Category: social media

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The Magic of the Moment

A precious moment was captured with a video camera and microphone, and then shared for the world to see. There are many ways to document reality—to capture a moment in time and preserve it for others to experience. A painting, a photograph, a quote, a poem, a story; they all have their own way of capturing reality so that others can experience something similar to the experience of actually having been there. This is one of those moments that, had it not been captured, would still have been precious and significant. But the fact that it was captured at a time when the power of digital technology and social media have been fully unleashed on this global village we call home makes it precious and significant for millions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkM-SDNoI_8

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Are You Ready for Some Star Wars?

star-warsLast week’s Monday Night football game on ESPN was an excellent opportunity for Disney (parent company of ESPN) to promote its latest Star Wars movie. In case you didn’t know, Disney bought Lucas Films (creator of the Star Wars franchise) in 2012 for $4B. That acquisition was what happens, “when you wish upon a death star” according to one report.

Advertising is when one company pays another to promote its products. But if the company that wants to advertise is a media company, and it wants to promote its own products by using its own media space to do so, we call that promotions. TV networks promote specific programs to targeted demographics watching other programs. Radio stations promote themselves with their own airtime trying to build brand identity and loyalty. Even newspapers and magazines promote upcoming features or issues.

Disney using ESPN’s broadcast of NFL football to promote its upcoming film release is a no-brainer. NFL football is hugely popular…and a perfect audience for the new blockbuster. But this promotion actually worked both ways. The ESPN telecast actually saw a ratings spike as people tuned in to see the world-premiere of the latest trailer. That’s right, people tuned into the program to see the commercial! Now that’s marketing mojo. Theater servers crashed as fans rushed to pre-buy tickets for the latest installment. According to Josh Rottenberg of Tribune News, in the first hour after the half-time trailer, 1.3 million people interacted with it on Facebook and the Twitterverse lit up with some 17,000 tweets per minutes. AMC Theatres sold out more than 1,000 shows nationwide in less than 12 hours. Now THAT’s a force to be reckoned with!

You can see the buzz-generating promo on YouTube at https://youtu.be/sGbxmsDFVnE

 

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Help Us, Please, Somebody Help Us

What’s more fun than going out to a baseball game? Well, for a group of sorority sisters from Arizona State University the only thing more fun than the game was taking selfies. While the game continued in the background, the TV crew and commentators became mesmerized watching the gals enjoy their cell phones. The commentators offered their own perspective, calling for someone to “help us, please…somebody help us.” They went on to ask for an intervention, suggesting that someone go out and “collect all the phones.”

This raises serious questions about several issues:

  1. What is appropriate cell phone behavior at your local __________ (insert public venue of your choice)?
  2. Is living life through your smart phone screen a viable substitute for living life without the assistance of technology?
  3. Does the announcers’ commentary cross a line into public shaming? And if so, is that an appropriate response?
  4. Why is social media so obsessed with calling people out for what is perceived bad behavior (on the part of either the gals or the commentators)?

Here are two of the comments I read on posts about this topic:

Yeah, the announcers are correct. You are completely wrong and asinine. We have a pathetically Narcissistic, ego-manically infantile society. Selfies are the most disgusting revelation of the new century. People used to take pictures of other people, places, things… Now they just take pictures of themselves.

and

How mature of a bunch of middle aged me to mock girls for doing what girls do. They should stick to baseball comments and stop bullying people.

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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The title is a saying that is intended to capture the painful choice between two equally bad options. You may have also heard someone use the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.” Both are idioms used to describe a dilemma.

When I saw this AP (Associated Press) photo in my local newspaper a few days ago I knew that this was one of those photos. It grabbed my attention and forced me to acknowledge a painful reality. Refugees from Syria and other nations under siege by the Islamic State are trying to get to safety, and some are dying in the process. Three-year-old Aylan and his five-year-old brother Galip, along with their mother, were just three of the victims of this tragically failed bid for freedom. To see a lifeless body of a young child is never easy…but is it necessary? That’s a question for journalists and reporters…and media ethicists.restricted-refugee-boy

The decision to take the photo or to record audio/video of an event unfolding is fairly straight-forward. Unless you can do something to change the outcome, your journalistic responsibility is to shoot the photo and record the event. Once you get back to the office, away from the urgency of the situation and with the support and counsel of colleagues who are emotionally one step removed from the situation, you can make the decision whether to use some part or all of the material.

As expected the photo was widely distributed, not just by AP but by social media users: some who were shocked by the photo, others by the reality that it represented, and still others by the decision to publish the photo at all. It’s not an easy call. Those who published the photo argued that the shocking nature of the photo may serve a greater purpose. According to the BBC article linked below, the UK newspaper The Independent said it had decided to use the images on its website because “among the often glib words about the ‘ongoing migrant crisis’, it is all too easy to forget the reality of the desperate situation facing many refugees.”

This incident is not without precedent. There have been other photos that have forced us to face harsh realities and the dilemmas inherent in life-and-death moments captured on camera. In an earlier blog post I asked similar questions about photos of men who were seconds away from dying. Years and continents away, a South African photojournalist, Kevin Carter, took a Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a Sudanese child as a vulture waited for her to die. Carter later took his own life. You can read more here and here.

If you believe that these photos should not be published, then you see me as contributing to the problem. I thought about that…and decided to take the risk. I hope that you think deeply about what this picture means, and what it means for you. If we turn away and go back to our Twitter feeds, our video games, or our Netflix movies…or even back to work or whatever else we might be doing this Labor Day weekend…without asking soul-searching questions about our role in the world and how this tragedy might be averted for future Aylans or Galips, everyone loses.

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Sketch Artist Draws Criticism

brady-sketchThe courtroom artist who drew the assignment to cover Tom Brady and the deflate-gate trial came up short her first time around…and social media pounced.

Like so many things that distract us from real life, deflate-gate is the gift that keeps on giving. This time the fiasco was the questionable depiction of the Patriot’s QB as he sat in the courtroom. Sketch artists are supposed to be impressionists, but this “sketchy” rendition attracted more derision than usual.

According to an article in CNN, the twitter-sphere lit up with people piling Courtroom artist Jane Rosenberg with a more pleasant sketch of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brad. Rosenberg's sketch of Brady during his first appearance in Manhattan Federal Court broke the internet and lit up the Twitter-sphere after overwhelming reaction to Brady's glum look. (Photo By: Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images)on courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg. But just to show the world that she really can draw, Rosenberg later offered up a more careful sketch that captured the essence of the handsome and debonair defendant.

(Photo By: Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

 

One twitterer decided to “fix” Rosenberg’s ill-conceived artwork. Brady-fix

Just in case you don’t get the joke, see this.

All of this just serves to prove that the internet, and social media, can be a mean and unforgiving place for screw-ups. Thick skin comes in handy, and not just for celebrities. When they tell you that they’re laughing with you…don’t be so sure.

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Planned Parenthood’s PR Problem

You may have noticed that Planned Parenthood is in hot water. Now that a third undercover video has been released…this one featuring a PP official from Colorado discussing the selling of fetal organs…the crisis is moving from social media to front page news. But that is exactly what Planned Parenthood is trying to prevent by hiring a Public Relations firm. The firm is, according to Politico‘s website, attempting to keep media outlets from covering the story by claiming that the videos are a violation of patients’ privacy. That was the same tactic used to prevent the distribution of the Frederick Wiseman’s ground-breaking documentary Titicut Follies. That documentary was effectively banned for 24 years. Produced in 1967, the film eventually aired on PBS in 1992.

Another tactic being employed is to discredit the source of the leaked videos. According to a PR website,

Ferrero blasted the video publishers, the Center for Medical Progress, as a “well-funded group established for the purpose of damaging [PP’s] mission and services.” He said the video was heavily edited and falsely portrays the group’s participation in tissue donation programs.

This incident raises ethical questions about undercover reporting and agenda-driven journalism. Gotcha sound bites and crafty editing can be used to manipulate unsuspecting, or already convinced, audience members that this is an open and shut case. Perhaps it is…and time will tell if we can just sustain our focus and attention on the legitimate concerns.

Social media thrives on polarizing stories such as this one. With a catchy hashtag calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, i.e. #SToPP, social media will keep the debate front and center for at least a short time.

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Rewiring my brain…this could take awhile

I’m approaching the mid-point of my year-long experiment. For 2015 I’m avoiding (as much as is professionally possible) all forms of electronic mass media. No TV news, no NPR or music on the radio, no podcasts, no Facebook or Twitter (except for an occasional post to the MCCNM department’s pages). Essentially I’m allowing myself print media. I resubscribed to the Pueblo Chieftain (newsprint edition) and have been reading a lot of books. (So far over 30, about 10,000 pages!) I continue to use email, course management software for classes, and I post content to various websites (this blog, YouTube, etc). I cannot turn off the switch entirely without taking a sabbatical from work.

I’m sure some of you may be wondering whether this constitutes professional malpractice for someone who is a professor in a Mass Communication department. Unplugging, while demanding that my students pay close attention to the media event or scandal du jour, may seem unfair or irresponsible. Perhaps you think that I’m just a curmudgeonly old fool, a closet Luddite, a technophobe, and a recluse. I can assure you that most (not all) of those assumptions are unfounded.

This has been, and continues to be, an experiment. It is not unique…many others have run this experiment before, and for many different reasons. And with such a small sample (n=1) you know that this qualitative experiment will have very little generalizability in the end. But it will matter to me. One way or the other I expect to learn a lot about myself, my media habits, my thinking process (with and without the constant barrage of media shrapnel), and my relationships.

Our discipline has a long history of media deprivation studies. Usually a researcher looks for a naturally occurring interruption in media services and uses the occasion to collect data on how people respond and react to the loss of service. Strikes by journalists or union workers who drive the delivery trucks, extended power outages, and natural disasters are all sources of media outages. Self-inflicted media blackouts are another matter altogether.

The reason for this experiment is to see if there has been a slow and steady decline in my thinking and my thought process as a result of my media consumption behavior over time. Reading Nicolas Carr’s prescient essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid, when it was published in 2008 initiated my concern. In the essay Carr bemoans his own ability to read deeply…and to think deeply about what he has read. For an academic, this is NOT good news. When I assigned Carr’s essay to students in my Media & Society class, they complained that it was too long…thus supporting Carr’s thesis. Can’t I have my internet, my social media, my podcasts, my news sound bites AND an intellectual capacity to contemplate the big issues? Not according to Carr.

A friend of mine who works with people with addictions tells me that it takes three years to change the mental processes that frequently drive compulsive behavior.  The big question that remains for me is whether this one year of partial withdraw will be sufficient to see a significant effect. I’ll keep you posted…just not on Twitter or Facebook!

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Couch Potato Dumplings

Question: What do you call someone who binge watches TV shows about binge eating? Answer: Someone who needs to get a life. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but seriously! Apparently the new hit YouTube TV genre in South Korea involves watching people eat.

Mukbang performance artists eat in front of their webcams for live audiences who apparently get a voyeuristic thrill out of the experience. “Rachel Ahn, who goes by ‘Aebong-ee’ on her broadcasts, is kind of a big deal in the mukbang world.” For three hours a night she eats for an audience, and the audience rewards her with virtual prizes that combined amount to a salary greater than her day job.

You can read/listen here on the NPR website.

Sadly, the fact that their neighbor to the north has perennial problems with mass starvation may be lost on these seekers of fame, and their followers.

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Are we all ADD now?

Black and Blue, or While and Gold? It’s the question that appears to have captivated the ever-so-brief attention span of the online world. The more philosophical are asking again the age-old questions; what is the nature of reality and perception?…and, can we ever know for certain what we think we know? Yes I’m talking about #TheDress. And if you haven’t been paying attention, suffice it to say that the “twitterverse” has been embroiled in a heated debate about the real color of a dress that was worn to a wedding in Ireland. Here’s just one of the many tweets having a bit of fun with the whole thing.dress

Well, that was before the llamas got loose in Arizona…which was just briefly before Leonard Nimoy passed away. We are an easily distracted lot, humanity. One might argue that we need a distraction every now and then to give us relief from the pressure and demands of real life.

But seriously, is this what we’ve come to expect from our media? Was there nothing important going on in the world at the end of last week? Oh yeah, there was. “Jihadi John” was  identified as a college grad from West London; Net neutrality was adopted by the FCC (thanks, perhaps, to John Oliver); and a Russian politician, and foe of Putin, was executed on a city street.

But perhaps there is an explanation. According to this article by Mel Robbins at CNN, “the emotions that make a story go ‘viral’ are not fear and anger — they are awe, laughter and amusement.” Well, there you go. I feel just a little better now about #TheDress and #LlamaDrama.

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Uber’s Image Problem

UberPerhaps you’ve heard of Uber, the smartphone-enabled ride-sharing alternative to traditional taxis. Uber, along with Lyft and Sidecar, work on the premise that a person with a car can offer a service to someone who need a ride, and make a few bucks in the process for both the driver and the company. Now that most everyone has a smartphone–and with real-time location services knowing your every move–connecting drivers and riders is really pretty simple.

But Uber, like the other start-ups, has a few natural enemies. Taxi cab companies don’t like having their business syphoned off by competitors who are not licensed and have little to no overhead.

But it is Uber’s CEO and a senior VP who may become the company’s greatest liability. CEO Travis Kalanick, whose aggressive leadership has been credited with the quick rise of the company, has ruffled more than a few feathers with his aggressive business practices. Uber has been accused of violating its own privacy policy and tracking users for suspect reasons. (You can read more about that on the ACLU blog.) And recently, Uber VP Emil Michael has suggested that Uber should investigate journalists who have been investigating Uber.

Specifically Michael targeted Sarah Lacy, co-editor of the Pando Daily website. Lacy has been critical of Uber’s treatment of women and has been leading the call for Uber to clean up its act. And for that, according to The Tech Bulletin, “A top executive of Uber explained a Nixonian plan to dig up dirt on the journalists who are critical towards Uber and sully their reputations.”

One doesn’t have to be a PR pro to see that this is not a smart move by Uber. Picking a fight with journalists is seldom a good idea. As Bill Greener, press aide to Gerald Ford and Donald Rumsfeld in the 1970’s once said, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel” (Lewis).

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