COMM 150 in class: Who owns our hometown paper?

This exercise will give us some context for John Vivian's discussion of newspaper ownership trends (pages 0000 to 0000) and get us started on our classroom discussion ...

But first, we ought to read the post just below this one. I put it up Monday when I learned another newspaper bureau at the Illinois State Capitol is laying off a reporter. That, unfortunately, gives us some context on what's happening as well.

Here's the exercise. It's premised on the fact that you sit in front of the most powerful research tool known to humankind. I'll ask some questions. Some of the answers you probably know. Others you may not. Here they are:

1. The State Journal-Register is our hometown newspaper in Springfield. Who owns it?

2. Where are its owners from?

3. How are they doing financially?

4. What do Springfield, Peoria and Galesburg have in common?

5. What does this tell you about John Vivian's discussion of newspaper ownership trends and economics?

Post your answers as comments to this blog post.

COMM 150: Economics of newspapering - a hard lesson in today's news

At the end of class today (Monday), I asked you to think about this question: How can a newspaper, or other news organization, balance its role as a "fourth branch of government" with its need to make a profit and stay in business? It's a difficult question, and there aren't any clear-cut answers. Especially when newspapers are losing circulation, as they are today.

Here's something in today's news that shows how difficult the question can be. And how timely it is. Lee Enterprises, the chain that owns The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Southern Illinoisan and the Bloomington Pantagraph (along with dailies in Decatur, Charleston, Mattoon and Davenport, Iowa), laid off one of its Illinois Statehouse reporters. By the way, Lee is the chain that John Vivian discusses at the beginning of the chapter on newspapers in our textbook (pages 77-78 in the ninth edition).

"Mike [Riopell] was a hard-working Statehouse reporter who really knew his stuff," said Rich Miller, who publishes Capitol Fax, a state government news blog. "His ejection will create yet another gaping hole in the press room."

Miller's post isn't happy reading, but we'd better read it. The comments, too. The blog's readers are mostly political insiders, and they're opinionated. But they generally know what they're talking about. [For example: They know Steve Brown is State House Speaker Michael Madigan's press secretary, so they don't bother to spell it out. I just skim over references I don't understand, or don't agree with. But I always read the comments.] Reading something like this tells you what's happening now in a way than no textbook can ever do.

As newspapers cut back on editorial staff, it has implications for how well they can report on government. Niche publications like the Capitol Fax blog take up some of the slack. (Check out the guy from Southern Illinois University who says, "Without this blog, I would be totally in the dark about what is going on in the Illinois capitol. Coverage in Carbondale is absent. The [Southern Illinoisan] may go weeks without a state issue article.") But it's troubling.

What's a blog without cat pictures?

Giving a photographer the hairy eyeball ...



In context, window looking out on our back yard in background ...

COMM 337: New York Times recalls a classic baseball story. Baseball? No, a classic story in every way ... AND A WRITING ASSIGNMENT FOR YOUR BLOGS

In today's New York Times, Charles McGrath recalled John Updike's story on Red Sox baseball legend Ted Williams' last game at Fenway Park in Boston. Updike's headline "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" made fun of generations of sportwriting cliches, but the story is a classic of well-written magazine journalism. It is archived here on The New Yorker's website.

[It's timely now because Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of Williams' last game, on Sept. 28, 1960.]

Here's the assignment. It comes in three steps:

1. Read Donald Murray, especially Chapters 3-4, on "reporting for surprise" and finding the flow (Murray calls it "tension" of a story. As you read Murray, try to figure out what he means by "surprise." It's almost impossible to explain, but it's important. It may be the single most important thing that makes your work stand out in the crowd.

2. Read "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu." How does Updike develop the tension of the story? Are there any surprises in it as you read? What other techniques and/or attitudes that Don Murray suggests do you find reflected in Updike's story?

3. Post your thoughts (about 1,000 words) to your blog, and email me when you've finished. If you can't complete it by the end of the week, email me anyway and let me know how you're doing on it.

>As always, if you have questions, comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to get back to me.

COMM 150: Of news, politics, a changing economy and HINTS for the midterm

Posted Friday evening for class Monday.

In class today, we looked at a World Newspaper Federation website that say government and the news business have been inseparable since Julius Caesar posted the daily acts (Acta Diurna) of his government in Rome more than 2,000 years ago. And I suggested, in a couple of links we didn't get to, that today's American news media contribute to a public distaste for politics and government by treating politicians like celebrities.

One of the links quoted Sarah Palin, a politician who is often treated like a celebrity, complianing about what she calls the "lame-stream media." So it goes both ways.

But later today, I realized I left out something important. In fact, it's so important it might be on a test someday.

[By the way, did you notice the HINT? Just askin'.]

It's related to this whole idea of the media as a fourth branch of government - after the the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches. We mentioned it in passing during class, but I want us to have it very clearly in mind - especially now that we're in the last month before important statewide and congressional elections. According to Wikipedia, the idea is attributed to Sir Edmund Burke, an 18th-century English statesman, and Thomas Babbington Lord Macaulay, a 19th-century English historian, who said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm" [the other three were the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the bishops of the Church of England]. You don't have to remember these details - they're ancient history. Well, early modern. But I do want you to realize how old they are. In America, the phrase has been adapted to say the press, or the media, comprise a "fourth branch of government."

On the Yahoo! ANSWERS interactive website in 2007, contributors were asked, "Why is the media sometimes called the 'fourth branch of government?'?" Voted the best answer was this from "Trish JPA and Jewish Pastafarian":

I haven't heard it before, but it makes sense to me. Our media is one of the forces that keep the other three branches of government in check, and checks and balances are what our constitution is all about. There are many things that would never be known by the general public if it were not for the media, and that in turn enables the public, and thus VOTERS, to influence government, and to have an informed say in who our leaders are. We have a formidable constitution and government, but it would be nearly worthless if its functions were carried out in secret.

Much as I often dislike some of the things the media does and their intrusiveness, I have had MANY occasions in my lifetime to be thankful for their presence. We are what we are in part because of our media and its freedom of speech, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, even when I'm angry at it! :-)
Source(s):
My opinion; it's worth EVERY penny you paid for it, too ;-)

OK, that's the theory. The press is part of the system of checks and balances in our system of government. Its role is to publicize the acts of government and serve as a watchdog over government. As wcolwell2, another contributor to the Yahoo! question board, put it, "In an ideal world, the press keeps the three branches of our govt honest."

Well, that's the theory. We'll be looking to see how well it works in practice.

Part pf what we're seeing in this year's election season is an attack on the institutions of government and the press themselves - not so much the institutions, perhaps, as they way they do business. But an attack, all the same.

Thus we get Fox News commentator Palin blasting the "lamestream media" along with the Democratic majorities in Washington, as she did in a speech at a Republican fund-raiser in Iowa last week. "We have to hold the press accountable when we know they are making things up and telling untruths," she said. She says that a lot. The Des Moines Register's story treated it as a standard political speech directed at standard political targets, a "full-throated call to arms for angry and out-of-power Republicans on Friday in front of an audience of some of the nation's most influential party activists."

But Mark Halperin of Time magazine saw in it more than "a rambling nothingburger of a diatribe, with a convoluted, self-pitying screed about the media." In a column about Palin's speech, Halperin said she's attacking "Coastal Elites, the Media and Establishment Politicians of Both Parties." And therein, he says, lies her appeal:

The past 22 months have been replete with situations in which Palin has refused
to adhere to the conventional playbook of presidential contenders and party
honchos. That posture, along with — let's face it — her watchability, star
quality and good looks, is what keeps her core supporters hanging on her every
word. Her followers forgive her sloppy syntax and seemingly haphazard
methodology — to them, this makes her accessible, relatable and real. The more
she is attacked and belittled, the more they rally to her defense.

And the more she attacks and belittles the establishment, the more she appeals to her fans.

In short, it's good politics for Palin to go on the attack.

According to Matthew Dowd, a political analyst who coordinated President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, it's a good year for anti-establishment politicians in general. Palin is just the most prominent of the bunch:

The underlying problem is that the vast majority of the people do not trust the
federal government and Congress to understand and address the concerns of
everyday Americans. Distrust of Congress is at a historic high (Gallup's latest
polling has congressional approval at 18 percent positive, 77 percent negative).
Disapproval appears even higher among Republican primary voters. The problem is
that institutional trust is extremely low and needs to be restored. People need
to believe that Congress and the federal government can be effective together.

Dowd adds:

Americans are angry and frustrated with the incompetence of the federal government. They don't like fiscal irresponsibility (massive budget deficits). They don't like the fact that government can't get the job done well (responses to the Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil disasters). And they don't like it when neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress seem to get it -- when members appear to be more concerned with keeping and expanding their power than with tackling the very real problems facing the nation.

So, in Republican primary after Republican primary, voters are turning away from candidates with Washington experience toward novices who may not be considered "the best and the brightest." ...

Dowd doesn't say a word about the media, but I think it's clear: Palin's attacks on the media, and those of others on the right wing, are part of a general attack on the political establishment.

Question: Are the media so bound up with the governmental institutions they cover that they ignore the interests of their readers, their viewers, the voters? If so, how well are they fulfilling their role as watchdogs.

Just askin'. And just hintin'.

Similarly, Ronald Brownstein of National Journal magazine sees a general, widespread distrust in American institutions at work in this year's election. He dosn't directly mention the national media, but they're certainly affected. Browstein takes a historical view:

During the transition from the agricultural era to the Industrial Age in the late 19th century, America suffered through a generation of political instability and volatility.

The political hallmarks were narrow congressional majorities and rapid shifts in control; repeated one-term presidents; and divided government, with the parties routinely splitting the White House and Congress. This turmoil (which lasted from about 1876 to 1896) was rooted in the widespread sense among Americans that neither party had convincing answers to the enormous challenges created by the shift from farm to factory.

Based on last week's release of the annual Census Bureau report on income and poverty, it appears that the U.S. is experiencing something similar again, as Americans uneasily navigate a globalized, information-based economy. Across a wide range of economic measures, the bureau report demonstrated, the past 10 years have been an utterly lost decade for many, if not most, Americans. And that helps explain why the U.S. continues to careen through so many sharp political reversals.

From 2000 through 2009, the Census Bureau found, the median income (measured in inflation-adjusted dollars) declined by 5 percent for white families, 8 percent for Hispanic families, and more than 11 percent for African-American families. That's almost unimaginable over an entire decade. From 1991 through 2000 (again in inflation-adjusted dollars) it had risen by 13 percent for whites, 19 percent for Hispanics, and 28 percent for African-Americans.

Brownstein concludes:

The larger point is that, as in the late 19th century, millions of Americans feel that the ground beneath them is cracking as the economy convulses in destabilizing structural change. They are losing faith in all institutions, and many have grown dubious that either political party has answers for their distress. Since the mid-1990s, Americans have flipped from divided government in Washington, to unified Republican control, to unified Democratic control. Voters now appear poised to divide power between the parties again. That's not likely to be the final spin of the wheel. Until more Americans obtain greater security in their financial lives, don't expect either party to enjoy much of it in Washington, either.

Now, here's the kicker: The same underlying economic changes are affecting the media, too, especially the print media and the national television networks that comprise the national mainstream media. As Sarah Palin might say, how is that underlying economic change-y stuff workin' out for them?

As the Nov. 4 election draws nearer, we'll be looking at how the news media live up to their theoretical role as the fourth branch of government. [HINT: Did I mention we'll have a midterm, and probably a documented essay too, coming up during that time period? Just askin'.] We'll also be looking at how structural changes in the economy affect their ability to do that. And we'll be looking at what John Vivian, author of our textbook, calls "demassification" ... i.e. a trend away from mass media toward smaller publications geared for niche markets.

[Something to think about: Would the election make a good 25-point short essay and the trend toward niche marketing in all kinds of media make for a 50-point essay? These are the kinds of things I think about as we go along, and it might pay you to think about them too.]

Tangent [or is it a tangent?]. Brownstein used to be the White House reporter for The Los Angeles Times (circulation 616,606, down from a peak of 1.1 million), and he was arguably the most respected reporter on a very competitive beat. He left the Times for National Journal (circulation 12,171). It's a niche publication, more accurately described as a cluster of even narrower niche publications. Its "About Us" page says:

National Journal Group is the leading source of nonpartisan reporting on the current political environment and emerging policy trends. Our print, online and broadcast properties include National Journal, CongressDaily, The Hotline, NationalJournal.com, The Almanac of American Politics, and "Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal."

The "About" page gives a clear picture of its hoped-for target audience:

... National Journal Group enjoys unparalleled readership loyalty from decision makers and policy influencers across the nation. National Journal Group's publications have become trusted professional resources for Members of Congress and their senior staffs, the Executive branch, federal agency executives, government affairs professionals, corporate and association leaders, and the political news media.

Why would somebody like Brownstein jump from the Los Angeles Times to National Journal? Just askin'.

COMM 150: News ... in search of the real Lindsay Lohan, Sarah Palin and Count Dracula

What does the news coverage of Dracula, Lindsay Lohan and Sarah Palin have in common?

First, a little background.

Count Dracula, the title character in the 1897 novel and all the horror movies about vampires, is based on a historical figure named Vlad Tsepes Drakul (1431–1476), sometimes known in English as "Vlad the Impaler" for what he did to an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 of his enemies. Nice guy.

I assume we don't need any background on Lindsay Lohan and Sarah Palin. Lohan is due in court Friday, likely about the same time we're in class, and Palin's always in the news.

Now, back to the question.

The answer will begin to ome clear as we read "Newspapers: A Brief History" by the World Association of Newspapers headquartered in Paris. It gives a little of the history of newspapers, and it's important because it tells us something about the role that newspapers have traditionally served in the Western world ... going back to the days of the Roman Empire. We'll also look at the circulation figures of the World’s Top 100 Dailies. And we'll get a sense of history on the fly from "What They Say: Quotes About Newspapers. I'll point out a couple or three that I like. But I want you to read them and see which ones you agree with, disagree with ... or just sort of leave you "meh," or indifferent. What's different today? What's the same?

Worth a thousand words. "A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades". One word for it. Down. Forget the other 999. Down, down, down.

One response to declining readership has been to try to compete with television and celebrity magazines. John Dvorak of PC Magazine has a blog post titled " Newspaper Publishers Are Idiots" in which he explains his opinion of this trend. (At least he's not coy - he lets you know what he's thinking.)

I was doing research at the University of California Newspaper Library, which has a tremendous collection of microfilmed old newspapers from every era. If you want to see the heyday of the newspaper business and quickly see what would work today, look at a 1954 edition of The San Francisco Examiner. It's so dense with news stories that today's papers look as if there's nothing in them. It is extremely compelling.

The point is that there are good ideas already out there, and they just need to be rediscovered. But for now the panic-stricken bosses seem to be heading down the same abyss in the same direction. It's the direction that created the abyss in the first place.

Some papers have tried to not go over the cliff. The Washington Post, The New York Times and, to some extent, quality Midwestern papers like The Chicago Tribune and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, still publish mostly news and analysis of public affairs and economic news. But they all publish more fluff than they used to, cetainly more than the old Examiner would have ever thought of. And they're all getting more like TV and, more recently, celebrity websites like TMZ.com.

Which brings us to Lindsay Lohan. Fox News has an interactive feature where we can vote on this vital question of the day: Is Lindsay Lohan the Worst Celebrity Repeat Offender? Other choices: Paris Hilton, none of the above, undecided.

And this news flash - fluff flash? oh, let's not go there - from Us Weekly: "Lohan drank, 'giggled' as she tweeted confession" ...

In the meantime, the news media are treating politics and government like celebrity news. Here's columnist Alyiah Shahid of The New York Daily News detailing how "Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell: Tea Party's conservative darlings look, dress and talk alike ... what happens when we cover politics and government like celebrity gossip?

Well, here's one thing that happens. The politicians start acting like celebrities. Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine has an interesting analysis of how Palin does it and uses her status as a celebrity to gain political traction.

Which is interesting ... and important ... but leads us away from our original question: What similarity can you find in the news coverage of Dracula* and Lindsay Lohan? But, oh heck, maybe it doesn't - how is Vlad the Impaler's coverage like that of Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell, too?

COMM 150: Newspapers - survey

Please post your answers as comments to this post ... I'll post the questions as we go along.

1. what newspapers ... what format e.g. State Journal-Register - print; Chicago Trib - online

2. how often ?

3. which parts do you read? ... ignore? What information do you go to the newspaper for? e.g. in-depth political (sports) coverage and analysis

4. When is the last time you paid money for a newspaper?

5. Trick question (for extra credit): Which part of the newspaper do you think the most people read?

COMM 150: Blockbusters, best sellers, audience fragmentation, niche marketing and the long tail

I'd hoped we would move on to the chapter on newspapers in John Vivian's "Media of Mass Communication," but there's something we didn't get to in the chapter on books, and it's important. So we'll go over it today, and we'll keep coming back to it all semester. I'll set it up by asking you some questions. (Just so we don't skip over them, I'll put them in red.) The first: How does Vivian define the following?

1. Blockbusters
2. Audience fragmentation
3. The long tail

Next question: Study the most recent annual USA Today best-seller list ... paying attention to the little descriptions of the books that follow the titles. What types of books are selling? Who's buying them? Do you see any surprises? (Hint: "Young adult" is the book industry's word for teenagers.) How many of the top-selling books are aimed at a niche market?

Necessary - and important - tangent: A niche market, according to Wikipedia, is "the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact." Let's boil that down a little. We're going to need to know how to use this language (in case it comes up on a test or something like that, if you get my drift). Original meaning of the word is a "curved space in a wall that is designed to hold a statue, vase, etc." If you've been up to the second floor of Brinkerhoff House, there's one above the staircase about halfway up. Link here to see one in Merrian-Webster's Learner's Dictionary ... and to suss out the other meanings. The way "niche" is used in the business world, it's about being in the right place at the right time ... as Merriam-Webster put it, being in a "situation in which a business's products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people." I'd say being in the right place at the right time with the right product.

With that in mind, let's go back to the USA Today best-seller list. What groups of people are represented here? OK, "young adults" or teenagers. Who else? How many titles would appeal mostly to women? To Republicans? Any other groups?

What John Vivian calls a "blockbuster" is a book aimed at a mass market. He mentions "Gone With the Wind," a wildly popular 1936 romance novel. He's right, and the 1939 movie version was, too. Starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, it was re-released in 1947, 1961, 1967, 1971, 1989, 1998 and 2007 and is "estimated to be the highest grossing film domestically of all time."

Other authors aim at a mass market with "mid-list" books - novels or non-fiction designed to have a general appeal to all kinds of readers. They aren't as successful as "blockbusters," as Vivian notes, but in the aggragate they make more money day in and day out. How many books in the USA Today best-seller list appear to be aimed at a mass market? There aren't many, but I think there are a few. Hint: Look for mysteries, action-adventure stories, general-interest novels and "how-to" books, i.e. books that show readers how to do something. Anything that looks like it would interest a variety of people from different groups or market segments.

How does audience fragmentation fit into the niche marketing picture? Vivian would say the long-term trend is toward fewer blockbusters like "Gone With the Wind" and more books aimed at niche markets. I think he's probably right, but Harry Potter comes pretty close!

Finally, at the end of the chapter Vivian cites a book called "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson. According to Wikipedia, the long tail is a mathematical concept that Anderson applied to mass communications and marketing. Here's the "money graf" in Wikipedia:

Anderson argues that products in low demand or that have a low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Anderson cites earlier research by Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu (Jeffrey) Hu, and Michael D. Smith, that showed that a significant portion of Amazon.com's sales come from obscure books that are not available in brick-and-mortar stores. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, the distribution and sales channel opportunities created by the Internet often enable businesses to tap that market successfully.

An Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday."

The questions:

How does the long tail theory fit in with niche marketing and the other concepts we look at in class Monday? Why might it be a good thing for people of your generation to be aware of as you choose careers and look for opportunities in the business world?

First-rate newspapering on a ukelele?

"Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's St. Matthew Passion on a ukulele: The instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience and for the performer." -- Ben Bagdikian

Emeritus dean of the journalism school at the University of California Berkley, Ben Bagdikian has been a fierce critic of the corporate media for decades. Most local television news he characterizes as "giggle programs, where inane pleasantries bounced back and forth, in between which they say oh yes, there was an ax murder in San Jose."

And his opinion of local newspapers isn't any higher.

But what's that stuff about a ukelele?

Let's see.

First, Roy Smeck, a vaudville artist known as the "wizard of strings," plays "Tiger Rag," a jazz standard of the early 1900s, on the uke:



Next, "Blute nur, du liebes Herz" from the St. Matthew Passion, with the Brandenburg Consort and soprano Emma Kirkby, conducted by Roy Goodman:



Nothing wrong with a uke, and nothing wrong with a Bach choir, either. They're just different things.

COMM 150: In-class quiz

From time to time, as you may know if you've taken my classes before, I give quizzes in class ... partly to stimulate class discussion but also to encourage class attendance. Therefore, I try to make the questions not terribly demanding so everybody gets credit for coming to class.

Here's today's question:

In what large East Coast city is The New York Times published:

a. Springfield

b. New Berlin

c. Williamsville

d. Chatham

3. New York City.

Post your answers as comments to this post.

These quizzes work best if you tell your classmates who are not here today exactly what you did to earn 35,000 extra credit points.

COMM 150: I still like Wikipedia ...

... but I've got to admit this is funny and it can happen, it can happen.

But notice the bogus stuff about the brown bears in the courtroom went up on Sept. 13 and got taken down Sept. 14. How long does it take for the mistakes that creep into Encyclopaedia Britannica to get corrected?

Hint: According to the Wikipedia article about the Britannica (sorry 'bout that!), the first edition of Brittanica came out in 1768, and the current edition - the 15th - in 1985. Updates are more frequent, though: The most recent print revisions came out in 2007 and 2010.

COMM 150: Convergence ... another example

Disclaimer: The website linked below is promotional. In other words, it's selling a product. It wants you to spend money. In COMM 150, we will look at a variety of promotional material. You are not, repeat "not," required to buy anything. Nor are you required to agree with my taste in music. Or politics. Or anything else, for that matter, as long as you support your reasons for disagreeing with me like you learned in English 111.

Earlier this week in class I passed around a copy of Relix, the jamband magazine, as one example of how convergence works in the media industry - a magazine devoted to CD and DVD music reviews with a sampler CD tucked inside.

Well, here's a related example. Relix' cover story was about Angel Wings, a set of two CDs from recording sessions with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and a group of roots reggae musicians in Jamaica. Its website at http://www.winglessangels.com/ is another. It offers the CDs for sale later this month, along with instantaneous mp3 downloads available with preorders. It even has a promotional widget that can be embedded on other webpages and blogs - including this blog ...

Making samples of the music available through the widget is also a prime example of how the Internet can be used for promotional and marketing purposes. If you click on "Learn More," the hypertext takes you to to the Wingless Angels website.

COMM 150: For Friday ... books and book production costs

Our assignment for today was to find out what people are reading, starting with the Best Seller lists. I like the annual USA Today best-seller list because it has little descriptions of the books. It's not at all what I expected. What surprises do you see as you study the list?

Free-lance journalist Shira Boss had an excellent article "The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller" in The New York Times in 2007 on why book publishing is such a riverboat gamble. She says:

... no editors claim to have a scientific handle on how a book will sell. Instead, they emphasize the role of intuition and say that while big unexpected losses and gains do happen, somehow it all works out.

But results are not spectacular, for an industry that had $34.6 billion in net revenue in 2005. Net profit margins hover in the mid-single digits for the $14 billion trade segment, which covers adult, juvenile and mass market titles, with an estimated 70 percent of titles in the red.

Sales in the trade segment (which includes both fiction and nonfiction) grew 5 percent in 2005 from the previous year, but year-over-year sales growth is expected to decline to less than 2 percent by 2010, according to book industry trade group data. The industry does follow trends to pursue growth, but when it comes to acquisitions, methods have not changed much in hundreds of years, says Al Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University.

IT’S the way this business has run since 1640,” he says. That is when 1,700 copies of the Bay Psalm Book were published in the colonies. “It was a gamble, and they guessed right because it sold out of the print run. And ever since then, it has been a crap shoot,” Professor Greco said.

Let's take a hard look at the economics here.

An old investigative reporters' rule: "Follow the money." If you know who gets paid for what, you can predict the future! Because if you know how they make their money, nine times out of 10 you can guess what they're going to do next.

So let's follow the money ...

The Kindle Review website has a breakdown of the Cost of Physical Book Publishing. I like it because it explains a lot of the details that go into creating an ink-on-paper book. But, first, there's something we ought to be aware of.

Who's putting up this page?

Kindle.

What's Kindle?

It's an electronic text delivery system, an elecronic book.

Hmmm. Let's follow the money.

How does Kindle make its money? It sells an electronic alternative to ink-and-paper books.

So what's it going to say about the competition? It's going to point out the down side of its competition. No reason not to believe the figures. They do check out. But we do want to be careful, don't we? We do want to follow the money.

Notice the basic pattern here, of who creates the content, who owns it, who sells it and to whom, etc., etc. The author sells the book to the publisher, and the publisher takes the risk. Then the publisher sells the book to us. With trade books, the publisher sells the book to a bookstore (usually at a discount), and the bookstore sells it to us. So ownership of the product passes from the creator to the publisher to the retailer to the consumer.

We'll be comparing that setup to other media, especially the electronic media. On the Kindle Review Blog, "switch11," who created the content, sums it up like this:

1.Author – Creation. 8-15% Royalties.
2.Publisher – Being the Curator, Polishing, Manufacturing, Marketing. 45-55% (includes Author’s Royalties). Note that Printing accounts for just 10% of the book price.
3.Distributor – 10%.
4.Retailers – 40%.
5.Consumers ...

Compare this to the chart in Vivian on who gets what percentage of your textbook dollar.

COMM 150: A series of questions for class today ... and a tangent ... or is it a tangent?

1. What is a book?

2. If you can't define it, where would you go to find a definition?

3. Do you Google everything you don't know?

4. If not, why not?

5. What does John Vivian seem to think a book is?

6. What do *you* think a book is?

COMM 337: A nuanced public affairs story in The Trib

"Nuance" isn't a word I often use about public affairs reporting. If something is nuanced, according to the Wictionary open-content online dictironary, it is "possessed of multiple layers of detail, pattern, or meaning." Life is like that. But most political reporting isn't.

If it were, I suspect Barack Obama would be a rising star in the Illinois State Senate and Sarah Palin would still be mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Both owe their political careers to an uncanny ability to play the media.

[IMPORTANT TANGENT: Now is as good a time as any to say this. I'll freely express my opinions when I blog, but you are not, repeat not expected to agree with them. That's especially true of politics, but it also applies to what I say about the media. Even the Chicago Cubs.]


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-met-race-politics-0912-20100910,0,1962528.story

By Bob Secter and Dawn Turner Trice, Tribune reporters

3:20 a.m. CDT, September 11, 2010


Chicago gave the nation its first African-American president, but the only wide-open mayoral election in recent memory may prove the acid test for how far the city has come in transcending its bitter legacy of racial politics.

A political land rush began to build the moment Mayor Richard Daley announced he was heading for the exit, with ethnic and racial interest groups of every hue sizing up potential candidates to make a run at control of City Hall.

"South Side Irish, North Side Irish, African-Americans, South Side African-Americans, West Side African-Americans, Latinos, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, everybody's doing it," explained Ald. Ricardo Munoz, 22nd.

The field of contenders is expected to be large, but it's far too early to say whether it ultimately will be defined by the color of skin rather than the content of character, ideas, money, chutzpah and, this being Chicago, even guile.

great quote

Chicago is simply in a different place than it was in 1983, when the dueling campaign slogans of Washington and white opponent Bernard Epton were anything but subtle: "It's our turn" vs. "Before it's too late."

Timuel Black Jr., a Chicago cultural historian who worked to help Washington break the color barrier in the mayor's office, said the race card still might play with some older voters but would risk turning off today's more open-minded younger generation.

"This is less about black, white or brown, but green," said Black. ...

Black went on to explain what he meant by "green." (Hint: Don't think environment, think money.) "Candidates must emphasize jobs," he said. "Then education, street safety and affordable housing are also important. The racial rhetoric of old won't work on today's Chicago voters. They're far more sophisticated, even if some of their politicians aren't."

It's nuanced.

"Backsliding isn't out of the question," say ____ and _____. "The city hasn't magically been transformed during Daley's 21 years as mayor into a rainbow of harmony. Many ingredients that fueled the bitterness of old overhang the election to replace him ..."

Awfully good kicker at the end, quoting yet another ethnic powerbroker:

Juan Rangel, CEO of the Hispanic-oriented United Neighborhood Organization, credits both Washington and Daley for the way race has evolved in Chicago politics.

Washington, he said, started with a large African-American majority but over time convinced many Hispanic and white voters that he looked out for their interests as well. Daley reversed the order but ended up in much the same place, Rangel said.

"He started with a large white vote in 1989 and a significant Hispanic vote, and you saw his base change over the years to include African-Americans," said Rangel. "Both mayors understood that in order to govern, they needed to go beyond the traditional base and be mayor for all people."

Which does what a kicker should do: Sus up the article and leaves its readers thinking."

COMM 337: Student blogs, fall 2010

Students in COMM 337 (advanced writing and free-lancing):

• Erick Clark http://erickrclark.blogspot.com
  
  
• Amy Heap http://amyheap.blogspot.com/

Link here to see last year's blogs. And link here for valuable tips on how to start a blog from Robin Good's MasterNewMedia.org website.

COMM 150: What we're going to do in class Monday ... and the rest of the week. But first, some questions ...

"The medium is the message." - Marshall McLuhan
Canadian university professor and media critic Marshall McLuhan died 30 years ago (and at least 15 years before the World Wide Web took the form we know today today), but in many ways he anticipated today's world of 24/7 mass communication. Here's a one-minute biopic on McLuhan aired on Canadian TV. Watch it and think about what he says:



What do you make of it when McLuhan says:

• The medium is the message.
  
• The message of television is what it does to us [the audience].
  
• Electronic communication is turning the world into a global village.

Wikipedia has its own page on "the medium is the message" and a good biography and analysis of McLuhan's major writing.

Today we're going to talk about Chapter 2 in Vivian, "Media of Mass Communication" on media technology, and Wednesday and Friday we'll take up Chapter 3, "Books" (aren't Vivian's chapter headings imaginative)? Be thinking about McLuhan - and the world around us - as we read and discuss in class.

Here's a couple of questions for starters:

How did books change the way people understood the world after they came out in the 1440s?
How have books changed the way you understand the world?
What information can you convey in a book that you can't in radio? On TV? Via the Internet? What can you convey in a sound recording that you can't in a book?
What information is unique to specific media? What can be conveyed across platforms - i.e. by different media?

COMM 337: Well written ...

Compare this to my [insert permalink] carping about the Chicago Tribune's carp czar story below ...

In a post on the proposed wind-down of Anglo Irish Bank written by Quentin Fottrell for the Wall Street Journal's blog. Anglo Irish, an investment bank heavily invested in real estate before world financial markets imploded in 2008, has been nationalized and basically is being closed down now amid different projections of what the ultimate cost will be to taxpayers. Fottrell writes:

Before the financial crisis, Central Bank bulletins constantly reassured investors and journalists and house-buyers that Ireland’s profit-making banks were stress-tested and well-capitalized. And people believed them.

But, as history has shown, those bulletins, along with government statements on the cost of the bailout of Anglo, are up there with the Dublin Bus Timetable and Ulysses as among the greatest works of Irish fiction.

"Ulysses" is James Joyce's masterpiece. Enough said.

COMM 337: The Trib enthrones a "carp czar" ... and raises a question for us in the media

Remember when the Republicans in Congress got all in a snit because President Obama was appointing too many "czars" to administrative positions. It made him sound foreign. Like a dictator. Russian. Communist. (Well, maybe Russian but not communist. It was the communists who got rid of the real czars.) FactCheck.org checked it out and reported, "'Czar' is a label bestowed by the media – and sometimes the administration – as a shorthand for the often-cumbersome titles of various presidential advisers, assistants, office directors, special envoys and deputy secretaries."

"After all," asked FactCheck, "what makes for a better headline – 'weapons czar' or 'undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics'?"

The word "czar" (more properly transliterated from Russian as "tsar") refers to the ruler of the Russian Empire and "Autocrat of all the Russias" from the time of Ivan III (1440-1505) until Nicholas II (1868-1918) was deposed during the Russian Revolution. Tsar Nicholas is pictured at left (photo Wikimedia Commons).

So now comes The Chicago Tribune with a story about a "carp czar" appointed by the Obama administration to coordinate the various federal agencies working to try to stop the spread of Asian carp, an invasive species, into Lake Michigan in the Chicago area.

Here's the headline:

White House names Asian carp czar
Appointee once led Indiana Department of Natural Resources

And here's the lede, by staff writer Joel Hood:

The White House has tapped a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources as the Asian carp czar to oversee the federal response for keeping the invasive species out of the Great Lakes.

If there's anything un-czarlike, it's a carp. So when John Goss was appointed Chairman of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, it must have been irresistable.

Here, from a press release by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, is a more accurate - but less colorful - way of referring to the position:

Since 2003, I’ve been working at the federal level to keep this invasive species away from Lake Michigan. In June, I asked President Obama to appoint a federal Coordinated Response Commander for Asian carp with the knowledge and skills to direct and coordinate multiple federal, state, and private sector efforts.

Goss will work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geologic Service and the Coast Guard. So in this case, a czar isn't a Russian emperor but a bureaucratic "coordinated response commander."

Now here's the question:

Does playing around with the word "czar" like this make government look foolish? Or am I just carping?

Your thoughts?

COMM 150: Open thread and assignment for Friday: 1. What is Google doing with its logo and why? 2. Preview of Chapter 1 in our text

Here's a background story on Google, with a YouTube clip of yesterday's dancing balls: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/07/google-logo/

Two assignments. Post as comments to the blog ... or be ready to post in class Friday.

1. What's Google up to? [Depends on what they announce Wednesday.]

2. What are the most important points in Chapter 1 of John Vivian, "Media of Mass Communication?" Why do you say they're the most important?

comm 150 syllabus - fall 2010 [revised]

Communications 150, Intro to Mass Comm.
Benedictine University Springfield
Fall Semester 2010

http://mackerelwrapper.blogspot.com/2010/07/comm-150-syllabus-fall-2010.html

[Television] is not a tool by which the networks conspire to dumb us down. TV is a tool by which the networks give us exactly what we want. That's a far more depressing thought. -- "The Vent," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 19, 1999.


Communications 150 meets from 1,50 to 2 p.m. MWF in Dawson 220. Instructor, Pete Ellertsen. Email, pellertsen@sci.edu. Office hours TBA. Home: 2125 South Lincoln, Springfield, IL 62704.

I. Course Description:

Course Title: Introduction to Communication
Course Number: COMM 150
Credits: 3.00

Description
A writing and speaking-intensive introduction to communication arts theory and research, with an emphasis on analyzing mass media messages and understanding their underlying cultural and historical contexts.

II. Textbooks. Vivian, John. The Media of Mass Communication. (10th or any recent edition). ISBN 978-0205693054 . Pearson Education, Inc., Boston, MA, 2008. In this course, you will be expected to use AP style writing. A copy of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual is on reserve at the circulation desk in Becker Library. If you plan to major in mass comm., I encourage you to purchase this book as a supplement for all communication classes and your future professional career.

III. Mission statement of Benedictine University. Benedictine dedicates itself to the education for the undergraduate and graduate students from diverse ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. As academic community committed to liberal arts and professional education distinguished and guided by its Roman Catholic tradition and Benedictine heritage - the University prepares its students for a lifetime as active, informed and responsible citizens and leaders in the world Community.

IV. GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

A. Degree Program Goals

The Communication Arts degree program goals are as follows:
1. Prepare graduates for careers in advertising, electronic and print media, journalism, public relations, publishing, writing or other careers requiring sophisticated communications skills;
2. Prepare graduates for continued study in graduate or professional school;
3. Develop the student's critical and imaginative thinking, reading and writing skills;
4. Develop skills to empower the student to communicate ideas effectively, through speaking, writing and the use of technology;
5. Develop skills for critical interpretation of the media;
6. Foster aesthetic understanding in both production and interpretation of media texts;
7. Develop knowledge of the methods to make responsible social and personal decisions;
8. Develop primary and secondary research methodologies;
9. Develop an understanding of the history, structure and operation of the mass media;
10. Provide an understanding of the impact of mass media industries and messages on the individual, society and culture;
11. Develop professional-level skills in written and oral communication for a variety of media and audiences;
12. Develop professional-level production skills for both print and electronic media;
13. Encourage the development of creative expression; and
14. Help the student develop a professional media portfolio.

Course Goals
1. The main goal of this course is to develop a critical understanding of mass communication and its influence in society.
2. Students will understand the practice, theory and ethics of various communication industries or careers.
3. Students will gain practical experience through observations of their own personal interactions with the media in daily life.

B. Course Objectives/Outcomes
As a course requirement within the degree program, COMM 150 was designed with the above goals in mind. Thus, upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to demonstrate mastery of the following objectives and student learning outcomes:

1. Discuss the historical and social context of mass communication and how it evolved.
2. Describe the major media, functions, and models of mass communication.
3. Demonstrate critical thinking skills by discussing and evaluating mass-media issues.

V. Teaching Methods. Small group and whole classroom discussion, in-class research and writing assignments, and occasional lectures by the instructor to introduce points of discussion. The instructor reserves the right to pre- and post-testing CATs and embedded questions in test instruments as appropriate will be used for assessment of learning outcomes.

VI. Course Requirements, Readings, Written Assignments and Tests
A. Attendance Policy. Attendance is mandatory. To avoid class disruption, students in COM 150 must be on time. If a student misses class, is the student's responsibility to get class notes, assignments, etc., from classmates. Missed in-class work, by its very nature, cannot be made up.
If a student knows (s) he will miss class, it is the student's responsibility to alert the instructor. Assignments should be turned in via e-mail by the beginning of the class period the assignment is due. Absences are not an excuse for missed assignments. Period. Coordinate with fellow students to get class notes. Contact the instructor or classmates to get assignments due for the next class period.

Participation and class discussion are key to your success in this course. Be prepared to discuss the weekly reading assignments and contribute thoughtful, topical questions and comments about the material. Please be considerate and respectful of one another. Distractions in class will not be tolerated (e.g. disrespectful interruptions of instructor, guest speakers, fellow students, cell phones, and discussions irrelevant to class topics) and can affect your grade. Comments or concerns about specific material presented by the instructor or fellow students (should a student be dissatisfied or concerned) need to be brought to the instructor’s attention before or after class.

B. Reading Assignments, Please see the tentative calendar for reading schedule. In addition to the readings outlined below, you may be given additional reading assignments including articles, journals, websites, etc. Quizzes and/or tests may cover any of the assigned readings or discussions.

C. Written Assignments and Tests,
• Writing expectations. In your assignments for COMM 150, try to follow the standards you see in professional writing for a public audience. If you plan to major in mass communications, you are encouraged to create a professional Web log and post your journals – which I define in this class as non-graded writing that counts for class participation but not as a formal documented essay – to your blogs. Sources of information in all of your writing must be attributed or documented. If you write down anything that you didn’t know before, say where you found it! Failure to do so, even unintentional, is plagiarism. In our field, it may also be copyright infringement. Do not write just to fill up space. Create clear, concise, accurate, and relevant thoughts. And convey them to readers in a well-written, grammatical, engaging fashion.

Each student will write, (1) a documented term paper (at least 2,000 words or eight pages) on a subject to be chosen by the instructor dealing with some aspect of mass communications, to be agreed upon ahead of time by the instructor and the student; or (2) two documented essays (at least 1,000 words of four pages each) reflecting on topics to be assigned by the instructor.

Additional in-class writing may be assigned without notice. Details will be posted to The Mackerel Wrapper.

• Tests. Both midterm and final will be a combination of essay questions, in which students will discuss broad trends related to course goals and objectives; and short answer questions. I reserve the right to give another test during the course of the semester but your final will be a demonstrated understanding of the material.

Note to students, If you are considering going on to major in communications, English or the social sciences, you should keep copies of your written work for your senior portfolio.

Benedictine University at Springfield Student Academic Honesty Policy
The search for truth and the dissemination of knowledge are the central missions of a university. Benedictine University at Springfield pursues these missions in an environment guided by our Roman Catholic tradition and our Benedictine heritage. Integrity and honesty are therefore expected of all University students. Actions such as cheating, plagiarism, collusion, fabrication, forgery, falsification, destruction, multiple submission, solicitation, and misrepresentation are violations of these expectations and constitute unacceptable behavior in the University community.

Student’s Responsibility
Though there is no formal honor code at Benedictine University at Springfield, students are expected to exhibit academic honesty at all times. Violations against academic honesty are always serious and may result in sanctions that could have profound long-term effects. The final responsibility for understanding the Academic Honesty Policy of the institution, as well as the specific policies for individual courses normally found in syllabi, rests with students. If any doubt exists about what constitutes academic dishonesty, students have the responsibility to talk to the faculty member. Students should expect the members of their class to be academically honest. If students believe one or more members of the class have been deceitful to gain academic advantage in the class, students should feel comfortable to approach the faculty member of the course without prejudice.

Violations of the Academic Honesty Policy will be reported to the Office of the Dean of Academic Affairs. Along with a verbal warning, the following are consequences a student may face for academic dishonesty:
• a failing grade or “zero” for the assignment;
• dismissal from and a failing grade for the course; or
• dismissal from the Institution.

VII. Means of Evaluation. Written work for COMM 150 will be graded for mastery of SLOs as evidenced by an evaluation of content, including clarity of thought and the use of relevant detail to support the student's conclusions. A final examination will be given, consisting of essay and short-answer questions, which will be evaluated for content. Quizzes and in-class journal exercises may be assigned without notice at the discretion of the instructor. Contribution to class discussion and participation in on-line research exercises in class will weigh heavily in each student's grade. Final grade weighting is as follows,

• Class participation, 25 percent
• Term paper and/or oral presentation, 25 percent
• Midterm and Final Exam, 25 percent
• In-class and online writing, including blogging, 25 percent
Grading scale, A = 90-100. B = 80-89. C = 70-79. D = 60-69. F = 0-59.

Grade Appeal Process
Grade appeals must be initiated 90 days prior to the end of one semester after the course in question has been completed. The process for appealing a grade is outlined below.

First, contact the Instructor.
1. A student must appeal to his/her instructor in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed.
2. The instructor must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide a copy to the Division Chair.
Second, contact the Division Chair.
3. If the student wishes, he/she may then appeal to the Division Chair in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed without the instructor’s permission. The student should understand that overwhelming evidence must be presented to the Division Chair to prove that the current grade is incorrect.
4. The Division Chair must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide a copy to the academic dean.
Lastly, contact the Academic Dean.
5. If the student wishes, he/she may appeal to the academic dean in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed without the instructor’s or the Division Chair’s permission. The student should understand that overwhelming evidence must be presented to the academic dean to prove the grade is incorrect.
6. The academic dean must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable). The academic dean’s decision is final.

Add/Drop Dates. Please refer to the current Academic Calendar for add/drop dates.

Incomplete Request. To qualify for an “I” grade, a minimum of 75% of the course work must be completed with a passing grade, and a student must submit a completed Request for an Incomplete form to the Registrar’s Office. The form must be completed by both student and instructor, but it is the student’s responsibility (not the instructor’s) to initiate this process and obtain the necessary signatures.

VIII. Course Outline and/or Calendar.

I. Introduction and overview

a. Media literacy
b. Technology and mass communications
c. Postmodernist critiques of media

II. Media forms and history

a. Print – books, newspapers and magazines
b. Recordings – audio and video
c. Broadcast – radio and television
d. Internet

III. Media functions

a. News, PR and advertising -- Information and persusasion
b. Entertainment
c. Transmission of culture

IV. Research

V. Mass media effects

a. On society
b. On government

VI. Media law and ethics

Please see also the tentative calendar below.

IX. Americans with Disabilities Act. Benedictine University at Springfield provides individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in educational programs, actives and services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in class activities or meet course requirements should contact the Director of the Resource Center as early as possible.

If documentation of the disability (either learning or physical) is not already on file, it may be requested. Once on file, an individual student’s disability documentation is shared only at that individual’s request and solely with the parties whom the student wishes it shared. Requests are kept confidential and may be made by emailing jharris@sci.edu or by calling 217-525-1420, ext. 306.

X. Assessment. Goals, objectives, and learning outcomes that will be assessed in the class are stated in this syllabus in Sections IV and VI. Instructor will use background knowledge probes, one-minute papers, reflective essays and/or other Classroom Assessment Techniques as deemed necessary in order to provide continuous improvement of instruction.

Tentative Calendar

All readings listed herein are in Vivian. In addition to the textbook, I will link to World Wide Web sites for supplemental reading on issues as they arise. Due to the nature of mass communications, we will discuss real-world events as they arise – even though they may not follow the exact order listed in the textbook. [Newsmakers have a distressing habit of not consulting with me before they do things that might be relevant to our class.] You need to keep up with the assigned readings in Vivian, however, order to understand the context for events as they arise.

First Week. Introduction to Class, syllabus, academic integrity, etc. Read Chapter 1, Mass Media Literacy; Chapter 2, Media Technology. Write: How much of what you know did you learn from mass media? How many of your attitudes, interests, tastes, etc., derive from mass media?

Second Week. Read Chapter 3, Books; Chapter 4, Newspapers; and Chapter 5, Magazines

Third Week. Read Chapter 6, Sound Recording; and Chapter 7, Motion Pictures

Fourth Week. Read Chapter 8, Radio; and Chapter 9: Television

Fifth Week. Read Chapter 10, Internet.

Sixth Week. Midterm over Chapters 1-10. Read Chapter 11, News; and Chapter 12, Public Relations.

Seventh Week. Read Chapter 14, Entertainment.

Eighth Week. Read Chapter 15, Media Research

Ninth Week. Read Chapter 16, Mass-Media Effects on Society

10th Week. Read Chapter 17, Global Mass Media

11th Week. Read Chapter 19, Mass Media and Governance

12th Week. Read Chapter 20, Mass Media Law

13th Week. Read Chapter 21, Mass Media Ethics

Final exam TBA.

Communications theory / two simple explanations (and an extra credit question)

This will be useful to have in the back of our minds as we begin to read John Vivian's "Media of Mass Communication" ... it will also help us get on the same page as we apply the basic theory of communication to different mass media questions. And it'll give you something to refer back that's more clearly stated than my in-class "mini-lecture" on the subject Wednesday.

The basics are set out very clearly on biz/ed, a British website for students prepping for the BTEC [Business & Technology Education Council] Diploma in Business and Economics. We'll review its discussion of

• What is communication? Answer: A transfer of information between two parties, one of whom does something with the information. It's as good a definition as I've seen anywhere.
  
• The communications model. It's what I was trying to draw on the board Wednesday. This is better. It even has smiley faces.

We'll also study the discussion of communication in Mind Tools, another British website, this one for students in management and career development. I like it because it introduces an important concept - encoding and decoding messages - and because it is unusually forthright in suggesting how knowing this stuff can help you in business - or whatever career you decide on!

Here's why it matters:

Effective communication is all about conveying your messages to other people clearly and unambiguously. It's also about receiving information that others are sending to you, with as little distortion as possible.

Doing this involves effort from both the sender of the message and the receiver. And it's a process that can be fraught with error, with messages muddled by the sender, or misinterpreted by the recipient. When this isn't detected, it can cause tremendous confusion, wasted effort and missed opportunity.

In fact, communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information as a result of the communication. ...

A lot of the time, we'll discover, the trouble comes in encoding and decoding. You've had these conversations where somebody says, "what you're hearing isn't what I'm saying." Right? In class we'll read Mind Tools' explanation of the communications model. And when we're done, we'll understand the theory that explains where those conversations go wrong.

Two (2) extra credit points for the first 20 students who correctly identify a feedback loop at the bottom of the page and post their answer as a comment to this blog post.