A mini-course in Multi-Media by Daniel del Solar

([email protected]) will instruct and moderate. Write/email me to start.

The following webpages will provide the student of this course with a selection of websites to provide a beginning or an entry into a different way of looking at things. You will begin to approach the news, and your relationship to it, differently when you finish reading the following. It is hoped that you will become a better citizen as well, as you take an active approach to the media explosion.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The parable by the ancient philosopher about the scales dropping away placed here. When we are Attempting to understand, we humans are like are like a person at the bottom of a deep cave, and we can See, looking up, only the shadows of what is going outside the cave, we see only dimly shadows moving Around. We cannot see or understand from out point of view, down at the bottom of a well inside the Cave, what is going on outside. No one can accept this. We have eyes that see, ears that hear, and so we "know." nobody can tell us we do not understand.

But our understanding is most often mediated by individuals in organizations, most often "news organizations" which often do not have an interest in providing you, the news consumer, with the "real news." Increasingly, the news is provided to us, the passive public, in small,. bite-size kernels, often not longer than 90 seconds on TV, or a few paragraphs in the news. The news organizations are owned by immensely wealthy and powerful people who sometimes, and often on controversial matters, do not have any intention of giving us, the voters, the citizens, the whole story.
 

IT IS UP TO YOU TO IMPROVE YOUR MEDIA DIET

If you do not, you will only know what "they" want you to know, and that means that when you go to vote, you will not have the whole story, Even with the best of intentions, you will then not be able to vote correctly, that is, in your own best interest and in the best interest of your family, community, and, ultimately, nation. Browse through the following to become familiar with a number of cases of controversy regarding particular news events.

Among some of the instances, are the story, and later retraction, regarding the operation of United Fruit Company head quartered in Ohio, the so-called "Chiquita Banana" story and others. This preliminary list will introduce the student to alternative points of view, that is, "non mainstream" media. It will also open your mind to considering that it may be a good idea to develop a "rounded diet" of media. You may begin to seek out so-called "alternative sources."

Why alternative? They are poor, small, and have, typically, a small distribution, that is, viewers/readers/listeners. (Audio alternatives to NPR. NPR on a daily basis, and spending millions of dollars yearly, produces a news program titled, "All Things Considered." Really, it is only "Some Things Considered.

QUALITY ISSUES:

how good is good
Public Broadcasting Will Remain A Hopeless Mess

how much is enough

http://www.alternet.org/diversity/

who do you consider an expert?http://www.igc.apc.org/an/MediaCultureReview/VOL98/13/57channels.html

SOURCES where alternative NON MAINSTREAM news is presented:

http://www.citypaper.com/feature/featur41.htm

http://www.newslink.org/menu.html

http://www.monitor.net/m

http://www.rain.org/~openmind/frenzy.htm

http://www.rain.org/~openmind/newsltr.htm

Discussion of issues

http://www.rain.org/~openmind/talking2.htm

http://www.igc.apc.org/an/MediaCultureReview/index.html

http://www.thenation.com/issue/971201/1201ledb.htm onitor/10-30-95/ml-smoke.html

Atomic : who benefits, why don't we know the real story

Cocaine & the CIA: where do we live? who do we believe?

Central America the story that was never told

(dark alliance sites placed here)

Race & Class in America: the politics of avoidance and social cost

Censored: What we, as a nation, should be talking about,

http://www.nehttp://www.salonmagazine.com/feb97/media/media970211.html wslink.org/ajrtalk.htm

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9801/30/scandal.online/index.html
 

Environment

http://www.newslink.org/menu.html

http://www.igc.apc.org/an/book/whitershade3.html

http://www.thenation.com/issue/971208/1208aufd.htm
 
 

Class Project

Students, when informed enough by going through a variety of media on a specific topic, will:

1. Select a topic and develop an instructional unit, a paper/webpage set which will inform readers about important/major aspects of the case, using reference to related websites and providing analysis and commentary, and possibly original research.

2.Successful projects will become part of this web site.

contact: DanieldelSolar