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

Monday, October 31, 2011

COMM 337: Assignments for this week ... (a) irony and (b) gathering information for an article (and no, I'm not being ironic by doing these together)

This week we will take up two related subjects, research and interviewing, and one that probably isn't, irony.

For Thursday and over the weekend, read Chapter 5, "Research," and Chapter 6, "Interviewing," in the "Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing." Today we'll discuss irony, which isn't so much a literary technique as it is a tone, along with Michael Lewis' articles on what he calls "economic disaster tourism."

First, a couple of definitions from Dictionary.com. First, the standard meaning:
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

2. Literature.
a. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that whichis actually or ostensibly stated.
b. (especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expressionto contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
Then we will read an example of irony, as sort of a warmup, and go on to examine Michael Lewis' articles. For convenient reference, I have linked here:
In groups, discuss and be ready to share your thoughts with the rest of the class ...

What are Lewis' strong points, what are his weak points? Try to come to a consensus, but you shouldn't feel like you have to agree on everything. Each of us will get something at least slightly different out of the assignment. Agree on what you can agree about, and agree to disagree on the rest.

Is Lewis, in your opinion, being ironic? Can you find examples to quote? Irony often backfires on writers. Does that ever happen to Lewis?

What can
you learn from Lewis that can help you in your own writing?

If you were writing a social-cultural-economic "travelog" like Lewis' of Springfield, how would you characterize the city? What would you write about? Who would you talk to? What do you think Lewis would find to write about if he were to visit Springfield?


For Thursday: Read Chapters 5 and 6 in the "Writer's Digest Handbook" on researching and interviewing. Notice how long the chapters are. Does this tell you anything about the complexity and relative importance of the two arts? two articles by Andrew Ferguson on the Slate.com website:

COMM 150: Vlogbrothers, technology and community and art - from YouTube vlogging to young adult novels and a small record label

Thanks to MSenger for letting me know about this website ... actually a cluster of related websites. It's a perfect example of how advanced technology and new media allow people to express their own vision and connect with audiences more effectively than the "old" media.

It isn't exactly a mom-and-pop business. I'd call it something more like bro-and-bro ...

They're video bloggers John Green, who also writes young adult novels, and his brother Hank Green. Together they have the Vlogbrothers channel on YouTube, which is how they got started, and several related activities. I could write an introduction for the class, but MSenger's is very complete (and picks up on things I would miss). So here it is. better ...
They began on YouTube with Brotherhood 2.0 in which they went a year without any "textual" communication because they live in different states. They shared a channel and "vlogged" back and forth every day, hence their YouTube title, vlogbrothers. They gained followers (~600,000) and now use tumblr and twitter and have created multiple websites around their followers, called Nerdfighteria (nerds that fight worldsuck, which is what it sounds like). They have a record label, DFTBA (Don't Forget To Be Awesome) Records, multiple websites, and have founded other websites related to their program. John writes books and promotes his books in his videos. His latest book, The Fault in Our Stars, is an Amazon best seller and it won't be sold until January of next year. Hank has invented a few things (2D glasses). They founded and organize VidCon, the YouTube convention. It's kind of hard to list everything they do on the internet because they do a lot.
But the best way to learn about them isn't to read about them - it's to watch their FAQ video on YouTube.



There isn't a whole lot in traditional media about the brothers, perhaps understandably, but they're been written up in a college newspaper in Indianapolis and interviewed for local TV in Los Angeles, where they were putting together the F2F convention for YouTube users.

When John Green gave a reading at Butler University in Indianapolis, he got this writeup from Caitlin O'Rourke, arts and entertainment editor of the Butler Collegian. She described him:
Green has won an array of awards for his young adult novels, along with starting a YouTube channel with his brother Hank. It started the geek version of a cult following—just as Jerry Garcia had his Deadheads, the Green brothers have their nerdfighters. It’s a little much to take in. ...
When O'Rourke asked Green about his vlogs, he told her, "We are tremendously lucky to be part of this growing community of people devoted to finding ways to use the internet to make the world a healthier and more productive place to live."


At VidCon, they were the subject of a news segment by Gigi Graciette of local Fox News affiliate FOX 11. It contained this dialog (which is in all-caps because it's quoted from a TV script). Before she's interrupted by Hank Green, Graciette begins:
FROM YOU TUBE SUPERSTARS....

HANK GREEN/VIDCON
"MY CHANNEL HAS ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED MILLION TOTAL. THAT WOULD BE ABOUT HALF A BILLION WHICH, NO OFFENSE, IS PROBABLY MORE THAN YOU GET."

HMM... MAYBE. ; )
Cue a lesson here about the power of new media?

COMM 150: For week of Oct. 31-Nov. 4 ... artistic vision, niche marketing and the long tail

The question I want us to take up in class: How can artists (musicians, writers, performers, painters, etc.) use Internet technology to connect with niche audiences without having to create "blockbusters" (as John Vivian defines the term) that appeal to broad-based audiences with bland, predictable product that offends no one but doesn't really appeal to anyone either?




In picture at left, a statue of 13th-century Italian leader Farinata degli Uberti occupies its niche at the Uffizi Palace in Florence. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.





For extra credit, please suggest an artist or group of artists you know of ... like the ones we mentioned toward the end of class today ... who are successfully using new media technology to communicate with their market niche. Post a comment below in which you: (1) briefly identify the group and how you know about them; (2) indicate how they use the Web; and (3) copy-and-paste the link in your browser to their website. I hope to base our class discussion Friday, Nov. 4, on the artists you tell us about.
Example: Pierre Bensusan, a French acoustic guitar player. I heard him performing years ago at a little theater in Knoxville, Tenn., and reconnected with his music on the Internet a couple of years ago. He uses his webpage to promote concerts and sell downloads, DVDs, sheet music and books. It also has a media kit for reporters to write advance when he's coming to their town for a concert.

http://www.pierrebensusan.com/index.php?newlang=english
Schedule for this week's classes

Monday. In class we will examine how three artists use advanced technology, including marketing on the World Wide Web, to get worldwide audiences for genres of music that are specialized, sophisticated or both. They are:
  • Classical composer Eric Whitacre, who has created a "virtual choir" through YouTube
  • English folk singer Kate Rusby, whose record label is not a subsidiary of a global conglomorate but a thriving family business
  • Boston-based world music/urban fusion band Soulfège fronted by Derrick N. Ashong, who is also a presenter for Al Jazeera.
We'll discuss in class. How does "long-tail" marketing help their careers?

Wednesday. Midterm due. You have the option of writing it in class, although I think it may take you longer than 50 minutes to write an A paper.

Friday. We'll look at the bands, performers, writers or other artists you suggest.

For next week: Read the chapters in Vivian on Public Relations and Advertising.

Friday, October 28, 2011

COMM 150: Long-tail marketing, an English folk singer and an Afropop-hip-hop-funk-soul urban fusion band from Boston with a whiff of '50s R&B harmony

Here are a couple of examples of artists who keep successful careers going by catering to a niche audience. Where would they fit on the "long tail" frequency distribution graph?

(For an example of a frequency distribution with - literally - a long tail, go to Matt Powell's blog post "Chasing the Long Tail." It also has some tips on how to advertise a niche product in Google. It's worth absorbing the psychology behind them, even if you're not yet selling a product. Someday it'll come in handy.)

Kate Rusby

A 33-year-old folk singer from Yorkshire in the North of Englad, Kate Rusby has a small but dedicated fan base and has been performing at festivals and smaller clubs for 20 years. Her record label is a family enterprise. In the embedded clip (to 6:05) from the British TV show My Music, she explains how it works:



(This clip and the rest of Kate Rusby's show available on YouTube.)

Rusby's definitely a niche artist. A review of her CD Awkward Annie by James Fryer in Gloucestershire Music catches the appeal of music like hers perfectly, if unintentionally. The magazine covers the music scene in Gloucestershire "[f]rom alternative to zydeco," and Fryer sounds like he wasn't too thrilled to be reviewing a folk album:
While Awkward Annie and English folk music in general might not be everyone’s cup of tea, for those not familiar with Kate Rusby this new album would make a welcome addition to almost any collection. It’s perfect for an autumn stroll with nothing more than an iPod to keep you company, and won’t fail to touch your heart on a cold Sunday afternoon in front of the fire. Awkward Annie is well worth giving the time of day and, if you want to catch the songstress live, she’s currently on a jam-packed tour of modest venues across the country.
But doesn't that catch the appeal of a niche artist perfectly? "Not everyone's cup of tea," but playing a "jam-packed tour of modest venues."

Derrick N. Ashong and Soulfège

Born in Africa and educated at Harvard, Derrick N. Ashong (DNA) fronts a Boston urban fusion band called Soulfège. He is also a presenter, or announcer, for The Stream a social media aggregator - a website that links to other media - that also has a daily TV show on the Arab network Al Jazeera.

Ashong's blog at http://www.derrickashong.com/ to promote the band and sell CDs and downloads. In a recent post, he included a clip (5:25) of a local TV news pop in Washington, D.C., publicizing his new album AFropolitan.

Soulfege Visited FOX 5 with New Album 'Afropolitan': MyFoxDC.com



Reviewer Delonte Briggs for the Examiner in Washington, D.C., said, "It took a little replay to get the background and history of the songs but after a little inspection, one can hear the songs are about spiritual warfare, political change, love for three women (mom, daughter & any woman who loves musicians). The artistry, story-telling and world influence makes this a top pick for quality independent international music leaving something for everyone one to grasp onto." Again, like Kate Rusby's, a kind of music that is intended to appeal to a sophisticated audience rather than a mass-market common denominator.

There's nothing particularly fancy about Ashong's website. It has pages on "My Music," Lyrics, The Stream, Videos, Photos, Press information, "About Me" and a store where you can buy CDs or downloads.

"These are songs for ALL the people," he says. "Listen, Download and SHARE the music."

In fact, there's nothing very fancy about either of the two websites. But Internet marketing allows both Derrick Ashong and Kate Rusby to keep a pretty specialized artistic vision intact without starving in an attic like so many artists had to do in years past.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

COMM 150: Make a note of this cute kitty picture for when we get to the chapter on media ethics

What's not to like about a picture of a cute kitty cat?

It depends on who you talk to, I guess.

When Associated Press photographer Ben Margot saw a police officer leaning over to pet a cat Tuesday in Oakland, Calif., he snapped the picture. A confrontation between police and Occupy Oakland protesters was building up, and the picture captured a quiet moment that was part of the larger scene in Oakland that day.

So the Washington Post ran the picture with a story about Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests. Later on, the scene in Oakland got violent. The story got updated, but the picture didn't.

So readers were treated to a picture of a cop petting a kit-cat on a story that began, "Police in riot gear fired tear gas and bean bags ..."

And the kit-, so to speak, hit the fan.

"It's amazing that Oakland PD managed to disperse the Occupy Oakland crowd solely by petting kittens," tweeted on reader.

"Not teargassing a soul!" tweeted another.

Both of them, by the way, write for competing publications in Washington.

You can read about it - and see the cute kitty - by clicking on this link. Was the Post out of line? Should they have paid more attention to the picture that ran with the story? [I can tell you from personal experience, a lot of newspaper editors don't even look at the pictures.] Or do some of the Washington Post's readers need to get a life?

COMM 337: Free-lance markets - who's going to buy what we're selling

Now that we've all got story ideas, let's see who's buying what we're selling. The standard source for many years has been Writers Market, an annual publication that lists thousands of magazines, contests (especially for literary writing) and other outlets. It's expensive, although not as expensive as most college textbooks ... its website has more information, although most of it seems to be behind a subscription paywall. The print edition, which should be available in most libraries, carries very good articles on the basics of the craft - including how much to charge for editorial services and how to write a query letter. I recommend it if you're serious about freelance writing.

There are also free sources of information on the World Wide Web. One that I like is the Directory of Writers' Markets on the All Freelance Writing website.

(One of Doc's tangents: Did you notice that apostrophe? It's in the right place. After the "s" in "Writers'." Wow! That tells me they're pros, because nobody else ever gets apostrophes right. I started noticing apostrophes when the city editor at the newspaper in Oak Ridge, Tenn., told me she always looked for apostrophes. She wasn't a college graduate - a lot of newspaper people weren't in those days - but apostrophes mattered to her. Like when she was looking at letters applying for a job at the paper. They're one sign of a professional writer.)

So here's your assignment. In class today:
  1. Go through the directory and see how many markets you can find for the story you're proposing to write for COMM 337. If there aren't any, you may need to refocus the topic. If there are too many, same thing. How could you change the story to appeal to different markets? Here's my point: You modify your story idea to fit what the markets are buying. It's even possible to interview somebody and develop a story for two different markets - for example, a story about the 100-man who ran a marathon in Toronto could be rewritten for Runner's World and a senior citizens' magazine.
  2. Post a comment reminding us what your story idea is and listing the potential markets you found for them.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

COMM 150: The "long tail" - niche marketing in the arts, entertainment and ... just about everything else

In "Media of Mass Communication," John Vivian raises the issues of "elitist vs. populist values" that are posed when different media - from books to movies and sound recordings - seek "blockbusters" or megahits that make lots of money by appealing to a broad audience. He suggests they appeal to a lowest common denominator:

Masterpieces .. are exceptions in the huge ocean of media content. The economics of modern mass media pressures companies to produce quantities to meet huge demands. It's like zookeepers needing to keep the lions fed. Production lines for television series, romance novels and the latest hot genres are designed to produce quanties to meet low thresholds of audience acceptibility. (263)
Vivian discusses this tendency in terms of "high art" conflicting with "pop art." And he makes a pretty good case for saying the trend to seek blockbusters influences a majority of media content today.

But there's another trend that works in the opposite direction. Because of the proliferation of different media outlets, especially on the internet, artists don't have to appeal to lowest-common-denominator audiences. That's because of a statistical concept called the Long Tail that has been taken up by marketers - especially on the World Wide Web.

Chris Anderson, executive editor of WIRED magazine, started it with an article in 2004 called "The Long Tail" ... He got interested in Amazon.com, when he discovered that the online bookstore sells more of its lowest-ranking titles than its "blockbusters," once all the lower-ranking titles are added together. But the mathematical concept behind it also helps explain why smaller, more specialized distributors and entrepreneurial who do their own fulfillment or distribution can make a go of it in the new media landscape. The long tail, says Anderson, is:

... not just a virtue of online booksellers; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, one that is just beginning to show its power. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).

An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.

For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.
Anderson's argument is very mathematical, and it isn't easy to follow. But he's onto something. Consider this: Two of the three bricks-and-mortar retailers he cited here have gone out of business since he wrote, and the third, Barnes & Noble, is trying to change its business model.

Basically, as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia explains, the long tail applies to online businesses that "can sell a greater volume of otherwise hard to find items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes." Wikipedia has a graph that shows what it looks like - well, it's a mathematical frequency distribution with a steeply descending curve along the Y axis and, well, a long tail along the X axis.

Here's how it applies to CDs, videos, books ... practically anything you can buy and sell on the World Wide Web.

Open another window and go to the Wikipedia article (linked above). Look at the graph. The number of sales on a "blockbuster" go way up the Y axis (vertical). For example, let's see where a shlocky new single would go on the graph. I'm told Justin Bieber is still moving lots of product (I'm not going to call it music), so his sales would go up on the Y axis. But there are also little niche markets for all kinds of different specialty genres. For example, I like Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Gabarek. He's done some interesting things with medieval chant, Indian ragas and other forms that fit loosely in the category of world music. But not many people are in the market for his music, especially in the United States, so we'd better plot him way out along the X (horizontal) axis. But I can order his CDs on the Internet.

The same is true for all kinds of music. Bulgarian folk songs? Out on the X axis, but somewhere in the wide world there's a market for them. Vintage CDs of Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues or half a dozen bands playing 80s punk rock? On the X axis. Sister Rosetta Tharpe? Sound tracks from Bollywood movies shot in India? Very popular in India, but still out the X axis worldwide. Especially for an American distributor. What kinds of music do you enjoy? Where would it fit on the long tail frequency distribution graph?

Here's what makes long tail marketing so powerful. There are more people out there buying niche products out on the long tail of the X axis than there are buying the hits up the Y axis. What makes it all work, says Anderson, is the fact the Web is worldwide. It's huge, and you can find willing buyers out there somewhere that you couldn't reach if you had a record store, say, at 6th and Monroe in downtown Springfield. But you can reach them by electronic commerce. Anderson says:

You can find everything out there on the Long Tail. There's the back catalog, older albums still fondly remembered by longtime fans or rediscovered by new ones. There are live tracks, B-sides, remixes, even (gasp) covers. There are niches by the thousands, genre within genre within genre: Imagine an entire Tower Records devoted to '80s hair bands or ambient dub. There are foreign bands, once priced out of reach in the Import aisle, and obscure bands on even more obscure labels, many of which don't have the distribution clout to get into Tower at all. [And remember: Tower went belly-up a couple of years ago.]

Oh sure, there's also a lot of crap. But there's a lot of crap hiding between the radio tracks on hit albums, too. People have to skip over it on CDs, but they can more easily avoid it online, since the collaborative filters typically won't steer you to it. Unlike the CD, where each crap track costs perhaps one-twelfth of a $15 album price, online it just sits harmlessly on some server, ignored in a market that sells by the song and evaluates tracks on their own merit.

What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits. ...
Questions: How does the concept of long-tail marketing give serious artists - in any genre - a chance to sell product? Would it work differently for entertainers in different media and genres? How about blues, reggae or ska bands? Playwrights? Poets? Symphonies? Choral groups? How does it give you as a consumer more choices?

How does the long tail affect John Vivian's discussion of highbrow, mass market and blockbuster entertainment? How does it help a composer like Eric Whitacre further his career?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

COMM 150: Midterm, due Wed., Nov. 2 [REVISED]

PLEASE NOTE (posted 10 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26): Since our class discussion today suggested that I hadn't worded Question 2A clearly enough, I have rewritten it below to reflect the main themes in our textbook more closely. If you still aren't sure about it, please don't hesitate to contact me by email at eellertsen@ben.edu. - pe

[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.

Below are three essay questions – one worth fifty (50) points out of a hundred, and two shorter essays worth 25 points each. Please write at least two pages double-spaced (500 words) on the 50-point essay and at least one page (250 words) on each of the 25-point short essays. Use plenty of detail from your reading in the textbook, the internet and posts to our class blog, as well as class discussion, to back up the points you make. (Indicate your sources and page numbers, where appropriate, in parentheses.) Your grade will depend both on your analysis of the broad trends I ask about, and on the specific detail you cite in support of the points you make. I am primarily interested in the specific factual arguments you make to support your points. So be specific. Remember: An unsupported generalization is sudden death in college-level writing. Due in class Wednesday, Nov. 2.

1. Main essay (50 points). In a discussion of mass media theory in our textbook "The Media of Mass Communication," author John Vivian says, "[online] communication shifts much of the control of the communication through the mass media to the recipient, turning the traditional process of mass communication on its head" (47). Elsewhere, he suggests, "With user-generated content, the Internet has democratized the mass media by enabling anyone with a computer and a modem to become a mass communicator" (193). How is the World Wide Web transforming the print media, i.e. books, magazines and newspapers? How is it changing the way you learn about the world around us?

2A. Short essay (25 points). John Vivian defines what he calls "demassification" as a "[p]rocess of media narrowing focus to audience niches" (100). How did demassification help the magazine industry better compete with broadcast media for advertising revenue after the 1970s? How has demassification given television advertisers more choices as the industry makes the transition from "terrestial" to cable networks? How do radio advertisers use formats to target audience segments?

2B. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What have you learned about mass communications in this class so far that you didn’t know before? Consider what you knew at the beginning of the course and what you know now. What point or points stand out most clearly to you? What points are still confusing? In grading the essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make.

COMM 337: A foreign correspondent's letter to his newborn son

In class Thursday we will listen to a 1996 broadcast by Irish journalist and historian Fergal Keane. At the time he was a foreign correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corp., and he was in Hong Kong for the ceremonies that marked the former British colony's incorporation into the Republic of China. But Keane's broadcast wasn't about that historic occasion, it was about the recent birth of his son Daniel ... and, as he explained it later, he spoke "not just about becoming a father, but also about my own past, about loss and the failure of dreams, about the pain of different children I had met along the roads of war, about my father and how alcohol had taken him from me." Some of you may remember it from COMM 150 last year, when I played it as we discussed journalistic ethics. This time we'll look at the way it's written; it is considered a masterpiece of on-deadline writing.

So ... read Fergal Keane's Letter to Daniel as a writer, look for his turns of phrase and any literary techniques you find him using ... and ask youself if there's anything in you can use in your own writing. Post your analysis and thoughts as comments to this item below.

To get the full impact of Keane's mastery of the language, open two windows:
  • Read the letter by opening this window.
  • Listen to it by opening a second window and click on the link at lower right that says "Audio" Listen to the letter."
That way you can follow along as Keane reads the letter aloud. Listen especially for alliteration and assonance (repeated vowel sounds), word pictures, images and the cadence of his words, in other words for the textures of poetry in his writing. Remember: Poetry is written to be read aloud, and so is broadcast writing. So should all good writing.


Several years later, Keane told how he wrote the piece for an on-air feature called "From Our Own Correspondent," and what it meant to him ... and to his listeners:

There was one draft of the letter. No re-writing. And after the piece was done I went back to my paternity leave.

And then the letters started to arrive. By the sack load. From a mother whose only son had died on a military exercise in Canada; from a man writing by the light of an oil lamp in a tent in Antartica, missing his family back in Britain; and many, many letters from those who had struggled with alcohol or seen loved ones die from it.

***

Some of my friends worried that I would be identified with "Letter To Daniel" for the rest of my life; they felt for me when a critic attacked me for writing so personal a piece.

And I replied that nothing anybody says about it - good, bad or indifferent - matters a damn in the long run.

When I read the Letter now, and I remember that morning with the baby asleep in my lap, I see a young father about to start out on the greatest adventure of his life. He doesn't know that yet, of course.

But that child will be the making of him, the saving of him.

Keane, who is Irish, has had a distinguished journalistic career. It is frequently said of him that he displays a typically Irish awareness of the moral dimensions of social and political upheaval. His first job was on a small newspaper in Limerick, and he moved on to cover trouble spots in Northern Ireland, Africa and Asia. As an occasional contributor to the BBC for the last 10 years, he now is able to pick and choose his assignments, and reported on the aftermath of the government crackdown in Mynamar (a country the Brits still call Burma) in 2007. Most recently, he has turned to writing history.

Keane was one of several BBC reporters in Rwanda in the spring of 1994, when government backed militias murdered hundreds of thousands of people. "For some of us," he said years later, "it has left an enduring mark, a sense that we failed, not so much as journalists, but as human beings, because we saw things we were powerless to stop." In 2004 on the 10th anniversary of the genocide, he was interviewed for an American public television show on what he saw and how it changed him. He has taken an active interest in the Third World since leaving day-to-day news coverage for the BBC, and most recently he has written "Road of Bones: the Siege of Kohima 1944," a history of British and colonial troops in Asia during World War II.

COMM 337: Feature story topics

COMM 337: The hills are alive with the sound of ... irony?

I guess irony's the right word. It's a tone that doesn't have enough bite to be sarcastic, but it quietly "give[s] full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion." That's from a definition of "irony" that I don't remember from my days teaching English. But Dictionary.com says it's "especially [used] in contemporary writing," and it's worth mastering in our own writing. In this era of postmodern ambiguity, we do want to be contemporary, don't we?

So here's a cute little story on the British Broadcasting Co. website by Bethany Bell, a foreign correspondent based in Vienna (she's also reported extensively from the Middle East), on a revival of "The Sound of Music" in Austria". The vintage musical comedy doesn't have many fans in Austria because, well, its writers and producers obviously didn't know much about Austria.

Which gives Bethany Bell a field day.

Her headline is straightforward enough - "Taking the Sound of Music home to Salzburg." (Of course, the headline isn't hers. Count on a headline writer to get the tone of your story wrong! Not always, but all too often.) For all of that, her tone is tongue-in-cheek all the way through.

Her lede paragraph, for example. "How do you solve a problem like The Sound of Music in Salzburg?" It's an echo of a song about Julie Andrews' character in the musical, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria/" Readers of a certain age will get it immediately, at least in English-speaking countries. And it isn't the only song echoed in Bell's article.

On the whole Bell's story is a balanced account. And at the end, she has kind words for the people who are trying to adapt the stage version "The people of Salzburg still have to be convinced about The Sound of Music, but this production might be a very good place to start." After her lede, she gives some background and goes directly to a nut graf:
The Hollywood film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer has a fanatical following in the English-speaking world.

It tells the true story of Maria the novice nun who sings her way into the hearts of Captain von Trapp and his family - and then flees with them as Austria is annexed to Nazi Germany.

The 1965 film, with its soaring shots of the mountains around Salzburg, attracts thousands of tourists to the city every year.

But many Austrians can't sing a note of it.

It's partly because the piece celebrates a Hollywood fantasy vision of Austria. While it may be one of Fraulein Maria's favourite things, no self-respecting Austrian would ever eat schnitzel with noodles - only with potato salad, or possibly with chips [french fries]. ...
And so on ...

There's one of Bell's sly references to Julie Andrews' songs, by the way, this time to "My Favorite Things."

Later on Bell notes that some errors were corrected when the musical was translated into German. "A couple of plot details have also been changed. The von Trapp family no longer escapes over the mountains into Switzerland, because everyone here knows that if you climb over the mountains near Salzburg, you end up in Germany." Not exactly where you'd want to go when you're escaping the Nazis, as everyone in a Salzburg audience would know.

Bell interviewed a German academic who tried to explain the maovie's lack of authenticity to an English reporter in terms English readers would relate to:
Reinhold Wagnleitner, a professor of history at the University of Salzburg, who specialises in American studies, says the movie is not "the real thing".

"It's too syrupy, it's kitsch," he told me.

"It's as if an Austrian author would make a film in German about the Mersey Sound with an Austrian crew in Liverpool and expect the Liverpudlians to think it is a great music film."
The Mersey Sound was the combination of rock, skiffle, doo wop and soul that the Beatles and other bands in Liverpool popularized in the 1960s. So Wagnleitner's comparison would resonate with people from Liverpool [who are called "Liverpudlians"] and English music fans in general.

Before we move on, try your hand at it: Take Herr Professor Wagnleitner's metaphor and "Americanize" it. For example, I might say "... it's like an Austrian writer shot a movie about the Chicago blues with an Austrian crew on the South Side of Chicago." But you can do better than that. It doesn't have to be about music, or Chicago, as long as you get the idea of outsiders trying to explain the nuances of something they don't understand. Maybe "... like Martha Stewart coming to Springfield and telling us how to make a horseshoe sandwich" or "... like an elderly college professor trying to talk about postmodernist nuance." Give it a try, and post your metaphors as comments below.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

COMM 150: Eric Whiteacre's virtual choir - an online community for "choir geeks" ... or a very small, worldwide market niche ... or both?

Just askin'.

But it'll serve to introduce a concept we'll be learning about in the next few days ... what is sometimes known as the "long tail" model of niche marketing.


In class Monday we agreed that a live performance is more real and raw than a "mediated" performance - one that is broadcast by media technology - and watching a live performance allows us to interact with other audience members. Today we'll look at an extreme form of mediated performance - the "virtual choirs" put together on YouTube by American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre.

First we'll watch a brief intro that Whitacre posted to YouTube. Singing in a group can be a powerful way of connecting with people. That's why our ancestors have been doing it since we lived in caves 15,000 and 20,000 years ago. Now in an increasingly fragmented world, Whitacre tries to bring people together virtually. How well does he succeed?



Whitacre's "virtual choir" went viral, and he's done several pieces. On his blog he explains, in a post titled (logically enough) "The Virtual Choir: How We Did It." He also sells CDs - not to mention T-shirts that say "Choir Geeks Of The World UNITE!" and other knick-knacks on the blog. He seems to be doing a flourishing business.

How does Whitacre use technology to get his artistic vision to a niche audience?

Just this week, Whitacre was an artist in residence for "choir geeks" from four states at a high school in Southern Pines, N.C. (population 10,918). Originally from Nevada, Whitacre is currently based in London. He's on a U.S. tour this month, and Southern Pines' local paper, The Pilot, called him a "classical rock star" and had this to say about him:

Whitacre’s success has prevented him from working with students recently. His debut album, “Light & Gold,” released last October, became the number one classical album on the U.S. and U.K. charts within a week.

He achieved mega-stardom in the choral world with a call to singers to participate in a virtual choir. He invited singers to sing his work “Lux Aurumque” from their homes and upload the performance. The result was a virtual choir of 185 voices from 12 countries. The video received more than a million views on YouTube in just two months.
His residency at Robert E. Lee High School in Southern Pines brought in music students from all over the Southeast:

“It’s really special to be able to come to Southern Pines,” Whitacre says. “I spend most of my year composing, but every now and then I love to work with musicians from all walks of life and ages and stages of musical ability.”

The residency at Pinecrest High School will give young musicians precious time with this music legend. Plisco opened the clinic up to groups from colleges and other high schools. Participating ensembles include the Union Pines Wind Ensemble, the Salem College Choirs from Winston-Salem, the Christopher Newport University Chamber Choir from Newport News, Va., the Palmetto Voices from South Carolina, the Middle Creek High School Choral Program in Apex, the St. Stephens High School Chamber Ensemble from Hickory and singers from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn.
While singers have always communicated with each other, it was through the Internet that these singers descended on a small town in coastal North Carolina. High school chorus director Erin E. Plisco said she "noticed how infatuated [her students] were with his music. He’s like a rock star to them." So she "went to Whitacre’s website last fall and emailed his manager, telling her how Pinecrest students were inspired by Whitacre." They emailed back and forth, and out of it came the residency.

Be ready to discuss the following questions in small groups. I don't think there are any final answers to them, but that's always true of the best questions, isn't it? And it shouldn't stop us from thinking about them. Discuss:


  • How does the interactivity of the internet break down the boundaries between mass communication and interpersonal communication? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Why? How? How do Whitacre and members of the virtual choir use technology to communicate?

  • What is a "virtual community?" (Check it out on Wikipedia if you need to.) How can such a community bring people together over great distances? What are its limits? Can the "choir geeks" of the world really unite via the World Wide Web? What is gained by online communication? What is lost?
Post summaries of your answers as comments below.

Want to see more? In a 15-minute talk at last year's last year's Technology Entertainment and Design conference, Whitacre explained how the virtual choir pieces were recorded and put together, and he expanded on his ideas about building community.

COMM 150: In-class discussion, entertainment media

On page 245 of "The Media of Mass Communication," John Vivian asks, "What are the advantages of live performances over mediated performances?" Good question, but it raises several other questions. Let's unpack some of them. In small groups, please discuss how the following questions apply to music, storytelling, sports, video games and any other forms of entertainment that Vivian doesn't mention:
  • For starters, what is a "mediated performance?" How does Vivian define the term? How do you define it? How is it different from live performance?
  • What are the advantages of live performances over mediated performances? (This is Vivian's original question.)
  • What are the advantages of mediated over live performances?
  • What are some of the trade-offs between the two?
  • How do we experience each? As performers? As audience members?
  • What benefits do you receive as a performer from a live audience, from a performance carried by the media?
  • What benefits do you receive as an audience member from a live performance, from a mediated performance?
  • How are technologies and media platforms like Skype and YouTube changing the boundaries between live and mediated performance?
Break into small groups. (You don't have to count off. Just get with the people sitting at your row, or the people sitting nearest you.) Discuss, and be ready to report to the rest of the class what you learned from talking it over with your classmates.

COMM 150: Getting ready for the midterm, Wednesday, Nov. 2

Updated Tuesday, 8 a.m. Please see the draft of this year's midterm questions. I have streamlined and focused the 50-point question more closely, and I have added a 25-point question on CPM.

As I announced in class Friday, our midterm will be Wednesday, Nov. 2. I will post a final draft of the questions by Wednesday, Oct. 26 (a week ahead of time), but in the meantime I will post draft copies of the assignment sheet as I go along. That way, you can start working on it ahead of time. It is an open-book essay test, and you can bring a final draft to class on Nov. 2. (Or, better, bring it in on a flash drive, give it one last edit and print it out in class.) Or you can write it in class during the scheduled 50-minute period. I will follow the same procedure for the final exam, and you can consider this as a dry run for the final.


How to study for the midterm

Since it's an open-book test, you are very strongly encouraged to open the book! - i.e. to consult John Vivian's "Media of Mass Communication" and to include a lot of quotes. As you quote from Vivian, it's a good idea to put the page number in parentheses after the quotation. But I don't demand a Works Cited or References page. You can also find material on the Mackerel Wrapper (for an example, see the item from Libya linked below in this post). Use examples from your reading in Vivian and the blog, as well as your own knowledge and class discussion, to support your points. Remember: An unsupported generalization is sudden death in college-level writing. So go back over Vivian and the blog to find examples you can use to support your generalizations.

How to write the essays

A good strategy for essay tests, one I developed in grad school, was to answer the question with facts from the text(s) and lecture notes, i.e. parrot the conventional wisdom, and then to go on and give my own opinion and analysis of the issues raised by the test question. But even when I was stating my opinion, I learned to always back it up with facts, statistics, quotes and examples. Even? Especially when I was stating my opinion! Your teachers are probably looking for two things when they grade a test: (1) your command of the basic facts; and (2) your ability to analyze and evaluate the factual information. So give 'em both.

In a word, be specific. Clobber me with facts. In other words, be specific. At the risk of sounding repetitious, always be specific.

What's going to be on the test?

Last year's midterm in the same course will give you a good idea of the format, and one of the questions will be the same.

I'm still drafting this year's midterm, but it will include the following questions:

  1. A 50-point essay. While I don't have a final draft yet, it will include the following related points: (a) How does the technology of different media platforms (e.g. magazines, TV, sound recording, the internet) influence the content of messages? (b) How do the media influence the way we perceive the world? HowTo what extent do they allow the creators of content to bypass the media consumers to function as their own gatekeepers? How does the technology of communication infaluence the way you perceive the world?

  2. A 25-point "self-reflective" essay. Here's last year's: "What have you learned about mass communications in this class so far that you didn’t know before? Consider what you knew at the beginning of the course and what you know now. What point or points stand out most clearly to you? What points are still confusing? In answering this question, please feel free to look at the “Tip Sheet on Writing a Reflective Essay” linked to my faculty webpage at http://www1.ben.edu/springfield/faculty/ellertsen/reflect.html. In grading the essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make." I will copy and paste this into this year's test.

  3. A 25-point short essay on a more focused topic. It ask about something specific (there's that word again) and how it relates to one of the main themes of the course like cross-platform convergence or market segmentationa. I'll probably take it from the section of the book on the history of print, sound and motion media, but I'm still rereading it and haven't decided yet. I'll ask about CPM - how does Vivian define it, and how does it work in the example he gives? How does it influence content in other media? How, specifically, do radio advertisers use formats to lower CPM by reaching targeted market segments?
In the meantime, here's a story that gives an example of how a media technology changed the way we perceive the world. During the weekend, Esther Addley of the Guardian.co.uk website in Great Britain noted that the death of Libya's Colonel Gaddafi was broadcast to the world via a mobile phone picture. She added:
If television has made it difficult for governments and armies to control the news of political deaths, mobile phone cameras and social media have made any such hopes almost impossible. The US government might have refused to release images of Osama bin Laden's body, but al-Jazeera, Twitter and a cheap mobile phone handset made that decision irrelevant in Libya.
Addley's thoughts on the subject, in turn, were picked up by a paper in Australia and relayed to the world under a headline "Click: How mobile phones and social media broke the news." How do aher story and the news of Gaddafi's death relate to Vivian's discussion of the 2009 "Twitter Revolution" in Iran, the Arab Spring or this month's Occupy Wall Street demonstrations?

Saturday, October 22, 2011

COMM 337: An old-fashioned war correspondent's dispatch from Libya and the power of direct observation, quotation

We don't see too much of them anymore, especially in America where news budgets have been repeatedly slashed over the years, but war correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow were once the rock stars of journalism. And novelists including Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway got their start as war correspondents. Now, even at newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post that still maintain overseas bureaus, they are a dying breed. But British readers still have an interest in international affairs (even if they have no interest whatsoever in swapping the pound for the euro!), and Kim Sengupta of The (London) Independent is one of the best still around.

Here in a dispatch posted today to the Independent.co.uk websit, Sengupta reports from Libya in a dispatch headlined "Gaddafi cannot hurt his people any longer." The headline picks up on a quote, and Sengupta's direct quotations and observation make the story. His lede:
The blood had been washed off and the faces, eyes shut, were in repose. But the terrible wounds of the last violent moments were left uncovered by the shrouds of white cloth that had been hastily thrown over them. The bodies were on stretchers, Muammar Gaddafi in a temporary military barracks, Mutassim Gaddafi in a container.

These were temporary resting places for the former dictator and his son. After being brought back to Misrata from Sirte, the scene of the killings, the corpses had been moved from place to place – at one point to the home of a former rebel official and then to a meat warehouse. ...
Sengupta said the revolutionary government of Libya hadn't yet decided how to dispose of the bodies, and "it was as if no one wanted responsibility for disposing of these grisly symbols of the revolution's triumph after such a bitter civil war," but he isn't interested in sorting out the politics of the occasion. (Better to leave that to the talking heads on TV, one would think.) Instead, he he does what journalists do best - he reports what he saw and heard:
Looking down at the body of Colonel Gaddafi, Firuz al-Maghri, a 55-year-old schoolteacher who had been allowed into the barracks by a friend in the opposition militia, shook his head as he recalled a brother and a cousin who had died in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, a place of fear and despair. "Twelve hundred prisoners were murdered there," he said. "It is difficult for outsiders to understand, but he was responsible for so many lives lost, families who never found out what happened to those who disappeared. We feared him, I was afraid. But seeing him like this...."

Captain Rahim Abu-Bakr, an engineer who became a fighter, patted Mr Maghri's shoulder. "It does not matter," he said. "He cannot hurt people any longer. What happened at the end to him and his son was bound to happen. But this was a bad death. I do not like being here."

Colonel Gaddafi appeared to have been shot in the head, the bullet wound clearly visible under his previously curly hair for which he was famous– it now lay lank. Mutassim had injuries to his chest and stomach. But exactly what happened when the final reckoning came at Sirte remains unclear.
And so it goes. It is a news story, and it trails off at the end. But that's what the inverted pyramid is supposed to do.

At one time or another Sengupta has reported from most of the world's trouble spots, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, the former Soviet state of Georgia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. Soon thereafter when Queen Elizabeth II named Rudy Giuliani, New York's mayor at the time, an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire, Sengupta was on hand in London to cover the ceremony. He quoted the queen - "I hope you have less stress in your life now [than on Sept. 11]" - and he got some great quotes from Giuliani:
How did he cope with the adulation he was receiving [in London]?

"It beats being booed, which sometimes happens when you are Mayor of New York."

The award, he said, was for the people of New York. "I'd better say that - I know what they are like. When I walk around back in Brooklyn they'll say, 'Hey, what is this Sir stuff? You some kinda big shot?"'

Giuliani cannot be called Sir Rudolph because he is not British, but he can add KBE to his surname.

He paraphrased General Norman Schwarzkopf on whether the United States should forgive the September 11 attackers: "It is not the responsibility of the US to forgive them; it is up to God. It is the responsibility of the US to make sure that meeting takes place."
See? It aways gets back to the quotes. Sengupta is one of the best in a very tough business, but he's no better than the best of his quotes.

COMM 337: Another type of op-ed column, a balanced foreign policy appraisal by an overseas academic observer

In Friday's issue of The Guardian (a broadsheet newspaper in the U.K.), Brian Williams of the universities of London and Oxford offers his appraisal of U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration. Unlike happy warriors like William Safire and Peggy Noonan, who have clear partisan loyalties, Williams assesses both the pros and cons of President Obama's approach to foreign policy.

Williams' lede notes, accurately enough, that Obama's approach to the revolution in Libya has played out very well so far:
President Obama's latest foreign intervention in Libya reflects an evolution of the American way of war and the crystallisation of the "Obama Doctrine". Gone are the "shock and awe", trillion-dollar campaigns of the Bush era – right on cue, the president has followed Thursday's news of Muammar Gaddafi's death with Friday's announcement of the final pullout of US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. In this age of austerity and public fatigue with foreign exploits, the Obama White House has diligently combined military force, technology, intelligence assets and patience to rack up an unassailable list of "wins" for the president on foreign affairs.
He compares Obama's foreign policy to former President George W. Bush's, and adds, "The Bush Doctrine played right into Osama bin Laden's hands; the Obama Doctrine killed Bin Laden."

Compare American pundits like the New York Times for example, which headlined a Libya story "Successes Overseas Are Unlikely to Help Obama at Home." Or Ken Walsh's Washington blog U.S. News and World Report, "Success in Libya Unlikely to Aid Obama's Re-election Chances."

Perhaps because he's British and doesn't have to spend all of his waking hours analyzing next year's U.S. election, Williams sees complex issues at play in what he calls the "Obama Doctrine." Even more amazing, he discusses them:
The methods behind the Obama Doctrine are just as important as the thinking. We are witnessing an evolution in the American way of war. The broad-brush "global war on terror" of Rumsfeld and Bush is being replaced by a far more sophisticated mix of ingredients. Unmanned aerial vehicles have replaced boots on the ground. This effort concentrates on gathering intelligence on opponents and then using the American technological advantage to eliminate enemy leadership. Under President Obama, the use of drones has more than tripled. While such a policy raises moral, ethnical and legal issues, the effectiveness in decimating the al-Qaida network and Taliban leaders is hard to dispute.
I think he means it raises "ethical ... issues" (since "ethnical" isn't a word and wouldn't fit the context even if it were), and I'd have to agree.

On a more pragmatic note, Williams questions "new US approach to active intervention where the US seemingly plays a secondary role to allies," but he adds, "not being the obvious lead nation is a vote winner in the US." I'm not so sure about that - the Republican primary candidates certainly don't sound like they think it's a winner! Even in the context of Libya, Williams adds:
The euphoria over Gaddafi's fall, we should remember, may prove shortlived. How secure is the National Transitional Council's authority, and will it prove capable of making the transition to a legitimate, democratic form of government? What if, in fact, Islamic extremists emerge as a major force? Or what if, perhaps, another military junta seizes power? Will we think the mission a success if, over coming months, the country decays into civil war? Can the US and its Nato allies stay out of Libya if the security situation deteriorates? All of these questions remain to be answered. Until we see how Libya pans out, the validity of the Obama Doctrine remains questionable.
And there's always Iran to think about:
The recently revealed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington, coupled with continued intransigence on their nuclear weapons programme, and interference in Afghanistan, all mean that the president will be pressured to make a tough call in the near future. If and when he does decide to act, however, it will likely not be the brash, all-guns-blazing policy of the last decade. Such an intervention will be based on covert operations and the use of technology to deliver tightly targeted military action.

But Iran is not Libya, as the US national security team is well aware, and the pragmatism of the Obama Doctrine may very well avoid conflict in favour of strategic patience. After all, given the president's foreign policy scorecard, why give in to Republican bellicosity on Iran in the run-up to the 2012 election?

COMM 337: William Safire, a master wordsmith, speechwriter, op-ed columnist

Last week in the comments section of this blog, we had a sidebar conversation about a famous political speech. It's worth an item of its own because it calls to mind one of the great 20th-century political wordsmiths.

William Safire, 1929-2009, was speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist for The New York Times. The conversation in The Mackerel Wrapper got started when I noticed the author of our textbook in COMM 150 got the date wrong on a famous speech by Vice President Spiro Agnew, in which he accused people who disagreed with him of being "nattering nabobs of negativism." A student said the textbook also misquoted him, so I looked it up, and she was right. Anyway, it brought back memories.

William Safire was one of Agnew's chief speechwriters, and "nattering nabobs" was his turn of phrase. It helped make him famous.

The speech came during the 1970 congressional elections, when Agnew was campaigning for Republican candiates. Safire wasn't the only Agnew speechwriter with a flair for invective. Another was Patrick Buchanan, who went on to write for conservative websites and ran for the Republican presidential nomination. As speechwriters, they were properly anonymous at the time. But later on, much later on, the "nattering nabobs" speech turned out to be Safire's. The Sept. 21, 1970, issue of Time magazine quoted it at considerable length:
WE have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history. These men are hard up for hard times. They can only make hay when the sun does not shine. The objective of this campaign is to replace those who moan endlessly about what is wrong with their country with men and women of the wit and will to stand up and speak out for what is right in America. This campaign presents us with a clear choice between the troglodytic [cave-dwelling] leftists who dominate Congress now, and the moderate, centrist and conservative supporters of President Nixon.
Time's editors saw fit to explain "troglodytes" in brackets. At least two other words also deserve a word or two of explanation because they show what a master wordsmith Safire was.

According to the HarperCollins dictionary, "nattering" is "Chiefly Brit," and it means "to talk idly and at length; chatter or gossip." A "nabob" is a "rich, powerful, or important man" or a "European who made a fortune in the Orient, esp in India." Agnew wanted to paint his political enemies as un-American snobs, elitists who were way out of the mainstream, and Safire chose exactly the right words for him.

Even the targets of Agnew's attacks had to enjoy the wordsmithery. When he blasted college students and other critics of the Vietnam War as an "effete corps of impudent snobs," I remember seeing people wearing buttons on the University of Tennessee campus that said, "I am an effete, impudent snob."

After Agnew resigned from office in 1973 (as part of a plea bargain on charges of bribery and tax evasion), Safire was hired by The New York Times to write an op ed column. He also wrote about the English language, and sometimes it was hard to tell whether politics or language was his first love. In 2005 he wrote his last political column, but he kept writing "On Language" for The New York Times Magazine until his death.

Here's what Safire said in 2009 about a topic that's still in the news - "Zombie banks," which he defined suddinctly as "a bank with negative assets that survives thanks to government support."

“The Zombulator will continue to wreak havoc,” opined a worried Web site named the Motley Fool a couple of weeks ago, “as long as we pursue a Zombie Bank policy. ” A few months before, a group of anxious academics wrote in The Irish Times that “Irish banks must be recapitalized if Ireland is to avoid a Japan-style prolonged recession, retarded by zombie banks.” And Mark Gilbert, a Bloomberg News columnist who thinks that “the zombie banks are demanding to be let back into the financial mall so they can pillage the global markets anew,” headlined his somewhat alarmist view: “Fresh Flesh Runs Screaming as Zombie Banks Drool.”

Blanch not, horror fans; the etymology of zombie offers understanding. An 1819 history averred that Zombi is the name for an Angolan diety; in 1872, the early student of Americanisms Maximilian Schele de Vere defined the proper noun as “a phantom or a ghost, not infrequently heard in the Southern States in nurseries and among the servants” and speculated that “the word is a Creole corruption of the Spanish sombra.” A century later, as the word lost its capital and picked up a final e, The Times of London reported that “a zombie, as every schoolboy knows, is a person who has been killed and raised from the dead by sinister voodoo priests called bocors.” The spooky name was then taken up by bartenders to describe a stupefying rum highball ...
And so on ... you don't have to be a wordsmith to see how much he enjoyed the language.

When Safire died, fellow speechwriter-turned-columnist Peggy Noonan duly noted, and quoted, the "nattering nabobs" speech in a tribute in Time magazine. But she added it was in the column that "Safire became Safire." She said:
There he mastered and honed a natural pugnacity--a desire to "mix it up," as he put it. You really cared what he thought and weren't sure what he'd think because he could surprise you. And boy, did he wade in. When everyone was putting down Washington Mayor Marion Barry, he was alone in criticizing violations of Barry's privacy. He voted for Bill Clinton but pulled no punches toward him or Hillary. ...
Noonan started out as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, and she felt an affinity for him. She continued:
He gave me some of the best professional advice I've ever received: Write what you see, because "what history needs more of is first-person testimony." "Never feel guilty about reading; it's what you do to do what you do." "Never join a pile-on, but it's O.K. to start one."
Notice that Noonan said readers like her "really cared what he thought and weren't sure what he'd think because he could surprise you." There's that word again. Surprise your readers, and they'll stay with you. Even in political writing. Maybe especially in political writing.

My free advice (for what it's worth) for readers: Our system of law and government is adversarial, and I think it's important to keep up with all sides of the issues. I say "all sides" because usually there are more than two. In the current Republican primary field, for example, there are at least five credible candidates whose ideas will influence the eventual party platform even if they don't win the nomination. That means we have to read a lot of stuff we don't agree with just to be informed citizens.

So ... after that windup, here comes the pitch ... if I read something I don't like, I try to be open-minded about it. Give it the benefit of the doubt. If it pins an abusive label on me, wear it proudly (like an "effete impudent snob" button). And if the people I agree with are the ones who are acting like jerks, I try not to let that bother me either. Whenever all the political invective leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I'll look at http://cuteoverload.com/ before I turn off my computer and go do something else. That always puts me in a better mood.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

COMM 337: How to find a story idea - for Tuesday, Oct. 25

For Tuesday, read Chapters 1 and 2 of the "Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing" and be ready to tell me what your feature story will be about and who you will interview for it. (These are obviously very closely related.) The following is lifted from my old SCI faculty page, where I used it for students in my journalism and freshman English courses. I haven't tried to update it, but it's still full of good basic advice to help you get started:
In basic newswriting (Communications 209), you will be writing stories all the time. freshman English, you will be asked to write at least one descriptive essay. For 10 years, students at SCI labored through the fourth chapter of the St. Martin's Guide to Writing, which was about how to write something the authors of the text called a "profile" (some of us suspected it was just a fancy name for a human interest story or newspaper Sunday story). Now we have gone to another text for English 111, but I still assign students to use the techniques of profile writing. Don't get hung up on what to call it. Descriptive essay, profile, feature story, whatever -- good writing is good writing, and it's full of vivid detail. Even if you have no intention of going into journalism, you can profit from it.

"Whatever their subjects or whatever information may be available to them, profile writers strive first and foremost to present a person, a place, or an activity vividly to their readers," said the St. Martin's Guide. "They succeed only by presenting many concrete details that will enable readers to imagine the scene and the people. Most important, writers orchestrate the details carefully to convey an attitude toward their subjects and to offer an interpretation of them" (109). That attitude or interpretation is often known as a dominant impression. It serves the same purpose as a thesis statement, because it ties the essay together around a central idea. It makes one main point.

So how do you do a profile? You observe the thing -- or person, place or event -- you're writing about. Rise Axenrod and Charles Cooper, authors of the St. Martin's Guide, put it like this: "In writing a profile, you practice the field research methods of observing, interviewing, and notetaking commonly used by investigative reporters, social scientists, and naturalists. You also learn to analyze and synthesize the information you have collected."

Finding a lively topic (story idea)

What makes a good topic? Anything that interests you will probably interest your readers. Here are a few suggestions culled from the St. Martin's Guide (133-36). It's available only in a dead-tree (paper) format, but you can find it in SCI's Becker Library if you want to see more suggestions. The call number is 808 042 A969 1997:
  • People. Anyone with an unusual or intriguing or interesting job or hobby -- a private detective, beekeeper, classic-car owner, dog trainer ... campus personality -- ombudsman, coach, distinguished teacher ... [s]omeone whose predicament symbolizes that of other people ... [s]omeone who has made or is currently making an important contribution to a community ... [s]omeone in a community who is generally not liked or respected but tolerated, such as a homeless person, gruff store owner, or unorthodox church member, or someone who has been or is in danger of being shunned or exiled from a community ... college senior or graduate student in a major you are considering ... [s]omeone working in the career you are thinking of pursuing [or] ... trains people to do the kind of work you would like to do.

  • Places. A weight reduction clinic, tanning salon, body-building gym, health spa, nail salon ... used-car lot, old movie house, used-book store, antique shop, historic site, hospital emergency room, hospice, birthing center, psychiatric unit ... local diner; the oldest, biggest, or quickest restaurant in town; a coffeehouse ... florist shop, nursery, or greenhouse; pawnshop; boatyard ... facility that provides a needed service in its community, such as a legal advice bureau, child care center, medical clinic, mission or shelter that offers free meals ... [a]n Internet site, such as a chat room, game parlor, or bulletin board where people form a virtual community.

  • Activities. A citizens' volunteer program -- voter registration, public television auction, meals-on-wheels project, tutoring program ... unconventional sports event -- marathon, Frisbee tournament, chess match ... [f]olk dancing, rollerblading, rock climbing, poetry reading ... [a] team practicing ... community improvement project, such as graffiti cleaning, tree planting, house repairing, church painting, highway litter pickup ... [r]esearchers working together on a project ... [the] actual [and usually very unglamorous] activities performed by someone doing a kind of work represented on television, like that of a police detective, judge, attorney, newspaper reporter, taxi driver, novelist, or emergency room doctor ... [a]ctivities to prepare for a particular kind of work, for example, a boxer preparing for a fight, an attorney preparing for a trial, a teacher or professor preparing a course, an actor rehearsing a role, a musician practicing for a concert.

COMM 150, 337: Profile of a political news blogger

Last year longtime Illinois statehouse Kevin McDermott of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch profiled Rich Miller, whom he described as "founder, publisher, editor and sole reporter" of the newsletter and blog, for Illinois Issues.

We'll read it in both classes, with different purposes in mind:

COMM 337: We talked earlier in class about the Capitol Fax blog, which covers Illinois state government and politics for a readership made up largely of state officials and lobbyists, and its policy on reader forum comments. Today we'll read this Illinois Issues profile of Capitol Fax owner-operator Rich Miller and answer the questions below.

COMM 150: We're reading about news this week, and here (IMHO) is what part of what the future of news looks like. This story about Capitol Fax illustrates two non-traditional publications that are still covering news of Illinois state government for a niche readership (actually two overlapping niches) even as traditional mass-market newspapers like the Chicago Trib, the Sun-Times and the State Journal-Register cut back their coverage. Link here to read it.

Both Cap Fax and Illinois Issues are different from the traditional newspaper that came out once a day, in an ink-on-paper format with a little bit of something to appeal to everyone in their circulation area - comic strips, sports, celebrities, horoscopes, fasion, wedding announcements and, oh yes, also some news to lure people into reading the grocery store ads and classifieds - and is now losing ground to competition from the Internet and electronic media.

Cap Fax is a $350-a-year newsletter and tip sheet largely for players in state government and politics. It started in the 1990s, when faxing the newsletter to clients was cutting-edge technology. So it readily embraced blogging when its technology became available a few years later. And now, as you'll read, it's serving as a model for the ink-on-paper journalists.

Illinois Issues is a monthly public affairs magazine sponsored by the University of Illinois Springfield and other worthy non-commercial interests. It sells subscriptions and carries ads, but it is subsidized by those worthies in a marketplace that no longer supports their esoteric interests.

But you don't have to be an academic or an expert to read McDermott's profile, though. It starts with some description of the kind designed to pull in newspaper readers before they move on to sports, obits or the automotive section:
It’s a rainy December evening, and Rich Miller is still keyed up over the day’s top story when he arrives at the small, dark bar at Maldaner’s Restaurant in downtown Springfield. The founder, publisher, editor and sole reporter for the Capitol Fax political newsletter rejects the Jameson’s-and-soda that the bartender automatically offers. “Too early,’’ Miller declares — and he orders a Guinness instead.
How does this bit characterize his subject?

And so it goes, down to the "kicker" in the last graf, a quote from Miller ...
“I know my subscribers. They want one ‘spit-take’ a day. You’ve got to give them one of those where they’re drinking their coffee, and they spit it out all over the fax. It’s like, ‘Where the f--- did that come from?’” he says. “They’re all junkies, man. That’s why they do this — they’re political junkies.’’
WIth a lot in between. Read it, and answer the questions below.

COMM 337: What "literary" techniques - defined for our purposes here as dialog, description, imagery, characterization and other stuff you thought you left behind in English classes - do you find employed in McDermott's profile? What do they add to (or detract from) the story? How do you plan to use writing like McDermott's as a model in the stories you write for COMM 337? Did you notice the gentle hint, by the way?

COMM 150. In a 2010 online publication called "Riding the Wave," McDermott explained how he has embraced online technology as a statehouse reporter. (Click on "The House vs. the Tornado" and then on the picture of the Capitol building for audio and a slideshow.) How does this reflect the trend of cross-platform convergence? Discuss. Translation: How do you get your news? What does this mean for the future of journalism? Post your thoughts as comments to this item below.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

COMM 337: The original "Soup Nazi" in New Yorker's "Talk of the Town"

Posted to an online forum for bicycle enthusiasts, linked here for nonprofit educational purposes, i.e. classroom discussion, under the doctrine of fair use ...

Tuesday we looked at a New Yorker "Talk of the Town" feature on the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest. In class Thursday, we'll look at another, along with an episode from a TV show.

The New Yorker piece is an unbylined January 1989 feature titled "Soup" that got picked up in 1995 by the Seinfeld TV sitcom and took on a life of its own in the popular culture. The Seinfeld episode (but not the New Yorker piece) even has its own Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soup_Nazi and several video clips on YouTube.

User Psydotek posted the New Yorker piece, along with the headnote from the St. Martin's Guide to Writing, a freshman English textbook, on Bikeforums.net. The St. Martin's Guide said: ""Soup" is an unsigned profile that initially appeared in the "Talk of the Town" section of the New Yorker magazine (January 1989). The New Yorker regularly features brief, anonymous profiles like this one, whos subject is the fast-talking owner/chef of a takeout restaurant specializing in soup. In 1995, Albert Yeganeh, the subject of this profile, also inspired an episode of the television series Seinfeld. As you read, notice the prominence given to dialogue."

Good idea. Let's read it here, and notice the prominence given to dialaog, description and all that other artsy literary stuff English teachers like to talk about (and everybody likes to read whether they paid attention in English class or not).

Compare it to the "Talk of the Town" piece we looked at Monday. How do they fit the Wikipedia description of "brief pieces — frequently humorous, whimsical or eccentric vignettes of life in New York — written in a breezily light style" (see post immediately below "COMM 337: A typical New Yorker color story")?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

COMM 337: A typical New Yorker color story

On the New Yorker's website is a "Wall Street Postcard" or vignette by Lizzie Widdicombe on the Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan. The New Yorker is famous for little sketches - postcard-like - in "The Talk of the Town" section of the magazine, which Wikipedia describes as "a miscellany of brief pieces — frequently humorous, whimsical or eccentric vignettes of life in New York — written in a breezily light style." Widdicombe's qualifies, from the broad historical analogy at the beginning:
Visiting the site of Occupy Wall Street last week—a month after the protest began, and shortly before Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s threatened and aborted cleanup—was a bit like visiting a civilization at its peak: Paris in the twenties, Rome in the second century, or, at the very least, Timbuktu in the fifteen hundreds. ...
Other than an imprecise analogy or two (and analogies are imprecise by definition), Widdicombe's piece is pure New Yorkerly description right through to the descriptive passage at the end ...
... There was cheering, and a makeshift marching band sashayed through. Someone yelled that a faction of protesters was leaving to march down to Wall Street—a development that would, inevitably, lead to scuffles with the police, undermining the Gandhian glow that had momentarily graced the proceedings.

Back at the park, Kevin Doherty, a protester in a backward cap, looked around. “It’s kind of fun,” he said. “Chanting mobs are fun for a day.”
When you hear people talking about literary journalism or creative nonfiction, this is the kind of writing they're talking about. Hemingway, who must have been in the back of Widdicombe's mind, was writing stuff like this for the Kansas City Star from Paris in the 20s.

Tundra tangent. Far, far away from the New Yorker both in concept and execution is a liberal, or progressive, political blog in Alaska called Mudflats, which has one of the catchier subtitles in the realm of political blogs: "Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaska Politics." (Anchorage, where it is published, is surrounded by mudflats in Cook Inlet.) It also has one of the cuter pictures I've seen since "Occupy __________" (fill in the blank with the name of your locality) demonstrations started spreading worldwide from New York City, even to Springfield --

What the dogs might think about Wall Street isn't recorded. But that's what tundra looks like. Low-growing plants where it's too far north for trees to flourish. As Michael Lewis points out, they have it in Iceland too.

Monday, October 17, 2011

COMM 337: assignment sheet for 3rd and 4th analytical papers - due Tuesday, Nov. 1

From our syllabus in COMM 337: "Students will create a web Log (blog) and write analyses professional writing of 1,000 words each of: (a) a newspaper feature story, (b) a magazine feature, (c) a piece of public affairs reporting and (d) an opinion or op-ed piece on the blog."
Your last analytical assignment will combine assignments (a) and (b) into one 1,500-word analysis of two of the articles included in Michael Lewis' new book "Boomerang" about the ongoing crisis in European and U.S. financial markets. (If you feel cheated out of the opportunity to write 2,000 words, don't despair! You can go over the 1,500 word limit.) Lewis is a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine, and the stories he based the book on are available on line. I will link them below. I am also linking to an earlier draft of the assignment sheet with links and background on Lewis.

Your assignment -

"Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World" is about a series of interrelated financial crises that began in the United States in 2008, spread to Europe and now appears to be headed our way again - i.e. the "boomerang" in the title. The Vanity Fair articles are on Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and - California, and Lewis refers to them as a "financial disaster tour."

Lewis' shtick is to report like a travel writer, with lots of description and generalizations about the culture in the country he visits. This leaves him open to charges of stereotyping - do the Irish always enjoy suffering, are the Germans always obsessed with cleanliness and order? - but the book has gotten mostly very positive reviews. For example, infuential book critic Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times says he "actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating — even, or especially, to readers who rarely open the business pages or watch CNBC." So you can get a taste of Lewis' travel writing, and the international scoope of the crisis, I want you to analyze his piece on California and one other. You can pick the one that's most interesting to you.

As you read the stories, be thinking about Donald Murry's "little green book that won't go away" (it hasn't gone away yet), and be sure to discuss these points in your analysis of Lewis' articles:
  • What does Murray mean by "craft?" How does Lewis use the craftsmanship and techniques of a professional reporter to research and write these stories?
  • How does "craft" differ from "art" in the context of Murray's story? How do the two segments of "Boomerang" that you read stack up as art? As craftsmanship?
  • What is the relationship between the craft of reporting and of writing as Lewis plies his trade? What would Don Murray think of him as a reporter? As a writer? How important is reporting to Lewis' story?
The stories -

As a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, Lewis has a profile page with a good bio and links to his articles including the following:
  • "Wall Street on the Tundra," March 3, 2009. Lewis' account of financial wheeling and dealing in Iceland, where men are men and women are ... well, Lewis has some interesting ideas about gender roles, but recently elected women are cleaning up the financial and political mess left by the wheeler-dealers.
  • "Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds," Sept. 6, 2010. Lewis visits an ancient Greek Orthodox monastery as well as financial centers like Athens where the government's indebtedness is bringing down the banks and threatens to bring down the euro. Greek readers have been particularly insulted by Lewis' generalizations.
  • "When Irish Eyes Are Crying," March 2011. In Ireland, it's the other way around: The banks brought down one government and threaten another. Not on Lewis' profile page but you can find it by clicking here. Lewis peddles some stereotypes about the Irish - do they really enjoy feeling guilty? - but he talks with some brilliant economists including Morgan Kelly of University College Dublin.
  • "It’s the Economy, Dummkopf!" Aug. 20, 2011. Lewis' take on Germany. If you outgrew your taste for bathroom humor when you left seventh grade behind, you might want to read another article instead. But Lewis' financial analysis is, as usual, better grounded than his pop sociology (or pop cultural anthropology). And Germany, at least for the moment, is the key to what happens to the euro.
  • "California and Bust," Sept. 29, 2011. This is the one I am assigning. In interviews with former Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger and officials in the bankrupt city of Vallejo, Lewis suggests a "fiscal armageddon" is coming to America. Are Americans really "conditioned to grab as much as they could without thinking about the long-term consequences?"
There are blurbs on the Vanity Fair profile page to help you choose one of the European stories.

Some more background -

To help get you started ...

An interview (4 min 29 sec) with Charlie Rose of Bloomberg TV



An Oct. 9 interview (7 min 9 sec) on GPS, Fareed Zakeria's show on CNN ...



Other sources. An NPR interview and other sources I used to prepare this assignment are linked to message board on my old SCI faculty website. The links to my faculty page are broken now, but the board is still there.

COMM 150 (optional for 337): Media bias, partisan politics and a Pew Research Center survey

In our reading assignment for today, John Vivian suggests the American news media aren't particularly biased in the sense of favoring one political party over the other, although more reporters tend to vote for Democrats than for Republicans. But he says they do have a built-in bias toward stories about change.

And there's confirmation of that in a Pew Research Center poll released today that shows presidential campaign newcomer Rick Perry got more positive coverage than presidential same-ole same-ole Barack Obama. The R's and D's don't matter very much. It's what's new and different, it's about change.

Here's how Vivian explains it: "In general, ... most U.S. newsrooms pride themselves on neutral presentation and go to extraordinary lengths to preserve it" (223). He cites professional standards of "detached, neutral reporting" and peer pressure. But that doesn't mean there aren't biases. One is what is often called the "Watchdog Function" of journalism, i.e. a heritage of holding government accountable for abuses of power. There's more to it than that, of course. Especially personal values like "ethnocentrism," free-market capitalism, social order and "individualism tempered by moderation" (Vivian 220-22). but the most important source of bias probably grows out of Vivian's idea that news is about change.

Says Vivian, in a "study preview" on the bottom of page 216: "News is a report on change that survives the competition for reporting other change that is occurring. What ends up being reported is the result of news judgments by reporters and editors who package their regular updates on what they believe their audiences need and want to know." They measure newsworthiness by factors like proximity, prominence, impact and a "gee-whiz factor," but it's always about change:
When journalists write about a presidential candidate's ideas to, for exampale, eliminate farm subsidies, it's not that journalists favor the proposed change. Rather, it's that the topic is more interesting than stories about government programs that are more interesting than stories about government programs that are in place, functioning routineley and unchallenged. In short, to conclude that journalists' concern with change is necessarly born of political bias is to overlook the nature of journalism - and also the natural human interest in what's new. (224)
So Vivian would probably not be surprised by today's survey of media coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The highlights:
... Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.

Pew found that just 9 percent of the president’s coverage was positive, while 34 percent was negative — a stark contrast to the 32 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative that it found Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the most covered Republican, received.
And here are some details of the poll:
The Pew study analyzed daily coverage in more than 11,500 news outlets — including news websites and transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, at both the local and national levels — as well as hundreds of thousands of blogs.

The top four most favorably covered candidates, the study found, were all tea party favorites: Perry was followed by [Sarah] Palin, with 31 percent positive coverage and 22 percent negative; Michele Bachmann, with 31 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative; and Herman Cain, with 28 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative.

Mitt Romney’s positive and negative coverage were almost in a dead heat at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

The gap between the tone of the president’s coverage and that of his challengers also stood in startling contrast to the media’s sunny assessments of the president’s performance during his first 100 days. ...
How would Vivian explain the national media's fascination with Perry? Would he predict the media will get tired of Perry and turn to someone else once their attention span is exhausted? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie anyone? Let's discuss.

Extra Credit. Double credit (= two check marks in my grade book) for finding, posting and correcting the error of fact in John Vivian's discussion of Vice President Spiro Agnew (Pres. Nixon's VP).

LATER [Wednesday]: Awesome alliteration. Thanks for looking up that quote in Time magazine, Kaitlyn. It ran Sept. 21, 1970, when Agnew was campaigning for Republican congressional candidates. Here's the full passage, written by speechwriter [and later New York Times op-ed columnist] William Safire, for delivery by Agnew: "WE have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history. These men are hard up for hard times. They can only make hay when the sun does not shine. The objective of this campaign is to replace those who moan endlessly about what is wrong with their country with men and women of the wit and will to stand up and speak out for what is right in America. This campaign presents us with a clear choice between the troglodytic [cave-dwelling] leftists who dominate Congress now, and the moderate, centrist and conservative supporters of President Nixon."

How's that for alliteration? Safire was quite a good writer, a legend on the NYT op-ed page. I'll see if I can find one of his columns to link to.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942262,00.html#ixzz1bFR7tadT

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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.