HCRHS Media Lit

""I see the project as both colonialist and deceptive," Ethan Zuckerman, the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, told me. "It tries to solve a problem it doesn't understand, but it doesn't need to understand the problem because it already knows the solution. The solution conveniently helps lock in Facebook as the dominant platform for the future at a moment when growth in developed markets is slowing." Before we go any further, let's unpack the two discordant narratives that underscore this debate."

"That won't be an easy task in today's digitally saturated world in which the likes of BuzzFeed and Vice have snatched up the audience that 20 years ago would have turned to MTV.  "MTV is a brand that's all about young voices, creators and a specific point of view, and it comes from this great heritage of music," said MTV president Sean Atkins. "And that's really what we're pushing the organization back to." Fierman sees a path for MTV News to reinsert itself into the pop-culture conversation. Just as MTV broke out in the early '80s, it involves swimming against the current. "They're all doing the exact same thing," said Fierman of his competitors."

"Movie producer Ross Putman reads scripts for a living. He sees countless female characters introduced in over-the-top, absurd ways that usually focus only on the character's body type, age and sexual attractiveness. So Putman decided to keep track of these female character introductions by creating a Twitter account called @femscriptintros. Each tweet highlights the ridiculous (and sometimes rather depressing) ways women are being described in screenplays."

"At their most noble, journalists act as a "watchdog on power," she says. But even when they fall short, Lindgren says her research shows it's important that they just watch. "The very presence of local media watching, research seems to suggest, acts as a check on political shenanigans," she says. If a community doesn't have a local newspaper or station, it usually means little to no coverage of things such as council meetings. Even if you don't agree with how a debate is covered, Lindgren says there's great value in the mere fact it is covered."

"In its fourth year, the #NotBuyingIt / #MediaWeLike hashtags reached nearly 60 million igniting a global conversation calling for better representation for all."

"Citing her Black Panther-inspired costumes, Malcolm X references, and Black Lives Matter messages, Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney snarked, "Is there really anything in America which can exclude race?" But Daily Show M.V.P. Jessica Williams is here to set Varney, Rudy Giuliani, and other Beyoncé critics straight. "

"Consider the possibilities! "What if we did for buying mortgages," the voiceover asks over guitar riffs, "what the Internet did for buying music and plane tickets and shoes?" There are so, so many problems with this concept, the first of which is that lack of an app isn't what's keeping 36 percent of American households from owning a home. The bigger obstacles tend to be thorny things like poor credit, the high cost of housing, steep down payments, lender discrimination, multi-generational inequality."

Beyoncé has the right-wing commentariat gasping because she performed her new song "Formation" during the Super Bowl halftime show. The song is about, among other things, the way the mostly black victims of Hurricane Katrina were and still are ill served, to put it mildly. Its accompanying video mourns the black victims of undue police violence. And it includes other references to white racism in American history. (And, yes, Beyoncé and her backup dancers raised their fists in the air during their Super Bowl performance - imagine that!) Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who cannot seem to grasp the idea of gone and forgotten, offered, as he often does, the most ridiculous take on the issue."

"New York's former mayor is not pleased with the Queen B. Rudy Giuliani, a onetime Republican presidential contender, rebuked Beyoncé on Monday for what he described as an "attack" on police officers during her Super Bowl halftime show performance."

"The National Football League bans players from officially endorsing alcohol brands. But Anheuser-Busch InBev spokesperson Lisa Weser said Sunday night the Belgian-based beer empire didn't pay Peyton to keep mentioning its brew, adding, "We were surprised and delighted that he did." But Manning's shilling was still business: He owns a stake of two of the mega-brewer's distributors in his native state of Louisiana, according to trade publication Beer Business Daily."

What do the Super Bowl Ads tells us about American society and culture? An essay that looks at how media reflects society.

"Business Insider tells us that the average pricetag for a 30-second spot during Super Bowl 50 has risen 11% from last year's highest price and is now a cool $5 million. In fact, last-minute slots could have gone for as high as $6 million." The video of each ad with a short printed introduction appears on the page in the order in which they appeared during the game.

"The searches we make, the news we read, the dates we go on, the advertisements we see, the products we buy and the music we listen to. The stock market. The surveillance society. The police state, and the drones. All guided by a force we never see and few understand. A series of calculation procedures that come together to constitute capitalism's secret ingredient - the all holy algorithm, that which binds and optimizes. Those strange numerical gods who decide whether or not you're a terrorist and what kids' toy is going to set the market on fire this Christmas. But what are they, where did they come from and how did they get so powerful?"

"The Denver Broncos endured a lot to make it to the Big Game, but it was nothing compared to the ridiculous process of making a commercial."

"A half hour special from In the Mix, the award winning PBS series"

"pivot has teamed up with TakePart and many of our non-profit alliances to connect its television programming with social action. Below you'll find actions inspired by shows you can watch on pivot, including hits like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, new original series like HITRECORD ON TV, and films like Lincoln. To find actions for a specific show or movie, use the drop down menu on the left, or just browse all actions below."

"NLP's digital unit offers an introduction to news literacy through a series of computer-based trainings. The unit includes multiple-choice, fill-in and short-..."