Category Archives: Chapter 2

David Frum & the Problem with “Balanced” Commentary

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

UPDATED: (Here’s a link to Frum’s farewell conversation on the show.) Today, center-right commentator David Frum stepped down in his role as a commentator for American Public Media‘s business radio news show Marketplace. Frum, a former speech writer for George W. Bush, has … Continue reading →

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Ch. 2 Link – John Adams – On The Transmigration of Souls

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

You can listen to an interview with composer John Adams where he talks about is Pulitzer Prize-winning composition about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, “On The Transmigration of Souls.”  The interview aired on NPR on Sept. 20, 2011. And here’s … Continue reading →

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More Earthquakes and Twitter

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

Boing Boing shared a fascinating video up showing the spread of earthquake Tweets on Tuesday. The green dots are tweets about earthquakes, the gray dots are tweets about other topics.  Each frame covers 1 second, and the video covers 12 minutes … Continue reading →

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Link Ch. 2 – Earthquakes, social media, XKCD and science

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

This week my students in my senior-level mass media and society class have been working at developing experiments to learn about how people use social media.  Most of them are trying to measure President Obama’s popularity (or lack thereof), rather … Continue reading →

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Updated – Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

How do journalists handle telling the story when politicians and scientists conflict? There are always multiple sides when it comes to politics.  But when you move into science, not all sides are equal.  Finding a path to reporting on politicians … Continue reading →

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Questions worth asking (Maybe)

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

What would Steve Jobs do? Want to design an elegant, effective product?  Computerworld’s Jonny Evans says, ask yourself “What would Steve Jobs do?”  Worth reading even if you are not an Apple fan. What is the future of electronic textbooks? … Continue reading →

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

How did people learn about bin Laden’s death? Survey says — Television.  Though many of my students said word-of-mouth from people who had been watching TV. What parent wouldn’t love a book called “Go The @$#& To Sleep”? This book … Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Media, Political Communication & Crosshairs

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Ralph Hanson

There’s been a lot of over-the-top rhetoric about the use of crosshair (gun sight) imagery in last year’s campaign and what that might have to do with the shootings that took place in Arizona over the weekend.  Here are three … Continue reading →

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How can you tell when women have significant roles in movies?

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Ralph Hanson

There are lots of movies with great relationships between men.  There are a number of movies with interesting roles for women.  But how many movies out there feature multiple major female characters who interact with each other?  That’s the question … Continue reading →

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The Real Meaning of WikiLeaks

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Ralph Hanson

The Economist has a great blog post up explaining why the importance of WikiLeaks transcends Julian Assange and his merry band of leakers.  The magazine’s writer argues that we are undergoing a huge shift from paper documents that are heavy … Continue reading →

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