Tag Archives: media

Parent homework: Common sense from Common Sense Media, family media resolutions

2 Jan

Moi wrote in American Academy of Pediatrics policy: Kids need to go on a media diet: Andrew Stevensen wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald article, The screens that are stealing childhood:

But it is not only adults who are on the iWay to permanent connection. As parents readily testify, many children don’t just use the devices, they are consumed by them.
These devices have an almost obsessive pull towards them,” says Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University and author of iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us….
”The million-dollar question is whether there are risks in the transfer of real time to online time and the answer is that we just don’t know,” says Andrew Campbell, a child and adolescent psychologist….
Authoritative standards on appropriate levels of use are limited. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends parents discourage TV for children under two and limit screen time for older children to less than two hours a day.
The guidelines, says Professor Rosen, are ”ludicrous” but the need for them and constant communication with young people about technology and how they use it, remains. ”It’s no longer OK to start talking to your kids about technology when they’re in their teens. You have to start talking to them about it as soon as you hand them your iPhone or let them watch television or Skype with grandma,” he says.
He suggests a ratio of screen time to other activities of 1:5 for very young children, 1:1 for pre-teens and 5:1 for teenagers. Parents should have weekly talks with their children from the start, looking for signs of obsession, addiction and lack of attention. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-screens-that-are-stealing-childhood-20120528-1zffr.html

See, Technology Could Lead to Overstimulation in Kids http://www.educationnews.org/parenting/technology-could-lead-to-overstimulation-in-kids/
https://drwilda.com/tag/docs-to-parents-limit-kids-texts/

Caroline Knorr wrote the Common Sense Media article, Media Resolutions Every Family Should Make in 2014:

So, instead of trying to learn everything about your kids’ media life, take a step back. There are some practical, basic things every parent can do to shorten the distance between your kids’ ever-increasing immersion into the world of media and tech and your ability to manage it all. Adding these simple solutions to your New Year’s resolutions will start you off on the right foot.
Make a schedule — and make it detailed. You want to make sure your kids are getting a good balance of screen time and other activities? Write it all down. This step is so essential it’s recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Some families can get by with a general “videogames-only-on-weekends policy.” But given that media use only increases as kids get older (see above), it’s a good idea to make a detailed daily or weekly plan that includes all the stuff your kids need to do (chores, homework) and all the stuff they want to do (video games, iPad, etc.).
Get to know your kid’s favorite device. Whether it’s your smart phone, their tablet, or the family computer, pick a device and familiarize yourself with it. Ask your kid to show you his or her favorite games, social networks, apps and other stuff they like. Learning the ins and outs of Minecraft will earn you some major street cred — and it’s fun. And knowing how your kids are interacting with content will help you enable features and settings that improve safety and privacy protections.
Review behavior dos and don’ts with Internet first-timers. Some basic rules to give your kids:
Do: Ask your parents if you can go online; have basic social skills; understand a site’s rules and know how to flag other users for misbehavior; recognize “red flags” (like if someone asks you personal questions like your name and address).
Don’t: Go online without a parent’s permission; share passwords; pretend to be someone else; share personal details, like name and address; be mean.
Put cell phones to bed. You’ve heard of sleepwalking? Now, there’s sleeptexting. Or just staying up really late to be online –- which interferes with sleep and school. Establish a charging station in your bedroom and make sure kids hand over all of their devices before night-night.
Make this the year you stop texting and driving. Studies show that texting and driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving –- and yet, many drivers (both teens and adults) continue to do it even though they know the risks. Together with your kids, visit itcanwait.com to learn more about the dangers of texting and driving, and take the pledge to stop.
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/media-resolutions-every-family-should-make-in-2014?utm_source=131220_media_resolutions&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly

Because information posted on social media can go viral, it is important to use common sense in dealing with both parents and students. https://drwilda.com/2012/09/23/managing-school-facebook-relationships-can-be-challenging/
Teachers and others in responsible positions who deal with children must exercise common sense and not put themselves in situations which at the minimum will be awkward and which will lead to activity which is inappropriate.

Boundaries people. Boundaries.

Related:
Two studies: Social media and social dysfunction
https://drwilda.com/2013/04/13/two-studies-social-media-and-social-dysfunction/

Common Sense Media report: Kids migrating away from Facebook
https://drwilda.com/tag/the-impact-of-social-media-use-on-children/

Is ‘texting’ destroying literacy skills https://drwilda.com/2012/07/30/is-texting-destroying-literacy-skills/

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High school newspapers are important

2 Jun

 

Scott Simon reports in the NPR story, High School Newspapers: An Endangered Species:

 

Does your local high school have a student newspaper? And in this day when a social media message saying, “Tonight’s Green Design and Technology class homework sucks!” can instantly be sent to thousands, does it need to?

 

The New York Times reports this week that only 1 in 8 of New York’s public high schools has a student newspaper — and many of those are published just a few times a year. A few more are online, which can leave out poorer schools.

The national figures are a little higher. But as Rebecca Dwarka, an 18-year-old senior in the Bronx who works for her student paper, The Dewitt Clinton News, told the Times, “Facebook is the new way of finding out what happened. Nobody wants to actually sit down and read a whole article about it,” which makes a “whole article” sound a little like a long sentence in solitary confinement.

I am not nostalgic about high school student newspapers and never worked for mine. I put out what was then called an underground magazine with a group of friends because we wanted to write about peace, war and rock n’ roll without school officials admonishing us not to make jokes about the local alderman.

But we learned. Trying to convince a local druggist to buy an ad in your slender rag can be humbling and make you determined to turn out a paper he’s proud to have his name in, too.

Hearing that school newspapers are in decline because students now “find out what happened” in social media bites is a little discouraging because it confirms that for millions of Americans, journalism is becoming a do-it-yourself enterprise….

But truly good journalism is a craft, not just a blog post. It requires not only seeing something close-up, but also reporting it with perspective. It uses an eye for detail to help illuminate a larger view. And even journalism that conveys an opinion strives to be fair. If school newspapers begin to disappear, I hope there are other ways for students to learn that. http://www.npr.org/2013/06/01/187534165/are-high-school-newspapers-an-endangered-species?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share

 

The American Press Institute 2008 report High School Journalism Matters finds:

 

 

High school journalism students earn higher grade point averages, score better on the ACT college entrance examination and demonstrate better writing and grammar

 

skills in college, compared with students who do not have those journalism experiences. http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/docs/foundation/research/journalism-matters_exec.pdf

 

 

College Media Matters has an interesting perspective on school newspapers.

 

In the article, Are High School Student Newspapers in Trouble? Dan interviews Kansas State University journalism professor, Kelly Furnas.

 

 

Furnas: “I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that there’s a connection between the newspaper industry’s profit margins and the state of high school journalism programs.  However, this article looks at a segment of high schools– especially those in low-income areas– that have the hardest time maintaining elective or extra-curricular activities.  You could have just as easily replaced ‘student newspaper’ with ‘foreign language classes’ or ‘arts’ and the article probably would have read the same way.

 

“There are a ton of variables that affect the viability of a student newspaper, and finances are certainly part of the equation.  While sometimes advertising helps support student newspapers, staffs also fund printing through fundraisers, sponsorships, state support, and booster programs.  Unfortunately, those schools in areas where advertising sales are challenging also are going to struggle with those other funding models, too.

 

“However, I’d argue the most dangerous threat to a journalism program is the turnover of teachers in those schools.  Teaching journalism can be an especially stressful, time-intensive and lonely position, and the lack of support can be a real threat to their longevity.  Without a steady hand overseeing a journalism program, small problems can suddenly become major threats to the newspaper’s existence.” http://collegemediamatters.com/2013/05/30/are-high-school-student-newspapers-in-trouble/

 

Working on a high school paper has pros and cons.

 

Scott Free writes in the SparkLife article, Pros and Cons of Working at a School Newspaper:

 

Pro: A better environment than you’ll ever find working at a college. Student employees can only have so much fun serving coffee or tutoring math pariahs, but at a newspaper people are usually doing what they love—whether it’s writing, photography, videography or pagination. Plus, writers are just cool people. We at SparkLife should know.

 

Con: Long hours and/or little to no pay. The long hours don’t apply unless people strive to do their best, and it can be frustrating if they don’t. Sometimes a paper pays its students and sometimes they’re volunteers, but there’s never a lot of money put into campus newspapers.

 

Pro: You can put out a product to show off for years. You won’t always be proud of the result of all the sweat, blood and tears, but the times you are will outweigh the times you aren’t.

 

Con: Not everyone will take you seriously. Even students who work for the paper.

 

Pro: You can find out what you want to do for a career. If writing or photography or editing isn’t your thing, it’s a good thing you didn’t get a degree in it and then figure out, right?

 

Con: It can be frustrating while you’re figuring it out.

 

Pro (for guys): You’ll get all the girls. When people think “reporter,” they usually think “Clark Kent unbuttoning his shirt,” and when they think of “photographer,” they think of Peter Parker in spandex. All of this is 100% true. Ask anyone. http://community.sparknotes.com/2012/11/29/pros-and-cons-of-working-at-a-school-newspaper

 

High school newspapers report on local news.

 

Fran Collingham writes the Guardian article, Local news crisis: why newspapers remain so important to the public:

 

So why bother buying a local newspaper (or listening to the local radio station) when the news is out there in the digital world for us all to share and contribute to, updated constantly, and without a cover price?

 

The best local newspapers are embracing this challenge, and proving that in a world where there are a million views and interpretations of the news at the touch of a button residents, more than ever, need their local media to make sense of the digital cacophony around them.

 

What was the first thing Gandhi would suggest for a village? Setting up a newspaper, a central point through which all the news is filtered and which brings the people together. It may be he didn’t have to deal with Twitter in
those days but even so, he saw the careful and controlled dissemination of local news as being vital to the thriving heart of any society. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jun/25/marketingandpr-local-newspapers

 

High School newspapers are important because they teach students writing, investigative, and critical thinking skills. These skills are useful whether students pursue journalism as an avocation. These newspapers report stories of local interest which are often overlooked by other media.

 

 

Resource:

 

 

The Student Press Law Center’s High School Top Ten List http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=3

 

 

 

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TED teams up with PBS: What is TED?

6 May

Elizabeth Jensen reports in the New York Times article, TED Teams Up With PBS on Ideas for Education:

Television viewers — even those who watch the more sober-minded PBS — are generally not keen on sitting through long speeches. But TED, the nonprofit group that sponsors conferences on ideas, thinks it has found a way to bring its signature 18-minute talks to a TV audience that may not have found them on the Web or through mobile apps.

In its first television foray, TED has joined forces with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York public broadcaster WNET for a one-hour special, “TED Talks Education,” to be broadcast on PBS on Tuesday. If it is successful, the program could become a template for future joint projects, said Juliet Blake, one of the show’s executive producers and the TED official charged with bringing the conferences to television.

The program was 18 months in the making, a short time for public broadcasting but long for TED, which is accustomed to the more immediate online world. Other suitors have also sought to do TED television projects, Ms. Blake said, but “to reach the audience we want to reach, public television was the place.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting paid for the show’s $1 million costs under the auspices of an initiative that addresses the high school drop-out problem in the United States. “It was the perfect marriage of ideas that matter and our core value of education,” said Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s chief executive. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/ted-partners-with-pbs-for-education-program.html?ref=education&_r=0

That prompted moi to ask, what is TED?

This is how TED describes itself at its site:

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

The two annual TED conferences, on the North American West Coast and in Edinburgh, Scotland, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).

On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 1400 TED Talks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks are subtitled in English, and many are subtitled in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress, and you’re an important part of it. Have an idea? We want to hear from you.

The springtime TED Conference is held annually on the West Coast and simulcast at a nearby city. The breadth of content includes science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter presentations, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

TEDActive is a curated community of curious and energetic leaders who share an immersive week of watching TED Talks and surprising experiences designed to inspire conversation, exchange and immediate action around ideas worth spreading — all in a creative and casual setting.

TEDGlobal is TED’s summer conference. The themes of the global conference are slightly more international in nature, and the full TED format is maintained, with a wide-ranging roster of speakers and performers over four days of TED mainstage sessions — plus the famous TED University, where attendees share their own knowledge with one another. TEDGlobal was held in Oxford, UK, in 2005, 2009 and 2010, and in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2007. TEDGlobal is now held annually in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED also hosts events around the globe. TEDIndia was held in November 2009 in Mysore, India, celebrating and exploring the beckoning future of South Asia. TEDWomen was held in December 2010 in Washington, DC, asking the question: How are women and girls reshaping the future? TED also hosts smaller events around the globe, including many TED Salons, evening-length events with speakers and performers, and TED@ events, exploring a topic or location.

The TED Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional individual, and is designed to leverage the TED Community’s wide array of talents and resources. In 2012, the cash award was raised to $1 million to provide powerful seed funding for “A Wish to Inspire the World.” After several months of preparation, the wish is unveiled during a ceremony at the TED Conference. Over the life of the prize, wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

TED Talks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TED Talks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices. As of November 2012, TED Talks have been viewed more than one billion times.

The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. TED Fellows, TEDGlobal Fellows, and TED Senior Fellows are drawn from many disciplines that reflect the diversity of TED’s members: technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more.

The TEDx program gives communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are planned and coordinated independently.

The TED Open Translation Project brings TED Talks beyond the English-speaking world by offering subtitles, interactive transcripts and the ability for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. We launched the project with 300 translations, 40 languages and 200 volunteer translators; now, there are more than 32,000 completed translations from our thousands-strong community. It’s an ambitious project that radically enhances the accessibility of the talks — for the hearing-impaired, for those who speak English as a second language, for search engines (which can now index the full transcript of a talk), and of course for the vast audience of non-English speakers worldwide.

Today, TED is best thought of as a global community. It’s a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.                                                                                              http://www.ted.com/

See, About TED » Who we are » Who owns TED http://www.ted.com/pages/42

Here is information about the Sapling Foundation from Guidestar:

Basic Organization Information

SAPLING FOUNDATION

Physical Address:
New York, NY 10013 
EIN:
94-3235545
NTEE Category:
T Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking 
T99 (Other Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking Foundations N.E.C.) 
Year Founded:
1996 
Ruling Year:
1996 

Sign in or create an account to see this organization’s full address, contact information, and more!

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/94-3235545/sapling-foundation.aspx

Nilofer Merchant writes in the Business Insider article, Is TED Elite?

Five common myths of TED and my take on them:

1. It’s Snobby.

To get into TED Long Beach, you have been picked because you are at the top of your game, in business, politics, education, social media, or whatever. There’s a definite snobbiness to that. I got rejected the first time I applied. So in some ways, this myth is completely true, yet I’ve already shared that being with this crowd has allowed me to stop playing small. Because most people are already established, the energy that many take into impressing each other is (largely) gone. That let’s us have more real conversations.

That said, you’d be surprised if you looked around at the demographics to see that there’s a vast range of economics, age, sex, and geographies represented at the TED Long Beach conference itself.That tells me TED is being intentional about the mix of who they bring together.

It has about 25% of the stage full of women, the highest I know of, besides an all-women’s conference. And, about 30% of the participants are women, which represents a pretty good mix. Not great – I’d love to see more gender parity, and this is a place of improvement that SheTalksTED advocates.

2. It’s pretentious.

This is a tough one.  I don’t believe the #TED organizers are not aiming to be pretentious. What I do see is a lot of people who come to TED for the first time, tweet comments from it to show their friends’ back home that they are at TED and their friend’s are not. I can see the temptation of tweeting that you are, say, sitting next to @ev, or Cameron Diaz, or Jeff Bezos or Tony Hsieh. But I think that’s the behavior that happens when first-timers are just a wee-bit impressed that they are “in” the club. Most people, thankfully, do not do this.  And perhaps if the new-bie understood the cultural norms of TED better, they would be more self-managing.  

The ideas developed in 18 minutes don’t lend themselves to tweetability. So sometimes we sound inane, as Jeff Jarvis was right to point out.

The actual curators of TED see what they do as a huge responsibility. One curator works in a sort of 24×7 way and is currently helping curate and support the folks in Cairo, and other Middle Eastern cities have neutral (non-political, non-sectarian) conversations that could truly change the world. He won’t get credit, or money, and neither is his goal. TED has come to represent the best ideas to change the world. His goal is truly to help change the world by the possibility of great ideas, being told well, and then discussed amongst that community. I don’t know about you, but I am so seriously hoping for what might happen. (I don’t have permission to share his story but I’m hoping he’ll forgive me)

3. There is no action out of it.

A good friend of mine, Michael Dila, said something a few years ago that has stuck with me: conversations are truly the only way in the world is changed, not technology. Conversation drives a new way of thinking, therefore new states of being, and the results that follow from that. The purpose of having loads of white spaces into the conference is to talk about ideas. I got into an interesting conversation with the head of WPP, one of the largest advertising organizations in the world about the situation in Nigeria, which was a deeply thoughtful idea about how to change an entire country known best for corruption. I don’t underestimate this discussion or what could happen if the head of WPP thinks about how to change the world with any of the ideas presented but without this venue, there is little likelihood most of us would spend 18 minutes thinking about Nigeria and corruption and how to influence the situation. Action follows from a shift in mindset. So I think TED creates context, the rest is up to us.

Second thing related to action. Bill Gates curated a session where he highlighted the Khan Academy. I didn’t know of this organization, founded by a former hedge fund creating YouTube videos, to help people learn. This was where I wanted people to tweet and many did. Education could be changed dramatically if this idea that Jennifer Pahlka captured: reverse homework and classwork, let them watch the videos at home and work on problems in class. So while no action was done right at that very moment, the 1000 or so conversations people had when they called home might just bring that idea into the system so that 100, 1000, or 10,000 educational institutions try something new in the next few years.

Of course, many other good efforts that flow from the TEDPrize to help create the change we wish to see in the world.  Architecture for Humanity, an amazing organization creating a more sustainable future, through the power of architectural design. They got hyper-boosters on their mission, by TED and the TED community.

3. Money goes to line their pockets.

One big myth is that Chris Anderson and the folks at TED must be doing this to be rich.  TED is owned by the Sapling Foundation, a 501(c)3 foundation and all the profits are reinvested in things like the TED Prize and distributing the talks free online. Chris Anderson doesn’t even take a salary (he made his money when he founded Business2.0) and he took over the TED conference and a short 7 years later he (and his team) opened it up with TEDEd, TEDFellows, TED.com, TEDx and so on.  I don’t know about you but I get pretty tired when I just think of all they have done…

Add to this mix, the 40 or so TEDFellows, a group of innovators, artists and change agents,  curated by Tom Reilly, from around the world,  to amplify the work of people who are working to change the world. All those Fellows need funding and support and the Sapling Foundation does that.  So if my measly thousands of dollars can help fuel access to ideas globally, I gladly give.

One important thing that Todd Lombardo helped me remember is the Sapling Foundation may not be transparent enough to ward off the critiques. How much money does it cost to run these events? Are all the amenities necessary? Palotta Teamworks who ran the AIDS Rides were registered as a for-profit company and weren’t transparent about the flow of capital through their organization… This ultimately ruined that company. I suspect the TED braintrust is working on this. 

4. You limit access to great ideas by limiting who gets to see it live.

While I love the immersive experience of TED Long Beach, I recognize there are many ways to experience it. Did you know there’s the simulcast at $500 where people can organizer a crowd of people in a high school gymnasium or one’s own living room (and split the costs to $1-25/head)? That means anyone who really wants to see it live, can.

Add to that, TEDActive and TEDx audiences and you can’t possibly say “it’s limited” cause “it” is now available to “us”. Laura Stein has set the TEDx licensee policy so that one **cannot** charge for attendance. Anybody could organize a TEDx, curate the best TED talks or local TEDxtalks and create something themselves. So, definitely not limited if you consider how accessible TED can be, if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves. 

TED talks are translated, for free, by people from around the world, allowing 15 million people to view the well-produced talks online. In some ways, by editing well, instead of streaming live, it creates a library of high-production content that will let it be seen by more people than the streaming version would allow.

5. Aren’t they Hypocritial?

Consider the Sarah Silverman episode of 2010. She did what she was asked to do, Her brand of humor, her story. But because some (Steve Case was notable visible around this) felt uncomfortable with what she did, she was viewed as banished by Chris and some of the TED community.

I was there when this happened, and frankly I thought Chris was very genuine when he posted he hated it, but then he retreated. I think he could have said he hated it, others liked it and that’s what TED is all about — many ideas being discussed. A slightly awkward moment on twitter got caught into a huff but perhaps it was a learning moment… I don’t know.

In Summary

While I do think TED is full of elite people of many disciplines, ages and economics, it is not, in my opinion, Elitist. I have never seen a more open, curious group of people who truly want to understand the world better and to hopefully apply their skills and talents to contribute their part to make the world a better place. I tweeted yesterday that a great audience allows a speaker to step up his/her game and deliver the best idea that could change the world, well. So having TED the conference is important in the mission.

I notice that most of the people who “hate” on TED are people who have never been, as demonstrated by Sarah Lacey, Umair Haque, and Jeff Jarvis. Sarah posted a one-sided argument from someone this week that could have benefitted from a little more journalism. Umair posted something that could have been much tighter given a simple Google search. And Jeff Jarvis, whom I respect, was definitely taking jabs from afar calling it a cult. Can I ask you to come? Or at least attend a simulcast. Robert Scoble did a very thoughtful critique of TED, called Elephants in the Room, after coming and I respect him for what he shared….. http://www.businessinsider.com/is-ted-elite-2011-3

It will be interesting to see where the PBS and TED collaboration goes.

Where information leads to Hope. ©                               Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that

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Hip-Hop and rap represent destructive life choices: How low can this genre sink?

1 May

 

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: The question must be asked, who is responsible for MY or YOUR life choices? Let’s get real, certain Asian cultures kick the collective butts of the rest of Americans. Why? It’s not rocket science. These cultures embrace success traits of hard work, respect for education, strong families, and a reverence for success and successful people. Contrast the culture of success with the norms of hip-hop and rap oppositional culture. See, Hip-hop’s Dangerous Values http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1107107/posts

 

The latest high-profile example of the value set of hip-hop occurred with the report that rapper Danny Brown performed oral sex on stage. Radio.com reported in the article, Rapper Danny Brown’s Onstage Antics Spark Oral Sex Controversy about an alleged oral sex incident.

 

 

Alternative rapper Danny Brown is used to performing for crowded clubs, like his sold-out Minneapolis show on Friday (April 26), but he’s answering to a much larger audience in the wake the allegedly X-rated performance.

 

Music fans have taken to social media, demanding answers from the rapper and posting personal accounts of the concert, where the rapper reportedly engaged in oral sex with a fan in the front of the crowd.

 

A Redditor who claims to have been at the show described the incident in detail, saying that Brown had been getting close to “random girls” in the front of the crowd throughout his performance, including the woman involved in the incident at hand.

 

“Then I’m behind her and I start getting pushed against her by the crowd shifting,” the Redditor wrote. “It [was] horrible and I hope you guys will be donating to my future therapy sessions, but also I came back with a story. He rapped the entire time during [it] too.”

 

Brown’s Twitter followers are using the site as a platform to ask questions and voice their opinions, with fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar even chiming in.

 

Brown reportedly confirmed that the allegations are true, however his response has since been deleted, according to Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages.

 

Meanwhile, some people are outraged at the inappropriate act, while Brown takes their comments in stride by retweeting some of them, presumably to capture some ironic humor in the midst of controversy.

 

Brown did respond to one question, only saying that the incident is a “rumor” without officially confirming or denying it. http://news.radio.com/2013/05/01/danny-brown-x-rated-show/

 

The death cult of hip-hop has been on a lot of people’s radar for the past few years. Because of artistic freedom and the romanticizing  of some hip-hop and rap stars, those sounding the alarm about this death cult have been labeled as prudes, nervous ninnies, and anti-free speech. A 2005 Nightline story by Jake Tapper and Marie Nelson looked at the links between corporate America and hip-hop

 

“The blueprint now is an image that promotes all of the worst aspects of violent and anti-social behavior,” said Source editor Mays. “It takes those real issues of violent life that occur in our inner cities, it takes them out of context.”

 

Attorney Londell McMillan, who represents Lil’ Kim and many other hip-hop performers, says the record labels and radio stations push the artists toward a more violent image. “They all seek to do things that are extraordinary,” he said, “unfortunately it’s been extraordinarily in the pain of a people. They are often encouraged to take a certain kind of approach to the art form.”

 

Added NYPD Commissioner Kelly, “Whereas some of the other violence was sort of attendant to the business itself, now I think they’re trying to exploit it and make money off of it.”

 

But C-Murder says if he projected a more benign image his career would be over. “I wouldn’t sell a record because my fans would know that’s not me,” he said. “They don’t expect me to just sit in that booth and write about stuff that the news or the media want to hear about.”

 

Record executive Dash adds there is a double standard between predominantly black and predominantly white music. “I remember Woodstock Part II was a mess,” Dash said, referring to the 1999 rock ‘n’ roll concert festival that exploded in a mass of riots and rapes. But, Dash said, “nothing more about it than that” transpired. “There wasn’t any new laws, there wasn’t any investigations. It just was.” 

 

Lest you think I am anti-capitalism, the real kind, not the corporate welfare of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, you are wrong. Most inner city neighborhoods and poor regions like Appalachia and Mississippi desperately need investment and capital to encourage entrepreneurs.  As the motto of Homeboy Industries states, the best defense against violence is a job.

 

Moi has been railing against the hip hop culture for years because it is destructive, produces violence, but just as important it stereotypes Blacks whether they participate in hip hop culture or not.

 

Does Hip-Hop Culture Affect Student Behavior?

 

Gosa and Young’s case study about the oppositional culture of hip-hop is a good description of the possible impact of a certain genre of music on the educational values of the young listeners.

 

Given the prominent, yet controversial theory of oppositional culture used to explain the poor academic achievement of black youth and recent concerns that hip-hop is leading black youth to adopt anti-school attitudes, we examine the construction of oppositional culture in hip-hop music. Through a qualitative case of song lyrics (n=250) from two of hip-hop’s most influential artists – “conscious” rapper Kanye West and “gangster” rapper Tupac Skakur, we find oppositional culture in both artist’s lyrics. However, our analysis reveals important differences in how the two artists describe the role of schooling in adult success, relationships with teachers and schools, and how education is related to authentic black male identity. Our findings suggest a need for reexamining the notion that oppositional culture means school resistance. 

 

The study gives a good description of oppositional culture, but it is overly optimistic about the role of the market place in promoting the basest values for a buck.

 

Lest one think that hip-hop culture is simply the province of thugs and low- income urban youth. Think again, there are many attempts to market a stylized version of the culture. A 1996 American Demographics article, Marketing Street Culture
Bringing Hip-Hop Style to the Mainstream, describes the marketing used to cross-over hip-hop culture into the mainstream.

 

Many of the hottest trends in teenage music, language, and fashion start in America’s inner cities, then quickly spread to suburbs. Targeting urban teens has put some companies on the map with the larger mainstream market. But companies need an education in hip-hop culture to avoid costly mistakes.

 

The Scene: Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a bastion of the white East Coast establishment. A teenaged boy saunters down the street, his gait and attitude embodying adolescent rebellion. Baggy jeans sag atop over-designed sneakers, gold hoops adorn both ears, and a baseball cap shields his eyes. On his chest, a Tommy Hilfiger shirt sports the designer’s distinctive pairing of blue, red, and white rectangles.

 

Four years ago, this outfit would have been unimaginable to this cool teen; only his clean-cut, country-club peers sported Hilfiger clothes. What linked the previously preppy Hilfiger to jeans so low-slung they seem to defy gravity? To a large extent, the answer lies 200 miles southwest, in the oversized personage of Brooklyn’s Biggie Smalls, an admitted ex-drug dealer turned rapper.

 

Over the past few years, Smalls and other hip-hop stars have become a crucial part of Hilfiger’s open attempt to tap into the urban youth market. In exchange for giving artists free wardrobes, Hilfiger found its name mentioned in both the rhyming verses of rap songs and their “shout-out” lyrics, in which rap artists chant out thanks to friends and sponsors for their support.

 

For Tommy Hilfiger and other brands, the result is de facto product placement. The September 1996 issue of Rolling Stone magazine featured the rap group The Fugees, with the men prominently sporting the Tommy Hilfiger logo. In February 1996, Hilfiger even used a pair of rap stars as runway models: horror-core rapper Method Man and muscular bad-boy Treach of Naughty by Nature.

 

Suburban normed or middle class youth may dabble in hip-hop culture, but they have a “recovery period.” The “recovery period” for suburban youth means moving from deviant norms, which preclude success into mainstream norms, which often promote success. Suburban children often have parental and peer social pressure to move them to the mainstream. Robert Downey, Jr., the once troubled actor is not necessarily an example of hip-hop culture, but he is an example of the process of “recovery” moving an individual back into the mainstream. Children of color and low-income children often do not get the chance to “recover” and move into mainstream norms. The next movement for them after a suspension or expulsion is often the criminal justice system.

 

The data is shouting load and clear. Hip-hop and rap culture more often than not is a destructive life choice.

 

 

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The 04/20/13 Joy Jar

19 Apr

Like many, has been watching the events in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Terror Bombing. She has been switching back and forth between channels using her remote. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the television remote.

Television is the most perfect democracy. You sit there with your remote control and vote.

Aaron Brown

If life had a remote control, I would:

PAUSE the beautiful moments
REWIND my mistakes.
FASTFORWARD through the heartbreak
STOP the drama.
PLAY the rest.

Unknown

Don’t let negative pictures play on the movie screen of your mind. You own the remote control. All you have to do is change the channel.

Unknown

He who controls the remote, controls the world

Julie Garwood

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The 03/08/13 Joy Jar

7 Mar

Moi comments on the culture, so she not only watches a lot of PBS, she watches soaps, Maury, game shows, cooking shows, and whatever catches her attention as she is flipping through the channels. One only really gets a sense a culture if one spends a great deal of time in and about the culture, television is often artificial reality. Still, television is like a kaleidoscope with many facets, both good and not so good. The television is one way moi gathers information. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is television.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.
Steve Jobs

With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest indication that the child’s problems will never be important enough for a television movie.
Nora Ephron

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers – if that’s where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.
Maynard James Keenan

Television has brought back murder into the home – where it belongs.
Alfred Hitchcock

I think the part of media that romanticizes criminal behavior, things that a person will say against women, profanity, being gangster, having multiple children with multiple men and women and not wanting to is prevalent. When you look at the majority of shows on television they placate that kind of behavior.
Bill Cosby

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.
Groucho Marx

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The 02/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Feb

Even if local news is often summarized as ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ moi still watches local news and national news as well. PBS is a great source of intelligent opinion. Additionally, moi reads current event articles from across the political spectrum. The news might sometimes make one want to stick their head in the sand, but knowing is better than not knowing. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the news.

 

 

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow

 

 

“You totally need to watch the news.”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s too depressing.”
“Right, because hanging with dead people isn’t.”
Darynda Jones, Third Grave Dead Ahead

 

 

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
Arthur Miller

 

 

“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

 

 

“All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”
George Orwell, Why I Write

 

 

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.”
Criss Jami

 

 

“News is only the first rough draft of history.”
Alan Barth

 

 

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Sexualization of girls: A generation looking much too old for their maturity level

19 Jan

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Just ride the bus, go to the mall or just walk down a city street and one will encounter young girls who look like they are ten going on thirty. What’s going on with that? Moi wrote about the sexualization of girls in Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects:

In Children too sexy for their years, moi said:

Maybe, because some parents may not know what is age appropriate for their attire, they haven’t got a clue about what is appropriate for children. There is nothing sadder than a 40 something, 50 something trying to look like they are twenty. What wasn’t sagging when you are 20, is more than likely than not, sagging now.

Kristen Russell Dobson, the managing editor of Parent Map, has a great article in Parent Map. In Are Girls Acting Sexy Too Young?  Dobson says:

A 2003 analysis of TV sitcoms found gender harassment in nearly every episode. Most common: jokes about women’s sexuality or women’s bodies, and comments that characterized women as sex objects. And according to the 2007 Report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, “Massive exposure to media among youth creates the potential for massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are sexual objects.”

Those messages can be harmful to kids because they make sex seem common — even normal — among younger and younger kids. In So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, co-authors Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., write that “sex in commercial culture has far more to do with trivializing and objectifying sex than with promoting it, more to do with consuming than with connecting. The problem is not that sex as portrayed in the media is sinful, but that it is synthetic and cynical.” http://www.parentmap.com/article/are-girls-acting-sexy-too-young

The culture seems to be sexualizing children at an ever younger age and it becomes more difficult for parents and guardians to allow children to just remain, well children, for a bit longer. Still, parents and guardians must do their part to make sure children are in safe and secure environments. A pole dancing fourth grader is simply unacceptable.

Moi loves fashion and adores seeing adult looks on adults. Many 20 and 30 somethings prefer what I would charitably call the “slut chic” look. This look is questionable fashion taste, in my opinion, but at least the look involves questionable taste on the part of adults as to how they present themselves to the public. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/children-too-sexy-for-their-years/

https://drwilda.com/tag/study-girls-as-young-as-6-are-thinking-of-selves-as-sex-objects/

Steve Biddulph writes in the Daily Mail article, The corruption of a generation: In a major Mail series, a renowned psychologist argues that our daughters are facing an unprecedented crisis… sexualisiation from primary school age:

Over the past few years, I’ve discussed the issue of modern girlhood with numerous friends and colleagues, and everyone has observed the same phenomenon: girls are simply growing up too fast.

To put it bluntly, our 18 is their 14. Our 14 is their 10. Never before has girlhood been under such a sustained assault — from ads, alcohol marketing, girls’ magazines, sexually explicit TV programmes and the hard pornography that’s regularly accessed in so many teenagers’ bedrooms.

The result is that many girls effectively lose four years of crucial development, which may take years in therapy to retrieve. Meanwhile, these girls are filling our mental clinics, police stations and hospitals in unprecedented numbers. Not only that, but having sex with lots of different boys is not good for their bodies. Levels of sexual infections are soaring — including chlamydia, which may affect their fertility.

Less well-known is the fact that the rapid surge in the numbers of girls who perform oral sex is leading to a far greater incidence of mouth and throat cancers.

So why are so many girls succumbing to sexual pressures? And what can we, as parents, do to protect our daughters from the very real perils of our modern world?

The first thing to be said is that the current generation is, at least in one unenviable sense, utterly unique: it’s the first to grow up exposed to hard-core pornography.

Sexting: Girls as young as ten years old are now sending sexual images of themselves on their phones (picture posed by models)

In a recent survey, 53 per cent of girls under 13 reported that they had watched or seen porn. By the age of 16, that figure rose to 97 per cent.

‘My child wouldn’t go looking for porn,’ you may say. But your child doesn’t have to be looking: porn will find them….

SOME TOP TIPS ON HOW TO KEEP YOUR DAUGHTERS SAFE

  • Remove all digital media from your daughter’s bedroom, including the TV.  Have a rule that all members of the family charge and leave their phones in the kitchen each night.

  • Make sure she’s using the maximum privacy settings online. Some parents make it a condition that for a child to have an account on social media, she must have you as a ‘friend’.

  • Know the rules. Children aren’t supposed to have a Facebook account until they’re 13. They may feel left out, but you need to be firm.

  • Either download or have devices installed on your home computers that filter out porn. Ask your daughter to use her computer only in the kitchen, study or living room.

  • Set limits on time allowed for social networking.

  • Keep the channels of communication open, so that if your daughter sees something online which distresses her, she won’t be ashamed to tell you about it. If you suspect that your daughter is visiting sites that are harmful, raise it with her. Intervene.

  • Know the law. If an 18-year-old posts sexualised images of younger people, he or she is at risk of criminal charges.

  • Never snoop around in your daughter’s bedroom — but do check her phone if you suspect she’s being sent sexual texts or images. Sexting is public behaviour, because anyone can view images or texts and pass them on. And parents have a better understanding of the possible consequences.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2264781/Corrupting-generation-In-new-major-Mail-series-renowned-psychologist-Steve-Biddulph-argues-daughters-facing-unprecedented-crisis.html#ixzz2IRmlHbbz

In truth, a close relationship with your child will probably be more effective than spying. Put down that Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid and try connecting with your child. You should not only know who your children’s friends are, but you should know the parents of your children’s friends. Many parents have the house where all the kids hang out because they want to know what is going on with their kids. Often parents volunteer to chauffeur kids because that gives them the opportunity to listen to what kids are talking about. It is important to know the values of the families of your kid’s friends. Do they furnish liquor to underage kids, for example? How do they feel about teen sex and is their house the place where kids meet for sex?

So, in answer to the question should you spy on your Kids? Depends on the child. Some children are more susceptible to peer pressure and impulsive behavior than others. They will require more and possibly more intrusive direction. Others really are free range children and have the resources and judgment to make good decisions in a variety of circumstances. Even within a family there will be different needs and abilities. The difficulty for parents is to make the appropriate judgments and still give each child the feeling that they have been treated fairly. Still, for some kids, it is not out of line for parents to be snoops, they just might save the child and themselves a lot of heartache.

At least one parent is sending caution alerts about the Sex and the City philosophy and young women. Dave Taylor is a father who writes the Attachment Parenting blog. This is what he says in the post, I Don’t Want to Meet Candace Bushell’s Sex and the City Women as Teens

Joy Sewing of the Houston Chronicle reported in the blog post, Walmart Offers Make-Up and Anti-aging Products for 8-Year-Olds that Walmart is aiming a line of make-up at “tweens.”

Moi supposes there are a group of parents who don’t want conflict and give in because “everyone else is doing it.” Remember the everyone else is often the lowest common denominator. Some parents feel they must be their child’s BFF. Wrong. You are supposed to be the parent. Some one has to be in charge. Russell provide some excellent resources for managing the media. Find resources for managing media here.

Dr. Wilda has been just saying for quite a while.

Resources

  1. Popwatch’s Miley Cyrus Pole Dance Video

  2. Baby Center Blog Comments About Miley Cyrus Pole Dance

  3. The Sexualization of Children

Where information leads to Hope. ©                 Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                          http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

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Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                        https://drwilda.com/

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