COMM 150: REVISED ASSIGNMENTS FOR FRIDAY AND NEXT WEEK - 'Boomtown Singles' in 'Mayberry-ville'? Demographic typologies and Springfield

FOR FRIDAY: Read this post and the pages I have linked below: (1) the Marketing Research Association webpage; and (2) the USA Today story on market segmentation research; and (3) the Claritas page on market segmentation profiles. FOR NEXT WEEK: Read Chapter ___ on media and government and Chapter ___ on globalization in Vivian. Be ready to take a pop quiz on either or both.

Extra credit "Quiz" in class Friday because attendance was so low: For extra credit (115,000 points), answer the following question:
What demographic would you reach by advertising in Teen Vogue magazine?

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half. - Attributed to John Wanamaker

Wanamaker (1838 - 1922) founded the big downtown department store (named Wanamaker's, what else?) in Philadelphia. He is considered one of the fathers of retail advertising. Market research can be considered as a grab bag of techniques that advertisers use to try to answer Wanamaker's question.

But there's more to it than that. The Marketing Research Association defines it like this:

Marketing research functions in two ways. It identifies key characteristics and attributes of a product or service through individual interviews or group discussions (qualitative research) and it analyzes these attributes by statistical analysis of answers given in a structured set of questions such as a survey or questionnaire (quantitative research). The specific research problem determines whether to employ one or both modes.

Adds the MRA:

WHY do research?
Research has always played a crucial role in the products, programs, social service programs, and laws that affect our daily lives that we all use. Companies are very responsive to what they learn from research and products are changed to meet the needs of the American public.

HOW is research executed?
Marketing researchers adhere to a systematic and objective process to identify problems, collect and analyze appropriate data and present conclusions. Researchers belonging to professional organizations adhere to guidelines such as MRA's Code of Marketing Research Standards and Bylaws, which governs acceptable interview practices and all members must abide by the Code. MRA members will never ask leading questions or try to sell products or services to respondents.

So the telephone surveys that politicians rely on are one of the techniques used in market research, but not the only one.

A key component of market research is demographics - the statistical profile of a population by age, gender, income, ethnicity and other criteria. We looked at demographics earlier, in connection with radio formats. Now we're going to put the pieces together and see why advertisers - not just on radio - use demographics.

A 2003 story headlined "Old labels just don't stick in 21st century" in USA Today clearly explains the background:

For businesses of all kinds, detailed information about potential customers is pure gold. Why send direct mail to households not likely to buy certain products or services? Why advertise in newspapers that go to thousands of households when the goal is to reach only families that have kids under 12? Why should a Lexus dealership blanket thousands of households in a ZIP code with fliers if only a hundred are likely to buy luxury cars?

"What retailers are doing now is microretailing their stores specifically to the demographics," says Patrick Dunne, marketing and retailing professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Retailers use the information to determine what merchandise to put in their stores — a rural Wal-Mart, for example, may have more shovels in its aisles than a suburban Wal-Mart.

What would you expect to see in the aisles in Springfield's Wal-Marts?

One company that has a way of finding out is Claritas Corp. of San Diego. A subsidiary of the Nielsen firm that measures TV audiences, Claritas builds its business model on the idea that "birds of a feather flock together" ... by zip code. It segments the general public into 67 demographic categories and cross-tabs them by where they live, using U.S. Census data. From this statistical analysis it creates model personality types - or typologies - with clever names that reflect consumer behavior. For example, here's the "Mayberry-ville" typology:

Like the old Andy Griffith Show set in a quaint picturesque berg, Mayberry-ville harks back to an old-fashioned way of life. In these small towns, upper-middle-class couples like to fish and hunt during the day, and stay home and watch TV at night. With lucrative blue-collar jobs and moderately priced housing, residents use their discretionary cash to purchase boats, campers, motorcycles, and pickup trucks.

Anybody like that in central Illinois? (At least before the current recession.)

Let's see how it works by visiting Claritas' website and seeing what its typologies can tell us about Springfield.

(And what Springfield can tell us about Claritas' methodology.)

Claritas has a PRIZM zip code lookup page – named for one of its models for comparing demographic data. Be ready to ccmpare the Zip codes in Springfield in terms of income, diversity, age, and other demographics:

• 62701
• 62702
• 62703
• 62704
• 62707
• 62711
• 62712

And any other Zip code you want to look up. What are the advantages of slicing and dicing people into categories like "Middleburg Managers" and "Suburban Pioneers?" Any disadvantages?

After you've looked around a little, we'll start with the north end, since we're in that part of town right now. Let's go back to "ZIP Code Look-Up" and enter 62702 (plus the security code below). You'll get five "PRIZM-NE" categories, starting with "American Classics," i.e. older, downscale adults. When you finish, return to the look-up page by clicking on the "Back" arrow (unless you enjoy reading "Warning: Page has Expired" error messages). Ask yourself: Does this sound like north-enders? Read the other categories. Same question. Look at the map on the lookup page. How much of the 62702 zip code area would north enders consider to be in the north end? What other neighborhoods can you identify? What are their demographics like?

Here are a couple of other questions. Compare notes in small groups (you can group up informally with the people sitting nearest you - or across the room if that's how you want to do it). Compare notes. Discuss. Post your answers as comments to this blog post, and be sure to include all of your names on the post so all of you get credit.

• Look up some of Springfield's other zip codes -- 62701, 62703, 62704 and 62707. What neighborhoods are included in each? Do any of the zip codes include neighborhoods of different income levels and/or ethnicity? How do their demographics vary (for example in 62703 and 62707)? Would you want to break down that zip code by smaller divisions like census block or street?
  
  
• How well do Claritas' categories fit people in the neighborhoods you're familiar with? What, if anything, are the marketers leaving out? What do they emphasize?
  
  
• How useful, in general, do you think demographic segmentation is in analyzing a smaller metro area like Springfield? How much of it can you trust? What would you want to be suspicious of? What else would you want to know? What other kinds of information could you gather?

COMM 150, 337: Writing Tip of the Week

Copied from my BenU email. Most of the time, these writing tips are geared more to freshman English essays than journalistic writing. But today's has a lot of wisdom behind it. - pe


From: Kauth, Jean-Marie
To: #All Faculty and All Adjunct Faculty; #All Academic Staff; #All Main Campus Student; #All Moser College; #All Springfield Campus Faculty; #All Springfield Campus Adjunct Faculty; #All Springfield Campus Student
Cc:

Check out these 25 tips from professional writers: http://the99percent.com/tips/7082/25-Insights-on-Becoming-a-Better-Writer

Number 10 is my personal favorite:

10. Jennifer Egan: On being willing to write badly...[Be] willing to write really badly. It won't hurt you to do that. I think there is this fear of writing badly, something primal about it, like: "This bad stuff is coming out of me…" Forget it! Let it float away and the good stuff follows. For me, the bad beginning is just something to build on. It's no big deal. You have to give yourself permission to do that because you can't expect to write regularly and always write well. That's when people get into the habit of waiting for the good moments, and that is where I think writer's block comes from. Like: It's not happening. Well, maybe good writing isn't happening, but let some bad writing happen... When I was writing "The Keep," my writing was so terrible. It was God-awful. My working title for that first draft was, A Short Bad Novel. I thought: "How can I disappoint?"

COMM 337: In-class exercises ... writing style ... writing common articles (Chapters 8 and 9)

QUIZ: On a clean sheet of paper, or in Microsoft Word, please answer the following question in two or three sentences. What do the editors of the Writer's Digest Handbook say about supermarket tabloids? Are the tabs a good model for your writing? Why (or why not)? Briefly explain. When you're finished, print it out and/or hand it in.

Discussion: Tabloids and broadsheet papers

In groups, compare the writing style in three writeups of the Occupy Wall Street protests in the financial district of New York City. Two are from today's New York papers, and the third is from The National Enquirer. Compare things like sentence length, word choice, use of colorful words and plain language in all three. Also look at the reporting: How many people did the Times have on the story? The Daily News? (The Enquirer is in Florida. Did they have anyone at the scene? How do you know?) Which stories are more readable? What makes them that way?

As you survey the stories, make a note of things you can use in your own writing. Be specific. For example, a nice combination of words. A descriptive passage, a good quote. Short paragraphs. Whatever. Discuss with the people on your row and post your observations as comments to this blog post. Be sure to put all your names on the post so everyone gets credit. We'll go through them in class and compare notes.

Link here:

• New York Times. Everybody knows about the Times, a national paper of record, sometimes known as the "gray lady" because its style is as weighty as the great issues of the day.
  
• New York Daily News. It's in tabloid format so people who ride the subway can fold back the pages and read it while they're hanging from straps in the subway cars.
  
• National Enquirer. . Not the worst of the supermarket tabs, but clearly not concerned with the weighty issues of the day. Their story on Occupy Wall Street came out at the end of September.

Keep the window open to the National Enquirer. We'll look at several more stories.

COMM 150: Polls ... exercise ... and revised assignments for the rest of the week [reposting with course number corrected]

This week we'll take up Chapters 12 and 13 in John Vivian's "Media of Mass Communication," on research and "mass media effects" respectively. Research, to communications professionals, means public opinion polling and market research; Monday we'll look at public opinion polls. Wednesday we'll see how polling applies to advertising, and we'll study demographics, which is the basis of most market research. Friday, we'll whiz through Vivian's discussion of media "effects" in Chapter 13, i.e. several theories of the effect the media have on society. Please complete assignment for Wednesday, by analyzing the two political polls linked below and posting your analysis as a comment to this blog item.

While public opinion polls are used to gauge public attitudes toward everything from religious preference to bath salts and after-shave lotion, they come for the most scrutiny in public affairs. Like practically everything else in American politics, a lot of the scrutiny is negative.

Especially negative is the attitude toward political polling, and news reporting that emphasizes poll results - who's ahead, who's behind, who's winning, who's losing - instead of explaining public policy issues.

"The news media are more obsessed than ever with the horse-race aspects of the presidential campaign, according to a new study," reported the New York Times, for example, on Oct. 29, 2007, when the 2008 campaigns were about at the same stage as today's race. "Despite the campaign’s early start, the media have not been more reflective on the issues, the study said, but have focused on tactics and strategy."

Summarizing a poll by the Pew Research Center, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Catharine Seelye of the Times noted that:

1. Nearly two-thirds of all stories (print, television, radio and online) focused on "political aspects of the campaign, while only 1 percent focused on the candidates’ public records."
   
2. She added, "Only 12 percent of stories seemed relevant to voters’ decision making; the rest were more about tactics and strategy.

Seelye concluded, "The campaign coverage has been sharply at odds with what the public says it wants, the study found, with voters eager to know more about the candidates’ positions on issues and their personal backgrounds, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates. But the media is even more obsessed this time around with questions of tactics and strategy, despite what the study described as a 'generational struggle' in both parties. Horse-race stories accounted for 63 percent of reports this year compared with what the study said was about 55 percent in 2000 and 2004."

Two years later, on Aug. 30, 2009, New York Times blogger Paul Krugman complained about "reporting that focuses on how policy proposals are supposedly playing, rather than what’s actually in them."

At the time, Congress was debating President Obama's health care legislation. But Krugman noted that during the 2004 presidential campaign he "looked at TV reports on health care plans, and found not a single segment actually explaining the candidates’ plans." He said, "It’s easier to research horse-race stuff. To report on policy, a reporter has to master the policy issues fairly well. That’s not easy, especially for journalists who have specialized in up close and personal rather than wonkery — and policy issues change from year to year. To do a horse-race piece, you just call up the usual suspects on your Rolodex, and have a bunch of 'one Democratic insider said' quotes." Krugman added, "The upshot, of course, is that we’re having a crucial national policy debate in which the great bulk of the news coverage tells people nothing at all about the policy issues."

Is it any wonder that in August 2011 the online magazine GOOD could run an article on the health care law headlined "Most Americans Still Have No Idea What the Health Care Law Does?"

And horse-race journalism is still all around us.

Just Saturday, respected political reporter Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Republican political strategist Patrick Dorinson, who writes TheCowboyLibertarian.com political website, saying Republican presidential candiate Rick Perry "is not a guy I'd bet on" after a gaffe in which he couldn't remember the third of three agencies he proposes to eliminate.

"He came out to the horse track and he was a beautiful colt, but no one had ever seen him run," Dorinson told Marinucci. "Now, we're seeing the mules running faster than he is."

So horse-race reporting is alive and well.

And stories based on public opinion polling, for better or worse, are with us to stay.

Vivian has a fairly good explanation of how polls are conducted in your weekend reading assignment, and Gary N. Curtis, author of the Fallacy Files weblog has an explanation of how to interpret a pollthat fills in some important gaps. Curtis taught philosophy at UIPUI (the University of Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis, also known as "ooey pooey") who has worked in artificial intelligence for Cycorp Inc. in Austin, Texas. Curtis says:

Every other year, during election campaigns, the American public is polled, surveyed, and canvassed for their opinions, and the news media continuously inform us of the results. The media report polls in the same breathless way that race track announcers describe horse races: "As they round the corner of the convention, the Republican is pulling ahead on the right! Now, they're entering the home stretch and the Democrat is pulling up on the left!" Et cetera.

There is little drama in simply waiting until after the election to report the results. Instead, reporters use polls to add suspense to their coverage, with a leader and an underdog to root for. Moreover, every news outlet is trying to scoop the others by being the first to correctly predict the winner. Unfortunately, much of this coverage sacrifices accuracy for artificial excitement.

This article explains how a layman can read a news report of a poll without being duped by the hype. You don't need to be a statistician to understand enough about polls to not be taken in, because the problems are often not with the polls themselves but with the way that they're reported. ...

Very true. If you know how to read them, polls can tell you a lot.

And Curtis is all about showing us how to read them. Curtis even has a little poll of his own for us. Let's put it up on the screen in class, take the poll and read the rest of his explanation. At the end, he'll tell us how we did.

I'll disqualify myself because I took it Sunday afternoon. (No, I didn't answer all the questions correctly!) But I'll record the answers as you come to consensus on the questions.

Then, after we read the rest of Curtis' post on how to evaluate a poll, I have linked below two stories based on polls in the Republican presidential primary campaign. Please evaluate the stories, using the criteria on Curtis' blog and in Vivian, and post your comparisons as comments to this item. Which is better? Why do you say so? How does each stack up? The polls are:

• Miami Herald Friday Nov. 11, which reports, "The Republican presidential race is being shaken up again, with Mitt Romney retaking the lead, Newt Gingrich surging into second place, and Herman Cain dropping to third place, according to a new McClatchy-Marist nationwide poll released Friday." McClatchy is the newspaper chain that owns the Herald, and Marist College is in New York state.
  
• New York Daily News Sunday Nov. 13, reported:
  

  Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were the big winners after a week of self-inflicted wounds among GOP contenders, a new poll found.
  
  Romney and Gingrich each gained five points in a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of Republican primary voters released Sunday. ... The support for former Massachusetts Gov. Romney among re-interviewed voters rose from 27% to 32%, and Gingrich's rose from 17% to 22%. Gingrich's resurrection was attributed to consistently good debate performances.

COMM 150, 337: Cat videos

Background on Huffington Post John St. is "an advertising agency located in Toronto, Ontario. We use creative, design, digital, strategy, social media and research to make our clients' brands unignoreable."

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testing

http://theblogofjohn.com/75:is-market-research-artificial-intelligence/

COMM 337: Steps in writing ... from class discussion

What are the steps in writing a free-lance magazine article?

1. get an idea what to write about
2. look for markets / audience / buyers
3. query --
4. research – talk w/ experts – interview questions -
5. write the article – edit the article

Compare to chapter headings in "Writer's Digest Handbook" and/or any how-to article on free-lance writing on the World Wide Web.

COMM 337: In-class assignment on queries [plus an important reminder on class attendance]

Please note my comment on your comments in the comments below. - pe

Intro. As I've written more free-lance articles, I've discovered a good query letter does the same thing an outline used to do for me in academic writing - it helps me plan the article as I start researching and writing it. In some ways, the query is just as important as the finished article. Usually, it's the first thing a prospective editor will see of my work. And it has to answer the question - why should he, or she, buy my story on kumquats, Maine coon cats or Zen meditation and not somebody else's.

In advertising and sales they call the answer to that question a unique selling proposition, and when I write a query I'm in advertising and sales. The query is a sales document. Plain and simple.

So let's cut to the chase ...

Your assignment: Write a query letter. In order to get a feel for the process, let's do a dry run in class first after we've looked at the sample queries in the Writer's Digest Handbook and my blog post immediately below.

1. Choose one of the topics we discussed Tuesday - Zen meditation, Maine coon cats, the Japaneese tea ceremony, artichokes, whatever - and help me write a query. I can put it on the projector in Microsoft Word.
   
   
   
2. In groups of two or three, write the first two paragraphs of another query and post your draft as a comment to this post. Then we'll look at your drafts.

For next week: read the Writer's Digest Handbook, Chapter 7 ("Avoiding Problems"), and 8 ("Writing Techniques and Revision"). Also Iris Lamott, "Shitty First Drafts" (PDF file at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/english/wwwroot2/TA/hyperteach/PDFs/shitty.pdf).

IMPORTANT TANGENT ON CLASS ATTENDANCE: Beginning this week, we're shifting gears in COMM 337 and doing more in-class exercises that involve brainstorming and small-group discussion. By its nature, writing for publication is usually a collaborative process; that means it's nearly impossible to make up the dynamic of our class discussions and exercises regarding the process of writing. Your grades so far have depended heavily on your written analyses. Now they will depend on: (1) your 1,500-word story; and (2) your participation in the exercises designed to get you up to speed on writing the story. So it pays to come to class. Capice?

COMM 337: A couple of examples of query letters ...

Do you believe in recycling? I do.

So here are some thoughts about writing query letters recycled from an email message I sent to my students in COMM 337 a year ago this semester.

There aren't many hard-and-fast rules about query letters, but there is a definite psychology. Remember: It's a sales document, one you're using to sell your article. Keep it short. Showcase your writing skills. Demonstrate your professional skills. Remember the old advice to writers? SHOW, NOT TELL. It works. *Show* the editor what you can do for him. Or her.

Here's a common format that I like to use in my own free-lance writing. I'll outline it paragraph by paragraph, and copy below the query I used to sell my most recent magazine story to Dulcimer Players News:

FIRST GRAF: Get the editor's attention, and show why your article will appeal to the magazine's readers. Often this graf will sound like the lede of your story. Make it specific to the magazine. Show you've done your homework. (In the sample below, I said I'd been reading it. But I also referred to specific stories in back issues. It *showed* I'd been reading it.) I like to say very specifically something like, "I am offering (the story) for your consideration for publication." Again, it's a sales document and that's what salespeople sometimes call a close -- when you ask your prospect to buy what you're selling.

SECOND GRAF: Give your credentials. If you enclose your resume, mention it. In my letter, I also mention a conversation I had with one of the magazine's editors. There's more in the Writer's Digest Handbook. You can mention the research you did, any personal experience you have. Anything that demonstrates you know what you're talking about.

THIRD GRAF: This can vary. The Writer's Digest Handbook suggests you "showcase your skills and demonstrate some solutions. ... Explain what you can do to meet the magazine's editorial needs." I used mine to talk about artwork, file formats, etc. [the things that pros talk about], to demonstrate I'm a pro.

Plus an example of a successful query I sent out by email last year. It was a little different from an "over the transom" query [*see below for explanation], because I'd talked with the guy's co-editor and they were expecting something from me. But it uses the same psychology:

Subject line: psalmodikon article submission / attn dan landrum
Date: Sunday, July 11, 2010 7:58 PM

To: Dan Landrum, editor
Dulcimer Players News

From: Pete Ellertsen

Ralph Lee Smith says he got so excited when he heard from the folks who play a Nordic-American box zither called the psalmodikon, he nearly lost control of his car. (He was answering his cell phone at the time.) And he's had a couple of fascinating "Tales and Traditions" columns in DPN about them. I've been in touch with the psalmodikon folks, too, partly because the instrument comes out of my own ethnic heritage and partly because it's so much like the mountain dulcimer. So I visited their annual meeting in Wisconsin and started learning to play a psalmodikon. I've written an article and two sidebars from the perspective of a dulcimer player about the revival of interest in the psalmodikon, its historical background and the tablature used to play it. I've been studying back issues of DPN, and I believe the stories will be of interest to your readers. They are attached, and I am offering them for your consideration for publication in the magazine.

You may remember my work, because I had a historical overview of the Appalachian dulcimer and its European antecedents, called "Drones, Picks and Popsicle Sticks," published last year on the EverythingDulcimer.com website. I'm an old newspaper guy, recently retired from a full-time position teaching college journalism, and I'm looking for free-lance assignments. (My resume is linked below.) Stephen Siefert and I spoke briefly at the Dulcimerville workshop last month, and he suggested I contact you. When I got home, I started drafting a letter; the letter turned into an article, and the result is attached to this email message.

Attached as Microsoft Word files are: (1) a 1,950-word article on the revival of interest in the psalmodikon; (2) a 400-word sidebar on the tablature used to play the instrument; and (3) a 400-word sidebar on further reading. While pictures are embedded in the file I'm sending you, I can send you separate JPEG files in order to facilitate the editing process. The photos are mine, and the photocopies are from books in the public domain. ...

I look forward to hearing from you.

When I already have a working relationship with an editor, I don't always bother with a query. But I use the same general psychology - I send a cover letter, again an email message, beginning with a "hook" to get his interest. Since I already know the guy, I don't have to repeat the part about my qualifications. Here's another example:

William Furry
Illinois State Historical Society
Springfield, Illinois

Dear Bill --

Attached are a 6,000-word article and a 1,500-word sidebar for your consideration for publication in Illinois Heritage. They're about the voyage of the steamboat Talisman to Springfield in 1832 and one of the locally written poems that appeared in The Sangamo Journal to commemorate the occasion. The poem was a parody of a popular minstrel show tune of the day, and its appearance in the Springfield paper tells us something about the complexity of popular culture on the Illinois frontier at the time. The Talisman turned out to be the only steamboat ever to reach Springfield, but a rhymed satire in the local paper based on a song currently popular on the East Coast was a sign of an up-and-coming frontier town, riverboat or no riverboat. It also gives us a glimpse of the lives of young men in a frontier community; some of them had a surprisingly literary bent.

Some thoughts on artwork follow. ...

It worked, too. The article was in the summer issue of Illinois Heritage. In writing both of these queries, the process helped me think through what I wanted to say in the article. But here's what I gained from doing it in the context of a sales pitch: It forced me to look at my story idea through an editor's eyes. What would he want to see in the story? What would interest his readers? It wasn't just about me and what I wanted to say anymore.

__________

* "Over the Transom" - I define it as an unsolicited article or query that you're writing "on spec" (which means you're doing it on speculation, ie writing it without an advance agreement that somebody will buy it). The website About Freelance Writing (which by the way is a good one) explains:

... A transom is a small, hinged window above a door. ... In the days before air conditioning, publishers would often leave these windows open, even over night, for circulation.

Writers were said to hurl their unsolicited pieces through that window.

My faculty office in Beata Hall used to have one of those transom windows over the door. But my students would usually slip their papers under the door.

COMM 150: USP, IMC, brand positioning and other stuff that may be on the final exam (capice?)

On pages 311 and 312 of "Media of Mass Communication" (our edition), John Vivian discusses the Unique Selling Proposition - USP for short - in terms of "lowest common denominator" advertising. I wish he wouldn't do that. Not that it isn't all too often true ... but it's not the way professionals ought to do business.) Vivian suggests it's about "Creat[ing] a benefit of the product, even if from thin air, and then tout[ing] the benefit authoritatively and repeatedly as if the competition doesn't have it." Well, OK, yeah. But you're maybe not going to stay in business long if you rely on that. But Vivian does acknowledge, "A unique selling proposition need be neither hollow nor insulting, however." And that's where I want us to start.

Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC, is when you mix public relations, advertising and management decision-making processes to maximize the impact on consumers, according to Wikipedia.

Vivian also discusses something call "positioning," which he sees as a way of getting your message through all the "clutter" of competing products. The terms are technical; we'll look them up. Adds Vivian, "Ad clutter, as it is called, drowns out individual advertisements. With positioning, the appeal is focused and caters to audience segments, and it need not be done in such broad strokes." The discussion in Wikipedia adds:

Although there are different definitions of Brand Positioning, probably the most common is: identifying a market niche for a brand, product or service utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (i.e. price, promotion, distribution, packaging,and competition).

Also positioning is defined as the way by which the marketer create an impression in the customer's mind.

How does this relate to USP? Here are notes from the discussion on unique selling propositions in Wikipedia:

Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Co.:

• Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: "Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit."
  
• The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
  
• The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

An example of how it works in the real world:

Notes from Interactive Marketing, Inc., a website optimization and Internet marketing company of Bend, Ore. at http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com/unique-selling-proposition.html:

Your USP is the force that drives your business and success. It can also be used as a "branding" tool that deploys strategy with every tactical marketing effort you use such as an ad, a postcard, or web site. This allows you to build a lasting reputation while you're making sales. The ultimate goal of your USP and marketing is to have people say to you... "Oh, yes I've heard of you. You're the company who..." - And then respond by requesting more information or purchasing [boldface, italics and blue type in the original].

Vivian makes it sound like the USP is basically a gimmick, but it isn't. Notice what the advertising pros say: It has to be real, "Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising." Adds Interactive Marketing, "Think in terms of what your business does for your customer and the end-result they desire from a product or service like yours. So, what are the 3 biggest benefits you offer?" And this, "Consumers are skeptical of advertising claims companies make. So alleviate their skepticism by being specific and offering proof when possible."

In-class discussion, Friday. An organization's webpage often serves some of the same functions as an advertisement. Look at BP's at http://www.bp.com/ and Benedictine-Springfield's at http://www1.ben.edu/springfield/. How does each position itself in the marketplace? Does it use the homepage to state something like a unique selling proposition? If so, what would it be it for each?

COMM 150: For Friday - mission, public relations, advertising, USP and IMC

Alphabet soup? Not quite -

Here's what I put up on the projector this morning

USP –
IMC –

How do the concepts of IMC and USP help an organization define and operationalize its mission? Where do branding and positioning fit into the picture?

Here's another way of wording the question (which I got, by the way, form the final exam in COMM 150 in 2007:

2b. Short essay (25 points). Brands, branding and brand management are increasingly important concepts in integrated marketing communications. How does a mission statement fit into a well-designed IMC program? How can effective brand management and a well thought-out Integrated Marketing Communications plan help advertisers and public relations practitioners deal with competing messages? Be specific. Always be specific. Remember: An unsupported generalization is sudden death in college-level writing.

COMM 337: Maine coon cat helps grade papers

Maine coon cat (at left) evaluating COMM 337 papers

COMM 150: Alaska newspaper live-blogging winter storm ...

Draft question for documented essay due after Thanksgiving: How are social media (sometimes hyped as Internet 2.0) changing the face of American culture? Consider entertainment, politics and government. What are the ethical implications, and how can media professionals overcome them? - The Mackerel Wrapper Friday Nov. 4 2011

Here's how it worked this time ... call it a case study if you want to.

So I'm on Facebook, and I notice my wife's boss in Alaska posted a weather map about 2 hours ago. It shows a huge storm, and she just said "OhOh ..." Below the map is a message the US National Weather Service Alaska posted 10 hours ago: "Here's the latest look at the storm heading into the Bering Sea this morning. It's a monster of a storm! Blizzard conditions will come on the front end of the storm for many locations. The extreme low pressure (less than 950mb) with hurricane force winds will create an 7 to 9 foot storm surge as this heads north. The irregular shape of the West Coast of Alaska will cause different timing of coastal flooding impacts. Please see the latest forecast for your location. http://www.arh.noaa.gov/ We can't stress enough the severity of hazards this storm brings."

In fact, NWS Alaska has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/US.NationalWeatherService.Alaska.gov. As I'm writing at 10:20 p.m. CST (7:20 Alaska Standard Time), they've just posted a map dated 6 p.m. showing 40- to 50-knot winds with gusts up to 70 knots and this advisory: "Winds have picked up along the west coast of Alaska and over Saint Lawrence Island. Snow has spread inland causing near ZERO visibility. Hooper Bay to Emmonak and into western Norton Sound, along with Saint Lawrence Island, are already seeing sea level rises associated with the storm surge. Nome is currently about 4 feet above the normal tide. Unfortunately, it will only be getting worse. Stay safe everyone."

What gets me the most is some of the messages on the wall:

• Thank You for these updates!! 59 minutes ago.
  
• I'm praying for my son and all the other people on the water right now. 50 minutes ago.
  
• Praying for everyone in the area... 40 minutes ago.
  
• Thanks for posting....It's just starting in Bethel. Ours won't be anything near what the coastal villages are going through! 29 minutes ago.

By morning, all of these posts will be way out of date. I've tracked hurricanes, and this thing is acting like a hurricane.

All of whicy is the first I've heard of the storm. Here in the "Lower 48" [states], our news media are much too busy with Justin Bieber's trials and tribulations to worry about a little old storm.

So next I look at the Anchorage Daily News, and the main stories on their website tonight are a search for a missing student athlete at the University of Alaska Anchorage and the coming storm. It's off the coast of Western Alaska, 1,330 miles northwest of Anchorage, but the ADN is treating it as a big story. The headline: "Evacuations begin ahead of Bering Sea storm." Click on the headline, and it takes me to a live blog. The most recent post is from the city of Kotzebue on the Bering Sea coast:

6: 10 p.m. update: Message for Kotzebue: Stay indoors for the next two days

In Kotzebue, the hub city for a collection of largely Inupiat villages in northwest Alaska, the city and borough planned to urge residents tonight to stay inside, acting city manager Keith Greene said. "One of our concerns up here is people walking through the snow and getting lost."

Even during garden-variety storms, winds and blowing snow can blind travelers on the outskirts of the city. The mega storm is expected to whip gusts as fast as 90 to 100 mph, Greene said. The message for Kotzebue residents will be "stay indoors, don't leave home for the next couple days," he said.

All of which leads me back to the question on your assignment sheet for the COMM 150 paper due after Thanksgiving: How are social media changing the face of America?

COMM 337: Class notes on research (who you gonna talk to?) about cats, tea, artichokes and Zen?

1 Japanese tea ceremony
2 Maine coon cats
3 Artichokes
4. Zen meditation

write a proposal – outline – you’re pitching an article in other words
 who are you going to talk to?
 what’s your angle going to be?
 what are you going to say about it that’s fresh and interesting to your readers (which means your editor)?

post it as a comment to this blog item on TMW

COMM 337: Who are you going to talk with? Reporting exercise for class today ...

Write what you know? While it seems perfectly sound on one level, living by this mantra can limit and even deter your career. In order to grow as professionals, writers need to be taught: Write what you don't know.

Why take on work in this manner? For one thing, it builds your repertoire. Second, editors want all-around writers that they can send on any assignment. Third, it opens doors to other opportunities. If you can research and write about an unfamiliar subject, you bring to the table a fresh perspective. Editors always need fresh ideas - even new takes on old topics. ("Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing" 87-88.

Of course there's a catch ... there always is, isn't there? The Handbook continues:

You might ask, "Can I understand everything about a subject?" The honest answer is, "No." If you try to know every tiny detail, you'll never stay within your deadline. But you must gain a good working knowledge, concentrate on finding key points, get your facts straight (which you undoubtedly will be extra-inclined to to in foreign territory), and talk to the right people. (88)

Today, using the tips and guidelines in Chapter 5 of the Writer's Digest Handbook, we're going to see how it works.

By the way, did you notice the title? "Research." Did you notice what it's about? Talking with the right people. To a journalist, research isn't something you do in a library, it's something you do on the phone. Or, better, in person. Reading up on a subject is essential, but you do it before you talk to them. That way you don't waste their time. Or yours!

So now, let's find out about kumquats, and start looking for kumquat experts.

Kumquats?

Using the suggestions in the Handbook, where would we go to find out about kumquats. Who would we talk to? I mean specifically who we'd talk to. No doubt you've learned about networking in other communications, business or management classes. That's essentially how you go about finding the right people to talk with for a story.

As we talk our way through the kumquat story, we'll change our perspective as we think of different people we can talk with. Finding sources and narrowing the topic are a chicken-and-egg proposition. What we write depends on what the experts tell us. Right? So the perspective will change. As we find out about kumquats, for example, we may find it makes better sense to write about growing them indoors rather than how to keep alligators out of the drainage ditches around the kumquat trees in Florida. I'm just making this up, but you get the idea. Here's what the Handbook says:

You'll get most of your article ideas by meeting people - not by trying to scramble aeound and finf people who you can interview and thus support your article idea.(92)

Once we've explored some of the possibilities of the fascinating world of kumquat horticulture as a group, here are a couple of other topics you can try:

• Maine coon cats
  
• The Japanese tea ceremony

Pick one. I hope they seem obscure to you. The point is to find out where the experts are on something you don't already know. Surf around, brainstorm with other students and post your story ideas/sources as comments to this blog item. I encourage you to do this in informal small groups with one or two other students and post a joint comment (be sure to give all your names so you get credit).

For Thursday: Read Chapters 2 ("Queries") and 7 ("Avoiding Problems"). Note, we're taking these out of order - we're going back and picking up the chapter on queries. Be ready to write the first draft of a query on the article I've assigned for the week after Thanksgiving in class Thursday. Next week we'll take up Chapters 8 ("Writing Techniques and Revision") and 9 ("How to Write Common Articles"), so read them over the weekend.

An alltime great political ad ...

"Diane Benson has experience. She needs your help to clean up the mess. Get out and vote in the primary. August 26th [2008]. Be there." Blurb on YouTube.

Ad was run by Diane Benson, Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Alaska. It's funny, and it subtly reinforces things that help Alaskans identify with Benson as she plays with her sled dogs and cleans up a mess. Of Tlingit Indian and Norwegian heritage, Diane Benson has also written poetry and is a Native rights activist.

COMM150: In-class exercise - mission statements

In class …

1. Write your definition of a mission statement that will fit on a T-shirt
2. Post it to the Mackerel Wrapper
3. We’ll look at your posts and combine them into one T-shirtworthy definition.

Post your definitions as comments to this item.

COMM 150: The Lonely Island, a 'comedy music' band that blends old and new media on SNL and YouTube

Inverviewed by Steve Heisler on the A.V. Club websites about topics as diverse as "their recording process, the definition of a 'real' band, and their sexual prowess," Andy Samberg of The Lonely Island and Saturday Night Live said something in passing about a "real" band, in quotes.

"Do you not feel like a real band?" asked Heisler.

"No," Samberg replied. "We’re a comedy band, I guess. We’re in the comedy section at record stores and on iTunes. It’s not music, it’s comedy. It’s comedy music. [Laughs.] There’s a reason that the word 'comedy' comes first."

Which is what I'd call a niche market.

But the band is successful, both artistically - they're doing what they want to do and doing well - and commercially - they're selling lots of albums and getting lots of page views on the internet.

Thanks to MHovey for posting a link to our class blog.

"Although they were first discovered on SNL, their name shot through the roof through Youtube," she said. "The Lonely Island has become immensely famous because of the internet. Some of my favorite songs by them are 'Like A Boss,' 'I'm on a Boat' and 'Jack Sparrow'."

The Lonely Island's video "Jah Trent" appealed to this old roots reggae fan, but "Jack Sparrow"on YouTube is a much better introduction to what they do and how they do it. It started out as a prerecorded SNL sketch featuring rocker Michael Bolton. Bolton told Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly's website EW.com:

I just sang it in a studio in Atlanta on a night off. The guys were on through Skype. They’re serious about their comedy but they’re really serious about the details. They were focused on the minutiae that great record producers focus on, not comedy writers. And I love seeing that work ethic. These guys were inspiring.

It was also a boost to his career, which had peaked in the 1990s. According to Collis, Bolton's digital short with Lonely Island "has also turned him into an unlikely Internet phenomenon."



Heisler's May 24 interview in A.V. Club sums up their appeal:

The Lonely Island, practitioners of musical comedy, practically invented the notion of “viral video” with “Lazy Sunday.” And more than five years later, the group has Internet popularity down to a science: The trio’s “Jizz In My Pants” has topped 100,000,000 YouTube views, while the more recent “I Just Had Sex” is close behind. It certainly doesn’t hurt that The Lonely Island’s comic songs, and the accompanying videos, usually debut on Saturday Night Live and feature guests like Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, and Michael Bolton. The group is comprised of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer—Samberg is an SNL cast member, and the others write, direct, and occasionally pop up onscreen. What started as three friends fooling around with a camera has turned into a genuine pop-culture phenomenon, and the group’s latest album, Turtleneck & Chain—the follow-up to 2009’s Incredibad—cements The Lonely Island members’ place as humorists who are in the game for the long haul.

Comedy has been around since our ancestors told jokes about hunting wooly mammoth during the Ice Age, and sometimes it seems like SNL has been around for just as long. The same goes for hip hop. But The Lonely Island are using new media to promote their spin on topics as timeless as music, sex and pirate movies. How is technology helping acts like theirs change the face of American culture? [See documented essay assignment at http://mackerelwrapper.blogspot.com/2011/11/comm-150-draft-question-for-documented.html for inspiration].

COMM 150: Public relations, management and mission statements

Today, experts on public relations agree ... [w]hen ainstitutions are making policy, they need to consider the effects on their many publics. That can be done best when the person in charge of public relations, ideally at the vice presidential level, is intimately involved in decision-making. The public relations executive advises the rest of the institution's leaders on public perceptions and the effects that policy options might have on perceptions. Also, the public relations vice president is in a better position to implement the institution's policy for having been a part of developing it. - John Vivian, "Media of Mass Communication" (277).

One reason John Vivian - along with most people who write about public relations - insists that PR is a management function is that its strategy and tactics should reflect an organization's mission. To understand why, we need to review an important tool in organizational development that Vivian doesn't say much about - the organization's mission statement or "a statement of the purpose of a company or organization." The definition is from Wikipedia, which adds, "The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making." Wikipedia, as usual, is a pretty good starting place. Done right, a mission statement is at the core of its strategic thinking. It takes someone in top management to make sure the mission is followed through, and it takes a PR person in upper-level management to ensure the organization's public face is consistent with its mission.

Done wrong, a mission statement is a jumble of words and cutsey slogans. A lot of them are done wrong, and a lot of people are properly suspicious of mission statements. Which is one reason why it's important for PR professionals to do it right.

So here's a brief outline, and below that an exercise for you to do and post as a comment to this post.

Peter Drucker, who was probably the 20th century's most influential management consultant, once famously said "a mission statement should fit on a T-shirt. In an book called "Managing the Non-Profit Organization," Drucker put it like this:

The first thing to talk about is what missions work and what missions don't work, and how to define the mission. For the ultimate test is not the beauty of the mission statement. The ultimate test is right action.

The most common question asked me by non-profit executives is: What are the qualities of a leader? The question seems to assume that leadership is something you can learn in a charm school. But it also assumes that leadership by itself is enough, that it's an end. And that's misleadership. The leader who basically focuses on himself or herself is going to mislead. The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader's charisma. What matters is the leader's mission. Therefore, the first job of the leader is to think through and deflne the mission of the institution.

And he summed up what he had to say about mission statements with this:

A mission statement has to be operational, otherwise it's just good intentions. A mission statement has to focus on what the institution really tries to do and then do it so that everybody in the organization can say, This is my contribution to the goal.

A mission statement has to be operational: What does that mean? You've got to be able to translate it into action. In "Managing the Non-Profit Organization," Drucker gives a couple of examples. Here's one:

Here is a simple and mundane example-the mission statement of a hospital emergency room: "It's our mission to give assurance to the afflicted." That's simple and clear and direct. Or take the mission of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.: to help girls grow into proud, self-confident, and self-respecting young women. There is an Episcopal church on the East Coast which defines its mission as making Jesus the head of this church and its chief executive officer. Or the mission of the Salvation Army, which is to make citizens out of the rejected. Arnold of Rugby, the greatest English educator of the nineteenth century, who created the English public school, defined its mission as making gentlemen out of savages.

My favorite mission definition, however, is not that of a nonprofit institution, but of a business. It's a definition that changed Sears from a near-bankrupt, struggling mail-order house at the beginning of the [20th] century into the world's leading retailer within less than ten years: It's our mission to be the informed and responsible buyer-first for the American farmer, and later for the American family altogether.

Sears has lost sight of its mission in recent years, according to some business analysts. But for a long time, it was nothing if not a farmers' store. Farmers and their families ordered from the Sears catalog (which they also put to other uses), and they shopped at Sears when they came to town. I remember as a kid walking into the Sears in Knoxville, Tenn., and they were selling everything from baby chicks to metal washtubs to the kind of old-fashioned dark blue overalls that were so stiff you could stand them up in the corner until you'd washed them a dozen times. You'd smell the chicken feed as soon as you walked in the door, and you knew Sears was for farmers. Who are Sears' customers now? Well, there aren't that many them anymore. And I think lack of a clear mission is one reason why.

As usual, Wikipedia was a good starting point. And Drucker's explanation is a classic. But we need to go beyond Wikipedia and update Drucker. So here's the exercise:

Your assignment: Find something on the World Wide Web that clearly explains what a mission statement is and what it does.
* * *
Please post what you find out as a comment to this blog. And be sure to include a Web address. Copy and paste it from the address field in your browser into your comment. Like this:

Business Resource Software of Austin, Texas, says, "A mission statement may look simple but it should communicate the core of your organization with a precise statement of purpose. Words should be chosen for meaning and clarity - not technical jargon." There's more. I like it. It's simple. It's clear. And it tells you what to do and how to do it. What's not to like about that?
http://www.brs-inc.com/news002.html

COMM 337: Remember, remember the 5th of November ... with a Guy Fawkes mask? or a bank protest? the big anniversary that didn't amount to much

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot ...
-- English Nursery Rhyme

What's with the creepy masks of the guy with the smile and the goatee we see people wearing in coverage of the Occupy Wall protests?

And why would anybody choose a Saturday, when a lot of banks aren't even open anyway, for a protest against "too-big-to-fail" banks like Wells-Fargo and JPMorgan Chase?

In other words, what was so special about Saturday, Nov. 5, anyway? And did anybody notice it? There were several stories in the "mainstream media," but they never really got into it.

Guy Fawkes was an English Catholic who was caught Nov. 5, 1605, sneaking gunpowder into a basement under the houses of Parliament. He was accused of plotting to assassinate King James II by blowing up the building, and was executed for treason. For many years thereafter, English children celebrated the failure of the plot by building bonfires, setting off fireworks and, at least sometimes, wearing masks on "Guy Fawkes Day," every Nov. 5. More recently, a character in a comic book and a movie who wore a Guy Fawkes mask has entered the popular culture as sort of a symbol of rebellion. [Click here and scroll down to Crispijn van de Passe print to see the contemporary 17th-century engraving that inspired the masks. Guido Fawkes is third from left.] So it has been taken up by some of Occupy ______ protesters.

There are several layers of irony here, and, in my opinion, none of the news media have done a very good job of dealing with them.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Muskal gives some of the back story:

Guy Fawkes was an English mercenary and failed plotter whose death was elevated into a national celebration complete with bonfires and the burning of effigies. Four centuries later -- thanks to Hollywood, not to mention a deep undertow of popular discontent -- his grinning, mustachioed face has become the symbol of resistance for almost any political movement.

That, of course, includes the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the United States.

From New York to Seattle, protesters have donned the stylized masks of Fawkes -- a person seen by many as a 17th century terrorist.

Muskal might have added London, England, where the popular movie "V for Vendetta" (2006) featured a character wearing a Guy Fawkes mask as a symbol of rebellion.

Friday, the day before Guy Fawkes' rebellion was traditionally celebrated, an Associated Press story by Tamara Lush and Verena Dobnik explained how his image came to be taken up first by a graphic novel, then by "V for Vendetta" and most recent by Occupy Wall Street protesters. They also interview an academic who has studied the movie and several of the protesters.

The story, headlined, "For Occupy protesters, every day is Guy Fawkes Day," is a pretty typical AP story. It's kind of bland, but it's carefully reported. In addition to Lush and Dobnik, two other reporters contributed to it. (It looks like Dobnik put it together in New York.) Let's read it and analyze it.

Consider these questions: How many people were interviewed for the story? Is it hard news or a feature? What kind of lede does it have - hard or soft? What's the news here? Is there an news peg? Is it an anniversary story? Or a combination of the two? Is it readable? Is the historical explanation necessary? How clearly is it presented? What might you have added if you were reporting it? Who else might you have talked to?

* * *

A very different kind of story, again on Friday the day before Guy Fawkes' Day, was published in the financial weblog Motley Fool and posted again on the NASDAQ.com website. It concerned plans by the Anonymous protest group (which is getting to be anything but anonymous in spite of its name). The item begins:

November 5th is Bank Transfer Day , and its timing is no accident. Kristen Christian, the person who thought up the idea, chose the date that was once popular in Britain as Guy Fawkes Day.

But Bank Transfer Day proponents aren't the only ones who might act on Nov. 5. The hacker group Anonymous has adopted the date in recent years as a favored day of action. The group's already made one dramatic proclamation, and there could be other threats lurking. Everyone is hopeful that Bank Transfer Day goes off without a hitch, but a few bad eggs might make this Saturday a day that one company would rather forget.

One company that's been a persistent critic of the movement might see harsher action on Nov. 5. Anonymous has declared war on Fox News, a division of News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWS) (Nasdaq: NWSA) , threatening to make an example of the broadcaster's website.

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Anonymous and Guy Fawkes are an unlikely pairing. Those who've seen V For Vendetta know the background, but for anyone who's never seen the movie, here's the short version of the story behind Guy Fawkes: An affected English anarchist in anonymous attire attempts to adjourn the administration through means most abominable, assembling ample explosives adjacent to Parliament while also assassinating assorted authorities. Also, Natalie Portman shaves her head.

The film's signature prop is a Guy Fawkes mask, and this in combination with the message of rebellion gave the "hacktivists" a stylistic mode of expression. The mask has been showing up occasionally at Occupy rallies, and a version of the mask has also been featured on the Bank Transfer Day's Facebook page.

And so on ... of course, Guy Fawkes Day aka Bank Transfer Day was on a Saturday. An day-after roundup article by Martha White on Time magazine's website noted that, "Local news outlets around the country offer piecemeal reports of irate customers taking their business away from big banks, sometimes in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street protests that have moved well beyond lower Manhattan and into cities throughout the U.S." But she also quoted a banker who said the cause "might have been hurt by the fact that the day they chose fell on a Saturday, when sporting events and other distractions occupy consumers’ minds." After reviewing coverage nationwide, White concluded it was too soon to tell if the protest was effective.

A footnote - who profits from the masks? "V for Vendetta" was a Warner Brothers movie, and Warner holds the licensing rights to the image on the mask. So every time a protester buys a Guy Fawkes mask, the Time-Warner media conglomerate collects the licensing fee.

===========

A couple stories try to pinpoint exactly who's wearing the masks.

One, by John Blackstone of CBS News in Oakland, Calif., traces them to a shadowy group it calls the "Black Bloc" ... he writes:
"For years, these black-clad demonstrators, known as the Black Bloc, have been showing up at marches in Europe and the U.S. Although often small in numbers, by destroying property and challenging police, they can hijack the message of otherwise peaceful protests." For what it's worth, Blackstone's is the only story I've seen that mentions a "Black Bloc." It makes me wonder if some of the protesters in Oakland were having a little fun with a gullible reporter.

The best article I've seen so far is by Michael Greenberg in the Nov. 10 New York Review of Books. Headlined "In Zuccotti Park," it is based on solid reporting. And it tells how the movement got started, among other things. Greenberg noticed the masks, and here's what he says about them:

In mid-July, a senior editor at Adbusters, Micah White, floated an e-mail to subscribers with the idea that they “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” As a result, a group of about one hundred people began meeting regularly in Tompkins Square Park to plan the protest, creating the NYC General Assembly, a bold and difficult experiment in direct democracy that has become the ever-expanding decision-making body of Occupy Wall Street. At some point during the summer, the loose collection of hackers known as Anonymous joined the protest. The members of Anonymous are identifiable by the Guy Fawkes masks they wear, and they are known for, among other things, their “denial of service” attacks that involve saturating target websites such as those of banks and credit card payment centers with so many requests that they overload and crash.

For my money, the New York Review of Books is one of the best magazines in the business for serious long-form journalism. And I trust Greenburg's account more than anything else I've read.

But the AP story by Tamara Lush and Verena Dobnik I asked you to comment on comes in a close second.

Why?

I think it's because they're both reported by people who went to the park and talked to the people there.

COMM 150: Draft question for documented essay due after Thanksgiving

D R A F T

Documented essay (5 to 8 pages). Due the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 2 (the week after Thanksgiving). It's like a term paper in that it is documented. But it's different in that I will give you a narrow question to focus on - more like what you see on an essay test - instead of choosing your own topic. I will revise the question, but is the gist of it so you can start getting ready for the paper now.

How are social media (sometimes hyped as Internet 2.0) changing the face of American culture? Consider entertainment, politics and government. What are the ethical implications, and how can media professionals overcome them?

Here's a link to last year's essay prompt. Your topic this year is more focused, so it'll be easier to write.

----------


Here's a Nov. 4 story in the Los Angeles Times on "Bank Transfer Day" that illustrates the trend.

By Stuart Pfeifer and E. Scott Reckard of the LA Times, it was headlined "One "Facebook post becomes national movement to abandon big banks." They said:

When Kristen Christian learned that Bank of America Corp. planned to charge her a $5 monthly debit card fee, she did what many people do these days when they get mad: She ranted on Facebook.

What followed was an illustration of the power of social media.

Her Facebook post urging friends to abandon big banks unwittingly blossomed into a national campaign. More than 75,000 people have pledged to participate in "Bank Transfer Day" by moving their money from large U.S. banks to nonprofit credit unions by Saturday, Christian said. ...

Why don't you read the rest of it? It'll give you ideas for the documented essay.