The Mackerel Wrapper

A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

D R A F T COMM 150: Final exam -- schedule and HINTS/CONTENT ADVISORY

11:00a.m. MWF ... -- Friday, December 17 -- 10:30a.m. – 12:30p.m.

Look for questions on these issues:
  • A 50-point essay: An NYU professor named Neil Postman said "Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world" because the mass media blur the line between information and entertainment. How can the media balance their need to entertain viewers -- and thus make the profits they need to stay in business -- and their function as "watchdogs"/"zookeepers" in a democracy?
  • Question 2A. The same self-reflective essay you get on all my finals.
  • A 25-point essay: How do artists use the convergence of new and old media to get around the "gatekeepers" and exercise more creative control?
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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.