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April 30, 2008: "As part of their campaign to demand a Congressional investigation of the Pentagon pundit scandal [in which a New York Times investigation found that the Pentagon had recruited and groomed retired military officers to appear on network and cable TV shows as "message force multipliers" and "surrogates" for advancing the Bush Administration's justifications for the Iraq war], FreePress has produced several YouTube videos providing analysis and coverage of the scandal that the TV networks themselves have largely ignored -- not surprisingly, since the scandal documents the networks' unethical journalistic practices. For years now, people have been talking about the potential of citizen journalism to challenge the power of the broadcast media behemoths. This scandal is the perfect opportunity to see how far we've come in achieving that goal. Let's make sure the TV networks don't get away with burying this story. Email the video link to your friends, and make sure they sign the petition!" This citation is from PR Watch.
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: What is "citizen journalism"? Is it a good thing, and if so, why (or why not)? If network and cable TV news don't cover a story because it would expose mistakes or bad judgement on their part (such as, in this case, employing military analysts on their news programs who were actually public relations "flacks" for the Pentagon), how can Americans learn about this situation, when so many don't read newspapers? How many people might learn about it from YouTube videos compared to the number of people who get their news from TV? Did you know that it's illegal for the American government to propagandize its own citizens? Why should it be illegal? Consider participating in the action above (emailing the video link to your friends and signing the petition) to be part of the "citizen journalism" movement to get this story out to as many Americans as possible.

January 30, 2008: Wikipedia has become something of a battleground for the truth, according to Full Frontal Scrutiny (FFS), a joint project by Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy. "Beyond Wiki-debates churning daily about obviously controversial topics such as abortion or gun control, or the biographies of U.S. presidential candidates, Wikipedia's articles are becoming targets for anyone with a stake in making sure history unfolds according to proper talking points," according to FFS's article, Tricky Wiki: How Public Relations Companies Try to Spin Wikipedia. "Workers at an array of corporate titans have altered their firms' Wikipedia entries, in apparent violation of the site's ideals, a variety of sources demonstrates. ExxonMobil employees have changed their own Wikipedia entry to put a shine on the company's environmental record.... PepsiCo employees deleted references to potential health problems caused by their company's famous soft drinks." The article cite's Wikipedia's policies and standards for a neutral point of view, multiple sources of information and other guidelines created to encourage the reliability, fairness and accuracy of Wikipedia information but which, Wikipedia itself admits, are hard to enforce.
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Have you consulted Wikipedia for information? Did you know that anybody can write whatever is there? How can you determine whether the information is biased or not? If you've used Wikipedia, did you take any steps to figure out who put the information there? Did you check other sources, either on the Internet or in books, magazines, etc.? What are the advantages, and disadvantages, of "open source" information sites such as Wikipedia that allow anyone to post information? Can voluntary guidlines work to keep it fair and unbiased, or it is inevitable that it will eventually disintegrate into a merely another "billboard" for companies, organizations and individuals with an agenda or one-sided point of view?

January 9, 2008: Social networking has become so widespread that users of sites such as MySpace and Facebook can now be categorised into six specific types, according to a new report described in a recent London Telegraph article. The MySpace-commissioned study identified six personalities as part of a wider investigation into the kind of people who regularly use social networking sites. The first group which emerged were the "Netrepreneurs", people who accessed the sites for the sole purpose of making money. Then came the "connectors" who revel in passing on information and links whenever they come across something they find interesting. The so-called "transumers" are the people who follow the lead of others and join groups connected to their hobbies, while the "collaborators" believe in people power and use social networking sites to create events. People who fit the "scene breaking" category are the early adopters who log on to discover and be part of new and emerging scenes. Finally, the "essentialists" are the most common users who use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends and family.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Do you have a MySpace or Facebook page? Why or why not? If you do, which of the six categories do you think you fit in? If none, what category would you create for yourself? What is the value, if any, in this type of analysis of who creates pages on these sites and why they do it? Why do you think MySpace paid for this study of their users?

December 5, 2007: By 2012, 25% of all entertainment will not come from the major movie and music studios, but will have been created within one's peer group, according to a recent study by Nokia, the cell phone manufacturer. According to InformationWeek's "Over the Air" columnist Eric Zeman, Nokia's recent study, entitled "A Glimpse of the Next Episode," interviewed trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles which serve as "signposts" of emerging entertainment trends. Combining views from industry-leading figures with Nokia's own research from its 900 million consumers around the world, Nokia has constructed a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years. "We predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups -- a form of collaborative social media," said Mark Selby, Nokia's VP of multimedia. Local bands posting performances on such sites as YouTube was cited as an example.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Of all the entertainment media you consume, about how much would you say comes from major movie and music studios and how much from "regular people" such as your friends or people who upload videos to sites like YouTube? What do you think of Nokia's predictions? Have you posted any of your own creations to a website -- poetry, video, music, etc.? Corporations usually fight hard to stay in business. If you were a corporate entertainment executive whose million-dollar salary depended on people purchasing what your company produces, what could you do to make money if people bought less music and fewer movies? Could you try to control the distribution channel instead, such as the Internet? What does this question have to do with the Net Neutrality issue that concerns many media activists right now?

March. 21, 2007: Thousands of bloggers are on the payroll of "new marketing middlemen such as PayPerPost Inc. that connect advertisers with mom-and-pop webmasters," according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. PayPerPost alone pays 15,500 bloggers for inserting their clients into blog postings. Other companies that pay bloggers for mentions include ReviewMe, Loud Launch and SponsoredReviews.com. Not all bloggers think it's a good idea. "PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply. No one with any level of ethics would get involved with these clowns," said Jason McCabe Calacanis, co-founder of Weblogs Inc. The quid pro quo is multilayered; one sponsored blogger's "traffic has doubled thanks partly to PayPerPost's  fanatical users, who link often to fellow Posties. That gives her a bigger audience for her unpaid musings." The Federal Trade Commission recently directed word-of-mouth marketers to clearly disclose. SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2007. This citation is from PR Watch.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: How often do you read blogs? Do you notice it when brand-name items are talked about? Do you ever wonder if the blogger was paid for the mention? Does it matter to you if there was a payment? Is payment more acceptable if the blogger says right in the blog that it is sponsored, so you know it's a paid ad? Is it any more or less acceptable if there's a disclosure "badge" or button that gives more sponsorship information? What is the issue here -- payment, or disclosure of the payment? Do readers have a right to know when it's a paid mention?

Feb. 21, 2007: Johnson & Johnson's biopharmaceutical unit, Centocor, "has developed a documentary film to serve as the centerpiece of a national campaign," reports O'Dwyer's, a major newsletter for the PR industry. The movie, "Innerstate," follows "three patients living with chronic diseases like Crohn's disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis -- ailments for which Centocor markets treatments. Centocor's drugs aren't mentioned in the movie, however." According to Centocor PR director Michael Parks, "These diseases are quite complex and not easily explained in a 30- or 60-second ad. We wanted to find something that would give us enough real estate to have a discussion." The healthcare PR firm Dorland is promoting the movie. At least 14 U.S. cities will host movie screenings, complete with appearances by "local medical experts and support groups, along with the film's patients." Original source: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), February 15, 2007. This citation is from PR Watch.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: What does this project tell you about the power of film as a communications medium? Why would Johnson and Johnson pay millions of dollars to create, produce, and market this documentary without even mentioning the name of the drug they make to treat the diseases? What does the PR director mean when he says, "We wanted to find something that would give us enough real estate to have a discussion." Do you think the people who go to the screenings will be told who paid for the movie to be made? Do you think they should be told?

Sept. 6, 2006: Internet bloggers are proving to be a force for democracy in holding U.S. elected officials accountable for their actions. In a blog by Elliott Fullmer on the Center for Media & Democracy website, Fullmer recounts how bloggers' persistent inquiries to all 100 U.S. senators identified the two senators holding up a bill that would use the Internet to document how earmarks (special-interest legislation tacked onto large spending bills by individual senators to benefit their home districts, commonly called "pork-barrel spending") are actually spent. The bill has been widely praised as a way to provide transparency to the process of how public funds are used --- Americans could look up on the Internet to see how funds allocated to -- for example -- build a bridge in their hometown, were actually spent, who got the contracts and for how much, etc.
    Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia known for his decades-long habit of attaching "pork" earmarks to bills, was one of those who put a hold on the bill, but he released the hold on Sept. 4. The remaining Senator, Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, is rumored to have put a hold on the bill because one of its co-sponsors, Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, had been a strong critic of one of Stevens' earmarks in which the Alaskan Senator obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds to build a bridge to an Alaskan island with only 50 people living on it.
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Are bloggers taking the place of investigative journalists in digging out information and reporting it to the American people? How does this example of "citizen journalism" support democracy? Are there ways in which blogging, and the lack of controls or credibility around the sources of bloggers' information, undermine democracy, and if so, what are those ways? When reading blogs on the Internet, how much time and effort do you put into checking the credibility of facts and statements made by the bloggers? How do you know what to believe or not?

August 21, 2006: The war in Lebanon may be "the first conflict to be blogged from day one" and "the first time that residents of 'enemy' countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling," according to Israeli blogger Lisa Goldman as cited in in the article "Blogging a Nameless War: Authentic voices make Lebanon's tragedy real. Where to find them" published in The Tyree, a Canadian alternative electronic independent daily. The article provide numerous links to bloggers writing about many aspects of the war.
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Is blogging changing the quantity or type of information people can find out about a war? If so, in what ways, and do you think this is good, bad or doesn't matter? Why?

May 17, 2006: A study done for Jupiter Research says that blogs have a "disproportionately large influence" on society, according to an article in the Christian Science Monitor. Says writer Tom Regan, "The reason? It's not how many people read a blog, it's who reads it. The Jupiter study, which focused on blog use in Europe, found that while 'active users' of the Internet make up a small portion of overall Internet users, they were starting to dominate public discussions and even have an impact on people's buying habits." He cites AOL Music, which recognizes that blogs can make or break a music artist, and lets bloggers use its music charts and information for free. Says the analyst for Jupiter Research, "The strongest part of their influence is on the media: If something online suddenly becomes a story in the local press, then it matters," adding that while media organizations who follow blogs should not overestimate the power blogs have, it's hard to ignore the impact they have on public discussion.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: How many people write blogs and how many people read them? (Hint: check this article for statistics). What is the point of blogging? If no one reads it, is it still a good use of time? Why or why not? How are corporations and their p.r. firms using blogging to influence their marketing and sales? (Hint: Wal-Mart, Cingular and Microsoft are just three.) How can blog readers know the difference between personal blogger opinions and messages that are influenced by corporate marketing (i.e. advertising in disguise)? Sometimes blogs have important news data that is otherwise not covered in mainstream media. How can a reader judge the credibilty of a news blogger?

May 10, 2006: Experts say that nationwide, student media is being transformed by multimedia as the traditional newspaper is fading out, according to an article from Youth Media Reporter. So far media production, a critical part of media literacy, is turning out to be far more democratic than traditional school newspapers—engaging a more diverse range of students than just those enrolled in journalism class. But while advocates of student journalism commend the advent of media production in the classroom, they also share [a] concern that these projects may not give students the same opportunity that papers have historically done: a voice to discuss the issues most relevant to them.
Media production is often, though not always, produced and presented in-class, whereas the student newspaper gives students an opportunity to voice their views to the entire school. Not having this sort of forum, says Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, is a “diminishment in student voice.”  Not having an audience can also affect the quality of the media produced. The best school papers allow students to do what often comes naturally to teenagers—question authority. Writing with an audience in mind requires they do so in a responsible manner, through solid reporting, fact-checking, and exploring questions of journalistic ethics and etiquette.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Does your school have a newspaper, and if so, is it bigger and better, or smaller and less important, than it was five years ago? What is lost when there is no school-wide, student-produced form of media to convey information that is important to, and created by, students? What is gained when students learn to use other forms of media to convey their message? What are the types of stories and information that are better covered in print format, and what other types of stories that are better covered in a visual format?

April 26, 2006:  Congresspedia, a new "citizen’s encyclopedia on Congress” was launched today by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Sunlight Foundation. Christened "a bold new experiment in distributed citizen journalism," it is based on the wiki model (after Wikipedia) and is a subset of the Center’s SourceWatch wiki.
They are starting with 539 articles – one for every current member of Congress, the non-voting delegates, and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, and hope that Congresspedia contributors (who can be any internet user) will build upon the information by not just adding to those profiles but also by creating new articles on any subject related to Congress that falls within the bounds of their policies and article guidelines. The Sunlight Foundation was founded with "the goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy."
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: What is "distributed citizen journalism"? How is this form of journalism different from, and/or similar to, both mass media/corporate journalism (e.g. CBS, Reuters, Associated Press, MSNBC, etc.) and "independent" journalism (e.g., Amy Goodman/DemocracyNow.org, Free Speech TV, Alternet, etc.). What are its advantages and disadvantages over the other forms? Can such a citizen-based information source be trusted, and if it can, what effect, if any, might it have on general public opinion and public discourse about Congress?

March 24, 2005: From Knowledge@Wharton: "Recently, blogs have been credited with everything from CBS News anchorman Dan Rather's departure, to unauthorized previews of the latest Apple Computer products, to new transparency in presidential campaigns. The big question is whether blogs, short for weblogs, have the staying power to become more than just online diaries. Will bloggers upend the mainstream media? What legal protections should bloggers have? Is there a blogger business model? While no definitive answers exist just yet, experts at Wharton advise questioners to be patient. Blogging, they note, will be around for a long time. Wharton legal studies professor Dan Hunter puts blogging right up there with the printing press when it comes to sharing ideas and disseminating information.
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: If bloggers are amateurs who don't subscribe to a journalism-style code of ethics, how can a reader know if the blogger's material is credible? What should a reader look for to determine credibility? If many bloggers are saying the same thing, does that mean you should believe it, and if not, what will make you believe it?

January 18, 2005: A nonprofit nationwide Internet service has been launched to serve dial-up Internet users who support media reform and the creation of a vigorous independent media. Marketed under the name IndyLink, the service is aimed at value-conscious Internet users who also want to avoid the commercial clutter and privacy
risks of corporate services such as AOL and Earthlink. IndyLink is IndyLink is a nonprofit Internet Service Provider providing dialup access and domain hosting nationwide, via a network of local phone numbers. A project of the Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN), IndyLink is dedicated to making Internet access a tool for progressive, grassroots activists throughout the United States.
      Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Other than saving money, why might an Internet user prefer a non-profit provider for their Internet access and/or web hosting over a larger commercial company? Do non-profits have a chance against the bigger companies? If yes, how do you know that? What does MAIN's track record of success suggest about the ability of average citizens to "fight back" against the larger corporate system? Is fighting back important, and if so, why?

January 2, 2005: A new report entitled "The State of Blogging" from the Pew Internet and American Life Project states: "By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is."
     Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: What is a blog? What do blog readers need to know about how to evaluate information in a blog compared to information in a newspaper, magazine, an individual's website, an organization's website, a TV broadcast, a community access cable program, etc.? As more people get more of their information from blogs rather than traditional news sources, how will that affect how these people form their opinions about matters of social/political importance?

August 24, 2004: Prometheus Radio Project organizers will travel to New York City and, in nine workshops scheduled over the course of the Republic National Convention, teach hundreds of workshop-goers how to work toward more independent media during this election season and beyond. The struggle for a free, locally-run, independent media is a big part of message that communities all across the country are focusing on at the convention.  Visit http://www.nycgrassrootsmedia.org to learn more.
     Classroom focus/media literacy discussion questions: Why would hundreds of people travel to New York to learn these skills? Are they important -- why or why not? How would news and information from "a free, locally-run, independent media" be different from that which we get from broadcast networks, cable news programming, corporate news websites, etc.? Does that make it any "better" than corporate news and information? Why or why not? Should we care?