Girl Talk

Download Girl Talk's Feed The Animals from the Illegal Art website on a pay-as-you-please basis. Enjoy the 'official' 322 samples. You can find a spreadsheet with all of them listed here. Wikipedia breaks it down song by song but there's 80 unidentified samples compared to the official list (click on the picture above for the official CD liner notes).
Bob Christgau, the "Dean of American Rock Critics", provides an inter-generational appreciation of Girl Talk on NPR here.

Herman Filter #5...

This one, unlike the last one, is for real; as much as The Colbert Report is for real, of course.
I guess you can tell the election is coming up...

Obama The Elitist

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Encore

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look"

Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
You can also find it in html format here.

Media Semiotics: Cinema

Semiotics: Introduction + Cinema Chapters from Media Semiotics by Jonathan Bignell

Also, please return to Adorno's "Culture Industry" article for this and next week's discussion.

Copy, Right?

Aoki, Boyle and Jenkins - Bound By Law?
This is the comic book on copyright. Don't be fooled by it's form: this is required reading.
You can also find it free on-line from its publisher --crazy, huh?-- Duke University and The Center for the Study of the Public Domain in a variety of formats. You can also 'remix' it and you're encouraged to translate it. It's all here.

From Technology Review (free registration might be required) read the debate around the question:

Who Should Own Ideas?

Larry Lessig - The People Own Ideas!
Epstein - The Creators Own Ideas!
And the winner is...

While you're at it, look at your 'friends' on Facebook and ask yourselves: Who Owns Your Friends...

Here's the Lessig talk we started watching in class.
(I took the embedded video out as it starts automatically and it uselessly hogs bandwidth. Actual download here.)


This was Lessig's 'last' talk on Free Culture and it has that sort of summing up about it.
You can find his original presentation in a number of different formats (powerpoint, mp3, flash presentation, transcript, pdf, etc.) here.

Lawrence Lessig and The Future of Ideas by Bryan Alexander from Mindjack is an interesting summary article with lots of links.
Finally, here is the site for Creative Commons. Look them up.

Partying = Power

Partying Helps Power a Dutch Nightclub
Who says dance culture is about passivity and complacency. Here it is, transformed into actual energy.

Posted using ShareThis

Weekend Tunes

James Brown - Talkin' Loud Sayin' Nothin' (Rock Version)
Calle 13 - Que Loren
Ray LaMontagne - You're The Best Thing
Alborosie - Kingston Town
In Jamaica, the year's biggest dancehall superstar is a Sicilian kid called Alberto d'Ascola. Respect.

Race & Gender Reading Schedule Part Deux

Reading schedule for the rest of the semester here. Enjoy. For this week's readings please try to relate and articulate the ideas in Zook and Coleman with those expressed in Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

Levi Stubbs 1936-2008

Not even one week after Alton Ellis another one of the great voices is gone.

The Four Tops - Bernadette

Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

Weekend Tunes

Big Star - Thirteen
Ida Maria - Oh My God
The Jam - Away From The Numbers
JFA - Out Of School
Billy Bragg - Tracks Of My Tears
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers

Non-Teenage-Themed Bonus Tune:
Alva Noto - u_03

(Michael) Palin for President

Advertising and Gender: Mass Comm and Society Class

These are the advertising and PR related readings to integrate with the course packet.

Kilbourne - Cutting Girls Down To Size
Kellner - Advertising and Consumer Culture
Apologies as the pages for this last article are in inverted order. As soon as I manage to re-scan article will put up correct version.

More New Media

Michael Crichton - Mediasaurus (1993)
Jack Schaefer - Reflections on Mediasaurus

Hesmondalgh - Alternative Media, Alternative Texts?
Rasmussen - On Distributed Society


This concludes the material you are responsible for up to the midterm.

Daydreaming

Be ready to discuss the possible meanings of this video in class.

Alton Ellis (1938-2008)

Alton Ellis, Godfather of the "rocksteady" sound.
1938-2008

Cry Tough

BBC report here.

Prime Time Campaign

By the shoddiness of this photoshop work you can tell that all good graphic designers and artists are on Obama's side.

"Officials at the Obama campaign and at several television networks said Thursday that Mr. Obama had completed deals to show a half-hour program about his candidacy on CBS and NBC on Wednesday, Oct. 29, less than a week before Election Day. The campaign is also talking to ABC and Fox about similar deals..." Read it in The New York Times here.

For a very interesting analysis of where all this money is ideally coming from (and more) read "The Revolutionary Potential of the Obama Movement" on The Pirate Caucus.

Some Bits

Very good On The Media installment this past Friday.




Can the 'real' Obama please stand up? Baltimore City Paper columnist Vincent Williams makes a very compelling argument about the 'othering' of Barack Obama under the 'unknown' tag. Interview above. Article from the Baltimore City Paper here.



Vice-President and "chief innovation officer" (sic) Lee Abrams has great plans for the Tribune Company. The Tribune Company is the second largest newspaper publisher in the US, owning among others the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday in New York City and the Baltimore Sun. It also controls a host of local television channels across the US (mostly in the markets in which it is already present with its newspapers --courtesy of deregulation over cross-industry ownership) as well as the Chicago Cubs (well, no one is perfect).

On The Media asks Abrams if the innovations he is the 'chief officer' for really are innovations. Looking at it from a journalistic perspective they seem everything but. Read about Abrams in this Columbia Journalism Review profile. Don't miss Abrams' infamous (and hilarious) memos to the Tribune Company employees here courtesy of the Chicago Reader.



"The Federal Communications Commission has begun notifying several TV military analysts that it is probing congressional complaints that the so-called pundits and experts did not properly disclose their ties to the Pentagon when reviewing the war in Iraq on air for Fox, MSNBC, NPR and other news organizations." From US News & World Report. On The Media is replaying their interview with Maj. Robert Bevelacqua, a former Green Beret and Fox News contributor through 2005.

Finally, The Root's Amy Alexander writes about The MILFy Way: How the GOP is using this low-grade obscenity to sell Sarah Palin.

Product Placement

"What Tina Fey Would Do For A SoyJoy" from New York Magazine. Something to complement and update the debate around product placement/integration.

Copyright Previews

Some on-line writing to take a look at.

Suzanne Vega on music, copyright, mashups and her being the 'mother of the mp3'

WNYC has a show about Steinski, DJ Shadow and Girl Talk in their Soundcheck program. Even though almost thirty years passes through the work of these three music selectors --DJs?-- they seem to speak to one another. They all necessarily work in a grey area of legality and heightened creativity by using already existing soundworks to create new ones. They are definitely hackers according to McKenzie Wark.

Speaking of McKenzie Wark, now is as good as time as any to link you to his A Hacker Manifesto (it's up to Version 4.0). This is required reading and it should nicely complement your reading of Enzensberger.

Finally (for now) here is a link to Bruce Sterling's very unscientific chronology "Short History of the Internet". Written sometime around 1993 (check out his 'further reading' list at the end of the article) this should give you a sense of the 'idea' of the internet as it was developing in a purely text based environment. The ethos is there already: consider Sterling -an already published novelist and essayist- making a point of freely distributing his work electronically rather than through the more traditional print distribution channels.

Weekend Tunes

New Order - Age of Consent
Antony & The Johnsons - Another World
Ilaiyaraaja - Kattu Kuyilu
Kid 606/NWA - Straight Outta Compton (Remodeled)

Bonus Tune:
Nina Gordon - Straight Outta Compton

Reflections on Propaganda

Watchdog? Information? Voice of the People? Propaganda? A bit of everything and there's no escape. This is a great illustration of Herman's filters: A 'passionate' exchange between Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan and some guy with a really LOUD-RED Phillies jersey. After you watch this enjoy Jon Stewart's defining appearance on CNN's Crossfire.

(This Is Not) A Study Guide For The Race and Gender Class

Read on here for study/exam tips (in reality it's not much as per the post title but I guess it's better than nothing --at least it looks like one).

Emancipatory Uses of the Media

Here are the new readings. Below you will find two general overviews of the history and the main issues surrounding the internet and the world wide web. Be familiar with the terminology and the characteristics.

You will also find Hans Magnus Enzensberger's "Constituents of a Theory of the Media" together with an article over viewing 'radical media' in Italy and the use of new communication technologies by political movements during the late '60s and '70s. This last article should accompany your viewing of Marco Tullio Giordana's I Cento Passi and provide you with context (both for the film itself and the historical period in which Enzensberger wrote the 'Constituents' article).

Something to think about in relation to the film is how Peppino Impastato's attempts at carving out a space for communication and direct political action (a public sphere within the confines of a small community dominated by organized crime) is dramatized in the film --from traditional political rallies to 'free radio' after navigating dadaist street theater, pamphleteering, film screenings and be-ins. Think specifically of the characteristics of RadioAut --programming, control, voice, 'mission', etc. Does the 'network' finally deliver on those expectations?

Butler - The Internet & the WWW
Marshall - The Internet

Enzensberger - Constituents of a Theory of the Media
Downing - Radical Media in Italy

Summarizing Audience

As promised here are two chapters aimed at summarizing our discussions in class this past week and those to come next week.

Effects? What Effects?
The Audience Strikes Back

Why TV is not our fault...

Eileen Meehan on how the media and the rating services blame the victims + some random articles on audience assessment and its problems...

Meehan Chapter 1
Meehan Chapter 2
Article Compilation

Ay, Chihuaha!

Click on the picture for a review of the 'clumsy racial attitudes of Beverly Hills Chihuaha'.

More Bourdieu

Here are two brief commentary articles on Bourdieu's "On Television"

Imre Szeman, Review of Bourdieu's On Television

Glen Whelan, Appropriat(e)ing Wavelength: On Bourdieu's On Television

Hernan Vera, Review of Bourdieu's On Television (accessible through JSTOR from campus)

Andreea Deciu, Review of Bourdieu's On Television (accessible through JSTOR from campus)

Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look"

Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
You can also find it in html format here.

Weekend Tunes

Santogold (with Diplo) - Guns of Brooklyn
Jamey Johnson - High Cost of Living
Otis & Carla - Lovey Dovey
Afghan Whigs - If I Were Going

Movie Studios Sue...Again

They just don't give up...

From The New York Times:
Six major movie studios sued RealNetworks, the Seattle-based digital media company, on Tuesday over its new $30 software program that allows people to make digital copies of their DVDs.

Course Packet: Get It Here

Here is the course packet divided into 4 files. My suggestion is to download all 4 so that they don't get lost in the shuffle as new posts are added to the site. Enjoy.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4