Overlapping Online Classes

The past couple of weeks I've been creating a presentation for my other online class about the contributions of music to visual advertising.  Because this presentation has to be rather lengthy, 15-30 minutes, I included some history of the beginning of television, which automatically reminded me of our media class and everything we've studied in the past couple weeks.  I thought it was cool how my classes came to overlap.

How should schools handle cyberbullying?

Here's the NY Times article on the subject.

This article published in the New York Times, talks about young children being bullied through the internet and through text messages.  Many desperate parents have been turning to school districts for help.  The school districts are at a loss.  They're not sure they have the authority to deal with bullying and harrassment that occurs outside of school and they're afraid to overstep boundaries that aren't clear in their codes of conduct.

New questions have been brought up that actually seemed pretty scary to me.  The question was, can a principle search a cell phone like they would a computer or a back pack?  This seems to be overstepping the boundaries of how much control the school officials should have over the students. Yet, if they have reason to think the student is harrassing another student via text message, and they thinking catching the student in the act could stop the problem, then maybe its a good idea.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  What do you guys think?

I kind of feel like cyberbullying shouldn't be dealt with by the schools.  I feel like that's a situation where parents should get involved, and in extreme situations, the police.

Rihanna and Matt picked up iphones from At&t. This is big news on yahoo. They've gotta update their phones to 4G.

The Social Media Revolution

You should really watch this.
It's shocking.
But in case you don't want to, I took some snapshots during the video that blew my mind.

These statistics probably shouldn't have shocked me, but they were incredibly interesting to see and the video was very well done.

Radio Shows Today

This article from the New York Times talks about a woman, Krista Tippett, who runs a Christian radio station. I found this article in a newspaper printed on May 28th, 2010.  I have to admit, when I saw it was a religious radio show, I immediately thought of Coughlin, his popularity, and the way he used the radio to sway public opinion.  I knew radio programs like this still existed, but I thought it was interesting to note that some radio programs are still emmensly popular today.  

It's really incredible that Tippett's show has such a large number of listeners, especially since it airs so early on Sunday mornings.  It really made me want to listen to her show to figure out why people love it so much.

So I did.

I listened to a segment entitled "The Spirituality of Parenthood." She was a very good speaker who brought up questions that I'm sure her listeners could relate to, and then answered them according to her beliefs. On this particular show, she interviewed a Rabbi. It was pretty cool.

I have to say, she didn't use the same techniques as Coughlin did on his religious radio program.  She wasn't accusing, condescending, or angry.  Tippett instead chose to approach her radio show calmly and ready to help.  It's a very different approach to religion, and I feel like it would be much better recieved today, and may have been received better than Coughlin's techniques in the 1930's as well.

You can read the rest of The New York Times article here: Radio Program About Faith Defies the Skeptics.

This is an article in the New York Journal, run by William Randolph Hearst, that tells about how Richard Harding Davis and Frederic Remington will be covering the war between Spain and Cuba in Cuba.

It's interesting to look at this now, because we later learn that Remington left after a week long stay in Cuba because he couldn't find action to write about.  Davis, while searching for a good story, implied that two Cuban women on a U.S. ship were strip searched by MALE Spanish officers.  While the initial story shocked America and caused a massive boost in newspaper sales, the Cuban women were later interviewed and it was proved that the officers were female and the women were not violated.

Davis, along with other reporters of his time, used sensationalism in their writing to make a boring story seem far more intriguing and interesting.

James F. Gibson

 While looking through a gallery of Civil War photographs, I noticed another name alongside the photographers we've studied thus far: James Gibson.

James F. Gibson, like Matthew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy O'Sullivan, was a Civil War field photographer.  The photo on the left is one of his that depicts sailors on the deck of the U.S.S. Monitor.

While attempting to research his life, I discovered that Gibson is also the Civil War photographer that we know the least about.  It is known that he was born in New York City and learned photography while studying under Matthew Brady.  I found it very interesting, and sad, that this was the only information I could find about the life of James F. Gibson.  Still, he will be remembered by his photographs.

(I hate to use Wikipedia, but it was the ONLY website I could find with any information about his life.)

 "Civil War Photos." Old West Reenactors at Teddy Blue's Bunkhouse. Web. 10 June 2010.
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"Photography and Photographers of the American Civil War." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web.
10 June 2010. .