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8/1/17

Whitman, MA

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8/1/17

Cambridge, MA

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10/15/17

Salem, MA

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9/24/17

Boston, MA

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11/12/17

Amherst, MA

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2015? You mean we’re in the future?

Back to the Future Part II (dir. by Robert Zemeckis, 1989)

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August 25, 1975, Born to Run is out. 

Happy Anniversary !

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Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘Cause I can’t stop I’ll be on that hill With everything that I’ve got Lives on the line Where dreams are found and lost I’ll be there on time And I’ll pay the cost For wanting things that can only be found In the darkness on the edge of town

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Personally, I felt the MBTA idea was the most creative and had the most potential for success. It had a very plausible idea for more funding, and would make a lot of advertisers very happy. It would be somewhat problematic has it could mess with commuter’s travels and finding which train to take. However, this is a simple obstacle that could be overcome in one quick meeting. If executed correctly, it has the potential to satisfy investors. It may become overwhelming and borderline annoying for the people riding the trains. But I still believe it is the most practical and original. 

W2: PUBLIC RELATIONS

Today, we’re talking about the theories and practices of PR, and I’ll be countering some misconceptions about public relations, including the idea that PR is as easy as being able to talk really well. 

Well, yes, Elle Woods, it’s harder than it looks.

We’re gonna go over the various kinds of PR and the reasons why PR is important not just in times of crisis. We’re also going to go over the six steps of PR issues management. And then we’re gonna practice them in the second half of class in agencies of our own. 

The assignment is a change from what’s listed on the syllabus. On your Tumblr, please vote for which team did the best at our in-class PR activity and explain why you voted that way in less than 300 words. You cannot vote for your own team, because that’s too easy. As always, tag your posts!

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The internet has been blowing up recently due to the new pictures of Pluto that have been coming out thanks to the team at NASA New Horizons. Reddit in particular has been showcasing the pictures throughout their front page and even hosted an AMA with the scientists themselves less than 6 hours ago. 

I decided to track the story, starting with a Huffington Post article that was rather short in comparison to the other articles I found. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/14/closest-look-at-pluto-photo_n_7792342.html?utm_hp_ref=science

That led me to the BBC website, which was a lot more in-depth and descriptive about the discoveries and the data found and used. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589#?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I then found an article on The Telegraph that, like the Huffington article, had screengrabs of tweets from the scientists and the research team, as well as the pictures (obviously).http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11737854/Pluto-flyby-the-first-pictures-of-dwarf-planet-from-New-Horizons-spacecraft-live.html

T2: Journalism

Today we’re going to be talking about storytelling and journalism, two things that go hand in hand but are perhaps more complicated in practice. Many issues facing journalism today are also about ethics and responsibility. They’re difficult questions, but I’m interested in your answers. Bring your thinking caps. 

We also have a special guest today! Jenni Whalen is a veteran freelance journalist and former managing editor of MedTech Boston, a medical technology news startup site. She’s currently Executive Assistant of Editorial at Upworthy, which is in the midst of refocusing itself on reported and edited content. Jenni has great insights into what journalists do now and where journalism might be headed in the future.

Today’s assignment is to track an aggregated story. Aggregated stories are those that are repackaged by a site from a story that was originally published elsewhere. (Entertainment websites and The Huffington Post are pretty infamous for this kind of content.) Find one such story and track it to its original source. What’s changed about the story from its origin point to the point at which you found it? Post the links to all the versions of the story you found and provide <300 words of commentary. 

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With the digital revolution in full swing, suddenly it is insanely easy for everyone to find a voice on the internet. It is possible for everyone and anyone to participate in something bigger and create something they're proud of and share it with the world. Fanfiction is no different. Participating in culture, regardless of the presence of the internet, gives people a sense of identity and creative freedom and liberties. Participating in culture is a very positive aspect of human life, and has the power to bring people together. I myself am a huge fan of movies, TV shows like The Office, and classic rock music. There are plenty of online forums that discuss these topics with great depth and enthusiasm. 

For example, there is a love story between Jim and Pam in The Office that goes throughout the series. There is an entire site dedicated to fanfiction about these two characters and their relationship with the other characters. 

M2: Participatory Culture

Participatory culture is a set of ideas about a more inclusive vision of cultural production, one that isn’t characterized by divisions between official and unofficial, author and fan, and other such binary categories. This idea is at once familiar and strange, for reasons we’ll be discussing in detail. What does it mean to participate in culture? How can we characterize this participation? That and more will be discussed today.

The assignment is to find an example of participatory culture for a fandom that you could feasibly be a part of. If you do not self-identify as a fan of a piece of media, choose your favorite TV show, movie, book series or music group and look for an example there. Give <300 words of analysis. What does the example you’ve found do with the original text? Why does it do that? (Feel free to include examples that are critical of the original text.) 

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I am not a religious watcher of Modern Family as some people are, so I know very little about the show, the characters, and what goes on. However, it was not difficult for me to be drawn into the story and to follow the characters. I was able to understand everything almost within the first 3 minutes or so. The show didn’t even have to go far to do this. It all took place inside a screen on a character’s laptop. This was a very unique way of telling a narrative, but it wasn’t the first to do so. I’ve seen a short film called Noah a while back, and it was incredibly inventive about how people, especially teenagers communicate with the world and completely inhabit another, digital world. I think that’s what the writers were saying with this episode: you can have an entire drama play out within a computer screen, and it still while find a way to be interesting and captivating. I still think that the ads were interrupting this captivation. The show kept building and building up and the commercials were just killing all of that energy. I do believe that there is a second golden age upon us when it comes to televised/serial content. Writers and producers are getting more creative, and all kinds of people are being drawn in. 

F1: TV, NOT TV, & BEYOND TV

Television scholar Amanda Lotz has noted that the word “television” seems to endure for a host of different kinds of content, even as the original delivery system called television is thought to be archaic, outmoded, and on the decline. With that in mind, I want to concentrate on your experiences of what television is, what value television has in your life, and how you make viewing decisions in age where the amount of available video content has exponentially increased.

I’ll be giving just a few background details on how scholars and critics think about television systems, how television developed in America, and where we’re at in the industry now. Then we’ll have a free-flowing conversation about your experiences of television.

The very last thing we’ll do in class is screen a recent episode of Modern Family called “Connection Lost.” It has a very unique style, as you’ll quickly realize. What I want you to do is write a <300 word review of the episode based on the things you value about TV. In other words, evaluate the show based on its execution of the thing you like most about TV. Do you need a serial narrative to draw you in? Are you so averse to commercials the show’s commercial nature turns you off? Think deeply about what you want from TV and what you like and write the review. Tag it as below.

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In this talk, John Green cites the success of his first novel, Looking for Alaska, being a “modest success” without using advertising on YouTube. The Fault in Our Stars was a huge success, and Green does cite YouTube has having a large role in its complicated success story. He also points out the popularity of his various YouTube channels, which have collectively 2.5 million subscribers. With the ever-growing Internet being used as arguably the most democratic tool in the world, Green points out the advertisers are in the “distraction business,” which he says is a noble business pursuit, because eyeballs warrant an endless amount of distraction. These number of “eyeballs” (views) is a very effective measurement when it comes to evaluating the distraction’s effectiveness. 

But John also says that he and the other YouTubers are not in the distraction business. They are in what they call the “community business”. When it comes to demonstrating a return on investment, this may be problematic when it comes to business. He cares about the people that love and cherish his work, not just the number of views, and warns advertisers about how their model is prone to lose relevance fast. He closes his talk by asking the advertisers to play a part in bringing meaningful content to people online, so that the connection to the new generation may not be lost. 

- Josh Gorman

TH1 ASSIGNMENT: View this video, from YouTube’s pitch to advertisers. What challenge does John Green claim YouTube poses to traditional advertising models, and how does he propose advertisers can continue to be meaningfully involved with YouTube? Answer, then consider this pitch from the advertiser’s perspective. Why might clients be excited about the prospect of sponsoring a “community”? What might be difficult about demonstrating return on investment for this kind of advertising? Less than or equal to 300 words.

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Okay on the surface this gif would be considered iconic because you have the text that matches up with image. The text describes singing about feelings and the image of Zac Efron doing his thing pretty much lines up. However this can be taken indexically because the image of Zac twirling doesn’t exactly line up with actually singing, and we can’t tell due to lack of audio. This image isn’t all that polysemy, nor abstract as the interpretation of this gif is very surface-level and straight forward (denotive), however the context of these “feelings” can be taken differently. The anchorage here would be the movement of Zac as he shows excitement, energy passion in his movement, and therefore can be taken as positive and passionate. The text here is pretty literal; (BRB stands for be right back if you’re new to the internet) and other than that “singing about my feelings” is a straight forward thought. If it was “singing my heart out,” then if would be more connotive and abstract.

Zac Efron in High School Musical 2

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This is everything

Occasionally I’ll hit somebody with my car. So sue me.

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Why I Want to Take Mass Communication

I’ve always had a love for movies, and recently I’ve gained an interest in how the general media, in addition to film, is able to communicate certain ideas and ideologies through their particular mediums. Humans have been communicating since our existence and it’s only been recently that the digital age is taking off and communication is becoming all the more different. I’m eager to learn how the modern and future forms of communication will affect people socially and psychologically in generations to come. I’m also intrigued by the basic theories of communication (e.g. how there is an encoder and a decoder, how information can be perceived differently) and how those fundamental concepts influence the types of mass communication seen on the internet and various types of advertising. To touch back on films and cinema, I’m curious to learn not only what the filmmakers and artists give their audiences in the ways that they do, but also how they do that, within the boundaries of a given narrative structure. I’m really looking forward to this class :) 

- Josh G.