Assignment - Vietnam Terminology

Be prepared to locate and discuss these terms:

- Capitols of North and South
- Mekong River/Delta
- Gulf of Tonkin
- Hue
- Khe Sahn

** Medium * Is * Message **

Prototype site

The Whole World Is Watching

"The whole world is watching!' chanted the demonstrators in the Chicago streets in 1968, as the TV cameras beamed images of police cracking heads into homes everywhere. In this classic book, originally published in 1980, acclaimed media critic Todd Gitlin first scrutinizes major news coverage in the early days of the antiwar movement. Drawing on his own experiences Todd Gitlin (he was president of the Students for a Democratic Society in 1963-64) and on interviews with key activists and news reporters, he shows in detail how:
- the media first ignore new political developments;
- then select and emphasize aspects of the story that treat movements as oddities;
- demonstrates how the media glare made leaders into celebrities;
- estranges leaders them from their movement base;
- how it inflated the importance of revolutionary rhetoric, destabilizing the movement, then promoted 'moderate' alternatives--all the while spreading the antiwar message. "

Discuss this relative to Abbey Hoffman and Chicago Seven, John Kerry and the VVAW, Martin Luther King and SCLC.

Society of Professional Journalists - Code of Ethics

Review this code.

We'll be using it to examine major stories from the Sixties.

Medium Cool is available in Media Services

Especially for my directed Study Students I have put the DVD Medium Cool on Reserve in the Media Center. It's open until 8:00 pm, M-F. See Kevin Salemme for it. If he's not there, remind the desk staff that it's the Red, White and Blue DVD case behind them on/near the right hand side cart with my name on it. See DVD box image posted below on the Sixties site so you can recognize it.

You'll be using it to answer a few questions regarding:
- how news is determined and the problems camera operators faced in the field;
- the access Black Americans had to media in the sixties;
- the relationship between mass media and demonstrations;
- how the followers of Black Power ideology viewed the climate of the sixties;
- what was the difference between perception of protesters at the DNC and the reality exposed by the film?

All class members will be posting as well, stay tuned for due dates.

MEDIUM COOL by Haskell Wexler

The New York Times Review MEDIUM COOL



Today we'll watch Medium Cool. A movie shot using the Chicago Democratic Convention as the set. The action is live and the director used a flexible script to follow emerging actions. Some scenes used real actors who read from transcripts written by actual people, the Black Panthers, for example.

All in all, a very interesting movie in terms of production style, content and historical context.

Cell-phone Close Up

This stuff usually appears on my Powermedia page, but I thought that this image clearly shows how, at least in this case, the camera is starting to become the business end of the cell phone.

If the media of the Sixties dramatically opened up with the satellite, how will this innovation change our world. Granted this camera is not the first to take pictures and send them out. This one just REALLY looks the part.