-defense than for suicide.
T/F 3.) Violent crime in the United States is on the rise.
T/F 4.) Teen-age pregnancy rates are higher today than they were in the 1940s and ’50s.
T/F 5.) Most drug users in the United States are minorities.
T/F 6.) Most divorced fathers are “dead-beat dads” who don’t pay child support.
(See answers below.)
In 1996, much more than in 1938, we Americans learn about the world and about each other and about what matters most to us not from real people, but from the images and impressions we absorb from our mass media diets. This is not to condemn the media or technology, but it is a fact of life in the information age. Far from being savvier and more discerning in our use of information that comes to us from television and the Internet and newspapers and radio, we are increasingly likely to take such “knowledge” at face value. And—like oxygen from the air or vitamins from our diets—this “knowledge” is absorbed into our lives, and may warp our attitudes and skew how we see the world without our knowing it.
When Orson Welles and his radio actors dressed up in sheets and yelled “Boo!” for Halloween in 1938, the impact was much greater than anyone expected. In many ways, 1996 audiences aren’t much better informed than they were then, but the larger social consequences of such blind acceptance today may be much greater than the mere invasion of bloodthirsty Martians.
PS: (Quiz answers: All items are false.)
• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University. His column appears on the Opinion Page every other Sunday. This appeared in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 10, 1996.
.
Column: TV & the ‘Virtual Childhood’
Hope for kids on a TV diet
By Ted Pease
©1996
There’s more to life in the information age than a TV diet of Twinkies and Nutrasweet. So says Hope Green, vice-chairman of the national board of directors of the Public Broadcasting Service.
When she appeared at Utah State University last week to talk about “The ‘Virtual Childhood’—Growing Kids on a Television Diet,” Green could have lambasted TV as the symbol of the end of civilization. Or, as president of the PBS system in Vermont and a national leader of public broadcasting, she could have stalwartly defended TV as a misunderstood and maligned educational tool.
Instead, she did neither, and both. Her reasonable moderation may have sent away unfulfilled both those who wanted the demon tube soundly whipped, and others seeking reassurance that there’s hope for their kids who watch TV six hours a day. Because parents and educators who want to blame social woes on television, as well as those who would like to grasp at educational TV as the answer to their kids’ problems all are bound for disappointment.
Anyone who watches even a little bit of television knows that at least a portion—perhaps entire continents—of the TV world is a “vast wasteland,” as former FCC chief Newton Minow put it in 1961. Just five years ago, Minow revisited the “wasteland,” and said TV—and the rest of us, too—still fails in at least four areas.
“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” he said.
And it is such a waste of potential, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America,” Minow said. “More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”
Hope Green’s answer to that might be that the responsibility lies with how we use TV, and how we let our kids use it, whether kids watch 10 hours a week or 40, and whether TV is an activity that parents and children share. The Vermont broadcast executive, who has only one TV set in her house (and it’s on the third floor), preaches and practices moderation.
There is another, perhaps more comforting answer to the dilemma of how to grow kids on a television diet and in a mass media world, and it comes from two teams of researchers at the universities of Massachusetts and Kansas.
In the early 1980s, the researchers studied kids aged 2 to 7 in Springfield, Mass., and Topeka, Kan. The concern was (and still is) that a lot of TV watching, even of educational programs like “Sesame Street,” would impair children’s learning ability in at least two ways: 1.) because it is a visual medium, TV would slow down kids’ language development and reading/writing skills; and 2.) because TV is so active and busy, it might reduce kids’ ability to concentrate and pay attention in school.
In 1994, the researchers—led by Daniel Anderson at UMass and Aletha Huston and John Wright at Kansas—hunted down 570 of the kids from the earlier study, who were by then in high school, to see how they turned out. The question was whether those who had been heavy TV viewers as kids had become vegetables in the classroom.
Parents of kids who watch a lot of shows like “Sesame Street” will like the results. Instead of contributing to a generation of poor learners and uninterested readers, the study found exactly the opposite among the high school students who had watched “Sesame Street” and other educational shows as kids.
“Viewing educational television in preschool appears to contribute to children’s academic performance many years later,” the researchers found after interviewing the students and examining their high school transcripts. They also talked to parents and teachers, and evaluated the students’ “academic self-concept” and how much they valued learning.
“It is obvious that the content learned at age 5 cannot influence high school performance directly,” they said. “Instead, a rich diet of educational television may help children to enter school with the academic skills required for the tasks they encounter, increasing the likelihood of early success.”
“This early positive experience in school may set a child on a trajectory of success, self-confidence, and positive reputation among teachers that has long-term consequences for later academic achievement.”
It turns out that kids who watched “Sesame Street” or other educational programs five hours a week (once a day) when they were 5, performed an average of a one-quarter grade better in high school than kids who didn’t grow up on “Sesame Street.”
Of course, none of this gives parents a license to plunk their kids down in front of the tube and use it as a baby-sitter—kids who watch five or six hours a day, which is one reported national average, probably aren’t doing much or anything else, and most of that is probably not “Sesame Street,” “Nova” or the Discovery Channel anyway.
That’s where Hope Green’s moderation message comes in: Twinkies won’t kill you, unless that’s all you eat. Neither will TV ruin our kids’ lives and turn their little brains into mush, unless that’s all they do with their childhoods.
• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University and co-editor of the 1996 book Children and the Media. This column ran in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 24, 1996.
By Ted Pease
©1996
There’s more to life in the information age than a TV diet of Twinkies and Nutrasweet. So says Hope Green, vice-chairman of the national board of directors of the Public Broadcasting Service.
When she appeared at Utah State University last week to talk about “The ‘Virtual Childhood’—Growing Kids on a Television Diet,” Green could have lambasted TV as the symbol of the end of civilization. Or, as president of the PBS system in Vermont and a national leader of public broadcasting, she could have stalwartly defended TV as a misunderstood and maligned educational tool.
Instead, she did neither, and both. Her reasonable moderation may have sent away unfulfilled both those who wanted the demon tube soundly whipped, and others seeking reassurance that there’s hope for their kids who watch TV six hours a day. Because parents and educators who want to blame social woes on television, as well as those who would like to grasp at educational TV as the answer to their kids’ problems all are bound for disappointment.
Anyone who watches even a little bit of television knows that at least a portion—perhaps entire continents—of the TV world is a “vast wasteland,” as former FCC chief Newton Minow put it in 1961. Just five years ago, Minow revisited the “wasteland,” and said TV—and the rest of us, too—still fails in at least four areas.
“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” he said.
And it is such a waste of potential, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America,” Minow said. “More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”
Hope Green’s answer to that might be that the responsibility lies with how we use TV, and how we let our kids use it, whether kids watch 10 hours a week or 40, and whether TV is an activity that parents and children share. The Vermont broadcast executive, who has only one TV set in her house (and it’s on the third floor), preaches and practices moderation.
There is another, perhaps more comforting answer to the dilemma of how to grow kids on a television diet and in a mass media world, and it comes from two teams of researchers at the universities of Massachusetts and Kansas.
In the early 1980s, the researchers studied kids aged 2 to 7 in Springfield, Mass., and Topeka, Kan. The concern was (and still is) that a lot of TV watching, even of educational programs like “Sesame Street,” would impair children’s learning ability in at least two ways: 1.) because it is a visual medium, TV would slow down kids’ language development and reading/writing skills; and 2.) because TV is so active and busy, it might reduce kids’ ability to concentrate and pay attention in school.
In 1994, the researchers—led by Daniel Anderson at UMass and Aletha Huston and John Wright at Kansas—hunted down 570 of the kids from the earlier study, who were by then in high school, to see how they turned out. The question was whether those who had been heavy TV viewers as kids had become vegetables in the classroom.
Parents of kids who watch a lot of shows like “Sesame Street” will like the results. Instead of contributing to a generation of poor learners and uninterested readers, the study found exactly the opposite among the high school students who had watched “Sesame Street” and other educational shows as kids.
“Viewing educational television in preschool appears to contribute to children’s academic performance many years later,” the researchers found after interviewing the students and examining their high school transcripts. They also talked to parents and teachers, and evaluated the students’ “academic self-concept” and how much they valued learning.
“It is obvious that the content learned at age 5 cannot influence high school performance directly,” they said. “Instead, a rich diet of educational television may help children to enter school with the academic skills required for the tasks they encounter, increasing the likelihood of early success.”
“This early positive experience in school may set a child on a trajectory of success, self-confidence, and positive reputation among teachers that has long-term consequences for later academic achievement.”
It turns out that kids who watched “Sesame Street” or other educational programs five hours a week (once a day) when they were 5, performed an average of a one-quarter grade better in high school than kids who didn’t grow up on “Sesame Street.”
Of course, none of this gives parents a license to plunk their kids down in front of the tube and use it as a baby-sitter—kids who watch five or six hours a day, which is one reported national average, probably aren’t doing much or anything else, and most of that is probably not “Sesame Street,” “Nova” or the Discovery Channel anyway.
That’s where Hope Green’s moderation message comes in: Twinkies won’t kill you, unless that’s all you eat. Neither will TV ruin our kids’ lives and turn their little brains into mush, unless that’s all they do with their childhoods.
• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University and co-editor of the 1996 book Children and the Media. This column ran in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 24, 1996.
Smarts—Project2
.
Cartoons, Movies or Kids—Your Choice
For your second Smarts project, you may choose . . .
1) how editorial cartoons frame a controversial news topic of your choice; OR
2) how movies reinvent historical events; OR
3) an examination of children and media.
Project Proposal Due: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.
Proposal must include:
a) Topic/Subject Title: For example, Muslims in editorial cartoons; The press role in “All the President’s Men”; or Consumerism and children’s Saturday morning cartoons. (Note: Do NOT select the same topic as your Truthiness project.)
b) Executive Summary: No more than 200 words explaining the rational (the “Why?” question) and focus (What?) of your project. Why is it worth examining? What media (specifically) will you examine? Why those? In the case of the movie-history project, with what sources will you compare your movie?
c) Proposed Format: You may do this project as a video (deliver a DVD or URL), a blog or Powerpoint presentation, or as a standard 5-page paper (plus bibliography). Note: The script or accompanying written documentation must accompany the multimedia options, including bibliography, which would be roughly equivalent to a 5 pp. paper when added to your visuals.)
You may post your proposed topic in the dialog on the Week 10 blog if you’re interested in feedback from others in the class.
Project Due: Monday, Dec. 6, 2010.
I. Option #1: The Editorial Cartoon Project
Goal: To apply media effects theories and media literacy concepts to an analysis of editorial cartoons depicting an issue related to race and/or gender. To identify and to analyze the “stories” being told by editorial cartoonists about racial or gender minorities—how do editorial cartoonists frame minorities (could mean racial minorities, gender or gender minorities (gays), or ethnic peoples)? (Past Smarts examples: Racism cartoons, gays in the military, women in politics...)
Possible Topics
1. Race & Ethnicity
• Immigration & Undocumented Workers
• President Obama—The First Black President (or, more broadly, black politicians in general, including, for example, New York Gov. David Paterson)
• Israelis & Palestinians—What we “know” about the “Palestine Problem”
• Others?
2. Gender
• Gays in America
• Gays in the Military—“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
• Gender & Politics—Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, etc.
• California’s Proposition 8; Same-sex marriage (See past Smarts cartoon project on Prop 8: Part I. Part II.)
• Gay rights issues in Utah
Resources: Editorial Cartoons
• David Wallis, SFGate.com: “Killed cartoons: Censorship is a threat not only to speech but to satirical images that sting targets or offend”
• Characteristics of effective editorial cartoons
• Mike Luckovich, 2-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist: “Drawing Attention: Cartooning with Mike Luckovich” (video)
Resources: Media, Race & Ethnicity
• What is racism? Definitions of racism, prejudice, etc.
• Ten things everyone should know about race
• Tom Huang, Poynter Institute: “Framing Stories: How we see stories and how we tell them”
• Hutchins Commission (social responsibility) & Kerner Commission (race & media)
• More Kerner Commission
• “Myth: Affirmative action is an African American entitlement program”
• Racism Defined: “What is Racism, Prejudice, Discrimination, Bias, and Xenophobia?”
• Robert Krulwich, NPR: “Your family may once have been a different color”
• Public Radio International: “Skin whitening big business in Asia”
• Even Conant, Newsweek (2009): “Rebranding hate in the age of Obama”
• San Francisco Chronicle, Media Report: Accuracy in Israel/Palestine Reporting
II. Option #2: Hollywood & History
Goal: To identify how historical events, people, issues, and/or media ethics are depicted in Hollywood films. Film research demonstrates that when history is translated to the silver screen, the events and people depicted are often diluted, distorted, or fabricated, often privileging stories of Whites over people of color, or men over women, etc.—privileging the dominant power structures in American society. Filmmakers choose what to include and exclude from history, thus films work to reshape and reinterpret social reality and historical memory, thus altering our received or perceived understanding of history and “truth.” Many Americans “learn” history from the movies, which is a little scary if you think about it (John Wayne in WWII movies? Oliver Stone’s version of the JFK assassination? Affleck and Damon in “Pearl Harbor”?).
Assignment:
1. If you select this project option, pick a historically based film, analyze how the movies depicted and framed historical events and people by comparing the film version to historical accounts and news stories in The New York Times & other dependable historical sources.
2. Select a film from the list below. Analyze the movie and identify the movie’s major themes/ frames, and compare them to historical facts. How do the movie “facts” privilege or distort the historical record? Do the film narratives work to privilege or challenge the dominant ideologies underlying American society? If you select a press-related movie, what issues related to media ethics can you relate to the film’s construction of reality? (You can propose other movies than those listed here, but no sports movies.)
3. How was the event and/or person framed in The New York Times? What issues related to media ethics can you relate to the Times’ construction of reality?
NOTE: Because this is a journalism class, I urge you to select a film that has to do with journalism, but that is not a requirement. The film must, however, be based on historical events so that you can examine it for truth. Remember, historians, like journalists or filmmakers, are both gatekeepers who decide what to include and exclude in their accounts, and framers of reality whose accounts of what happened becomes the public's version of the “truth.”
Essay or multimedia “report”: You may either write a 5-pp. paper on your movie, or construct a blog or multimedia presentation that others can view (see above). You must include complete bibliographic sources used to confirm the historical record. For multimedia presentations, you also need to hand in a detailed outline. Here’s an example of a past Smarts movie project on Shattered Glass. Part 1. Part 2.
Reminder: Wikipedia is NOT an acceptable nor a reliable source.
Some Tips:
1. Just because the clip is available on YouTube does not mean it’s the best option to support your arguments/theme. Trailers for movies are rarely useful. Select your movie clips carefully.
2. Using online sources is fine, providing the sources are reliable. (Like Wikipedia, blogs are not always reliable sources of factual information—check your sources!) Preferred sources: newspapers, news magazines, academic articles or books, film reviews from reliable news sources (e.g., New York Times). FYI: The New York Times Historical Database is available online through the library and includes all articles published by the Times. Also, every Time magazine article and cover since its first publication in 1927 are available.
3. Katie’s research tips.
Fair Warning: Many Hollywood films may use language, violence, depictions, etc., that some may find offensive; about 70 percent of Hollywood films are R-rated. From the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA): “A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words [e.g. the “F” word], though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, if even one of those words is used in a sexual context.” Click here for additional information on the MPAA rating system.
Films: Below is a list of films that fit the criteria for this assignment, which is that the movie . . .
1) . . . is based on an actual event or person;
2) . . . deals with an important social issue (e.g., racism, genocide); or
3) . . . focuses on issues related to journalism/journalism ethics. (Plot summaries below adapted from: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.
4) Many of these selections are related to journalism. Because this is a journalism class, Dr. Ted urges you to consider films about journalism that you haven’t seen as a way to enhance the learning experience of this project. Dr. Ted can offer recommendations. If you find other fact-based films that appeal to you, propose them to Dr. Ted ASAP.
FILM LIST Some films are available in USU Merrill-Cazier Library, Media Collections.
• All the King’s Men (2006). Based on the Robert Penn Warren novel. The life of populist Southerner Willie Stark, a political creature loosely based on Governor Huey Long of Louisiana. PG-13
• All the President’s Men (1976). Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Nixon’s resignation. PG
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989). The biography of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), who was paralyzed in the Vietnam war, and becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist. For this option, examine coverage of the Vietnam war in The New York Times and compare to the narrative story in Born on the Fourth of July and the actual events of the conflict. R for war violence, language.
• Capote (2006) Based on writer Truman Capote during research for his (excellent) book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family. Capote develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers, and struggles with the conflict of balancing getting his story and journalistic ethics. R for some violent images, brief strong language. Others: Infamous (2006)
• Cry Freedom (1987). South African journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend the black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). NR, British
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima during WWII, directed by Clint Eastwood. R for graphic war violence & language. Also, parallel story from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
• Frost-Nixon (2008) A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon. G
• George Wallace (1997) Biographical drama of the political career of the Alabama governor who fought against the 1960s civil rights movement, promising “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” in his inaugural speech. Wallace ran for president in 1968. For this option, examine coverage of Wallace and the civil rights campaign and compare the to film version. Unrated—TV
• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) Based on the story of the Myrlie Evers, widow of murdered civil rights leader Medger Evers, and a district attorney who struggle to bring the murderer to justice. PG-13
• Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) Edward R. Murrow and CBS decide to take a stand against Sen. Joe McCarthy’s unethical tactics during the 1950s Red Scare. PG
• The Great Debaters (2008) Drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to participate in the first national debate between African American and Caucasian college students. PG-13
• Hotel Rwanda (2004) Story of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who protected Tutsi refugees from the Hutu militia and genocide in Rwanda. PG-13 for violence; language
• The Insider (1999) Research chemist decides to blow the whistle on Big Tobacco and appear in a “60 Minutes” segment. R for language
• In the Valley of Elah (2007) A career military officer tries to learn the truth of his son’s death after his return from a tour of duty in Iraq. Based on true story of Specialist Richard R. Davis. R for violence, language, some sexual content
• Inherit the Wind (1960) An account of a real-life 1925 case in which two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution. G
• Iron Jawed Angels (2004) Story of Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and the fight for women’s suffrage. HBO
• The Killing Fields (1984) Based on the experiences of New York Times reporter, Sydney Schanberg, and his coverage the 1970s civil war in Cambodia. R for graphic war violence & language
• Laramie Project (2002) Based on the story of gay college student Matthew Shepard who was murdered in 1998 in Laramie, WY. Originally a play, HBO made the film version and dialogue is based on transcripts from the murderers’ trials, and interviews with individuals involved in the case and Shepard’s friends and family. HBO: language
• Malcolm X (1992) Spike Lee’s story of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader. PG-13 for violence, some language
• Milk (2008) “The story of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White” (Josh Brolin). R for language, some sexual content, brief violence
• Mississippi Burning (1988). Based on the FBI investigation (Gene Hackman) of the 1964 disappearance and murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi. R for racial violence; language
• Munich (2005) After 11 Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible. R for graphic violence; language
• Nixon (1995) Biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy to his eventual presidency, the Watergate scandal, and his resignation. R for language
• Philadelphia (1993) A man with AIDS (Tom Hanks) is fired by a conservative law firm because of his disease and hires homophobic small time lawyer (Denzel Washington) for a wrongful dismissal suit. Inspired in part by the real-life story of Geoffrey Bowers’ AIDS discrimination lawsuit. PG-13
• The Road to Guantanamo (2006) Based on the experiences of the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charges. R for violence; language
• The Rosa Parks Story (2001) Based on Rosa Parks and her role in the civil rights movement. Made-for TV
• Rosewood (1997) “Story of a shameful event in American history, the race riot by whites against blacks in 1922 in the small Florida town of Rosewood, which left the town in smoking ruin while dozens of its residents were shot, burned to death or lynched” (Ebert, 1997, February 21, ¶ 7). R for racial violence
• Salt of the Earth (1954) Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film confronts the prejudice against Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and the pivotal role of the wives of striking workers. Not rated.
• Saving Jessica Lynch (2003) Based on the story of the Army “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch, in Iraq. Made for TV
• Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) The story of a decorated officer’s legal challenge to her involuntary discharge when she admitted she was a lesbian (Glenn Close). Made for TV.
• Shattered Glass (2003) The true story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was found he had fabricated over half of his articles. PG-13 for language.
• Sometimes in April (2005) Fictionalized drama based on the Rwandan genocide. HBO.
• Veronica Guerin (2003) Based on the story of the Irish journalist who is assassinated by the drug dealers she wrote about in her news stories. R for violence & language
Tips for doing a critical film analysis: Your goal is to analyze the film in terms of how the historical events, issues and people are represented, not simply to do a plot summary. Here are some questions to help you identify the major ideological perspectives operating in the film narratives.
1. Search for historical information about the events and people depicted in the movies. Identify the differences between the historical and film versions. You may also include current events and issues related to the issues addressed in the movie (e.g., immigration, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism; sexism; class; etc.)
2. How does the director present issues related to diversity (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) in the film?
3. Could the director have portrayed the events and people in a more responsible way? (Be sure to explain how you are defining responsible film making).
4. What themes, characters, elements of the film provided new insight? What themes, arguments, elements of the story challenged your current way of looking at the issues raised by the film?
5. What does the film teach us about racial and ethnic diversity? Gender? International issues? Politics? War?
6. Use specific examples from the film to illustrate your major arguments and conclusions.
7. How does the film represent challenges made to dominant cultural ideologies?
8. How can you relate the principles of media literacy and media effects theories to the film narratives?
Some Dominant Ideologies & Concepts to Consider: Click here for issues of media and ideology.
• Capitalism: Economic system of private and corporate ownership; distribution of wealth and goods determined by free market enterprise and competition.
• Christianity: Religion based on the Bible and teachings of Jesus Christ. (FYI: Approximately 33% of the world’s population practices Christianity).
• Democracy: Government of the citizens of a country, determined by majority rule, based on elected representatives, as opposed to totalitarianism, communism, fascism, tribalism...
• Ethnocentrism: “Our people are better than your people.” In other words, belief that one’s own culture, nation, or ethnicity is superior to all others. Because of our national, social, cultural, etc., upbringing, we see the world in certain ways. Indeed, we are myopic and grievously ill-informed about the rest of the planet and its people. A good reminder of this is a brief video called Miniature Earth.
• Heteroideology: Privileges heterosexuality and discriminates against sexual minorities. Asserts that sexuality is natally ascribed, immutable and natural, and that heterosexuality is an integral aspect of human intelligence and nature (Scheman, 1997).
• Patriarchy: “[A]ny kind of group organization in which males hold dominant power and determine what part females shall and shall not play, and in which capabilities assigned to women are relegated” to domestic realms and excluded from political realms (Dow, 1996).
• White Privilege: The “everyday, invisible, subtle cultural and social practices, ideas and codes that discursively secure the power and privilege of white people” the “discursive processes through which whiteness secures its normalized cultural dominance.” (Gorham, 1999; Shome, 1996).
III. Children & Media
Goal: Identify a focused issue regarding children and the mass media. Analyze the arguments surrounding the issue in the context of mass communication theories. It’s a HUGE topic, and also full of partisans (so watch out for truthiness). Remember that the American Pediatric Assn. recommends NO television for kids younger than 2, and only for 1-2 hours a day for small kids. They have statements on violence, limiting TV time, TV advertising, babies & TV , etc. In 2010, however, the mass media are EVERYWHERE, and kids are much more susceptible to all kinds of influences than us old people—they’re little sponges. Think about Marshall McLuhan’s fish analogy and then think about baby fish—those little guppies are really getting steeped in media content.
Don’t like fish? Think frogs: “Since the 1950s, children have been exposed to ever-increasing
amounts of television, and because the increase has been gradual, it has avoided intense scrutiny by the scientific community for potential adverse effects,” says William Hayes, president of the New Jersey Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “It is similar to the situation in which a frog, when thrown into hot water, jumps out immediately because he knows it is toxic to him,” Hayes said. “But if you take the same frog and place it on the stove and heat it slowly, he will stay in the pot until he is turned into soup.”
Hope Green, the president of Vermont Educational TV and a member of the national board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, came to USU a few years ago to talk about kids and TV. Would you let your children depend on a diet heavy on Twinkies? she asked. (See “TV & the ‘Virtual Childhood’”) PBS tries to get to kids through its educational programming, but what’s reasonable and prudent for kids?
This was news in 2006: “Sesame Street” launches programming for 6-month-olds...
But not everyone thought even Bird Bird and Oscar the Grouch was good for baby diets. “Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families. There is no evidence that media is beneficial for babies, and they are starting to find evidence that it may be harmful. Until we know for sure, we shouldn't risk putting them in front of television.” —Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, 2006
(The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no TV for kids under age 2; a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 68% of children under 2 watched at least two hours of TV daily.)
George Gerbner, the media scholar who brought us cultivation theory, warned about the kinds of attitudes and perspectives on the world that early TV might cultivate in children. “My only advice is, if you value the culture of your children, if you value the notion of your own sovereignty, if you value any sense of independence in the future, you [must] make a serious investment in your own televised programs and motion pictures to compete with the American products and, if necessary, place limits on American products.” —George Gerbner, media scholar, on “cultural imperialism” in the information age, 2002 (Ramesh Closeput and Lai-Si Tsui, “An Interview with Professor George Gerbner, in Morgan, M., Ed., Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner. NY: Peter Lang, 2002)
Many others have weighed in, in jest and seriously, on the question of what FCC Chairman Newton Minow called “a vast wasteland” in addressing TV network executives back in 1960. Thirty years later, in 1990, Minow was a professor in Michigan and he revisited his condemnation of television. TV still failed in at least four areas, he said:
“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” Minow said.
And that’s such a waste of potential, he said, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America. More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”
Other perspectives on TV:
• Editorial cartoonist Doug Marlette: “Peer pressure can lead us astray at any age, but with TV the nation’s designated baby-sitter, our children’s peers are Beavis and Butthead leering at Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial. They get the lingo down before they’ve got the hormones to back it up.”
• An anonymous Illinois mother of three, complaining to TV executives: “You can’t even watch cartoons anymore! Why have you let TV go so far?”
• Bruce Springsteen, “da Boss,” “57 channels and nuthin’s on” (video)
• Author Leslie Savan, in her 1994 book The Sponsored Life: “Television-watching Americans — that is, just about all Americans — see approximately 100 TV commercials a day. . . . Advertising now infects just about every organ of society, and wherever advertising gains a foothold it tends to slowly take over, like a vampire or a virus.” • Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now, May 2001: “As America’s primary cultural storyteller, television creates a common picture of who’s important and who’s not. Prime-time programmers appear to have forgotten that America’s children—in all of their diversity—are a big part of the evening viewing audience.”
• Author and scholar Milton Chen, in The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV: “A curious mythology has grown up around television and its effects on children. Together these myths would have us believe that TV is single-handedly turning children into couch potatoes, frying their brains, shortening their attention spans and lowering their academic abilities. Supposedly, TV is a dark and foreboding menace in our children's lives. . . . Since teachers, parents and the media themselves constantly propagate these myths, it is important to examine them.” (in Dennis & Pease, Children & the Media. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994)
So. Do a little investigation and decide where you want to focus.
Some sources: There are loads more. Get Googlin’.
• Annenberg School for Communication Children’s Media Lab
• Center for Children & Media
• Children Now: Media’s Impact—Understanding Media’s Role in Childhood Development
• Children’s Media Project
• Everette E. Dennis & Edward C. Pease, Eds. Children & the Media (1991) (I can loan this you’re interested.)
• Lisa Witnek, ChicagoNow.com, “I know...my kids watch too much TV”
• Media Education Foundation: Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media & Violent Times
• PBS: Children & Media
• Squidoo: Influence of Media on Children
• University of Michigan Children & TV
.
Cartoons, Movies or Kids—Your Choice
For your second Smarts project, you may choose . . .
1) how editorial cartoons frame a controversial news topic of your choice; OR
2) how movies reinvent historical events; OR
3) an examination of children and media.
Project Proposal Due: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.
Proposal must include:
a) Topic/Subject Title: For example, Muslims in editorial cartoons; The press role in “All the President’s Men”; or Consumerism and children’s Saturday morning cartoons. (Note: Do NOT select the same topic as your Truthiness project.)
b) Executive Summary: No more than 200 words explaining the rational (the “Why?” question) and focus (What?) of your project. Why is it worth examining? What media (specifically) will you examine? Why those? In the case of the movie-history project, with what sources will you compare your movie?
c) Proposed Format: You may do this project as a video (deliver a DVD or URL), a blog or Powerpoint presentation, or as a standard 5-page paper (plus bibliography). Note: The script or accompanying written documentation must accompany the multimedia options, including bibliography, which would be roughly equivalent to a 5 pp. paper when added to your visuals.)
You may post your proposed topic in the dialog on the Week 10 blog if you’re interested in feedback from others in the class.
Project Due: Monday, Dec. 6, 2010.
I. Option #1: The Editorial Cartoon Project
Goal: To apply media effects theories and media literacy concepts to an analysis of editorial cartoons depicting an issue related to race and/or gender. To identify and to analyze the “stories” being told by editorial cartoonists about racial or gender minorities—how do editorial cartoonists frame minorities (could mean racial minorities, gender or gender minorities (gays), or ethnic peoples)? (Past Smarts examples: Racism cartoons, gays in the military, women in politics...)
Possible Topics
1. Race & Ethnicity
• Immigration & Undocumented Workers
• President Obama—The First Black President (or, more broadly, black politicians in general, including, for example, New York Gov. David Paterson)
• Israelis & Palestinians—What we “know” about the “Palestine Problem”
• Others?
2. Gender
• Gays in America
• Gays in the Military—“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
• Gender & Politics—Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, etc.
• California’s Proposition 8; Same-sex marriage (See past Smarts cartoon project on Prop 8: Part I. Part II.)
• Gay rights issues in Utah
Resources: Editorial Cartoons
• David Wallis, SFGate.com: “Killed cartoons: Censorship is a threat not only to speech but to satirical images that sting targets or offend”
• Characteristics of effective editorial cartoons
• Mike Luckovich, 2-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist: “Drawing Attention: Cartooning with Mike Luckovich” (video)
Resources: Media, Race & Ethnicity
• What is racism? Definitions of racism, prejudice, etc.
• Ten things everyone should know about race
• Tom Huang, Poynter Institute: “Framing Stories: How we see stories and how we tell them”
• Hutchins Commission (social responsibility) & Kerner Commission (race & media)
• More Kerner Commission
• “Myth: Affirmative action is an African American entitlement program”
• Racism Defined: “What is Racism, Prejudice, Discrimination, Bias, and Xenophobia?”
• Robert Krulwich, NPR: “Your family may once have been a different color”
• Public Radio International: “Skin whitening big business in Asia”
• Even Conant, Newsweek (2009): “Rebranding hate in the age of Obama”
• San Francisco Chronicle, Media Report: Accuracy in Israel/Palestine Reporting
II. Option #2: Hollywood & History
Goal: To identify how historical events, people, issues, and/or media ethics are depicted in Hollywood films. Film research demonstrates that when history is translated to the silver screen, the events and people depicted are often diluted, distorted, or fabricated, often privileging stories of Whites over people of color, or men over women, etc.—privileging the dominant power structures in American society. Filmmakers choose what to include and exclude from history, thus films work to reshape and reinterpret social reality and historical memory, thus altering our received or perceived understanding of history and “truth.” Many Americans “learn” history from the movies, which is a little scary if you think about it (John Wayne in WWII movies? Oliver Stone’s version of the JFK assassination? Affleck and Damon in “Pearl Harbor”?).
Assignment:
1. If you select this project option, pick a historically based film, analyze how the movies depicted and framed historical events and people by comparing the film version to historical accounts and news stories in The New York Times & other dependable historical sources.
2. Select a film from the list below. Analyze the movie and identify the movie’s major themes/ frames, and compare them to historical facts. How do the movie “facts” privilege or distort the historical record? Do the film narratives work to privilege or challenge the dominant ideologies underlying American society? If you select a press-related movie, what issues related to media ethics can you relate to the film’s construction of reality? (You can propose other movies than those listed here, but no sports movies.)
3. How was the event and/or person framed in The New York Times? What issues related to media ethics can you relate to the Times’ construction of reality?
NOTE: Because this is a journalism class, I urge you to select a film that has to do with journalism, but that is not a requirement. The film must, however, be based on historical events so that you can examine it for truth. Remember, historians, like journalists or filmmakers, are both gatekeepers who decide what to include and exclude in their accounts, and framers of reality whose accounts of what happened becomes the public's version of the “truth.”
Essay or multimedia “report”: You may either write a 5-pp. paper on your movie, or construct a blog or multimedia presentation that others can view (see above). You must include complete bibliographic sources used to confirm the historical record. For multimedia presentations, you also need to hand in a detailed outline. Here’s an example of a past Smarts movie project on Shattered Glass. Part 1. Part 2.
Reminder: Wikipedia is NOT an acceptable nor a reliable source.
Some Tips:
1. Just because the clip is available on YouTube does not mean it’s the best option to support your arguments/theme. Trailers for movies are rarely useful. Select your movie clips carefully.
2. Using online sources is fine, providing the sources are reliable. (Like Wikipedia, blogs are not always reliable sources of factual information—check your sources!) Preferred sources: newspapers, news magazines, academic articles or books, film reviews from reliable news sources (e.g., New York Times). FYI: The New York Times Historical Database is available online through the library and includes all articles published by the Times. Also, every Time magazine article and cover since its first publication in 1927 are available.
3. Katie’s research tips.
Fair Warning: Many Hollywood films may use language, violence, depictions, etc., that some may find offensive; about 70 percent of Hollywood films are R-rated. From the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA): “A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words [e.g. the “F” word], though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, if even one of those words is used in a sexual context.” Click here for additional information on the MPAA rating system.
Films: Below is a list of films that fit the criteria for this assignment, which is that the movie . . .
1) . . . is based on an actual event or person;
2) . . . deals with an important social issue (e.g., racism, genocide); or
3) . . . focuses on issues related to journalism/journalism ethics. (Plot summaries below adapted from: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.
4) Many of these selections are related to journalism. Because this is a journalism class, Dr. Ted urges you to consider films about journalism that you haven’t seen as a way to enhance the learning experience of this project. Dr. Ted can offer recommendations. If you find other fact-based films that appeal to you, propose them to Dr. Ted ASAP.
FILM LIST Some films are available in USU Merrill-Cazier Library, Media Collections.
• All the King’s Men (2006). Based on the Robert Penn Warren novel. The life of populist Southerner Willie Stark, a political creature loosely based on Governor Huey Long of Louisiana. PG-13• All the President’s Men (1976). Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Nixon’s resignation. PG
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989). The biography of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), who was paralyzed in the Vietnam war, and becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist. For this option, examine coverage of the Vietnam war in The New York Times and compare to the narrative story in Born on the Fourth of July and the actual events of the conflict. R for war violence, language.
• Capote (2006) Based on writer Truman Capote during research for his (excellent) book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family. Capote develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers, and struggles with the conflict of balancing getting his story and journalistic ethics. R for some violent images, brief strong language. Others: Infamous (2006)
• Cry Freedom (1987). South African journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend the black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). NR, British
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima during WWII, directed by Clint Eastwood. R for graphic war violence & language. Also, parallel story from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
• Frost-Nixon (2008) A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon. G• George Wallace (1997) Biographical drama of the political career of the Alabama governor who fought against the 1960s civil rights movement, promising “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” in his inaugural speech. Wallace ran for president in 1968. For this option, examine coverage of Wallace and the civil rights campaign and compare the to film version. Unrated—TV
• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) Based on the story of the Myrlie Evers, widow of murdered civil rights leader Medger Evers, and a district attorney who struggle to bring the murderer to justice. PG-13
• Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) Edward R. Murrow and CBS decide to take a stand against Sen. Joe McCarthy’s unethical tactics during the 1950s Red Scare. PG
• The Great Debaters (2008) Drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to participate in the first national debate between African American and Caucasian college students. PG-13
• Hotel Rwanda (2004) Story of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who protected Tutsi refugees from the Hutu militia and genocide in Rwanda. PG-13 for violence; language
• The Insider (1999) Research chemist decides to blow the whistle on Big Tobacco and appear in a “60 Minutes” segment. R for language
• In the Valley of Elah (2007) A career military officer tries to learn the truth of his son’s death after his return from a tour of duty in Iraq. Based on true story of Specialist Richard R. Davis. R for violence, language, some sexual content
• Inherit the Wind (1960) An account of a real-life 1925 case in which two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution. G
• Iron Jawed Angels (2004) Story of Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and the fight for women’s suffrage. HBO• The Killing Fields (1984) Based on the experiences of New York Times reporter, Sydney Schanberg, and his coverage the 1970s civil war in Cambodia. R for graphic war violence & language
• Laramie Project (2002) Based on the story of gay college student Matthew Shepard who was murdered in 1998 in Laramie, WY. Originally a play, HBO made the film version and dialogue is based on transcripts from the murderers’ trials, and interviews with individuals involved in the case and Shepard’s friends and family. HBO: language
• Malcolm X (1992) Spike Lee’s story of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader. PG-13 for violence, some language
• Milk (2008) “The story of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White” (Josh Brolin). R for language, some sexual content, brief violence
• Mississippi Burning (1988). Based on the FBI investigation (Gene Hackman) of the 1964 disappearance and murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi. R for racial violence; language
• Munich (2005) After 11 Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible. R for graphic violence; language
• Nixon (1995) Biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy to his eventual presidency, the Watergate scandal, and his resignation. R for language
• Philadelphia (1993) A man with AIDS (Tom Hanks) is fired by a conservative law firm because of his disease and hires homophobic small time lawyer (Denzel Washington) for a wrongful dismissal suit. Inspired in part by the real-life story of Geoffrey Bowers’ AIDS discrimination lawsuit. PG-13
• The Road to Guantanamo (2006) Based on the experiences of the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charges. R for violence; language
• The Rosa Parks Story (2001) Based on Rosa Parks and her role in the civil rights movement. Made-for TV• Rosewood (1997) “Story of a shameful event in American history, the race riot by whites against blacks in 1922 in the small Florida town of Rosewood, which left the town in smoking ruin while dozens of its residents were shot, burned to death or lynched” (Ebert, 1997, February 21, ¶ 7). R for racial violence
• Salt of the Earth (1954) Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film confronts the prejudice against Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and the pivotal role of the wives of striking workers. Not rated.
• Saving Jessica Lynch (2003) Based on the story of the Army “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch, in Iraq. Made for TV
• Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) The story of a decorated officer’s legal challenge to her involuntary discharge when she admitted she was a lesbian (Glenn Close). Made for TV.
• Shattered Glass (2003) The true story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was found he had fabricated over half of his articles. PG-13 for language.
• Sometimes in April (2005) Fictionalized drama based on the Rwandan genocide. HBO.
• Veronica Guerin (2003) Based on the story of the Irish journalist who is assassinated by the drug dealers she wrote about in her news stories. R for violence & language
Tips for doing a critical film analysis: Your goal is to analyze the film in terms of how the historical events, issues and people are represented, not simply to do a plot summary. Here are some questions to help you identify the major ideological perspectives operating in the film narratives.
1. Search for historical information about the events and people depicted in the movies. Identify the differences between the historical and film versions. You may also include current events and issues related to the issues addressed in the movie (e.g., immigration, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism; sexism; class; etc.)
2. How does the director present issues related to diversity (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) in the film?
3. Could the director have portrayed the events and people in a more responsible way? (Be sure to explain how you are defining responsible film making).
4. What themes, characters, elements of the film provided new insight? What themes, arguments, elements of the story challenged your current way of looking at the issues raised by the film?
5. What does the film teach us about racial and ethnic diversity? Gender? International issues? Politics? War?
6. Use specific examples from the film to illustrate your major arguments and conclusions.
7. How does the film represent challenges made to dominant cultural ideologies?
8. How can you relate the principles of media literacy and media effects theories to the film narratives?
Some Dominant Ideologies & Concepts to Consider: Click here for issues of media and ideology.
• Capitalism: Economic system of private and corporate ownership; distribution of wealth and goods determined by free market enterprise and competition.
• Christianity: Religion based on the Bible and teachings of Jesus Christ. (FYI: Approximately 33% of the world’s population practices Christianity).
• Democracy: Government of the citizens of a country, determined by majority rule, based on elected representatives, as opposed to totalitarianism, communism, fascism, tribalism...
• Ethnocentrism: “Our people are better than your people.” In other words, belief that one’s own culture, nation, or ethnicity is superior to all others. Because of our national, social, cultural, etc., upbringing, we see the world in certain ways. Indeed, we are myopic and grievously ill-informed about the rest of the planet and its people. A good reminder of this is a brief video called Miniature Earth.
• Heteroideology: Privileges heterosexuality and discriminates against sexual minorities. Asserts that sexuality is natally ascribed, immutable and natural, and that heterosexuality is an integral aspect of human intelligence and nature (Scheman, 1997).
• Patriarchy: “[A]ny kind of group organization in which males hold dominant power and determine what part females shall and shall not play, and in which capabilities assigned to women are relegated” to domestic realms and excluded from political realms (Dow, 1996).
• White Privilege: The “everyday, invisible, subtle cultural and social practices, ideas and codes that discursively secure the power and privilege of white people” the “discursive processes through which whiteness secures its normalized cultural dominance.” (Gorham, 1999; Shome, 1996).
III. Children & Media
Goal: Identify a focused issue regarding children and the mass media. Analyze the arguments surrounding the issue in the context of mass communication theories. It’s a HUGE topic, and also full of partisans (so watch out for truthiness). Remember that the American Pediatric Assn. recommends NO television for kids younger than 2, and only for 1-2 hours a day for small kids. They have statements on violence, limiting TV time, TV advertising, babies & TV , etc. In 2010, however, the mass media are EVERYWHERE, and kids are much more susceptible to all kinds of influences than us old people—they’re little sponges. Think about Marshall McLuhan’s fish analogy and then think about baby fish—those little guppies are really getting steeped in media content.Don’t like fish? Think frogs: “Since the 1950s, children have been exposed to ever-increasing
amounts of television, and because the increase has been gradual, it has avoided intense scrutiny by the scientific community for potential adverse effects,” says William Hayes, president of the New Jersey Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “It is similar to the situation in which a frog, when thrown into hot water, jumps out immediately because he knows it is toxic to him,” Hayes said. “But if you take the same frog and place it on the stove and heat it slowly, he will stay in the pot until he is turned into soup.”Hope Green, the president of Vermont Educational TV and a member of the national board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, came to USU a few years ago to talk about kids and TV. Would you let your children depend on a diet heavy on Twinkies? she asked. (See “TV & the ‘Virtual Childhood’”) PBS tries to get to kids through its educational programming, but what’s reasonable and prudent for kids?
This was news in 2006: “Sesame Street” launches programming for 6-month-olds...
But not everyone thought even Bird Bird and Oscar the Grouch was good for baby diets. “Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families. There is no evidence that media is beneficial for babies, and they are starting to find evidence that it may be harmful. Until we know for sure, we shouldn't risk putting them in front of television.” —Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, 2006
(The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no TV for kids under age 2; a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 68% of children under 2 watched at least two hours of TV daily.)
George Gerbner, the media scholar who brought us cultivation theory, warned about the kinds of attitudes and perspectives on the world that early TV might cultivate in children. “My only advice is, if you value the culture of your children, if you value the notion of your own sovereignty, if you value any sense of independence in the future, you [must] make a serious investment in your own televised programs and motion pictures to compete with the American products and, if necessary, place limits on American products.” —George Gerbner, media scholar, on “cultural imperialism” in the information age, 2002 (Ramesh Closeput and Lai-Si Tsui, “An Interview with Professor George Gerbner, in Morgan, M., Ed., Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner. NY: Peter Lang, 2002)Many others have weighed in, in jest and seriously, on the question of what FCC Chairman Newton Minow called “a vast wasteland” in addressing TV network executives back in 1960. Thirty years later, in 1990, Minow was a professor in Michigan and he revisited his condemnation of television. TV still failed in at least four areas, he said:
“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” Minow said.
And that’s such a waste of potential, he said, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America. More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”
Other perspectives on TV:
• Editorial cartoonist Doug Marlette: “Peer pressure can lead us astray at any age, but with TV the nation’s designated baby-sitter, our children’s peers are Beavis and Butthead leering at Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial. They get the lingo down before they’ve got the hormones to back it up.”
• An anonymous Illinois mother of three, complaining to TV executives: “You can’t even watch cartoons anymore! Why have you let TV go so far?”• Bruce Springsteen, “da Boss,” “57 channels and nuthin’s on” (video)
• Author Leslie Savan, in her 1994 book The Sponsored Life: “Television-watching Americans — that is, just about all Americans — see approximately 100 TV commercials a day. . . . Advertising now infects just about every organ of society, and wherever advertising gains a foothold it tends to slowly take over, like a vampire or a virus.” • Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now, May 2001: “As America’s primary cultural storyteller, television creates a common picture of who’s important and who’s not. Prime-time programmers appear to have forgotten that America’s children—in all of their diversity—are a big part of the evening viewing audience.”
• Author and scholar Milton Chen, in The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV: “A curious mythology has grown up around television and its effects on children. Together these myths would have us believe that TV is single-handedly turning children into couch potatoes, frying their brains, shortening their attention spans and lowering their academic abilities. Supposedly, TV is a dark and foreboding menace in our children's lives. . . . Since teachers, parents and the media themselves constantly propagate these myths, it is important to examine them.” (in Dennis & Pease, Children & the Media. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994)So. Do a little investigation and decide where you want to focus.
Some sources: There are loads more. Get Googlin’.
• Annenberg School for Communication Children’s Media Lab
• Center for Children & Media
• Children Now: Media’s Impact—Understanding Media’s Role in Childhood Development
• Children’s Media Project
• Everette E. Dennis & Edward C. Pease, Eds. Children & the Media (1991) (I can loan this you’re interested.)
• Lisa Witnek, ChicagoNow.com, “I know...my kids watch too much TV”
• Media Education Foundation: Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media & Violent Times
• PBS: Children & Media
• Squidoo: Influence of Media on Children
• University of Michigan Children & TV
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