Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

I’ve been so busy putting up links to go with the upcoming 4th edition to Mass Communication: Living in a Media World that I haven’t had time to question anything lately.  So here we go:

Note: All of these items first showed up on my Twitter feed.  Follow me!
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Adele, Vogue, and Body Image: “I don’t want to be some skinny-mini with my t#%s out”

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Adele’s been getting a lot of attention lately.  Not only for her music, but also for her looks.  Here’s a discussion from CNN about her new cover of Vogue in which she looks a good deal thinner than she does in real life.  Some of it may be a corset, but there also seems to be a lot of photoshopping going on as well. Not that different, it would seem, from the fuss over Kate Winslet’s cover of Vanity Fair a few years back.

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Link Ch.6 – How VTech’s Collegiate Times covered the 2011 shooting on campus

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

The student journalists at Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times had the best coverage in the country during December 8, 2011’s shooting deaths of two people on the VTech campus.  Here are two blog posts I wrote as their reporting was unfolding:

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Link Ch. 6 – Alternative Papers

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Here are links to several of the alternative papers discussed in the newspaper chapter of Mass Communication: Living in a Media World.  Please note that these papers at times may contain R-rated type language and imagery.

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Link Ch. 6 – Top Ten U.S. Newspapers

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Here are links to the top ten newspapers in the United States:

    1. Wall Street JournalNote that most of the WSJ’s content is available only to paid subscribers.
    2. New York Times It’s not the biggest paper, but it is the most influential.
    3. USA Today
    4. Los Angeles Times
    5. New York Post
    6. Washington Post
    7. Chicago Sun-Times 
    8. Denver Post
    9. Chicago Tribune
    10. Dallas Morning News

And as a bonus link:

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Link Ch. 6 – Edward R. Murrow in London

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Former NPR anchor Bob Edwards talks about the importance of the legendary radio and television broadcaster Edward R. Murrow.

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Link Ch. 6 – New York Daily News DEAD! cover

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Jesús Marrone wrote his doctoral dissertation on front covers of publications, and has a lot of great background on the New York Daily News DEAD! cover featuring murderer Ruth Snyder being executed.  Lots of great background information and photos of the camera photographer Tom Howard used to take the famous photo.

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Link Ch. 6 – The Yellow Kid

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

The Yellow Kid, an early newspaper comic character who got his start in a comic called Hogan’s Alley, was the star of the comics page during the yellow journalism era in New York City.  You can read and see more about Hogan’s Alley at this site hosted by the Ohio State University Libraries Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

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Link Ch. 6 – Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad House

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

Nellie Bly preparing for the mad houseNew York World stunt journalist Nellie Bly landed her job working for Joseph Pulitzer’s penny paper by going under cover as a patient at the women’s lunatic asylum.  In addition to a great series of newspaper articles, Bly also produced the book Ten Days in a Mad-House about her experience.

You can read it and see the original illustrations online at the University of Pennsylvania’s online collection of women writers.

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Link Ch. 11 – Privacy in the Digital Age: Target knows that high school girl is preggers before dad does

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Ralph Hanson

In the age of online shopping and digital information, it’s easy to get paranoid about how much vendors know about us.  You want to get creeped out?  Start paying attention to the recommendations that Amazon makes to you based on what you’ve previously looked at and purchased.

But taking all your shopping to a bricks and mortar department store won’t help preserve your privacy.  Exhibit #1? Target figured out that a high school girl was pregnant and started sending her maternity coupons before her father knew anything was going on.

How did Target know the young woman was preggers?  It seems that pregnant women have very predictable buying patterns.  And according to an article the New York Times, Target tracks every consumer who comes to their stores with a unique number tied to their credit/debit cards.

This young lady was buying the right combination of cocoa butter lotions,  soaps, and  mineral supplements that told Target there was an 86 percent likelihood she was pregnant.  So Target started sending her coupons for the products people expecting babies are likely to buy.

When these coupons showed up in the mail, the young woman’s father got upset called Target to complain.  Are you trying to talk my underage daughter into getting pregnant?  he asked.  Target apologized repeatedly to the father.  Then dad had a discussion with his daughter, and called Target back to apologize himself.  His daughter was pregnant, but hadn’t told him.

There are a host of fascinating ethical and pragmatic issues that come out of this case.  But there are two that come to mind immediately:

  • How can stores make good use of data mining to build customer loyalty?
  • How can stores do this without creeping out their customers?

Online privacy?  Worry about it, sure.  But there are plenty of other places that are tracking your behavior in the “real” world as well. (Thanks to Kashmir Hill’s blog The Not So Private Parts for this story.)

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