Media Mindfulness

I’m attracted to the idea that civilizations are organisms that metabolize. I first came across this idea when reading a book about the history of the Anasazi, a sophisticated and complex society in the Southwestern desert region of the United States that collapsed suddenly. The book’s author suggested that the more centralized a society becomes, […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

Not to belabor the point, but sometimes adults could use a good metaphorical spanking. Watch and listen as this child speaks from the heart about state of the world to a UN panel of so-called grown-ups.

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The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has created a great classroom Internet news tool, FactcheckED. It has very practical advice for helping students detect fraud in political advertising and propaganda. Another good source for researching PR and spin is the site, PR Watch.
FactcheED provides this simple and awesome checklist for detecting […]

I was a big fan of Lost, but since moving to Europe I have not been able to watch it. ABC blocks foreign access to the free viewings available in the US. Though news of the Lost college course is being offered is old news, I found the following post interesting. Some critics still think […]

OK, so this kind of stuff gives me vertigo, but in principle I’m cosigning the self-made, self-organization concept as the paradigm of choice. I’m not enough of a physicist to contend this particular theory, but when it comes to understanding media, societies, cities and braina, these are ideas that are worth pondering.
Cosmic Log : The […]

A study that examines the monetization of relationships. Who’s your best bud now? Nike or Johnny?
Advertising Age - Digital - What’s Making ‘Friends’ With a MySpace User Worth?:
“It’s when I take the brand, put it on my profile page and then all the people would develop a deeper meaning for what Adidas stands for […]

Bill Maher, as usual, has nailed the current state of our consumption patterns versus the environment. He’s right to say that every day should be Earth Day. It’s kinda like how the supermarket has one miniscule “health food” section. It implies the rest of the store is unhealthy.
Click the link below to watch the hilarious […]

I was once on a panel with Lance Strate. He is a thoughtful, smart media ecology expert who recently wrote a provocative blog on the Virginia Tech murders. He is not the first to equate guns with cameras (Susan Sontag and Paul Virilio have each made the connection on a deep level), but I thought […]

That’s how many earths Americans need to maintain consumption habits. This video illustrates the point nicely. You can take some action here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzXRxP7jBSU

Technorati Tags: ecology, Care2

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Anastasia Goodstein of YPulse and author of Totally Wired refers to a great article in Wired about how some classrooms are getting smart about incorporating online social networks rather than resisting them. At the center of this paradigm shift is an interesting software package, Elgg. I think the idea of a DIY social network […]

One things I miss about the good ol’ days of modernity is the massive output of manifestos that artists and activists churned out to contest the prevailing ideas of their world. With names like Futurists, Surrealists, and Bauhaus, people seemed to care a lot about having clear and strong opinions. With the advent of the […]

From Showtime, the fantastic NPR radio program, This American LIfe, is now a TV show. This short clip is a beautifully poignant tale of how play acting and media soon corrupted an innocent playground. The animation is by the great comic book artist, Chris Ware.

Technorati Tags: Chris Ware, Showtime, This American LIfe

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The future aint what it used to be…
Looks like a fun book. Some chapter drafts and other interesting links are available at the link below.
Imaginary Futures:
How do we imagine the future? What does it look like?
This book is a history of the future. It shows how our contemporary understanding of the Net is shaped by […]

This important action from FreePress. If you live in the US, please read and follow-up.
Take Action: Save Small and Independent Publishers:
Postal regulators have accepted a proposal from media giant Time Warner that would stifle small and independent publishers in America. The plan unfairly burdens smaller publishers with higher postage rates while locking in special privileges […]

Click here to how this ad is deconstructed
Ever wanted to deconstruct an ad but don’t know how? The New Mexico Media Literacy Project has some sample ads with decontructions and instructions to give you a sense of the how to do it. Click here to see the gallery. You can also download my free media […]

As the horrible tragedy in Virginia unfolds, we as media watchers must immediately guard against the tendency of the pundocracy to use this as anecdotal evidence for their various causes, especially those who demonize youth. MSNBC.com has a really good article on the ten myths about school shootings. Please read it via the link below. […]

The PEW Research Center has released its latest study that correlates what people know and how they consume news media. Turns out not much has changed since the advent of 24/7 cable news, but the most interesting tidbit is that those who watch the so-called “fake news”- The Daily Show and Colbert Report- are the […]

I hope this is one Japanese trend that doesn’t catch on.
Advertising Age - Martin Lindstrom Video Reports:
TOKYO (BRANDFlash) — Kidzania, a theme park offering intense brand engagement with young children, is a new twist on branded entertainment. It charges a $30 admission fee to allow children to “work” in one of 70 different kinds of […]

Now a theory on why bee colonies are disappearing: cell phone radiation. Ironically, cell phones take their name from the honeycomb like network that relays wireless signals. This is exactly why media should not be considered in isolation of environmental issues.
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife:
The theory is […]

IGod by Ranci11
Daniel Pinchbeck has some choice words on ways to think about a new paradigm for mass media. I acknowledge that I am somewhat guilty of focusing on negative trends in media, so I think it’s always good to point a finger in the right direction. This article provides a short and succinct map […]