Narrative and Music Video

Every once and awhile I post a blog because the data it contains might be useful later.  Here's a traditional narrative analysis, a la Todorov, using a Lady GaGa music video.
http://jsilverlake.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/researching-the-narritive-ways-of-todorov-and-propp/

COMM 203 This is a Test

1. Get your reader's attention
2. State your thesis, organizing idea, or main point of the blog
3. Substantiate your idea
4.Be sure to use multimedia and embed pictures, sounds and movies
5. Leave a lasting impression

TV as Tele-Vision

My first meditation of the year.  Here is a great example of what TV can do.  TV can allow people to tell their stories. This is a tele-vision, a vision of something broadcast over a distance, thus, a shrinking of that distance.  These stories make a difference.  When we look at world disasters, natural or man-made, we find that assistance (at least mass assistance) is given to those people and places from which we see compelling stories.  The stories, and the images, compel us to action:  Or do they?  When we see disaster after disaster, do we become numb, do we feel overloaded, overwhelmed? Worse, has TV become such a "merely" entertainment matter that it's an entertainment only venue (the TV is, I like to say, and I think I do so in the words of Tania Modleski, that TV is really a domestic appliance, and thus not much like cinema at all).  If so, can we find it in us to select a mission (even one phenomenon, such as the abuse of women in Afganistan) for us to do something about?  Our model of media criticism, at it's most simple, is observe, analyze and act.  What will you do?

Exam Week

So. What do I do to refresh between exams. Well Gabrielle turned me on to this toon. Any facy writeup will have to wait, but do enjoy if you have not seen this.

Your facebook, your career

Well, people say this all the time:  "be careful what you put on social media because it can come back to haunt you." Do we listen?  Depends.

For now, let's put some numbers behind this proposition

A Semiotics of the News

Warning: Video contains profanity


If John Stewart and Stephen Colbert viewers actually are politically sophisticated--as a Pew research report indicates, then  perhaps we should teach news production using comedy as well.  Hmmm.  That might be a bad idea considering that I'm not actually funny.  However, Charlie Brooker is:

3D TV

"I want my 3D TV!"  


Why isn't this the battle cry for a new era in home entertainment?  After all, a similar cry brought M(usic) TV into our homes in the early 80's.  


Ogg's article makes a valid point.  A gimmick is merely a gimmick: We just bought new plasma and LCD TV's.  I still have not invested in BlueRay because I don't want to repurchase my DVD collection (and I know I will, unless the threat of divorce is real...and it may be).  While waiting for the whole shebang to be iTunes, Amazon and Netflix (not a bad bet), thus getting rid of the physical thing in favor of code, I do want to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in 3D--just for the fun of it.


However, Ogg's right: We need more.  Just as surround sound is underused for content (I read a dissertation that suggested the multiple personalities in Fight Club were rendered opaque throughout the film if one paid attention to the surround sound (how cool is that?), so too is 3D.  I want to see plot points revealed in the depth-layer of the 3D experience.  At the same time, polarized 3D is really great, much better than red-blue.  It's a good thing when done right (watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl...no really).  




If people, like myself, cannot afford to buy new surround systems or televisions with every technological development (imagine, I only have 5.1, DVD, and plamsa..so yesterday), the technology may die a premature death in accordance with the theory of diffusion of new technologies.  


 I [do] want my 3D TV." I just can't buy a N(ew) TV.