Little Red Riding Hood Through the Eyes of Media Scholars

The semester at Northwest Vista College is new and minds are open to the material to be learned in Introduction to Mass Communications. I re-vamped the course this semester, but the goal for the first few weeks is the same: sharpen the students' awareness of the role mass media play in our lives and in our world. 

I used to use a textbook, but I now prefer a project-based approach to teaching, and the change has allowed me to increase student engagement and skills in accessing, analyzing, evaluating, and creating media. 

For many semesters, students participated in a media deprivation experience that started at 100 hours without entertainment media, fell to 48 and, after weighing the pro's and con's, I jettisoned the assignment for a new and much better one that has the same goal of sharpening awareness of the role of media in today's world. 

I used the more accessible essays (brief 2-3 page excerpts) from three media theorists, George Gerbner, Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan, who each describe the role of communication and the birth of mass communication over time. We study three eras [tribal or oral (pre 3500 BC) , literate (alphabet,printing press) and electronic (telegraph era to today)].

At the end of three days of reading in class, extracting main messages and class discussions at a pair, group and whole-class levels, we create charts that helped to clarify the changes in communication over the three eras. For example storytelling's function in tribal times was to convey information (scarce) that was tied to usefulness, while today it is "untied" from that function and because it has become a commodity, is now in overflow mode, or "glut" as well as commercial in nature. The storyteller today is selling us an idea or a product.

I resurrected an exercise I had used successfully several semesters ago: placing students in three teams and having them select at random a theorist and an era to re-enact the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood with the characteristics of the era and theorist they had selected. 

The students take a few minutes to introduce themselves to each other and then spend about 20 minutes planning their approach to the exercise. I do my best to keep the three groups separated, but check in on their progress. Not necessary. They are way ahead of me, and usually demonstrate with ease not only their knowledge of the eras and theorists ideas and concepts, but creative and often athletic or theatrical approaches to the task. 

The three groups stage their re-enactments and we laugh, clap and are joyful in the learning experience to a degree I wish were possible all semester. 

A brief 2-3 paragraph reflection paper is hand written about the experience at the end of the presentations on the topics what might have become clearer for the student through the experience, as well as what additional questions the experience brought up. The writing is shared with a partner then turned in. Here are some excerpts from the next generation of media scholars getting their start at NVC:

"I had an epiphany while reading Gerbner's essay the first day of class. I realized how the amount of information we receive could be a bad thing. I wonder how communication will change in the future."

" I also think that I was left with personal questions such as how much television I'm actually watching and how much it's affecting me. I also think that I got some new insight with regards to how much I want to, can, and will be able to learn and curate in my mind."

"People in the modern world are focused more on the idea of a perfect family on television than trying to make their own better."

"Before technology, information was available in select quantities. But now, we have access to infinite information and ideas. I do have one question: What will be the next era".

Great question!

KLRN ARTS segments in a great 12 month collaboration of creativity

Thanks for a great year of creativity, and hard work I'm very proud to share here, to all the team at KLRN TV, public television in San Antonio and numerous surrounding counties, including Laredo. 

David Bibbs, Julie Coan, Sergio Gonzalez, Leigh Utecht--They're the hardest working media professionals in the region. I say this with personal experience working at three radio stations and four television stations over the many years since I started in the business right after high school and during and after college.

For the past twelve months we worked together to produce KLRN's ARTS series, pooling our ideas and talents in a collaboration that was enjoyable and exciting.
 

Here are the links to the segments which I personally directed and wrote:

1. A great overview of the Chicano art collection donated to the McNay Museum by Drs. Harriett and Ricardo Romo.
http://video.klrn.org/video/2301377309/
2. Profile of internationally respected conceptual artist Jesse Amado.
Jesse Amado 


3. San Antonio Museum of Art's exhibit of Aphrodite 
SAMA's exhibit on the goddess Aphrodite

4. Profile of faux bois artist Carlos Cortes
Carlos Cortes Profile 

5. Maestra Teresa Champion's flamenco career 
Teresa Champion, Flamenco maestra 

6. Spotlight on impact of street banner photos on near Westside historic neighborhood
project of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center 
Fotohistorias 

7. Profile of glass artist Gini Garcia
Internationally reknown glass artist, Gini Garcia 

8. Profile of San Antonio Poet Laureate 2013 Carmen Tafolla
San Antonio poet Carmen Tafolla 

9. Profile of Kenya-born San Antonio artist Naomi Wanjiku
Naomi Wanjiku profile

10. Four local watercolor artists celebrate a half century of working together
Profile of Watercolor Gang 

11. San Antonio Film Festival 2013
Preview of festival 2013 

12. Exhibit at McNay on photos used by Norman Rockwell in preparing his paintings
Norman Rockwell's study photographs 

13. Profile of Flamenco guitarist and dancer
Flamenco guitarist and dancer 

14. Nan Cuba publishes new book
Nan Cuba's new book 




 

Algorithmic addresses

Traveling to Grand Junction Colorado we could not stop laughing at the system designed in the late 1800's by the founders of the city to give names to their streets and avenues. 

The founders decided they wanted a grid system to designate the names of the city's streets, with the markers of one part being the number of miles from the Utah border and the cross streets being the letters of the alphabet.

What happens is that you are driving and you're going to have an address that says A and 29 three-quarter roads. For another example, B and a half road or F and 7/8 road. It's a confusing system for those of us who can barely remember our friends and family members names, much less fractions.

Here's the history on how the odd fractions and alphabet system came into being, according to Wikipedia. Grand Junction's city founders wanted to have an orderly system, but they neglected to take into account that much of the land was already owned in orchards and farmlands and otherwise developed.

So what happened is they put their neat little grid over this patchwork of fields and farms and orchards, needing afterward to build roads to correspond with the grid. Here's the bump in the road, so to speak. Orchard owners and farmers were not on board with roads dividing up their lands and said to the engineers, "Forget it, you're not putting that road through my land."

By coincidence, during our vacation we have been listening to Daniel Pink read from his book Drive (not in a car, but as in motivation). My VP at NVC loaned me a print version of the book last year and i thought a refresher was in order. We have been learning about the differences between left and right brain thinking, or as Pink puts it, operating system 2.0 and 3.0.

They were the two different kind of tasks that he writes about, the first being algorithmic and the second heuristic, and he divides them into the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain. As a college professor what interested me is that Pink saya 70% of new jobs calling for heuristic thinking instead of the algorithmic kind required in the 20th century like accounting and even legal, which are now being outsourced to other countries, where they are done for less pay. 

So, going to Grand Junction was a timely example of how stubborn we humans are. We wanted to impose a grid system and we did just that, even though evidence showed that it would not really work, because people were unwilling to give up their private property for the nice neat grid that looked good on paper and crazy in reality.

So here we have that perfect example of human messiness coming up against human desire for order.  I admit its not practical, but it is unique. And what could be more colorful than saying to someone, "meet me at the corner of F and a half and G and 3/4?"

It's a big country and que Bonita es mi gente

Traveling makes you see life from another point of view, sometimes a weary one from sitting too long in a speeding vehicle of some kind, getting from home to someplace else, sometimes a surprised point of view as in a strange supermarket when a stranger sees you and recognizes you. 

I was shopping for tomatillos in the Lake Tahoe Safeway with my brother in law when a woman in her early forties interrupted our careful tomatillo picking to inquire how we would use them, explaining she never sees anyone in the store buying tomatillos. 

We started chatting about tomatillo ideas and she asked me if I am Hispanic, because of my accent. She explained she lived now in Seattle but had grown up in Deming, New Mexico. We talked about our mutual adoration of Hatch's chiles and I noticed her kind eyes and sunny complexion.

A brief encounter, but a memorable one because even in a strange places we find each other, the folks who have a history in common, or a nationality, often less than heritage, but simply a reverence in common the things that mark our places on the planet, our foods or nature's gifts, a majestic mountain range and its trees and streams.

Eydie Wins Over the Supremes

Back some time ago, I first "met" Eydie and her partner, Thea, by watching the documentary available on Netflix about their lives together:
Eydie and Thea 

Today, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor, and in the direction many of us were hoping and praying that our nation's leaders would rule. 

The Internet, Our Brains and the Possibilities, Pro and Con

 













Is it true the Internet is affecting how we think? 

Here is a great and brief exploration of the question by Nicholas Carr, a writer who I just learned has written a new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. The link below is to the short video.

 What the Internet Is Doing To Your Brain
As I prepared to start this post, I received an email which I naturally stopped to read. Then I wandered around on the blog and scanned my posts to discover a piece of information about a birding expedition that I wanted to send family who are about to vacation in South Padre.  Then I lost track of what I was doing for a moment before I remembered I was going to write a blog entry. 

And this is a relaxed, easy day. What does my brain look like preparing to face a room full of students who mistook my class as an easy A?

What do you think of this video? I confess I struggle with some of the ideas, particularly the idea that deep, contemplative thinking is required to create works of art. It may be useful at times and for some people, but there are other ways to create. I am a proponent of group projects and know of the value of brain storming with colleagues and working with one or more partners.  

Fifty years together as artists and friends

This ARTS segment was recorded in early April at Brackenridge Park by Sergio Gonzalez, directed and written by me, and edited by David Bibbs. 

The challenge for me was to give each of these artists their due time in a brief documentary segment. That would be about two to three minutes for each person--not enough time to include very much, so I decided to focus on their craft, not personal or even group histories. I hoped 50 years together would say it all!

I was inspired one morning about a day or two before our scheduled shoot, while doing Buteyko breathing exercises, to devise a shot list that would allow me to "frame" the artists with unloading from a vehicle and use those shots of arriving and departing the park as an open and close. 

Thinking visually was challenging, but our KLRN TV (PBS) Executive Producer, Julie Coan's suggestion for our team to study the work of award winning videographer and to read Al Tomkins' Aim For The Heart, Write, Shoot, Report and Produce for TV and Multimedia
really helped to fire up my thinking: I would end each artist's mini-profile with a close up of his signature. 

The shooting was wonderful, the location couldn't be beat, and the music and editing were fabulous. The interviews were succinct and clear about the challenges watercolor painting poses to the artist. 

Not everything worked as I planned, however hard I worked on my shot list. I tried and tried to get the artists to send images of their final work of the pieces they started for us that day to show each of the completed versions, but technology barriers were too many to overcome. 

I'm so proud of this piece! It's great to see inspiration through to completion, but it's never quite like you might envision things. I totally agree with the artist, Clay McGoughy as he taps his temple, "You should see what I see in here!"

San Antonio's Watercolor Gang