Teaching the Digital Generation: T101 Media Life
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Membership Matters: This publication is paid for in part by dues-paying members of the Indiana University Alumni Association. Vol. 19 Fall 2009 HOLLYWOOD HOOSIERS: Batman in L.A. icture this: Hoosiers span- ning multiple generations and P dressed “to the nines” engaged in animated conversation, punctuated by “when did you graduate?” Bartenders serving selections from Bloomington’s Oliver Winery. IU Homecoming, perhaps? Would you believe it’s a reception in Beverly Hills, Calif.? More than 100 alumni and friends Matt Pierce from the Los Angeles area attended a gala reception and film screening at the Clarity Theatre on Aug. 1. Planned by Teaching the digital IU’s alumni affiliate group, Hollywood Hoosiers, the event celebrated the 20th anniversary of Batman. IU alumnus generation: T101 Media Life Michael Uslan, BA’73, MSEd’75, JD’76, the movie’s executive producer, They have seen women breaking through by Mark Deuze, associate professor described his acquisition of the rights to around the world as political leaders and Like the character in the 1998 movie The the Batman comics and how his passion Barack Obama’s historic election. These Truman Show, who discovers he is living in a for comic books sparked his idea to make events make the world a larger place — reality soap opera televised 24/7 to billions the Batman films come to life on screen. where anything seems possible and nothing across the globe, each of us is living a media Graduates of the IU Department follows established or traditional patterns. life. of Telecommunications seemed to For this generation, these events also make We digitally record, store, edit, and dominate the crowd and included those forward almost every aspect of our lives — the world a tiny, distinctly individual place (continued on page 4) whether we want to or not, whether we — where who you are and what you may are aware of it or not. We produce as much become is entirely up to you. information as we consume. How to make Technologies like the cell phone and the sense of a life like that, living in a completely Internet share the characteristics of making mediated world is what the Telecommunica- our experience of the world simultaneously In this issue tions course T101 Media Life is all about. larger (globally connected) and smaller T101 has been retooled for the digital (using individualized devices). This has had a profound impact on the teaching environ- 2 • Lang receives prestigious generation. With a few exceptions, the 420 ICA designation mostly freshmen and sophomore students ment. who take T101 were born after 1990. I have personally experienced a gradual, 4 • Hollywood Hoosiers They grew up in a world without a Cold yet meaningful change in the way incoming 8 • Sound Bites: firsthand War, without a Berlin Wall, without apart- students perform. This digital generation is alumni stories heid in South Africa — but with terrorism. (continued on page 3) 1 department news TV expert, author earns Telecom’s first Distinguished Alumni Award Cantor honored for service to industry, university, society Dr. Joanne Cantor, PhD’74, audience of parents, teachers, and childcare professionals. Her professor emerita and direc- children’s book, Teddy’s TV Troubles (Goblin Fern Press), brings tor of the Center for Com- this message down to the preschool level. munication Research at the Her expertise in the areas of television violence, children’s University of Wisconsin- fears, and television ratings and the V-chip has led her to testify Madison, has received the first before the U.S. House and Senate and the Federal Communica- Distinguished Alumni Award tions Commission, to be quoted regularly in the national press, from the Indiana University and to appear on many national television programs, includ- Department of Telecommu- ing interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Bryant Gumbel, and Diane nications for her exceptional Sawyer. scholarship, mentorship, While attending IU, Cantor was mentored by her dissertation and service contributions to advisor, Professor Dolf Zillman. She returned to the IU campus advance our understanding of in March to receive the award. While in Bloomington, she pre- media processes and effects. sented her research on media and fear. Milt Hamburger The award is presented to graduates of the department Cantor who stand out academically or in the media or related industries. ➤ The Distinguished Alumni Award was Cantor has published more than 90 scholarly articles and introduced to recognize scholarship, chapters on the impact of the mass media, with an emphasis on mentorship, and service. The award is present- children’s emotional reactions to television and films. Her parenting book, “MOMMY, I’M SCARED”: How TV ed to graduates of the department who stand out and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Pro- academically or in the media or related industries. tect Them, summarizes her research and its implications for an Taylor is IU’s McNair Lang named Scholar of the Year outstanding scholar Professor Annie Lang received the prestigious Recent graduate William Taylor, BA’09, 2009 Steven H. Chaffee Career Productivity Award earned the 2009 Ronald E. McNair from the International Communication Association Scholar of the Year award. (ICA). The award recognizes Lang for sustained The McNair Scholars Program research on cognitive processing of media messages. prepares first-generation and minority The award’s selection committee gives preference undergraduates for graduate study at to original work that is conceptually rich and makes the doctoral level. Each year, 25 McNair an advance in communication knowledge. Winning Scholars participate in academic year and research must have comprised multiple projects and summer activities that include research publications and generated second-generation work and teaching experiences. among students and other scholars. William is currently continuing his “[Lang] has a strong and sustained publication studies in the Department of Telecom- record in top general and specialist journals in our munications as an MA student. He is field,” the award committee said. “She is an ICA from Stockbridge, Ga., and majored in Fellow and has won many ICA top paper and other telecommunications, Spanish, and lin- awards. It is clear that she has influenced many other guistics while minoring in international scholars, both students and colleagues, and younger studies and Western European studies as Taylor scholars are continuing from the base she has laid an undergraduate at IU. down.” The McNair Scholars Program honors astronaut Ronald E. McNair, who Dr. Lang will present her research at the 2010 perished in the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986. ICA Conference in Singapore. 2 20TH ANNUAL MULTIVISIONS communications conference SAVE THE DATE! Friday, April 9, 2010 Indiana University Bloomington We’re celebrating 20 years of innovative connections. MultiVisions 2010 will be extra-special! Watch for details. Visit: http://www.indiana.edu/~telecom/news Digital generation technologies on industry and society, review- (To see the creative work of some of our ing both conceptual and practical aspects young students for a class assignment, go to (continued from page 1) of our changing information society. The www.youtube.com/group/medialife.) not smarter nor dumber (as often suggested) course is divided into thematic sections, each One of the most popular and fun assign- than previous generations. What is different, focusing on the relationships between new ments in T101 is the Google essay. however, is the way they learn. Their talent communication technology, media indus- Its aim is to make students aware of the generally does not seem to be knowing in- tries, and the issues we all face in everyday digital shadow they leave behind when they formation, such as crucial dates in history or life: understanding and managing careers, use the Internet. Students write an essay the names of Supreme Court justices or state capitals, rather finding information. TO SEE THE CREATIVE WORK STUDENTS A July 2009 report from the MacArthur Foundation suggests the vast amount of PRODUCED FOR AN ASSIGNMENT, GO TO: information available from many sources shifts learning strategies from memorizing WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/GROUP/MEDIALIFE. information to finding reliable sources. A shift in learning from content, gener- relationships, and identities. Many students about themselves using only information ally transmitted by experts to audiences, to hear, see, and think about issues regarding from Internet sites such as Google, Face- process has obvious consequences for the new media and society for the first time. book, MySpace and meta-search engines like role and position of teachers. Course lectures include PowerPoint IxQuick. In our individualized and globalized presentations, videos, and brief classroom Students reflect on what they found, how society — our “runaway world,” as Brit- exercises. The students are additionally easy or difficult it was to find information ish sociologist Anthony Giddens succinctly asked to follow the T101MediaLife channel about themselves, and how the assignment labels it — it really seems up to each person on Twitter (see: twitter.com/T101Medi- influenced their perspective on issues such to make up his own version of knowledge, aLife), which is used to provide a real-time as their digital shadow, privacy, and the way wisdom, and truth. Obviously, this poses backchannel discussion platform during (and people represent themselves online. challenges to teaching at a world-class outside of) the lectures. The combination of teamwork, creative institute of higher learning such as Indiana Students choose from a menu of assign- projects, collaborative exams, and individual University. The challenge is especially pres- ments that include creative projects, papers research assignments serves the purposes ent in a course that aims to raise awareness detailing significant online trends (social of the course and the particular wants and among young people about the formidable networking, virtual worlds, digital divide is- needs of this digital generation.