Oh, the News.

Minute-by-minute analysis
(N) - News; (W) - Weather; (S) - Sports; (E) - Entertainment
2 minutes - Foreclosure Scare (N)
3.5 minutes - Sequence of 5 different stories (N)
3 minutes - Commercials
2.2 minutes - Mild Weather exclusive from dog park (W/E)
3 minutes - Commercials
4 minutes - Weather Forecast (W)
4.5 minutes - Sports (S)
3.25 minutes - Commercials
1 minute - Santas for Seniors (E)
30 seconds - Forecast reminder (W)
30 seconds - Wrap up

Out of the 29ish minutes of the broadcast, 5.5 minutes were committed to the news of the day, 7 minutes were dedicated to the weather, 4.5 minutes were all about sports, and 1 minute was dedicated to entertainment (make that 3.2 if you count the awkward dog park weather report as entertainment). A whopping 9 minutes was taken up by commercials. Wow.

Overall, I would say that Kare 11 has the best local news although I am not sure I exactly know why I think that. While I watched this news, I was also watching the Channel 5 news trying to compare the two offerings (I cannot handle Fox9 news). Kare11 seemed to be less flashy and just delivering the news for what it was worth. The two channels had almost identical programming, just delivering the news stories in a different order. Kare11 did have the awkward 4 minute Entertainment/Weather report about how mild the weather had been lately, with reporter Jana Shordahl, but was pretty straightforward. It was nice to learn, however, that I have no need to schedule an entire 30 minutes to watch the news at 6pm on any given night as the news was over in the first 6 minutes. There wasn't much fancy editing happening on the 6 o'clock news and I didn't feel as though there was much sneaky rhetoric taking place to influence the viewers - or maybe it is just because I had already read all of the news stories earlier that day.

That being said, I receive about 97% of my news from online sources. From Kare11 to CNN to Feminist News, I am slightly addicted to checking news sources every 2 hours or so. I am fascinated by reading the same news story from a variety of sources, seeing which sites highlight which stories, and finding out which local news sites jump on which local news stories first. Additionally, it is interesting to contrast what different news sources find as the important voices and angles within the same story. At the core of my information addiction is Minnesota Public Radio. If I listen to the radio, it is on MPR. If I stream online news, it is MPR. It could be that MPR is the one source I truly trust to find news that is important to the varied demographics of Minneapolis. It also could be that the massive corporations that own every other news source (or so it seems) are unreliable for reporting valid, unbiased news.

Clear Channel has been at the core of much criticism in the radio/music world. With the status as the largest owner of "full power AM, FM and shortwave radio stations and 12 radio channels on XM satellite radio" and also "the largest pure-play radio station owner and operator", Clear Channel possesses a lot of power over what millions of people are listening to. The power in this is absolutely staggering. From choosing what songs can and can't be played, to forming cultural identities via music playlists, news choices, and radio personalities, Clear Channel can directly inform a large amount of a person's thoughts, beliefs, and even identity.

Activity for critical analysis of news:
Students will identify three different media outlets for the area in which they live. These media sources must be based in the local area - three local tv stations, radio stations, etc. Students will identify who they believe the "core audience" of that media source to be and then back up this identification with specific examples of news choices, music choices, personality choices, language choices, etc. Ultimately, students will analyze how different outlets disseminate information based on the audience they are intending to reach. Additionally, students will be asked to critique the pros and cons of media outlets having target audiences. It would be incredibly interesting to have students interview members of the target audience to find out the reasons members of that audience do or do not choose to identify with a certain media source.

Advertising Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf4QmIIOQEA (unable to embed)

"Dex Knows" commercials are based on the very simple fact that people want to know where to go for the things they want. Starting as a simple phonebook, Dex has now become as accessible as Twitter and Facebook, developing apps for the most prominent data phones. The intended audience in this commercial seems to be the stereotypically busy middle-class white family. This commercial makes Dex seem relevant to everyone in the family, kids and adults. The copies of the Dex character give information to different members of the family that seem more relevant based on stereotypical gender roles - letting the mom know there is a "laser light show" and telling the dad the bowling center is only "two miles away." By using the copies, Dex was able to make the point that you can find the same information in the Dex directory, whether it be in the phone book, online, or now via an "app" on your phone. Analyzing other Dex commercials reveal a very white, middle-class target audience. Dex, himself, is a man who represents the stereotypical white, middle-age, business man - wearing khaki dress pants, a button up shirt, and a tie. Overall, Dex seems to be targeting a very limited audience that has a high-level of access to the internet and has become hooked on the immediate gratification of finding exactly the information they need, when they need it.

My Created Spoof Ad:
After all of this analysis, I started to think how funny it would be if at the bottom of every commercial on TV there was a running banner that explained the bias, influenced, and implied assumptions in the ad. As a result, I thought of the What I Really Meant (WIRM) detector that a person could just point at the television or a person and the screen would reveal the "what I really meant" factor behind any message. Below is my ad:

Crime Shows Genre

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Activity for the classroom:
Television genres all seem to have pretty clear-cut expectations and target audiences. As I thought through the different genres we could choose from, it occurred to me how fun it would be to have students work in small groups to do a cross-genre analysis of two very different genres. In the process of analyzing these genres, students would learn about setting, characters, message, and audience. Students would use their analysis to create a combination genre and write a New Show Proposal for a brand new television show. There have been spoofs of television shows done like this, particularly in relation to reality show, that students could use as models. The activity would cause students to work on critical and creative thinking skills while working on essential ELA skills.

Media Ethnography

For the past 5 or 6 years, I have found myself increasingly interested in understanding how technology and instant communication have created a sense of dependency and expectations that are often unhealthy. Whether it be checking your phone every 5 minutes to see who has (or hasn't) texted you or linking every social network to your BlackBerry or iPhone in order to constantly know when your friends are doing...well, anything, I am far from thinking this interconnectedness has added a healthy dimension to our lives. And then, along came Twitter. A social networking and microblogging application created in 2006, Twitter essentially allows an individual or company to broadcast any detail of their lives at any point to a mass audience, or their "followers." While I have not used Twitter extensively, I have had many opportunities to observe friends and my employer (The Blake School) use it for a variety of reasons. Watching my friend A use it, he alternates between two uses - one is when he has a "profound" thought or idea that he wants to put out there for his friends to respond to, the other is for the basic reason of just announcing what he is doing, even down to brushing his teeth. Blake uses it primarily for communications with parents and alumni, announcing newsworthy events, reminding people of upcoming plays, etc., and to alert the community of emergencies and school closures. Most of the people I have witnessed using Twitter as well as those I "follow" use Twitter as a train of thought broadcast forum. Whether it is to announce the purchase of a new car or to declare a hatred for the kid next door, Twitter is used to announce just about anything. And I do feel like that is what it is - - announcing. My questions remain in the usage of such services - when did we become so self-important that we think everyone wants to know everything we are thinking and doing AND why are we so damn interested in everything people are thinking and doing??

I asked around and searched a bit for to try to figure out why some people use Twitter so religiously. Here are some of the answers I received:
1. Twitter allows people to feel like they are one step ahead of everyone else in receiving information. While this reasoning has some validity, it reeks of unhealthy competition - the whole "I know something you don't know" mentality. The prospect of having real-time news updates is appealing to me as I am a news junky, but I feel as though Twitter could allow for the fast spreading of false or inaccurate information. Many news outlets have Twitter or Twitter-like services that do provide these instant updates, which is nice (although I don't recall the world ever coming close to ending when we had to wait to get home to read the paper or read the news). I will never understand, however, why I would need to know what Ashton Kutcher is up to on a daily basis.
2. Twitter can allow instant feedback on new products and/or ideas. Okay, this has some valid points, as well. I do like the idea of using Twitter to keep the pulse on a consumer market without having to always commence a study group or formal investigation of product use and like/dislike. In situations like this, it allows consumers to have a more immediate effect on the way news and information is being communicated.
3. Twitter create opportunities for people to try on new identities and ideas. Instead of the once a day "water cooler" conversation with coworkers, Twitter allows individuals to communicate with a variety of different audiences throughout the day, about a variety of different topics. I do like this aspect of Twitter and the possibilities it has for creating some great circles for critical thinking. However, it does have major downfalls in that this forum is commonly used to gossip. And I hate gossip.

There doesn't seem to be just one type of person that uses Twitter, as is similar to Facebook and Myspace, but it is most appealing to younger audiences who have created this sort of addiction to one another and social networking. Older people, in general, still have the patience to wait and receive information when it is convenient for them - not as it becomes available. But chances are that sometime in the next year I will be eating my own words as I use Twitter to send tweets to students and teachers, alike.

Desperate Housewives is a television show that is ripe with situations for various lens analyses. For this this exercise, I have chosen to analyze the clip from Feminist and Marxist lenses.

Feminist:
It would be naive to think that any show titled "Desperate Housewives" wouldn't have many instances where the Feminist radar was blaring. Here, the scene opens with two women talking about responsibilities to their children, with Lynette having found childcare so she could have alone time and Susan feeling as though she needed to prepare dinner for her daughter. Clearly this places the women in the role of "caretakers" for their families. What is interesting about the decision of both of the women in the this scene is they both choose to buck their traditional roles, even if just for one afternoon of cocktails. Gaby joins their afternoon happy hour, however, and we soon see the women return to traditional roles, complaining and worrying about the men in their lives. The women talk about their bodies, passion, and their fears of growing old - particularly emphasizing the fear of growing old alone. Lynette is the most powerful of the three women, talking of how she has "allowed" her husband to open a pizza shop, but that it has had a negative effect on their relationship. Overall, the scene plays into many feminine stereotypes, but does it in the context of the women choosing to take to themselves outside of their traditional roles and just spending time together. (Note: the women are not on the porch drinking beers, but drinking a traditional "girly" drink: margaritas)

Marxist:
An afternoon and evening sitting on the porch of a well kept house drinking margaritas. This is a situation that screams middle/middle-upper class privilege. The visuals in the scene are clearly from an uppity, suburban neighborhood in anywhere America - nice cars, well-maintained yards, meticulously clean front porch, and the ultimate symbol of status: the white picket fence. There is something to be said about a mother who feels as though she needs to prepare dinner for her sixteen year-old daughter, as well. Clearly, the expectation that mom is home every evening to make dinner is created in a world where mom is either working no job or working a regular day shift job. In low-class families, many parents are working multiple jobs or have only been able to find second or third shift jobs. Other parts of this scene that speak to the wealth in the neighborhood include the old couple walking while it is dark out and the older woman waiting at night, alone, on her curb for a taxi. Gaby makes a direct reference to the status driven neighborhood when she calls out to the walking couple, "Yeah, we're drinking on the porch. You got a problem with that?" Hanging out on the porch with neighbors, particularly while drinking, is commonly a practice associated with low-income communities, not in a neighborhood such as where they live. As the day becomes night, we can see that the street is well lit and seems safe and when a random taxi driver ends up in front of the house, they have no problem encouraging Susan to jump into the cab. Desperate Housewives is a show built on the assumptions of middle/middle-upper class status and constantly uses this as part of the storyline in episodes.

Classroom Activity:
In order for students to really understand using different lenses, it is important to allow them to juxtapose the different approaches/perspectives with one another. One activity I came up with would be to have students each choose their favorite television show, movie, or video game. I would ask them to analyze their choice from their own perspective - what do they love about this show, movie, game; what are the main appealing aspects of this; who is the target audience, etc. After they have performed that analysis, I would ask the students to look at their analysis from a different lense (ex. if they chose Marxist, I would have them critique the parts of their choice from the perspective of each rung of the economic ladder). Their final task would be to create a 45-60 second "teaser" for their tv show, movie, or game that would make the show more appealing to people outside of the target market. Students would identify the setting, character, and language changes they made after applying a new lens.