Media Studies: How should we think about different forms of media:
radio, film, photography, books, Web sites, etc?
Working with digital media: Hands-on training in developing new
media projects: designing web pages,
manipulating graphics, capturing and editing audio and video
Sub-Topics:
Technology: How do technological developments in media affect our
perception of reality and the way that we document our experience? For instance,
the rise of the movies; the introduction of color and sound in movies; the
availability of smaller, lighter cameras so that people could more easily
take equipment into the field; the rise of DVDs, etc.
Community: How do documentaries represent the idea of community?
General pattern of class: mini-lectures to set up the context; guest lecturers;
discussions; field trips; a couple of presentations; labs; informal small
group discussions and presentations
Group projects: presentation on photography collection; digital documentary
Other assignments: two 3-4 page papers; media labs; short, informal writing
assignments
Caveat emptor: You'll have to work pretty hard in this course, but it should
be interesting and rewarding.
Many course readings online; some of the required textbooks are less essential
than others.
My approach to teaching is experimental. For example, we'll be trying out
a lot of different technological tools, such as WebCT (which, admittedly,
is in use at a lot of universities, so it's not that experimental).
Defining Terms
Documentary
Origins of the term: from the Latin docere, “to teach”; also "proof"
Oxford
English Dictionary: "Factual, realistic; applied esp. to a film
or literary work, etc., based on real events or circumstances, and intended
primarily for instruction or record purposes." This meaning emerged in
the 1920s, in a description John Grierson gave of a film by the early documentary
filmmaker Robert Flaherty: "Moana', being a visual account of events
in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value."
“Documentaries explore actual people and actual situations” (Michael Rabiger
in Directing the Documentary)
“the creative treatment of actuality” (director and producer John Grierson)
"a documentary report offers authentication of what is otherwise speculation.
Through documents themselves, through informants, witnesses, participants,
through the use of the camera and the tape recorder, through letters of journals
or diaries, through school records, court records, hospital records, or newspaper
records, a growing accuracy with respect to a situation, a place, a person
or a group of people begins to be assembled” (Robert Coles, Doing Documentary
Work).
Media
Oxford
English Dictionary: "Newspapers, radio, television, etc., collectively,
as vehicles of mass communication." [This meanings also appears to have
originated in the 1920s.]
Derived from Latin for "middle."
Media, according to Marshall McLuhan, "any extension of ourselves."
For him, media would include not only photographs, radio, TV, movies, and
books, but also homes, clothes, clocks, games, etc.
Multimedia
Oxford
English Dictionary: "Designating or pertaining to a form of artistic,
educational, or commercial communication in which more than one medium is
used."
Has been used since the 1970s by researchers in information technology
"New media is a catch-all term for all forms of electronic communication
that have appeared or will appear since the original mainly text-and-static
picture forms of online communication" (searchWebManagement.com)
Examples of new media:
web sites
email
virtual reality
DVDs
digital radio and television
video games
computer animation
Features of new media:
Interactive and participatory
Convergence of different forms of media
Hypertextual: choose your own paths through a site
Dynamic
Selective communication: "new media also give users the means to
generate, seek and share content selectively, and to interact with others
who share their interests, on a scale that was impractical before extensive
new media networks developed" (Leah A. Lievrouw, Handbook of New
Media, http://skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/llievrou/html/HNMwhatis.html,
2000)
Reading: critics on documentary, media, and new media
Browsing web sites that exemplify different approaches to the documentary
Write a brief (approx. 1 page), informal response paper in which you apply
a point made by one (or more) of the critics (McLuhan, Coles, and Bolter and
Grusin) to one or more of the Web sites that you are examining for class.
Either email this response paper to me (lspiro@rice.edu)
or bring a hard copy with you to class next Wednesday.
