Phoned-In-Focus: Parental Assumptions of Kids' Attention Deficit Lampooned by Louie

We hear a lot of concern about how folks focus too much on their phones and not enough on the people and events right in front of them in real life, but we seldom balance that annoyance with recognition of how our everywhere access to digital media may enhance our real life experience.

"How do you appreciate a thing and google it at the same time? 
That's no way to live a life."

The clip below, from a recent episode of Louie, pokes fun at our kneejerk negativity, subverting common parental assumptions about their kids' mobile media use. As I'll discuss below, the clip makes a great bait and switch discussion piece for exploding assumptions and exploring the important media literacy questions: Does our cell phone use create attention deficit or enhancement? Do our mobile media disorder or enrich our experience?

[After the jump, ideas for leading discussion of the clip, and for writing a comic scene subverting generational expectations about media use]

ML4ML Joke of the Week: "C'mon, Shakespeare. You can make a better shark!"

My sister-in-law cracked me up inadvertently with this one-liner, which made me realize just how much knowledge of pop culture is at the ready in my head enabling me to laugh at the mixed up references in the joke. 

We were talking about summer blockbuster movies, and she expressed worry over the realism of special effects in Jurassic Park: "It's like c'mon, Shakespeare, you can make a better shark!" I burst out laughing, as did the others in the room. Turns out, she meant to say "Spielberg" (the director of the first Jurassic Park movie), instead of "Shakespeare" (the Elizabethan English writer with the frilly collar and the "To be or not to be" and whatnot), and she meant "dinosaur," the scary creatures from the distant past brought to life in Jurassic Park, instead of "shark" (the scary creature terrorizing swimmers in Jaws). The interesting part, for somebody who thinks about media literacy all the time (me), is that we all instantly knew what she meant to say through the context of our conversation (a new Jurassic Park movie is just coming out this summer) and recognized the errors as humorously related to her intentions. To get the joke, we had to know Spielberg directed Jurassic Park and Jaws. We had to know that each film starred scary, realistic creatures--dinosaurs and sharks respectively. And, we had to know Shakespeare as the emblem of high culture entertainment and art through wordcraft in plays, in contrast to our knowledge of Spielberg's fame for visual entertainment blockbuster flicks of fear and adventure. But we didn't just have to know it, we had to know it instantly, or as humor researchers say, we had to know it for "Just-in-Time" psychological processing (for more, see Hurley, Dennet, & Adams), so that we could recognize, and laugh at, the mix up. It boggles my mind how much pop culture knowledge we must carry around, ready for access at all times. It's an important thing to sensitize teachers and learners to when we begin to teach about popular culture and about how to think critically about its role in our lives. So, why not challenge your group of learners to notice how much pop culture knowledge they must activate "Just-in-time" to get a joke or to laugh at something funny. You could start by relating your own story, or this story--see if anyone laughs or gets what might be funny about it, and congratulate the others who don't have a clue for investing their precious brain power in other cultural resources! Make it a contest to see who can notice the funniest moment involving the most pop culture references (rate the former by vote, and the latter by number of things you have to know from pop culture). The exercise could lead from an appreciation of the extent of what we know, to an exploration of what we should do about and with it...

C'mon Shakespeare, you can make a better shark!

Love or Loathe Loose Ties? Laugh and Learn about Social Media Norms with Garfunkel and Oates

If you connect ML4ML with all your facebook friends, we promise to always wish you a happy birthday with lots of exclamation points, clever punctuation, and emojis, when prompted by an alert message, unless we forget or have something else to do--which you will be totally okay with because we don't really know each other anyway, we just like some of the same things, maybe. Yeah, emerging online behavior norms and interpersonal ethics are pretty tricky. If we are going to have any hope of sorting out the emotional confusion between our close friends and myriad acquaintances that our social media apps refer to as our "friends," we need to activate our digital media literacies. With help from musical parody act, Garfunkel and Oates, let's see how laughing with their song "Happy Birthday to My Loose Acquaintance" can help us consider some key questions about emerging interpersonal ethics.

"We coexist in a mutually unstated /unattached cohesion that facebook created...
to keep our minor affinity with minimal maintenance"

This song has a couple of brilliant moments, like the lyrics in the caption above, that offer tight definitions of what Internet scholars call "loose ties," connections to people that only exist through shared interests or other mutual acquaintances, often supported or created by digital algorithms in social networking apps and maintained with minimal attention and effort. This post offers resources for using the Garfunkel & Oates song to explore the value of loose tie relationships in social media, and how they affect our behavior, beliefs and attitudes towards friendship. First, enjoy a hot minute of crack-up from G&O:

Above is my Vialogues post with the embedded video featuring my annotated discussion questions and comments, and here is a link to a pdf of those notes. I have also uploaded the lyrics text, and my annotated questions/comments to Genius (embedded below), the awesome annotation app that I highly recommend (there is a way to get a free educator account to restrict the annotation/ discussion to your group's work, but my post is public). So, you can 1) focus on the lyrics conversation through Genius if that works best for your group, 2) start a group Vialogue of your own (or add to mine); or 3) do the group analysis analog, without tech, using the annotated printout pdf to support discussion for a group viewing or listening session. I also did a Vialogue post of just the lyrics, and here is a link to a pdf of the lyrics.

Read “Happy Birthday to My Loose Acquaintence” by Garfunkel & Oates on Genius

Once you've had a good discussion of this song, it can make for a nice model of how parody can be constructive (and instructive). Making funny songs is actually really hard (I'll reflect on my own experience in a musical comedy writing workshop in an upcoming post), but young media makers often strive to make their peers laugh through mocking familiar behaviors in the style of pop culture media they enjoy. It's hard to fine good models of doing parody to spark constructive discussion--so, this sort of video/song and discussion provide an opportunity to link analysis to learner's own production interests. Look for a post soon about some strategies for making musical comedy.

Often the best question to ask is the simplest; so, I recommend asking: Why is it funny? Ask for any given joke, like the line "Happy birthday dear person who I sort of know." The typical response is that it’s funny cuz it’s true. But that’s pretty weak. Push for better articulation. For this song, I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s funny because it seems like a contradiction ["dear person” instead of friend, who I “sort of know”] that many of us use without thinking about it. This makes us conscious of our error, and the inconsistency is funny (partly because it’s safe too, since so many people do it, we’re not feeling like the outcast or feeling like we’re cruelly singling others out). It’s nice to know we are wired to get pleasure from finding out our own mistakes and foibles.

Soundtracking Senator McConnell: Mobilizing Remix in Politics

Last night, Jon Stewart invited Daily Show viewers to join in the fun of setting a two and a half minute wordless campaign ad from Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to music. As a moderate liberal democrat incensed by McConnells socially conservative republican leadership, Stewart regularly mocks McConnell on the show, often simply for his diction and appearance, which Stewart apes in the character of Cecil the Turtle from Looney Tunes.

Click the pic to see Stewart's call for remixing McConnell's campaign ad.

Aside from the obvious juvenile derision of a political adversary, Stewart's bit poses as pure Internet silliness--fun with remix culture. He shows the same few seconds of the ad with several different songs, showing how the music can change the message in myriad humorous ways. This suggests a fun and fruitful media literacy exercise lesson for any age group (hint: you don't have to use McConnell!). I'll offer some specific ideas and reflections on my experience doing similar remix activities with students (and Girl Scouts!) to develop media literacy after the jump. However, partisan political attacks aside, this Daily Show clip is more than just a call to mockery; buried in the lead is an important lesson on remix and convergence culture in politics. Stewart points out that McConnell most likely posted this 2m30s wordless ad in order to facilitate Super Pacs (political action committees) using and remixing the images in their own ads to support his campaign. Super PACs can collect and spend unlimited funds on political ads without disclosing sources of the money (as candidates must for donations over a certain amount), provided there is no collusion or communication between the politician and the Super PAC [Colbert did an absolutely hilarious series of segments exploiting and exposing how Super PACs work--a brilliant teaching resource on the topic]. Ask: How does McConnell's alleged strategy work? How does he intend to benefit? How do voters lose out in the process? So, McConnell offers these images to the public, affording him some direct control over his public image portrayed in remixed ads by the Super PACs supporting him without directly communicating with them.
[After the jump: More on this, w/ the Daily Show clip and ideas for soundtracking lessons for media literacy]

Limitations of the Medium: The Gettysburg Address Powerpoint

As I prepare for a few speaking engagements at academic conferences next weekend, I am keeping in mind lessons learned about what powerpoint presentations giveth, and what they taketh away from effective communication by sharing this classic by Peter Norvig--The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.

Exploring various media in terms of their affordances and limitations is a classic approach to semiotics, and I wish all presenters considered how this powerpoint totally decimates the power of Lincoln's speech while still abiding by many principles for presenting clear information. It's a great piece to discuss with students before they design presentations, particularly in public speaking classes. What does the speech communicate that visuals do not? What makes the speech effective? Why are the visuals less effective? It also presents an opportunity for social studies students in middle school and high school to create a more effective powerpoint presentation for the speech. I'd introduce an audio recording or professional performance in a still shot on video, then show the powerpoint, and then show the clip from Ken Burns' Civil War--and ask students to shoot for something somewhere between Norvig's satire and Burns' film. Students could also go the other direction, and add all sorts of flashy visuals, video clips and preposterous image collages to create their own Gettysburg Address Powerpoint presentations that humorously show the limitations and common abuses of powerpoint features in public speech communication. Norvig has also posted a great story about the making of his powerpoint and the response he's gotten from it.

Back in 2003, Wired magazine hosted a "debate" of sorts pitting the view that "Powerpoint is Evil" from Yale Professor Edward Tufte, author of the Cognitive Style of Powerpoint monograph, against "Learning to Love Powerpoint" from new wave rock God and avant-garde artist David Byrne (front man of the Talking Heads). Tufte bemoans the use of Powerpoint in schools, arguing that the constraints of the software encourage poor visual communication. Byrne discusses how he moved from feeling limited by the software to exposing its limitations through mockery to transcending its constraints in art. Especially for college courses discussing multimodal composition, Tufte's tirade and Byrne's celebratory transcendence make for a fascinating contrast to approaching communication tools and how they shape our discourses. For any class, Byrne's art illustrates how playing with the affordances and limitations of media offers avenues for both critical commentary and self expression. DJ Alchemi posted a nice review of Byrne's powerpoint art in 2004 after arguing that the Tufte/Byrne "debate" was bogus. He also links to an NPR discussion with Byrne and some more presentation software art from DJ Spooky (using Keynote). I really like the idea of designing multimodal composition lessons starting with Tufte's critique and following Byrne's learning curve from mocking the medium in the medium as a means for learning its affordances and limitations, to transcending the rules and habits of communication imposed by the medium for artistic commentary, critique and self expression. So, there's an idea. Any takers?

And here's a bonus image for your Friday pleasure...

 I want a poster of this in my classroom.

Sikh Captain America Patrols NYC

A slight, brown-skinned man with a long beard and turban dons the costume of Captain America, takes up the star spangled shield, and hits the streets of New York City to confront racism and intolerance.

"Chill!--it's just a turban...Now let's kick some intolerant ass!"

This performance art from cartoonist/software-analyst Vishavjit Singh and photographer Fiona Aboud challenges expectations of who can represent America, patriotism, and American heroes. Their work makes a fantastic centerpiece for discussing race/ethnicity and media representation as well as how media construct heroes to represent our values--great for middle schoolers through college students. Singh posted a fine reflection at SikhNet on coming up with the idea and on his experiences as Captain America in NYC. His reflections in this Salon.com piece offer 10 poignant life lessons he gleaned from his performance. Luckily, Hari Kondabolu, comedic correspondent for W. Kamau Bell's promising FX show Totally Biased (sadly canceled in November after 2 months), documented a hilarious segment of bystanders reactions to and interactions with Singh as Captain America on the streets of New York. So, after you activate some prior knowledge about Marvel's Captain America with discussion and notes about what comes to mind when students think of the character and/or images of American heroes in general, watch this clip and take a nice long session for doing a complete media literacy analysis with all the key questions [click here for NAMLE handout of ML KQ's]. It's worth watching it again, and pausing often for interpretation and discussion questions. The guy who changes his mind about Singh's performance from "racist" to "hilarious" and "great" within the conversation is particularly striking. Singh's reflection pieces in particular make him a great model for media literacy activism for social justice. Check out the clip:

How and why is this funny? What techniques are effective in delivering Singh's message to people on the street, and to the audience for the video? The final bit in the segment with the diverse race, gender, and sexualities for the Avengers characters (to join Sikh Cap) suggests a great exercise in rewriting or remaking a comic book page--handrawn, photoshopped, or using ComicLife. Be sure to engage students in reflective discussion on their intended messages and choices for representation. You could also make a connection to the trend toward diversity in superhero comics, as discussed here by Oscar winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave, and evidenced in the new Ms. Marvel reboot, which I will discuss in a subsequent post. I'd love to hear what you and yours make of Singh's Captain America. Who would you pose as his sidekick Bucky?

Remix Food Ads to Highlight Health Effects

This hilarious satirical ad from the Onion uses the trend towards "extreme" themes in snack food and soda advertising (think Doritos and Mountain Dew) to deliver a striking message about health costs of junk food [click image to see Onion news brief article].

Onion headline: "New Snack Chip Evades Digestive System, Burrows Straight Into Heart"

The Onion article goes for laughs by posing the design of the chip to impact the heart as a good thing, which calls attention to the real negative health effects of such foods. While the Onion exaggerates the detrimental effects, inverting the typical exaggeration of positive effects, you could also have fun remixing food ads to simply tell the truth about the nutritional value of snack foods in the overhyped style of their ads. You could do this with print ads, rewriting slogans and adding images. Or, make videos of commercials for products that pitch their health costs ironically as super fun. This would make a great media literacy lesson in health and science classes for middle school or high school students. Ads could be posted in hallways or online.

Muppets Meta-Mock Instagram

How would you categorize these Muppets Instagram images?
 clockwise from top left: Swedish Chef selfie; invading Beeker's privacy; found sight gag of Gonzo; pranking Zoot with the old banana in the horn

Among my fondest early media literacy experiences was sitting in a theater watching the first Muppet Movie when the film appeared to break apart and get replaced by a scene of the muppets in a theater watching the film they had made break and complaining about the projection error. To promote the latest movie to the millennial generation, the Muppets have an Instagram site pulling the same tricks--making you laugh while seeing the construction of the stuff you enjoy. The site is a genre study of Instagram images--selfies, sight gags, photo bombs, ad remixes, celebrity shots, privacy invasions, etc. It's worth talking about for kids to explore and discover the unwritten, unspoken rules and categories that emerge, like a grammar in their social media just as in any other communications. Ask: What are the categories of images? Do you see commonly these types of pictures on Instagram sites of friends, celebrities, others? What do you notice about the production values of the images?

Playful marketing? Or, do the Muppets have "Evil Plans" to co-opt your authenticity in social media?

About half of the shots look like ads of different genres/styles with professional production; the kind of stuff a fan might forward to friends with excitement about a new release. The other half look like amateur shots, suggesting the idea that the muppets themselves took them. The attention to detail given to the amateur, "real" look of many of the images--poor framing, blurred exposures, low resolution--is quite remarkable. It's a nice clear example of mass media taking up the spontaneous aesthetics of grassroots media with calculated precision in order to sell back to the masses a familiar style. That makes this site a funny way learn about how big entertainment and marketing companies use emerging structures of communication as well as a way to examine how genres, codes and conventions structure our personal uses of social media.
[inspired by Steph Harmon at Junkee; activity ideas after the jump]

Classing up the Winter Olympics with Onion Satire

With all the TV coverage focused on national identities and the satirical news taking shots at the whiteness of competitors while sending up the anti-homosexual policies of host-nation Russia amidst all of the usual gay stereotypes associated with the winter games (see any Colbert Report or Daily Show over the past few weeks), it's easy to overlook the socio-economic issues involved in the Olympic dream. Bring class back into your class discussion of media representation and reality with this poignant headline and short article from the masters of satire at the Onion (click link to see article):

Winter Olympics Inspire Nation’s Youth To Try Sports Their Parents Can’t Afford

Who can afford to go for the gold?

Just before this article cracked me up, I watched NBC do a short piece tallying the cost of Bode Miller's skiing equipment, which they estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not like the money issue is subtle in Olympic coverage--with all the sponsors, the talk about the costs of bobsleds, etc. However, seldom do we see the equipment costs connected with the opportunities for people to compete or enjoy participating in the featured sports (and even more rare is any connection made between such class issues and nationality, or race, or gender). So, here's an easy way to start the conversation through a bit of satire about media construction of heroes, and unreachable desires--and the Onion's framing within parent-child tensions around money makes this an accessible piece for middle school through college age students in social studies, English, or media studies settings.