Target takes an edgier approach in advertising to new moms
Cute no longer cuts it. New Target ad uses head, “I just had a 20-minute conversation with a stranger about nipples.” Figuring out how to target (lower case) a narrow market can be tricky.
Sinclair and Time Warner fight over retransmission fees
This is a fight that seems to be never ending. Broadcasters want to be compensated for cable companies carrying their programming. Cable companies say they are providing a service to broadcasters. Viewers just want to be able to get all their local programming via cable or satellite.
Univision telenovela finale draws 7.3 million viewers Don’t doubt for a minute that Spanish-language broadcasting is becoming an important part of Americans’ media mix. The final episode of Univision’s telenovela Soy Tu Dueñadrew an audience of 7.3 million. That’s enough to win its timeslot in several urban areas and ranks it ahead of numerous programs on the Big Four networks. Great example of Truth 3 – Everything from the margin moves to the center.
Lots of tweeters were expecting an immediate disappearance of the video, but I figured enough work went into it that whoever did it would put up a good fair-use fight.
(As a sidenote, why is my local theater, the Kearney Cinema 8, showing Yogi Bear in 3D instead of Tron?)
There are lots of movies with great relationships between men. There are a number of movies with interesting roles for women. But how many movies out there feature multiple major female characters who interact with each other? That’s the question the Bechdel Test for Women in Film tries to answer. I stumbled across this amazingly simple tool for analyzing films in one of those “You might also like” boxes at the bottom of the Mediaite page.
The Bechdel test—named for the cartoonist Alison Bechdel who wrote a long-running comic strip called Dykes To Watch Out For and the critically acclaimed graphic novel Fun Home—is a test to assess whether women have a meaningful presence in a movie. It consists of three questions.
1. Are there two or more women in it that have names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?
Once you start thinking about it, you’ll be surprised by how many films don’t pass this test. In fact, there are entire genres (action-adventure, for example) that seem to fail the Bechdel test, by and large. This page has a year-by-year list of movies, along with their Bechdel status.
Not surpisingly, male-centric movies such as Fight Club, or Lawrence of Arabia, or Das Boot don’t pass the test. But as Rachel Sklar points out, other notable non-passing movies include:
Shrek
Clerks
Big Lebowski
Home Alone
Slumdog Millionaire
The Truman Show
Lord of the Rings
Tomb Raider
and even…. Princess Bride
This test doesn’t judge the quality of the movie or whether it is misogynistic, only that it doesn’t portray the interaction of two women with names dealing with something other than a man.
It seems to me that this would make a great media literacy assignment. Any college freshman is capable of performing the test. It’s easy to understand the point it makes. You could easily turn it on its head. (How would it work with men?) It gives your students the opportunity to do some research on their own on a very accessible critical theory topic. I’m planning on doing this assignment this spring.
In the mean time, here’s a video explaining how it all works:
Simpson’s features off-color Kate Perry Muppet parody
If you have ever doubted that News Corp. has any ideology other than maximizing revenue through specialized channels, watch this raunchy clip from last Sunday’s episode of The Simpson’s and remove all doubt. This is Fox Network clip highlights everything Fox News is supposedly opposed to.
Here’s a great summary article from the Nieman Journalism Lab on why we, as journalists and citizens, need to be thinking about the implications of WikiLeaks. Thanks to Jay Rosen for pointing out this article.
The Economisthas a great blog post up explaining why the importance of WikiLeaks transcends Julian Assange and his merry band of leakers. The magazine’s writer argues that we are undergoing a huge shift from paper documents that are heavy and tied to a place to electronic documents that can be moved with the click of a mouse. The writer goes on to argue that no amount of prosecuting Assange will change that fact.
This isn’t a defense of WikiLeaks; rather, it’s an explanation of the long term impact of what this transformation means.
I’ve seen virtually no mention of this anywhere, but The Economist is essentially bringing Canadian economist Harold Innis’ ideas about media having biases of lasting a long time or of being easy to distribute. Paper documents, which we are more used to, are heavy and hard to move. Electronic documents don’t have a physical form, and thus can be moved with incredible ease. (Marshall McLuhan was a lot sexier with “the medium is the message” and “global village,” but Innis makes a lot more sense to me.)
The website WikiLeaks has continued its project of posting huge numbers of secret government documents, generating a lot of news and a lot of controversy. There is debate over whether the website is damaging national security for the United States, whether it is informing people of information they really need to know, embarrassing lots of people in the diplomatic corps by making what was thought to be private comments public, or merely confirming through documents what lots of people already knew. (The one thing we know is that it isn’t treason. Why? The person behind WikiLeaks is Julien Assange, who is Australian, not American.) At any rate, without too much further comment, here are a number of links to articles about the controversy:
NY Times Answers Questions on its WikiLeaks coverage
Interesting to hear a news organization explain why it does what it does. Among the questions: “How dare you?” “Are the documents authentic? And how do we know that?” “Is/should the Times be ‘partnering’ with WikiLeaks?” “How can you ethically publish something that has been stolen?” “How can you potentially jeopardize lives?” Good questions that deserve good answers.
One thing we have an awkward relationship with is humor connected with disabilities. There is the crude movie humor, there’s the “very special” episode humor, and finally, rarest of all, genuine humor that deals with the disability from the point of view of the people who have to live with it.
I was reminded of this today when I came across a blog post that discussed why the author liked how the webcomic Girls With Slingshots has dealt with a couple of different disabled characters. Anna writes about the story arc at GWS that dealt people at a wedding, including one blind guest and one deaf guest. She writes:
“The jokes are all based around disability, sure. But the jokes aren’t “ha ha ha, look at the crippled person having difficulties getting around!” And at no point is the humour about a very special lesson for anyone else. Soo Lin and Melody are part of the joke, they aren’t the butt of it.”
Take a look at the examples linked to above, and think about how GWS deals with disability not so much in a sensitive way as in an everyday life way. (By the way, if you don’t read Girls With Slingshots, you should. One of the best webcomics out there!
WSJ’s Walter Mossberg says Google TV not yet ready for prime time.
Google’s entry into the set-top box tries to merge Web video and television into a single universe. He likes the idea, but says it isn’t a smoothly operating product yet.
7 Truths: Actavism and analysis are not the same thing:Comcast claims “Consensus at hand on net neutrality” Comcast claims the engineers will solve everything in the best interest of the public, but Ars Technica writer suggests that only the threat of federal regulation kept the cable giant (and new owner of NBCU) on the net neutrality path.
7 Truths: New media always scary: 10 years post Napster, Warner Music is still selling plastic discs
Despite the fact the that music listening public has pretty much moved over to digital music files in one form or another, 75 percent of Warner Music’s sales are still in the form of CDs.
“Clark Hoyt talked about his career in newspapers and the state of journalism. He recently finished a three-year stint as public editor of the New York Times. A public editor, sometimes called an ombudsman, is designed to be a representative for the newspaper’s readers and a way for newspapers to examine their own practices. He was the newspaper’s third public editor.”
