Category Archives: Uncategorized

When news catches up with my long-term pop culture diet

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

I’ve been planning for several days to write a blog entry today about three movies from 1968 that I’ve watched over the last couple of weeks  – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ice Station Zebra, and The Shoes of the Fisherman. Why … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 8, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Amazing Media Quotes

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

A round up of unexpected things I’ve read recently.  None of these are from The Onion! NPR Station Urges Listeners to Have Sex and Make More Listeners “Chicago’s NPR station, WBEZ, is making a more intimate appeal than usual during … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 10, Chapter 12, Chapter 7, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Amazing Media Quotes

When Super Bowls Turn Naughty – Do We Care?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

During the 2004 Super Bowl, singer Janet Jackson exposed her nipple for 9/16ths of a second, resulting in 8 years of litigation over whether CBS would have to pay a $500,000 fine for the “fleeting nudity.”  In the end, courts … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 9, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

25 Years of Opinion

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

Twenty-five years ago this week I started teaching college at Northern Arizona University.  Among the classes I taught that semester was Opinion Writing. Today, I’ll be starting in on a fresh section of that class, only now it’s called Commentary … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off on 25 Years of Opinion

Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

What if a student pretended to have a Mexican accent for an entire semester of a speech class, and then revealed his real San Diego accent on the last day of class? What kind of stories spread the fastest on … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 10, Chapter 5, Chapter 8, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 2 Comments

When Fox Accidentally Aired a Suicide on Live TV

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

During the day, Fox News has been known to show live car chases for as long as an hour at a time.  The coverage typically is fed to the cable news giant by an affiliate’s news or traffic helecopter. Today, … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 14, Chapter 9, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off on When Fox Accidentally Aired a Suicide on Live TV

Talking about media coverage of health care debate

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

I’m going to be talking to a business class about media coverage of the health care debate tonight.  Most of the figures I’ll be using come from two Pew Foundation reports: What Americans Learned from the Media about the Health … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments Off on Talking about media coverage of health care debate

Books, Books, Books

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

This week I’m going to be talking about books in class. Here’s a link to all my recent posts about books!  They include items on The Hunger Games, memoir fabrications, e-books, Amanda Hocking’s success at e-book publication, and the history of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 4, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off on Books, Books, Books

Leaving the mainstream to watch political conventions

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

I like media that matches my political point of view as much as the next guy, but when there is an important event or speech going on, my preferred channel is C-SPAN.  And increasingly, I prefer to watch C-SPAN online … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Leaving the mainstream to watch political conventions

Some great back-to-school videos

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

In addition to this blog, I also run a Tumblr at http://ralphehanson.tumblr.com.  I use that to post quotes, photos, videos and the like with little comment or context. Here are a few videos I’ve posted there lately that would make … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments