Here are several brief video featuring media theorist Marshal McLuhan talking about his ideas about media:
A brief compilation of clips:
A 1977 lecture by McLuhan on “the medium is the message” in three parts:
And finally, Marshal McLuhan in Woody Allen’s movie Annie Hall:
Several stories dealing with the Missing Pretty White Girls or Missing White Woman Syndrome. You know how it works. When a pretty white girl/woman disappears, the media, especially cable TV, goes nuts. A girl/woman of color, pretty or not, disappears, and it might merit a single mention. Here’s several stories on the topic:
Does it seem to you like recent presidential campaigns have gone on forever?
That may be so, but as Truth 4 points out, Nothing’s new: Everything that happened in the past will happen again.
According to NPR’s On The Media, we’ve had long, long presidential campaigns since the 1820s, when Martin Van Buren went around the country getting pro-Andrew Jackson newspapers started immediately following the 1824 presidential election.
Historian Michael Kazin tells On The Media that the longest presidential campaign on record was that of William Jennings Bryan, who started his presidential campaign for the 1900 election immediately after he lost the 1896 vote.
In the Chapter 3 discussion of long tail media, I mention several artists. Here are links to their work:
Some interesting talk from Google employee #59 and the author of the book I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
Will the court case over Janet Jackson’s 9/16ths of second of nipple exposure ever end?
Note: Both of the videos in this post contain very brief nudity originally broadcast on network television.
Probably not. Because, you know, that fraction of second was pretty damaging. Keep in mind that the only way you ever really saw anything was if you went looking for the screen captures afterwards. Because she was exposed for a grand total of 9/16ths of a second.
Updates:
This semester, I’m showing a short video before class each session. I’ll be posting all of these to my Tumblr blog if you want to check them out.
Here’s what I’ve used so far:
PBS documentary series Frontline talks with media critic Ben Bagdikian.
One of the first exports from the Massachusetts Bay Colony back in the 1630s and ’40s was, surprise, media! The Cambridge Press brought over its first printing press in 1638, and its first bestseller was the Whole Book of Psalmes, better known as the Bay Psalm Book.
Here’s a look at the Library of Congress exhibit on the Bay Psalm Book, which will also lead you to other fascinating early North American books.
A great example of Truth 1 – Media are central to our lives. The media industry has been central to our culture since before the United States existed as a country.
To learn more about how the SOPA and PIPA bills before the US House and Senate would shut down the Web as we know it to protect Big Media, follow these links:
Thanks to the ever brilliant XKCD for the links. Please note that these links come from someone who makes a living outside of the corporate world by creating content for the Web.
You should know that the parody video posted above could potentially be used by the copyright owner to get this web site shut down without the benefit of a hearing or trial under SOPA.
More Links (Updated throughout the day)
