There, now

That wasn't so bad, was it? Finals have been received from all of you now, and I'm looking forward to reading/viewing them. I really am, truth be told. I'm hoping to post final grades online (through Banner) this weekend. I'll be happy to discuss your final exams, final grades, or anything else BUT it will need to wait until the beginning of next semester -- C-Doc's heading out of town to try to get some writing done to appease his even crankier Editor, and is hoping to be as off the grid as he can be. But drop me a note after January 15, and we can find a time to meet if you'd like. Good luck with the rest of your finals, and get some rest over the break -- you've earned it. Well, most of you have. . . .

A Brief Diversion

From America's finest newspaper. I mean, of course, The Onion.

THE TOP STORIES OF 2006

1. December 15, 2006

   Thousands More Dead In Continuing Iraq Victory

2. May 24, 2006

   Al Gore Caught Warming Globe To Increase Box Office Profits

3. November 8, 2006

   Kevin Federline, Wife Divorce

4. July 6, 2006

   Ken Lay's Children Inherit 4,000 Pensions

5. August 14, 2006

   Israel Bombs Anti-Semitism Out Of Lebanon

6. November 9, 2006

   Karl Rove Accused Of Throwing Midterm Elections

7. August 5, 2006

   NASA Launches Probe To Inform Pluto Of Demotion

8. September 6, 2006

   Osama Bin Laden Takes Credit For Crocodile Hunter's Death

9. February 14, 2006

   Generous Vice President Cheney Gives Hard-Working Media Field Day

10. January 31, 2006

    Coretta Scott King's Wiretap Ends

Twenty-Five Hours Away

from the deadline seems the right time to put a moratorium on questions about the exam. So, all done. You'll be fine. Breathe. Think. Make sure you answer all parts of the question (see the question below, and re-read it). Post your exam on time (neither too early nor too late). And, seriously, you'll be fine.

A Farewell Clip

from what can be, on some days, the toughest interview on TV

A Reminder

and a gentle warning. Please do not e-mail me with exam questions; post them now on this new thread.

But read my comments so far on the old thread below before you do, and think before you ask -- please limit questions to those that you really think are important and require direction from me.

In other words, use your own judgment and know that as long as you fully answer the questions, and attend to the requirements I highlighted in the Exam Question itself (see below), you should be creative and deal with this Blog Essay in whatever manner you think most appropriate.

C-Doc is perilously close to refusing to answer any and all questions moving forward -- so again, before asking , make sure you really need an answer from the increasingly Cranky One .

A War on Blogs

Here. And more Here

(HT to Cursor)

Use this new thread

for questions about the final exam

And so it begins

A Reminder

To check in at Alana's View for all things extra-credity. . . .

Best story ever

Ahhh, the power of the internets and its infernal tubes (from the NYT):

So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet

By JACQUES STEINBERG

The skit, as scripted for the Dec. 4 installment of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” was about absurdist college sports mascots that the host and his writers would like to see someday.

Among them were “the Boise State Conjoined Vikings,” who had been born locked at the horns, as well as something Mr. O’Brien called “the Webcam manatee” — said to be the mascot of “F.S.U.” — which was basically someone in a manatee costume rubbing himself or herself provocatively in front of a camera (to the tune of the 1991 hit “I Touch Myself”). Meanwhile a voyeur with a lascivious expression watched via computer.

Who knew that life would soon imitate art.

At the end of the skit, in a line Mr. O’Brien insists was ad-libbed, he mentioned that the voyeur (actually Mark Pender, a member of the show’s band) was watching www.hornymanatee.com. There was only one problem: as of the taping of that show, which concluded at 6:30 p.m., no such site existed. Which presented an immediate quandary for NBC: If a viewer were somehow to acquire the license to use that Internet domain name, then put something inappropriate on the site, the network could potentially be held liable for appearing to promote it.

In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy, NBC bought the license to hornymanatee.com, for $159, after the taping of the Dec. 4 show but before it was broadcast.

By yesterday afternoon hornymanatee.com — created by Mr. O’Brien’s staff and featuring images of such supposedly forbidden acts as “Manatee-on-Manatee” sex (again using characters in costumes) — had received approximately 3 million hits, according to NBC. Meanwhile several thousand of Mr. O’Brien’s viewers have also responded to his subsequent on-air pleas that they submit artwork and other material inspired by the aquatic mammals, and the romantic and sexual shenanigans they imagine, to the e-mail address conan@hornymanatee.com.

One viewer sent a poem. Mr. O’Brien asked James Lipton, the haughty host of “Inside the Actors Studio” on Bravo, to read it on “Late Night.” It included the lines: “I want to freak thy blubber rolls,” and “The product of our ecstasy will be half man and half a-’tee.” After that a curtain opened, and Mr. Lipton gamely danced with the manatee character. Another viewer wrote a song, which Mr. Pender, the band’s trumpet player, crooned to the character. Set to the heavy metal band AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” it included the lyrics “She had big black eyes/no discernible thighs” and “The waves start shakin’/the ocean was quakin’/my pelvis was achin’. ”

Reached by telephone at NBC yesterday, Mr. O’Brien said he was stunned and overwhelmed by the viewers’ response to what had initially been a throwaway line, and by what that response, collectively, suggested about how the digital world was affecting traditional media like television.

“We couldn’t have done this two years ago, three years ago,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It’s sort of this weird comedy dialogue with the audience.”

He added, “I still have an abacus.”

Regardless, Mr. O’Brien and his staff are digitally savvy enough to seize an opportunity when it presents itself, particularly in the aftermath of such Internet comedy phenomena as “Lazy Sunday,” a filmed clip from “Saturday Night Live” that drew large audiences on the Web last year, initially as a bootleg. After the taping of the Dec. 4 show, Mr. O’Brien said the show’s executive producer, Jeff Ross, informed him of the problem, then asked him whether he wanted to mute the mention of the site or buy the Web address.

“We didn’t want to take it out,” Mr. Ross said yesterday, “so we bought it.”

In explaining to the audience the next night what he and his writers had done, Mr. O’Brien marveled, “For $159, NBC, the network that brought you ‘Meet the Press,’ Milton Berle and the nation’s first commercial television station became the proud owner of www.hornymanatee.com.”

Now, by clicking on “tour,” visitors to the site are drawn into a netherworld of mock-graphic images with titles like “Mature Manatee” (with a walker of course) and “Fetish” (a manatee in a bondage costume) as well as dozens of viewer submissions, including “Manatee & Colmes,” a spoof of “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News.

Mr. O’Brien said he knew he was on to something when, on Wednesday night, he was at a Christmas party in the lobby of a friend’s building and a waiter approached him with a platter of salmon and toast points. When Mr. O’Brien politely declined, he said the waiter drew in close and whispered in his ear, “My compliments to the horny manatee.”

As he prepared last night’s show, Mr. O’Brien said he was planning to give the bit its first night off, although he was confident it would soon return.

“We don’t want the entire show to be ‘Late Night With Horny Manatee,’ ” he said. “Though, of course, it will become that eventually.”

If you're having trouble

with the Perlmutter article, try here

Animals. Close up. With a wide angle lens.

By way of summary, and farewell. . . . .Hat tip to The Compromiser

Scroll down for Final Exam

Stupid News Hair.

Final Exam: Whoo-Hoo!

Please answer the following multi-part question in an extended blog post (think the equivalent of 7-9 typed double-spaced pages, give or take) that must be posted to your blog ONLY between 8:45 and 9:15 PM on Thursday, December 21, 2006. Please check your blog's date- and time-stamps now to make sure they are set properly.

Your posts will be evaluated both on the substance of your response (and the extent to which you clearly demonstrate your command over the material we have read, viewed, and discussed over the course of the semester) and also on the style of your post -- do you make effective use of properly embedded links to cite multiple sources and generously reference web-based materials? is your post formatted cleanly, with appropriate paragraph breaks, proper off-setting of extended quotations, and effective and appropriate use of images and videos? is the essay free of egregious spelling and grammatical errors, and written in lively, clear prose? does it move smoothly and logically from one point to another, presenting one coherent extended essay overall?

REMEMBER: this is a Final Exam, in which I am obligated to evaluate your mastery over the material we have covered this semester. The more that you make specific reference to our readings, viewings, lectures, discussions in class, and posts on C-Doc's, and explicitly draw upon and try to integrate the ideas we've explored and debated, the easier it will be for me to make positive judgments about your newfound expertise. In this instance, more is more.

So, ON TO THE QUESTION:

• Briefly describe and evaluate the six mass media models we have discussed over the course of the semester. Choose the one that you think SHOULD be the standard by which we evaluate media performance in a pluralist, democratic polity, and briefly explain why.
• Using that standard, describe and evaluate the performance of Mainstream Media/Big Media, with particular emphasis on recent history and the current state of affairs.
• Using the same standard, evaluate and compare the performance so far of what we have called New Media.
• Now, making logical and reality-based inferences, evaluate the potential for New Media to achieve that standard.

At the same time that you post your blog essay, send me an e-mail with your essay copied into the main message as text. Please put FINAL EXAM: [your last name] in the subject heading. This is to ensure, should there be unexpected Blogger problems, that I will have a record of your exam with the date and time it was submitted. I expect to read and grade exams, and to post final grades for the course, that weekend. I'll then be happy to schedule appointments in the spring semester for anyone who would like to discuss their final exam or their performance in the course. FOR THAT REASON, please do not delete your blog until, at least, February 15, 2007, so that there is a record of your semester's work.

Use the Comments section of this thread to post questions about the final exam: I will answer them here.

PS: Remember that we're meeting Monday in F535 at 8PM, not at our usual times (see below). And, yes, I'll be taking attendance. I'm awfully mean, you know.

It's unanimous-ish!

We'll not meet at our regularly scheduled classtimes Monday December 11 and, instead, will meet at 8PM, Furst Hall 535 for:

“The Truth Is Out There: Politics and the Media Today”: a Debate on Political Journalism

  FROM THE LEFT: Paul Glastris (Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Monthly)

  FROM THE RIGHT:  Matthew Continetti (writer for The Weekly Standard)  

Extra Credit Update

See Alana's View

Speechless

From the Washington Times:

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will hold a full committee hearing tomorrow on "Climate Change and the Media."

The hearing will look at how the media has presented scientific evidence regarding predictions of human-caused catastrophic global warming, the senator's office said.

"Senator Inhofe believes that poorly conceived policy decisions will result from the media's nonstop hyping of 'extreme scenarios' and dire climate predictions," said committee Communications Director Marc Morano. "This hearing will serve to advance the interests of sound science and encourage rational policy decisions."

For Next Week

Moyers, The Net at Risk? Try to find time to watch -- it's a good summary of the issues, and fun fodder for the final.

More on Al Jay-Z

From CJR

For Examples

Alana's View takes on Gillmor. And so does The Shoe Man's View.

"Messianic Internet Types"

Follow these links: it's a good starting place for us to start thinking about a counter-point to Gillmor's optimism (sorry, Moshe).

The Hart ("Easy Citizenship: Television's Curious Legacy") and Prior ("News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout") articles fit in here, too, so if you have time, read them (or give 'em a good skim). . . . . .

Monday we'll begin to build a critique of Gillmor, and temper his hopefulness (seriously: sorry, Moshe).

Symbols Matter

There are a few things here that might be worth thinking about and discussing in class, something I never thought I'd say about a column by Clift, typically among the worst practitioners of Convention Wisdom instead of reporting or original thought. . . . .And there's still much here that is too facile. . . But still:

Clift: Senator-Elect Webb Not to Be Toyed With

Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb is the rare Washington figure who doesn't suck up to power.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY

By Eleanor Clift

Newsweek

Updated: 2:42 p.m. ET Dec 1, 2006

Dec. 1, 2006 - Every so often a politician comes along who doesn’t pander to the president. Fresh off a nasty campaign that centered on the war in Iraq, Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb had no interest in a picture of himself with President Bush, and he didn’t want to exchange small talk with the man whose war policies he opposes. So he skipped the receiving line at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, creating the first of what we should all hope will be many ripples in Washington.

Webb’s presumed snub of Bush is rare enough in a city where everybody who’s anybody has a glory wall, and social occasions are geared to a parade of picture taking. But what happened next is where the story really takes off. President Bush, spying Webb across the room, walked over to him and asked, “How’s your boy?” Webb’s son is a Marine in Iraq.

A more seasoned politician might have been flattered that the president knew his son was in the line of fire and bothered to ask about him. That wouldn’t be Webb, a best-selling author who got into electoral politics for primarily one reason, his opposition to the Iraq war. “I’d like to get them out of Iraq,” he replied, according to several published accounts. “That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said, repeating his question: “How’s your boy?” Webb’s reply: “That’s between me and my boy.” Afterward, a source told The Hill newspaper that Webb was so angered by the exchange he was tempted to slug the guy. That might have prompted the Secret Service to pull their weapons, which wouldn’t have been the first time Webb, a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran, faced the barrel of a gun.

A quirky individualist who wants no part of the phony collegiality of Washington, Webb was rightly insulted when Bush pressed him in that bullying way—“That’s not what I asked you”—trying to force the conversation back to Webb’s son. Webb could have asked how the Bush girls are doing, partying their way across Argentina. He could have told Bush he was worried about his son; the vehicle next to him was blown up recently, killing three Marines. Given the contrast between their respective offspring, Webb showed restraint.

But that’s not how much of official Washington reacted. Columnist George F. Will was the most offended, declaring civility dead and Webb a boor and a “pompous poseur.” Were the etiquette police as exercised when Vice President Dick Cheney told Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy to perform an anatomically impossible act on the Senate floor? Or is that amusing by Washington’s odd standards?

Webb told The Washington Post that his intention was not to offend Bush or the institution of the presidency but that “leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is.” By standing up to Bush, Webb became a hero to a lot of people who voted against this president and this war, and whose views have been sidelined for six years. Symbols matter. Bush certainly understands their importance, or he wouldn’t have jetted onto that carrier in a flight suit and stood in front of a banner that proclaimed MISSION ACCOMPLISHED more than a thousand days and thousands more deaths ago. A president snubbed by a junior senator-elect and then, more tellingly by the puppet prime minister in Iraq, should be wondering where he went wrong, not the other way around.

It’s justice long overdue for a president who has so abused the symbols of war to get his comeuppance from a battlefield hero who personifies real toughness as opposed to fake toughness. Bush struts around with this bullying frat-boy attitude, and he gets away with it because nobody stands up to him. Bush could have left Webb’s initial response stand, but no, he had to jab back—“That’s not what I asked you.” Webb is not one to be bullied. He knows what real toughness is, and it’s not lording it over people who are weaker than you, and if you’re president, everybody by definition is weaker.

The lords of Washington will say that Webb got off to a rocky start, but so did Paul Wellstone, another iconoclastic citizen turned politician who dared to violate social protocol. It was another Bush and another gulf war, but Wellstone’s initial impropriety set the stage for what turned out to be a distinguished and even inspirational career that was tragically cut short by a plane crash four years ago. A professor of political science at Minnesota’s Carleton College, Wellstone was antiwar even then and had run on a progressive platform. At a White House reception in 1991 for newly elected members, Wellstone used his time in the receiving line with President George H.W. Bush to press his opposition to the first gulf war that loomed on the horizon and to urge more attention to education and health care. After he moved through the line, Bush was overheard saying, “Who is this chickens--t?” It's a sentiment the son surely shares.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15990689/site/newsweek/

NYT asks "Politics as Usual?"

Ooooh, it's all science-y!

Want to participate in an experiment? Check out this link. Now post the same link on your own blog. It's that simple. Results revealed at the Modern Language Association Conference this spring. I know, I know, how ever will we wait. . . . .

But it's a question central to our ongoing debate about the potential political influence of New Media -- how do ideas spread? how fast? is there a tipping point at which they become influential? must they be picked up by MSM for there to be real impact? should we turn to our friends in the biological sciences and perhaps think about this as a viral network? what does Acephalous mean, anyway?