Introduction to Media Studies: LCC 2400: RESOURCES

Readings for Class

Week 2 Semiotics for Beginners
Week 3 Perspective
Week 4 Kandinsky (read section entitled "Theoretical writings on art" ) and THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING OF COLOUR (only read section V.)
Week 5 "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin
Week 6 Modernism (review every page including "National Modernisms and Identity")
Week 7 Film Analysis (the Editing section only, watch all of the videos, which are short)
- Optional Extra Readings: Soviet Montage Theory, or Various Specific Film Theories
Week 8 For Creativity read one of the Following:
Week 9 Propaganda Model and Manufacturing Consent (Video excerpt, try to watch at least 10 minutes)
- Optional Extra Readings: Has the Internet Changed the Propaganda Model?, or Chomsky on America propaganda, or Chomsky on the "one-party system" in America
Week 10 Ecstasy of Communication by Jean Baudrillard (PDF)
- Optional Extra Reading Postmodernism and Modernism in Literary Criticism
Week 11 Postmodernism, Sturken and Cartwright (A neutral view of postmodernism) (PDF)
- Optional Extra Readings:
  - "Who Am We" by Sherry Turkle for WIRED (This presents a positive view of the postmodern, "distributed identity" especially regarding VR and videogames)
  - Superflat Japanese Postmodernity (on contemporary Japanese Artist, Murakami)
  - Critique of Baudrillard and The Matrix
  - Summary Essay on Simulacra (neutral, non-nihilistic definition)
  - Simulation and Simulacra by Baudrillard
Week 12 Inventing the Medium by Janet Murray (PDF)
Week 13 Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins (PDF)
Week 14 This week for the required reading you have a choice between two:
- 1) 'This Is Not a Game': Immersive Aesthetics and Collective Play by Jane McGonigal (PDF)
  - The above discusses alternate reality gamers believing they can "solve 9/11"
- 2) Games as Art: The Aesthetics of Play by Celia Pearce (PDF)
- Optional Extra Credit:
  - Saving the World Through Game Design talk by Jane McGonigal (video)

Media for Class

Week 1
- Medium
  - Mothlight (1963, Stan Brakhage)
  - Stan Brakhage interview
  - Bourne Identity Fight Scene
  - Evolution of Fight Scenes (be sure to click on video slideshow link at bottom) (Thanks Zacharias!)
- Medium Effects
  - Nixon / Kennedy Debate (1960)
  - Nixon's Face
  - Game Change -- How the New Media Are Impacting the '08 Race (Thanks Joshua!)
- Scopic Regimes (Formalism vs. Naturalism)
  - Clinical Birth Video (1950)
  - Window Water Baby Moving (1959, Stan Brakhage)
  - Birthing video parody (Thanks Bryant!)
Week 2
- Semiotics
  - Summary video
  - Negotiating Meaning
    - Koko the Gorilla signing
  - Transcoding
  - Culture Jamming
  - Asymbolic, Concrete Language
- Mythology
Week 3
- History of Perspective
  - Definition of "Scopic Regimes"
  - Blind Painter of Perspective
- Articles on Space in Videogames
- Formal Videogames
  - Quilted Thought Organ (Julian Oliver of SelectParks.net)
  - 3D Asteroids
  - 7D Asteroids (scroll down)
- Categories of Games and Gameplay
  - Roger Callois (agon, alea, mimicry, illynx)
Week 4
- Synasthesia
  - TED Video (start at the 18:00 minute mark)
  - Wiki Article
- Pollock
  - Video
  - Pollock's teacher, Thomas Hart Benton
- Futurism (Thanks Mina!)
- Andy Rooney on Modern Art
- The Fight Over "Lipstick"

(9/3) Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention
(9/9) Barack Obama in a speech using lipstick metaphor
(9/9) McCain Palin Ad
(9/10) Sean Hannity
(9/10) Cafepress
(9/10) Obama Responds
(9/10) Obama on Letterman

George Lakoff Political Metaphors
Frank Luntz "Words that Work"
Slideshow of racial caricatures in marketing (Thanks Zacharias!)

Week 5
- Steal this Film II (video)
Week 6
- WarioLand YouTube Hack (thanks Donovan!)
Week 7
- Film Development
Week 8

Film Technique
- The Great Train Robbery (1903) (cross-cutting, camera movement, on location shooting)
- Kuleshov Effect
  - Hitchcock on Kuleshov Effect (the edit as the essence of cinema)
  - Kuleshov Effect (1918) (Original)
  - Kuleshov Effect alt
- Birth of a Nation (1915) (editing within a scene, continuity editing, 180 degree rule, establishing shot)
  - Part 15 (0:30 to 5:00) (white woman runs from blackfaced actor and kills herself)
- Continuity Editing Examples (using V for Vendetta) (0:45 to 3:00)
- Soviet Montage Techniques (wikipedia)
- Soviet Montage Examples
- Man with a Movie Camera (1929) (double exposure, fast and slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, backwards)
  - Part 1 (1:28 to 4:30) Audience enters theater
  - Part 2 (0:50 to 3:00) Waking up, getting ready for day
  - Part 3 (2:40 to end) Cameraman in streets, in editing room
  - Part 4 (4:48 to 6:10) Eye as machine, watch injured man treated
  - Part 5 (3:00 to 4:30) Human as machine
  - Part 6 (0:00 to 3:00, 5:00 to 6:00) Cameraman in depths, leisure time
  - Part 7 (0:30 to 1:10, 4:00 to 5:00, 6:30 to 7:30) Athlete as beautiful, body as beautiful, playing human as machine
  - Part 8 (0:30 to 2:00, 3:00 to end) Drunk then sober/intellectual, musical climax
  - Part 9 (all) Audience in theater finale
- Olympia diving sequence (1936) (2:40 to end) (tracking shots, extreme close ups, metric montage, smash cuts)
Blackface
- Bamboozled by Spike Lee (thanks Staley!)
  - Trailer (video)
  - Blackface Montage (YouTube Video)
  - Blackface Montage (Archived Video 15mb) (Thanks William and Hunt!)
- "Devil in Dave Chappelle" Article by William Jelani Cobb
- Master-Slave Dialectic
Slavoj Žižek
- Radio Interview (on racism, capitalism, Sara Palin)
Aura, Digital Reproduction
- "The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems" by Bill Nichols (Thanks Bullard!)
- "New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura" by Jay Bolter (PDF) (Thanks Jenny!

Week 9
- Propaganda in Film
  - Triumph of the Will
  - 1984 (book by George Orwell in 1949)
    - Intro to Film (beginning to 3:00)
      - Text "Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack..."
    - Excerpt on Celibacy (7:30 to 8:30)
  - Brave New World (book by Aldous Huxley in 1932)
    - Excerpt on Promiscuity (beginning to 1:30)
    - Aldous Huxley on the subject
- Systemic Propaganda
  - Georgia Conflict 2008 (Wikipedia Article)
    - Example of U.S. view
    - Example Mixed View
      - Another Mixed View (thanks Danni!)
    - Example of Russian view
- Bias
- WWII Propaganda Parody
- Propaganda Poster Remix Project (thanks Bullard!)
- Design of Dissent Book (scroll down to give it a chance, thanks Mina!)
- Pit Bulls for Palin (thanks Tony!) Palin search on Cafepress
- Rense.com
Week 10
- Postmodern Artifacts
  - Postmodernism Generator (academic text)
  - Andy Warhol (art)
- Žižek
  - On Children of Men (video)
  - In Pervert's Guide to Cinema (video)
    - Trailer (video)
Week 11
- Tim and Eric (metacommunication in comedy video)
- Barbara Kruger (ambiguity in meaning) some good examples
- Palin-speak generator (chatterbot) Interview Palin (branching dialogue)
- McDonald's Video Game (biting parody or consumable pastiche?)
- 4chan.org (strong example metacommunication. The /b/ Random board is the most culturally important which generated many internet memes like lolcats and Rickrolling, plus has spawned invasion and griefing subcultures)
Week 12
- Medium-Specificity
  - Looking for a heart of gameness (article) Contrast this to the totalizing models of new media which considers videogames a genre. Target image
  - Popular Modernism example (article)
- Participation
  - Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky (video)
  - Change.gov Obama's transition website
  - How to Play Superstruct (video). This is an alternate reality game.
    - MMOs to help futurists solve world's problems? (gamer article about Superstruct)
    - Outlaw Planet (video)
    - Final Threat (video)
  - World Without Oil Alternate reality game.
  - Play The News Predictive News Games
Week 13
- Critical Remix
  - Situationist Summary (video, start at 2:15)
  - Society of the Spectacle (video)
  - Situationist Painting (video)
  - Drift Deck
  - Parkour and Free Running (video)
  - A Fairy Use Tale (video) (thanks Sabrina!)
- Remix Culture
  - Writing on remix culture (thanks Liz for these four links!)
  - Total Recut Remix Challenge winner (video)
  - Anime Music Video (using same anime) (video)
  - Anime Music Video (using different anime) (video)
- Remediation
  - Mediums
    - Print to Image
      - Word Clouding (Wordle)
    - Videogame to Photographic Image
      - Long exposures of 80s games
    - Drawing Image to Videogame
      - Linerider
    - Image to Videogame to Film
      - Heaven and Hell Linerider (video)
    - Body to Screen
      Electronic tattoo (video)
    - Machine to Fashion
      - Transforming Clothes (video)
    - Screens to Paper
      - e-paper (video)
    - Video to Videogame
      - A Night's Journey (video)
  - The Life Cycle of a Technique
    - Home Movies (video)
    - Blair Witch Project (video)
    - Cloverfield (video)
    - South Park: Pandemic (video, start at 8:15)
  - Artifacts
    - Walden, the Game (trailer)
    - Color Palette Generator
  - Ekphrasis
    - Bill Viola - Ocean Without a Shore - Venice Biennale 2007 (video)
  - Cut-up Method
    - Wordle Visualization of Presidential Debate language (thanks Tony!)
    - Dada Poetry Generator
    - Programming a Dada poem
    - Karawane (video)
Week 14
- Videogames as Art
  - Debate with Roger Ebert
  - Industry perspective of videogames as art (Thanks Bryant!)
- Formal (experimenting with the form, aesthetics of the medium)
- Political (simulating rhetorical arguments)
Week 15
- Pecha-kucha rapid presentation format: 20 slides x 20 seconds each = 6:40 minutes.
- Videogame Auteur article in Esquire (it's about Jason Rohrer who created Passage)
- Videogame comparison (thanks Donovan!)
  - Mirror's Edge (video)
    E.T. The Video Game (video)
- www.skewz.com readers rate bias in news (thanks Shelby!)
- Googlemaps Crime Atlanta also Homicide Map L.A. or Wikicrimes
- Super Obama World
- Iran a nation of bloggers (video)
- Live UK question feed
- StreetWars
- Food Fight (video)
- Jamie Foxx does Brady Bunch (video)
- Lolcats and Pathos versus Jill Greenberg
- Tilt-Shift Photography
- Questioning Long-Tail market theory

Class Lectures

What is a Medium? (week 1)
What is Media and Formalism vs. Naturalism (week 1)
Intro to Semiotics (week 2)
On the Strength of Signifieds (week 2)
Perspective (Week 3)
Some Approaches to Videogame Space (Week 3)
The Breakdown of Perspectival Space in Early Modernism (Week 4)
Modern Art as a Question (Week 4)
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Week 5)
Modernity and Modernism (Week 6)
Metropolis (Week 7)
Essay Tips (Week 7)
Design (Week 8)
Propaganda (Week 9)
Themes of Postmodernism (Week 10)
Postmodernism and Essay (Week 11)
Aura Essays (Week 12)
A Theory of New Media (Week 12)
Remix Culture (Week 13)
Remediation (Week 13)
Powerpoint Tips (via) (Week 14)

Media Theory

Writing and Research

Writing Format
Research Tools
- Google Scholar constrain searches to academic sources

Zotero organize research, internet links, bibliographies

Media Archives

Ubuweb A film and video archive online
Ads of the World

Media Creation

Photoshop Tutorial Links from beginner to advanced
- 3D Text Tutorial a lot of high quality, yet easy tutorials

Web Tips

Bugmenot.com legal login bypass
Mailinator.com instant disposable email