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This is a site that is used by students enrolled in the University of Denver course, MFJS 2210: Introduction to Media & Culture, taught by Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark. Students in this class write brief reflection papers on readings and class experiences. They also produce video essays, entries for Wikipedia, and other fun and sometimes challenging things. To view some of the video essays students have produced on the role of media in society, scroll down or select the tag “videss” from the menu on the right. To view the course schedule and details regarding assignments, please see “MFJS 2210 course schedule & assignments” which is on the top of the page.
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Li & Di on news in China & the U.S.
Welcome!
This is the site for the course, Intro to Media & Culture. Please register for this website if you’re in this class. Be sure that when you post, you post to the Media & Culture website, NOT to the website that you’ll create as your own blog (e.g., there will be two blogs listed under the “blogs” menu: the one for the class and your personal blog).
Check out the syllabus under “About MFJS 2210!”
this is the first sentence, and I think Read more…
Lynn’s media diary
Wed:
9 – 12 phoned friend; texted SO (signif other); worked on class blog (unsuccessfully)
12 – 5 worked on setting up class blog & blackboard using laptop; emailed students; emailed grad committee
5 – 7 phoned SO; texted friend
7-1 read textbook, made notes on laptop, wrote ppt slides; got onto class blog & wrote comments on entries; used google images to research photos for ppt slides; looked at videos on YouTube for class
Thurs:
Overall reflection: mostly work-related; personal communication secondary; entertainment third. I would guess my uses of comm media are quite different from those of most people. My uses this day are also quite different than my uses were a week ago, however. Then, I was on vacation and doing a lot more interpersonal communicating to make arrangements and also doing more entertainment consumption than working. Even on vacation, the communication technologies enabled me to do work-related tasks like reply to student emails, finish writing articles, and look at possible video resources to show in class. I do not know what I would do without my cell phone or laptop.
From Auna – blog #1
The Intangible Asset: Hollywood
While the world is running to our movie stars, they’re running away from our financial systems. What gives?
“Inside Job” narrated by Matt Damon was a film I saw several weeks ago at an Arts theatre on Broadway. I found it surprising that Matt Damon would take the time and energy to create and produce a documentary, abundant with facts and interviews exposing the Wall Street crash in 2008 and its global implications, but more so a documentary with such a political bias.
He marketed the film on the Internet and through interviews by claiming it as a “historical documentary” which truly broadcasts the global financial crisis… But never infers there is an obvious political agenda woven throughout the film’s seemingly benign credentials. The first scene is a beautiful landscape of Iceland, where simplicity equates to happiness and those who habituate the small country take pride in the culture and work ethic. Then, the capitalistic conglomerate banks appear on the scene and financial chaos ignites. But before the rabid bankers hungry for unrealistic returns, the audience sees how the banks literally manipulate academics into supporting these false reporting systems.
While their still remains arguments in Washington on how to approach large financial institutions, there is no doubt in any international mind that bankers took total advantage of the flexibility the free market system has embraced. That said, many believe that the debt DC has undertaken, and endorsed, whereas a happy-lending China can easily buy has thrown us into a spiral far more injurious than the economic collapse.
What Damon disregards in the documentary targeting and exploiting Wall Street is that the same argument could be turned around on Hollywood. He blames the loopholes, the middle class for buying into what Wall Street is selling, and the result? Job losses across the globe, utter chaos and some would say anarchy. Albeit the circumstances, which are transparent and easily calculated, Damon doesn’t dare look in the mirror at his own paycheck, or the “art” that this free market, first amendment country has provided to him and his fellow filmmakers. There is a convergence of government rights… the right to make films, the right to produce media.
So while Hollywood is capitalizing on the Adam Smith ideology that has shown proven failure in the banking world, the rest of the world is waiting to see the returns of many decades of bullets, cursing and sex…. Drama. Scientists at the same universities (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia) Damon condemns argue that his work in Hollywood has indeed exploited the minds of innocent civilians, suggesting through media something that the American dream is not.
Americans have bought into the Simpsons and US weekly, the reality shows and trash television that takes up hours and hours of time… Indian, China, Africa, South America… many nations which are fighting us for international market share, not only in exports, but pure intellectual property aren’t wasting their time eliciting in a fantasy land. Matt Damon makes $20 million a movie, if not more…. While by and large creating things that are in no way feasible? He fights for the second amendment to be removed, but readily uses guns in his action packed movies. Who are the predators? Which is worse, selling a house to someone who can’t afford it? Or influencing the minds of young children? Why bother pouring money into the education system, when Hollywood has already figured out how to capture the attention of American’s future generations.
While sure Damon donates a large percentage to charities, he still reaps those tax deductions… is he really someone who can jump up on a pedestal and tell America where NOT to put their money, but more importantly… their minds.
Love & Other Drugs
by Amanda Erdan
Listen, I’m not one for chick flicks. Honest. I don’t get googly-eyed over actors that People Magazine declares as being “most beautiful,” nor do I fall prey to sappy storylines. I swear. And so, it pains me to admit that I saw the film Love and Other Drugs over the break. It’s a dramedy about a pharmaceutical salesman who falls for a girl with early-onset Parkinson’s disease. Despite being comedic at times, it definitely pulled at the heart strings. (Kleenex recommended.) So, although I still maintain that I am anti-chick flicks, I will admit that this particular film is an exception.
Nevertheless, Love and Other Drugs exhibits the three main types of convergence: technological, economic, and cultural convergence. Technical convergence is demonstrated through the merging of various forms of media. For instance, the film is based on a book entitled Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. Additionally, the film’s soundtrack played a large role in not only the telling of the story, but also in eliciting powerful emotional reactions from the audience. The fusion of print, audio, and video mediums, make this film a prime example of technical convergence.
Second, economic convergence is demonstrated in Love and Other Drugs through the production aspect of it. For example, the film was produced by a number of studios such as, Regency Enterprises, New Regency, Stuber Pictures, and Bedford Falls. However, Regency Enterprises is the chief studio. In addition, the film was distributed by 20th Century Fox which has a television subdivision, Fox Television Studios. Love and Other Drugs is a joint venture between Regency Enterprises and Fox Television Studios.
Finally, this film demonstrates cultural convergence in that the story’s main theme is one that many people across all races, sexes, and cultures can relate to: love. Being that the film is about relationships, struggles, and hardships—things everyone encounters at some point in their lives—Love and Other Drugs gives people from various cultures and backgrounds something to identify with…at least it did for me.
A Christmas Story
Ralphie visits Santa in A Christmas Story
Although I never owned a Red Rider BB gun and grew up in the 1970s rather than the 1940s, this film speaks to youthful Christmas joys and challenges like no other, and my family watches this classic every holiday season.
The film is an example of economic convergence because although it was produced by MGM/UA Entertainment, Turner Entertainment acquired the rights to the film when Turner bought all of the rights to MGM/UA’s pre-1986 films. With film costs of $4 million and a gross close to $20 million, the film was a moderate success initially. It has since gone on to become a classic, at least in part due to television airings on Turner’s Superstation TBS, TNT, and TCM. The film gained such popularity that TBS began airing a 24-hour Christmas Story marathon on Christmas eve day in 1997, in addition to airing it periodically throughout December. TBS reported 45.4 million viewers in 2005. Turner Entertainment became part of Time Warner when Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. merged with Time Warner in 1996.
The film is also an example of technological convergence as it has found expression across a variety of media. The scriptwriter was Jean Shepherd, who gained fame as a radio personality on WOR-AM in New York in the 1950s, telling stories of his youth. The script for A Christmas Story was based on several semi-autobiographical essays Shepherd had written about “Ralphie,” several of which had been published as well as presented in dramatic radio form, and some of which were in his novel, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. Shepherd also provided the audio narration for the film. Since 2000, an authorized stage play adaptation has been widely produced in the Christmas holiday season.
The film is also an example of cultural convergence. It’s considered a classic film about a time in U.S. history, and companies such as Marriott have capitalized on its location in Hammond, Indiana by offering “A Christmas Story” packages to overseas tourists that include a visit to the A Christmas Story Comes Home exhibit at the Indiana Welcome Center “located right next door to the hotel.” On New Year’s eve this year, my family had to stop the car to see a brightly lit reproduction of the leg lamp in the window of a house in Buffalo, New York. Now I want to check the going rate for the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window to complete my cultural experience of A Christmas Story.
Media&Culture 