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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Hip Hop Reading


I decided to cut back the Tricia Rose reading for this week. Because Marco McWilliams will be guest speaking this week, I ant to make sure he has enough time to work with us. So our reading for this week will be an overall context, rather than a dense academic piece.


Please listen to this interview with Tricia Rose from NPR

Please read this interview with Tricia Rose from Time Magazine.

I still want you to follow the Talking Points format listed in our syllabus. please be detailed and specific when you write about the readings. And I would love to see you using hyperlink -- especially on a topic like this one!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Discourse and Power

Last week in class, we talked about how dominant discourses shape our understanding of events, people, places and things. Through "discursive constructions" we building our knowledge of what seems "normal," "natural" and "good." These discourses are shaped by ideologies of power.

For example, we talked about how menstruation get constructed in negative terms BECAUSE it is associated with women and women's bodies. How might the dominant discourses around menstruation be different if they were connected to the power of men?

If Men Could Menstruate, by Gloria Steinem.



Any thoughts?

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Thinking about Teenagers...

Hi all,

As you can tell, we are making a shift in the course this week as we move from the skills and tools of media analysis (spectatorship positions, textual analysis of Beauty and Madonna, media literacy skills, cultural studies questions for studying media) to a more direct focus on TEENAGERS.

Thomas Hine maps out some of the ways that we have understood teenagers in American history, and ultimately he challenges the dominant ideas (remember our pictionary drawings of dominant ideas?) about who teenagers are.

So as you read, really work to figure out what his point is. What is he saying about teenagers, and why does it even matter to him?

Check out the syllabus for more specific instructions about how to set up your blog posts.

See you Tue night.

LB :)

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Media Literacy

Hi all,

Hope you have had a good weekend. Please make sure to send me a comment with your blog address — several of you do not yet have your blogs up and you should have three posts up (When I Was 13, Christensen and Media Literacy) by class this week.


While posts are not due until Tuesday, several of you have already posted this week.

  • Go check out Annie's Blog to see how she uses LINKS throughout her writing to connect to external resources. Do this as often as you can — it is what makes blogging different than just writing a journal off line.
  • And don't miss Janet's youtube post of a fabulous spoken word poem, Slip of the Tongue. I think Christensen would approve... what do you think? Leave her a comment with your thoughts.

See you in class on Tuesday for a Media Literacy Day!!

LB :)