Beyond Distraction

1. Beyond Distraction • the need for media activism in the 21st century

2. urgency! • ‘the next 20 years are going to be nothing like the last’ • Chris Martensen’s Crash course • limits in the 3 E’s • http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

3. Jerry Mander • How do you respond to the argument that technology is not inherently good or bad, it’s how we use it that matters.That's the major homily of our time. And it's a very serious mistake. The idea that technology is neutral -- that it doesn't have social, political and environmental characteristics -- is really dangerous.Consider nuclear power and solar power. Both are energy forms, but they have entirely different effects on the system. Nuclear power is an inherently centralized technology. It requires centralized military-industrial institutions. Nobody knows what to do about 250,000 years of dangerous wastes. If we were to judge energy only in terms of who uses it, that would be like saying, "Well, if some good people got together and ran the nuclear power industry, the wastes wouldn't have to be safeguarded for 250,000 years." But these things are intrinsic to the technology. It's not a question of whether good people use them.Solar technology is the exact opposite -- it is inherently localizing. A couple of people can easily put it together, it's not expensive to use, the community can run it without having to hook up to the grid, and it has no lasting negative effects.

4. Noam Chomsky • Consensus Trance • manufacturing consent • The Propaganda Model of Media • http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----.htm

5. Neil Postman • amusing ourselves to death • technopoly

6. Neil Postman

7. AL Gore • inconvenient truth

8. hockey stick graphs

9. peak oil

10. What a way to go • life at the end of empire http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com

11. Richard Louv • last child in the woods • generations raised seperated from nature

12. consuming kids hockey stick resource

13. journalism & democracy • Jeffersonian Ideal- Democracy requires informed citizenry • last reporter please turn out the lights • downsized record and film industries • implications of web • changes in higher education

14. Richard Dawkins MEMES

15. Media Activism • Building academic programs that recognize the degree to which mainstream media shapes the dominant consciousness, and the ways in which alternative media can lead to new ways of thinking is an appropriate response to changing paradigms of communication, education, journalism, and democracy. • Media Activism generates citizen-producers committed to creating a more critically engaged public sphere. • Media Activism can include work spanning Graphic Design, Journalism, Multimedia Production, Documentary, Advocacy and Activism. It combines critical analysis with the theory and practice of making media. A degree in Media Activism prepares media makers to enter into the necessary public conversations that generate critical thinking and dialogue.

16. Media Activism • Media Activism teaches people to be active audiences as well as producers. With new, more participatory technologies, the line between consumer and producer is blurring. To be truly media literate now also means to be production literate. • The BA in Media Activism at Burlington College is conceived explicitly for those who want to become media activists. Through technical training rooted in history and theory, students are encouraged to apply media making technique, craft, and art to issues of advocacy, activism and social change. • What does a Media Activism Major look like? What courses might it include? and what do students learn and produce? Join us to expand the conception of a future that calls media activism into being. Add your insight and vision to a session that includes work from media activists who are engaging with today’s pressing issues and making their own media and cultural inroads.