Media Mindfulness

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Mediacology.
Thanks for visiting. Please come and visit the new location.

This is what the book says: an infant needs to sleep so that she can grow new brain cells. And what about papa? Well, I’m getting by, joyfully, but with little time to focus on work, thus my long absence from the blog. The good news is that my daughter was born healthy and strong. […]

The New Science of Human Evolution - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com:
New research also shows that “progress” and “human evolution” are only occasional partners. More than once in human prehistory, evolution created a modern trait such as a face without jutting, apelike brows and jaws, only to let it go extinct, before trying again a few […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTyks-IRFPY

Forget Vegas, forget Disney. Meet Dubai. Nice beach-front property, just a stone’s throw from Iran and WWIII. God willing for oil economy investors, may the Straits of Hormuz remain open and sea levels even.
If the above promotional video isn’t convincing enough (yes, it’s real), read a sample of Mike Davis‘ remarkable piece on Dubai, sci-fi […]

Cartoonist Ted Rall and political commentator nails it:

Study: U.S. Media Overlooked Major Humanitarian Stories in 2006:
Last year millions of people in many countries lost their lives as a result of wars, violence, disease, and hunger, yet the major television networks in the United States did not tell their stories to the U.S. public, a new study on media coverage notes.
The staggering human […]

Happy New Year! To get things going, here’s some positive attitude about media, something you don’t hear so much these days.
TheStar.com - sciencetech - The year in Ideas:
Massaged by the medium
Metta Spencer is a peace activist and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Toronto who argues that TV and film have already […]

This news item (via BoingBoing) came at a fortuitous moment because just yesterday as I was walking past the Morgan Library in NYC I realized that fonts and architecture serve the same purpose. This “book building” created by the Turkmen government is a symbolic convergence of the two. What prompted this thought was the design […]

As media critics we tend to constantly point the finger at how bad everything is, so it’s nice to be able to also encourage good behavior. In this case, it’s NBC News, which has started a new series, “What Works.” It’s designed to exemplify and showcase programs, projects and people who are making positive changes. […]

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A great LA Times article that challenges assumptions about the youth and media consumption:
Underwhelmed by It All - Los Angeles Times:
With their vast arsenals of electronic gear, they are the most entertained generation ever. Yet the YouTubing, MySpacing, multi-tasking teens and young adults widely seen as Hollywood’s most wanted audience are feeling — can it […]

The Nation has a great special issue out on media. This was my favorite article:
Brave New Media:
A new media era is here. The head of NBC says he is selling to sponsors “on the air, online and on-the-go.” “Cross platform” is the term of the day. For progressives and independents, the old hurdles of distribution–erected […]

My colleague over at the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, Christie McAuley, wrote the following letter to Adbusters. I think it is right on, and speaks for itself. I want to qualify this as constructive criticism. I have loved Adbusters for many years but have been somewhat disenchanted with its direction. It used to […]

I guess the Marine training that equates a hard-on with a deadly weapon translates well to the optical unconsciousness. At FreeVideoBlog soldiers are posting their combat footage (and in other cases doing things as mundane as doing BMX bike tricks in the middle of a vacant desert). Some of the clips are straightforward sad, with […]

Some stories lend themselves to great headlines (”Cocaine cola a real buzz” for instance), but the demise of the Village Voice tends to not offer much humor (except in the Twainian sense of “news of my death is greatly exagerated”). I have mixed feelings. For those of you outside the Manhattan echo chamber, the Voice’s storied tradition of radical politics and culture was absorbed by a national chain of weekly urban “independents,” New Times Media based in Phoenix. The company also owns the LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly and SF Weekly among others. Many are alarmed by the firing of long-time investigative reporter, James Ridgeway. Add to the mix resignations, articles with bogus anecdotes, a shift in priorities and the international trend of media consolidation, and you get one pissed off crowd of readers. Plus New Yorkers are a tough audience to please. Go to a Yankees game and you will know what I mean.

It’s that time of year for the international holiday for freaks, TV Turnoff Week. Sponsored by Adbusters, this has become a calling card for school librarians (yes, they are feeing the pinch) and is a good time to reflect on our addiction to media. A few questions, though. What is a TV anymore? With TiVo, […]

I don’t always agree with MoveOn.org’s tactics (I don’t like their fear-mongering political ad techniques), but we should at least go and sign their petition to Congress to prevent Bush from using nukes on Iran. It may not seem like much, but it’s a start. We need critical mass.

Sphere: Related Content

So I was being snarky when I posted on a wingnut’s case to nuke the moon. As I explained in that post, crossing the “insane” threshold is a political and military strategy to make people believe you will do anything to rule the world. After all, when logic fails, why not scare the shit out […]

Who said all culture jammers are lefties? (Discuss amongst yourselves.) Here’s a T-shirt company unafraid to use our tactics against us, and I love it! Sure they are distasteful, but they are funny in the same way that “Let’s kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” is funny. But seriously folks, they are […]

Here’s the crappy thing about our culture today: I can’t tell anymore if I’m a total sucker. Is this another Yes Men prank?

The campaign is called, “nuke the moon.” Strange thing is, there is some rationality to this irrationality. The argument is that if the US as a superpower acts totally crazy, then no […]