Shauna Swansburg

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W2: PUBLIC RELATIONS

Today, we’re talking about the theories and practices of PR, and I’ll be countering some misconceptions about public relations, including the idea that PR is as easy as being able to talk really well. 

Well, yes, Elle Woods, it’s harder than it looks.

We’re gonna go over the various kinds of PR and the reasons why PR is important not just in times of crisis. We’re also going to go over the six steps of PR issues management. And then we’re gonna practice them in the second half of class in agencies of our own. 

The assignment is a change from what’s listed on the syllabus. On your Tumblr, please vote for which team did the best at our in-class PR activity and explain why you voted that way in less than 300 words. You cannot vote for your own team, because that’s too easy. As always, tag your posts!

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My vote is for the NFL group. I believe that their strategy was the best thought out and covered all issues they are currently dealing with and will have long-term effects in stopping problems to come. The biggest problems people have against the NFL were brought up in there PR activity and each one was covered with a reasonable and smart approach. 

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T2: Journalism

Today we’re going to be talking about storytelling and journalism, two things that go hand in hand but are perhaps more complicated in practice. Many issues facing journalism today are also about ethics and responsibility. They’re difficult questions, but I’m interested in your answers. Bring your thinking caps. 

We also have a special guest today! Jenni Whalen is a veteran freelance journalist and former managing editor of MedTech Boston, a medical technology news startup site. She’s currently Executive Assistant of Editorial at Upworthy, which is in the midst of refocusing itself on reported and edited content. Jenni has great insights into what journalists do now and where journalism might be headed in the future.

Today’s assignment is to respond to the prevailing industry trend of sponsored content, or #sponcon. The advantages of the practice are obvious for the journalism industry and for advertisers, but its implications for journalism’s readers and public are less clear. Think through what you think the responsibility of journalism is to the public. Does sponsored content support, modify, or betray that responsibility? What do consumers need to know about how journalism sites make money? Are some kinds of sponsored content deals ok while others aren’t? Less than or equal to 300 words, please.

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Journalism is used to get ideas and news across to the greater public. A journalist’s responsibilities is important for people to know what is happening, both good and bad things. In today’s day and age it is easier to get news across to the public. Sponsored content in my mind supports the responsibilities of journalists in most ways because it is still news being delivered to the public. I think that sponsored content can be both good and bad. The good can be things on Buzzfeed such as quizzes, they are fun and harmless; the sponsored content that is not as good consists of companies mixing words trying to make themselves look better. Journalism will never die in my opinion because people always want and need to know what is going on, both close to home and around the world.

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M2: Participatory Culture

Participatory culture is a set of ideas about a more inclusive vision of cultural production, one that isn’t characterized by divisions between official and unofficial, author and fan, and other such binary categories. This idea is at once familiar and strange, for reasons we’ll be discussing in detail. What does it mean to participate in culture? How can we characterize this participation? That and more will be discussed today.

The assignment is to find an example of participatory culture for a fandom that you could feasibly be a part of. If you do not self-identify as a fan of a piece of media, choose your favorite TV show, movie, book series or music group and look for an example there. Give <300 words of analysis. What does the example you’ve found do with the original text? Why does it do that? (Feel free to include examples that are critical of the original text.) 

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I picked a fan fiction based off of Gossip Girl, my all time favorite TV show. In this example, the fan fiction rewrote the text by using crossover. In this particular case it was a cross over between Harry Potter and Gossip Girl, both great films. It took the characters out of each show and placed them together in the setting of Hogwarts. This was done in order to reach out to not only the group of mainly teenage girls that are in love with Gossip Girl characters, but also a much larger group of Harry Potter fans. I did not particularly enjoy this because I liked the characters the way they are in their own setting.

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F1: TV, NOT TV, & BEYOND TV

Television scholar Amanda Lotz has noted that the word “television” seems to endure for a host of different kinds of content, even as the original delivery system called television is thought to be archaic, outmoded, and on the decline. With that in mind, I want to concentrate on your experiences of what television is, what value television has in your life, and how you make viewing decisions in age where the amount of available video content has exponentially increased.

I’ll be giving just a few background details on how scholars and critics think about television systems, how television developed in America, and where we’re at in the industry now. Then we’ll have a free-flowing conversation about your experiences of television.

The very last thing we’ll do in class is screen a recent episode of Modern Family called “Connection Lost.” It has a very unique style, as you’ll quickly realize. What I want you to do is write a <300 word review of the episode based on the things you value about TV. In other words, evaluate the show based on its execution of the thing you like most about TV. Do you need a serial narrative to draw you in? Are you so averse to commercials the show’s commercial nature turns you off? Think deeply about what you want from TV and what you like and write the review. Tag it as below.

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I love Modern Family and I think that the way they went about “Connection Lost” was creative, interesting, and I enjoyed it. I think that that shows change of execution is the part of TV that I like. I need a show to keep changing, not having repetitive plots. I think that the question, ‘What do you like about TV’ is actually hard to think about. I think it’s the characters of a show, the plot, and the popularity of the program that draws me to a show. Though there are many components to me liking a show, its commercial nature is not one of them. I do not mind commercials what so ever, I kind of like them. The short entertaining features don’t bother me. The only commercials I don’t like are any type of food commercial I think they are all poorly done. What I like most about modern family are the short clips of the characters realizing that they are talking to the camera; though this was not the case in the latest episode I think that it was very creative and modern. All I want from TV is an emotional connection through characters and plots, a good laugh sometimes a cry and constant new material to keep it interesting.

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W1 ASSIGNMENT: View this video, from YouTube’s pitch to advertisers. What challenge does John Green claim YouTube poses to traditional advertising models, and how does he propose advertisers can continue to be meaningfully involved with YouTube? Answer, then consider this pitch from the advertiser’s perspective. Why might clients be excited about the prospect of sponsoring a “community”? What might be difficult about demonstrating return on investment for this kind of advertising? Less than or equal to 300 words.

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The man to get me through AP US History this year, John Green, is bringing a new perspective to YouTube advertisers through his pitch that describes the concept that, the number of eyes on the video is not what is important. Green states that, “I don’t care about how many people watch something I make, I care about how many people love something I make.” Green is suggesting that the advertisers need to realize the potential and strength in community and feed in to it. “We are not in the distraction business. We are in the community business.” The sense of community could bring in millions of new people who find it comforting and love feeling that they are a part of something. Clients could find this exciting in that the numbers and the stories are there to back up Greens claims, but they could also be hesitant. The resistance could be due to the fact that they would just be casting a line into unknown waters because they have no real way of knowing the return that would come with this new advertisement, due to not being able to exactly predict how many more people are out there that want to join this “YouTube family” that Green has described.

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Zac Efron in High School Musical 2

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This GIF contains images that have been spliced together to show Zac Efron (Troy) running through the golf course and twirling in the air. It was taken from the famously mocked “musical”, “High School Musical 2″. The use of the slang in saying, “Brb” and the plain, still, unsophisticated, white words written at the bottom give off the impression that spins what was once implied to be a dramatic scene into a teasing parody. The creator of the GIF cut the most childish part of the scene. Twirling is associated with playfulness and happiness, changing the meaning of the scene entirely. Efron is just running by a lake in a meadow or something giving off yet again the sense of a non-intense moment. The images are so cut up that it makes the viewer feel like it was just thrown together and not given any “deep thought”, leaving it to fall under the category of mockery. Without knowing the context and just looking at this it seems as if Efron is just running by a lake in a meadow or something giving off yet again the sense of a non-intense moment. In conclusion the meaning of the GIF is to give the viewer a good laugh!

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Communication M1

Hi Shauna, I decided to take the Communication seminar because I hope to major in Advertising. I think that this course will help me in the way to know how to approach people and know how people communicate. These two things to me are fundamental components to the world of advertisement. I have not had past experience in this field and thought this was a good stepping-stone into what I need to start learning and think about for my future field.