"It's tiring (and insulting) to watch video after video of fully-clad men sing, while naked and semi-naked ornamental women gyrate sexily around them. Like decorations. Like baubles. Like the tinsel on a tree..."

"Earlier this week, at the biggest video game conference of the year - the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) - Microsoft unveiled a number of new games for their Xbox One video game console. After the presentation, Anita Sarkeesian, of Feminist Frequency, correctly observed that none of the games featured had a female protagonist."

"The idea that you can't buy happiness has been exposed as a myth, over and over. Richer countries are happier than poor countries. Richer people within richer countries are happier, too. The evidence is unequivocal: Money makes you happy. You just have to know what to do with it. So what should you do with it? Stop buying so much stuff, renowned psychologist Daniel Gilbert told me in an interview a few years ago, and try to spend more money on experiences"

"This video educast provides a brief sampling of resources in PBS LearningMedia that can support the enhancement of students' media lit skills in three ways- Analyzing Media Evaluating Websites Exploring Different Types of Media"

infographic on media consolidation

"To get a closer look at the cohort coming up behind the millennials, CJR in March asked the students in Esther Wojcicki's classes at California's Palo Alto High School how they view the news ecosystem.  As ninth grader Jamie Har put it: "By the time I hear the news, the story has already passed through several people. I cannot know whether the information is completely accurate or how much opinion is in what I hear. Most of the time, the news does not interest me enough for me to go look up more about it." Sounds like a normal teenager, right? All their essays are linked below."

"While we can all agree that desperate poverty is hideous, there is a broadly held view that after a certain level of income (around $75,000, say), more money doesn't buy more well-being. But it's just not so. Economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers have been arguing for years that, yes, richer families tend to be happier, and no, there is not an automatic cut-off point. In other words: Mo money, fewer problems. "

"Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, critically evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms. It is similar to information literacy and involves many components of technology literacy as well. "

"Marketing increasingly plays to consumers' insecurities by perpetuating the myth that we can -- and should -- drink without gaining weight. At the same time, researchers have noted a disturbing trend, especially among college students, that combines the worst of drinking and dieting. They call it "drunkorexia," which is colloquial for skipping meals or exercising heavily to "save" or burn calories, making room for drinking at night. After decades of marketing alcohol by objectifying and mistreating women, the adult beverage world has suddenly discovered female consumers.  "There's no question that the alcohol industry is presenting their goods to women as though they're diet products," he said. "Because that's what sells."

"Douglas Rushkoff, who spends his days thinking, writing and teaching about media culture, says it's time for people to stop chasing every ping and start using technology in a way that makes us feel more free. Rushkoff's latest work is called Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. He joined NPR's Audie Cornish to talk about the book."

"If we can learn about the ancient Romans by studying their drinking songs, surely we can learn about ourselves by studying our TV shows"

"This past Sunday in Steubenville, Ohio, high school football stars Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond were convicted of raping an intoxicated and barely conscious 16-year-old girl. Author and cultural critic Jackson Katz talked about the implications of the case in this wide-ranging two-part interview with Media Education Foundation (MEF) Production Director Jeremy Earp."

"If you make these errors, you're likely to be judged harshly by an editor you want to publish your work; an executive who, you hope, will be impressed enough by your cover letter to hire you; or a reader you want to be persuaded by your argument. In each case, there's a pretty easy workaround, so better safe than sorry. "

" am energized by the idea of creating a framework for learning that weaves my students' interests with the desire to push their thinking around media literacy.  The course began with setting essential questions that would guide our inquiry throughout the semester.  The following questions captures the lines of inquiry students were interested in taking on at the beginning of the course: How does Media affect culture and society? What problems do we see with representation of race, class, gender and sexuality in Media? How do we critically examine popular culture and push back against the biased representation of race, class, gender and sexuality in popular culture?"

"In a 2011 op-ed about media literacy I posited the following questions: "Are you illiterate if you don't know how to interpret a tweet? If you can't tell the difference between fact and fiction on Twitter, does that mean you are lacking media literacy skills?" If you can't make a determination of truth about the content in your Twitter and Facebook feed, or if you can't figure out which sources are trustworthy in a set of Google search results, then all that information is doing you a disservice. As our technology evolves, and our streams become even more packed with tweets, articles, videos, pictures and posts, the concept of media literacy evolves with it."

"Dove is continuing its decade-long "Real Beauty" campaign with a Photoshop action that seeks to un-airbrush unrealistic images of models. The Photoshop action - a downloadable file that applies an action with a single click - is aimed at art directors who may be creating such ads. The action, which was disseminated on Reddit and other places where Dove thought such art directors might visit, promised to add a skin glow effect, but actually reverted the image to its original state."

"Because most of the time, we don't need somebody else to debunk these stories for us -- not if we know what to look for. For instance, it should always raise red flags if ..."

"e are an army of zombies. Instead of brains and human flesh, we devour strategically placed merchandise and affordably priced products manufactured in China. I quickly drain my plastic cards and my soul, returning home with my bounty of shopping bags. "

"Here's a tool for vetting news and information in the digital age. The "SMELL" test won't make you foolproof, but it can help you become a savvy information detective. Apply it to any content purporting to be factual from any source -- face-to-face, to Facebook, to Fox, the New York Times, and online "to infinity and beyond." On some major issues, fact-checking websites will sniff out bias for you, e.g., Factcheck, Politifact, and Snopes. But most of the time, you're on your own."