The Festival is coming!

So much going on these days!

Snow in VT is melting finally, after one of the record heaviest snowfall years ever!

Countdown to the last day of class... EVER (well, undergrad) is on... 2.5 weeks left!

Just got my notice of acceptance to stay in the US for work for one year! Wooo!

The Potatoheads are still up to no good down in the Baja... check it out here.

This weekend, Saturday April 5th, is the 2008 Festival of Cultures put on by the Sara Holbrook Community Center! Awesome family friendly event to celebrate the cultural diversity in Burlington (and beyond) that makes this community so vibrant. There's going to be unique, ethnic presentations, art, food, dancing, music and more. Face painting, henna tattoos and crafts for kids! Admission is by donation and everyone is welcome.

Local celebrity host of Vermont's own Late Night Saturday, Tim Kavanagh, will be emceeing from 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and the opening address will be at 10:40 a.m by Burlington Mayor, Bob Kiss.

They are also launching the kickoff to the Penny Fundraiser this weekend at the festival. The Sara Holbrook Community Center will be joining the King Street Youth Center in an effort to raise ONE MILLION PENNIES (or $10,000... $5,000 for each Center) The money raised will go directly to each center and the kids are going to have input as to how it is used. The going joke is that the kids are trying to get a swimming pool behind the Center. If you have ever seen behind those tight quarters, you will know that's highly unlikely! Oh little dreamers! So bring your pennies to the Festival this weekend to help kick off the Penny Fundraiser!

Sara Holbrook Community Center Blog

This semester I've had the privilege of helping the Sara Holbrook Community Center here in Burlington with a marketing challenge. As a Public Relations senior at Champlain, I have been drilled, beaten and fed all things marketing/advertising/PR and getting the chance to put these skills to work for an organization I believe in is an honor. Their mission is to develop responsible and productive children, youth and families through social development, educational and recreational opportunities.

Those who know me know that I love cultural diversity so working with this Center is a great fit. The Center serves the diverse Burlington community, with families struggling to just get by. They have been in the Old North End for 71 years and each year 4,000 individuals, including refugees and immigrants, engage in a variety of programs: pre-school, teen activities, English classes, after-school programming, and summer camps. According, to U.S. Census 2000 data, Old North End neighborhoods constitute the highest concentration of poverty in Burlington and the entire state of Vermont. The work they do is life-changing for those who are involved in the Center.

Last week we set up a blog for the Center to keep the community current with all the great things going on. Please check it out and subscribe, they are doing amazing work for an amazing community: http://saraholbrookcenter.blogspot.com

A dash of integrated marketing and a pinch of nostalgia...

For some reason, I have to read the New York Times on Mondays... I know I should be reading print news daily, but I go out of my way on Mondays to read it through, and I have yet to NOT find something that doesn't resonate. Last week there was a couple page spread on the METS new pitcher Johan Santana in the sports section and a piece about recent entrepreneurial student from Champlain, Ben Kaufman, in the business section. Nice.

To my surprise (almost stunned actually) I was reading a bit in the business section today about a viral video going around about seemingly impromptu dancers popping up in random places in Europe staging Michael Jackson tributes. Here's the article. Yes people, I'm talking about one of my all time faves (aside from Dirty Diana), the THRILLER zombie dance, randomly appearing in places like the London Underground, Chinatown in London, on the street outside the London Opera House, etc.

The recently re-released 25 year anniversary of "Thriller" MJ album (by SongBMG) has taken some seriously untraditional approaches to promoting it. There was the Thrillicious: 2008 SoBe Life Water Super Bowl Ad with the dancing lizards, today I saw the MTV reality show, America's Best Dance Crew, theme it's competition week based on the essence of MJ, and now these staged Thriller dances showing up randomly in public places. This is some kick-ass creative PR.

MJ was prime in his time... I grew up in the MTV 80s and his music was a part of my culture and I can totally separate MJ of then from the MJ of now. But I cannot imagine what it was like for Sony to approach this major milestone today, as MJ's image isn't exactly all shiny sequins and patent leather like it used to be. Nor is MJ able to promote this himself; he's a recluse, for the obvious reasons. The guerilla marketing is genius and has adapted to the times. For what it's worth, regardless of where he's at now, THE WHITE GLOVE lives on! And I'm THRILLED to see the revival of the number 1 selling album of all time. *tippy toes and crotch grabs*

This is brilliant guerilla marketing:


Very reminiscent of the Filipino prison videos where more than 1500 inmates choreographed Thriller as their daily exercise routines... oh yes, it's true:


And somewhat reminiscent of the freeze videos... if you don't know what I'm talking about, learn:

Gender representation in modern media culture

Objectifying gender sexuality is what we’re talking about here and now—two cultures represented in two separate films that are perpetuated and substantiated by its victims. In the documentary, Beyond Beats and Rhymes by Byron Hurt, issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in today’s hip-hop culture are tackled. Similarly, in media specialist Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 3, we learn of how images of “womanness” are constructed in advertising.

Both pieces tap into the shock-value emotional transfer using evidence and examples of the most extreme cases of gender image construction. The messages from both flicks leave the audience with a sort of “dirty” feeling—there are similar parallels in verbage with words like “hyper-sexuality, dehumanizing, trivializing” in the subconscious messaging of our modern media.

Both of their production techniques were effective, yet almost lunar opposite in their execution. Whereas Beats and Rhymes was documentary-stylized, hosted by Byron Hurt, which incorporated a combination of montages, interviews, candid footage, and text, etc., Killing used a power-point presentation of still shots of over 160 advertisement and a single lecture by Jean Kilbourne as the basis for delivering her equally powerful message. Yet both were successful at imparting messages of objectifying gender roles.

In Beyond Beats we are reminded that music videos are advertisements for an album’s singles, and in Killing, we are reminded that ads sell products, values, images, and concepts of normalcy; telling us who we are and who we should be. Beyond Beats is selling the message that these music “ads” are selling sexism, violence, homophobia, hyper masculinity, women as objectified sex-objects. The kicker is that these messages go unchecked because they are so “normalized” because we are a nation desensitized to gender objectification. The take-home value messaging of Killing is that that most important thing for women is how they look, and that women are learning at a very early age that it takes time, money and energy to be impossibly perfect and flawless—its not natural.

As far as persuasive techniques go, both films used repetition to impart their messages over and over again. In Beats, women are referred to as bitches and hoes that can be bought and victimized in Hip Hop culture, and ironically, in Killing, women pay into being bought by conforming to the media images of commercial beauty. We hear in Killing, over and over again, synonyms of perfection and beauty to the point you are numb to it. Both films used fear tactics to persuade their audiences with statistical evidence, testimony and hard facts. Rhetorical questions were evident, in Beats, rapper Fat Joe said, “Everybody wants to be hard… why?” and in Killing, each one of Kilbourne’s sections of her film were titled after rhetorical questions such as, “…Does advertising still objectify women's bodies? / Are the twin themes of liberation and weight control still linked? / Is sexuality still presented as women's main concern? / Are young girls still sexualized?...” Both films used either/or tactics that were somewhat similar when exaggerating the dehumanization of sexuality, in Beats the question arose, “If you’re not ___, then you must be gay, a punk, or a nigger.” In Killing we are told that only one gender can have a set of qualities and that men should aspire to be masculine and are taught to devalue qualities that are labeled as feminine, such as compassion. So as a male, you are either totally masculine, or less than worthy.

Byron Hurt tries to challenge the reality constructed by the media, or ideology of hip hop culture, by forcing us to question the motivations behind the machine. And he uses himself as a celebrity and lover of hip hop to leverage his arguments and gain access to influential players in the industry. He goes beyond the arguments and hits the streets to figure it out himself and to allow the viewer to decide for themselves what to do about it and who’s to blame. Hurt decides that we should have a broader ideology of manhood and not let men in white suits who manage the music industry to perpetuate these false ideas of masculinity in hip hop. Kilbourne uses her many years of expertise and knowledge and over 160 ads and TV commercials to critique advertising's ideology of women. More so than Hurt’s attempt to persuade, Kilbourne invites viewers to look at familiar images in a new way, that moves and empowers them to take action. Taking action being the operative term, “In order to change we have to be citizens and not consumers.”

The hegemony of hip hop in modern culture pits hyper-masculine men as the impetus of hip hop. There was a time when hip hop was popularized for its social messages of equality and doing social “good.” “Hegemony, however, is not something that is permanent; it is neither ‘done’ nor unalterable” (Media/Society 167). Now, according to Hunt’s film, a bunch of white “suits”, male medial moguls, at the top of the corporate food chain are dictating to Western culture what it wants from hip hop: hard-core, ruthless, morally and socially corrupt, hard gangsters. Even when the artists don’t or won’t live that way, it’s what they need to rap about to make money and get heard and be considered credible in their culture.

For Kilbourne, women have always been victims of cultural hegemony, as reflected in our media text, “Media images do not simply reflect the world they re-present it; instead of reproducing the ‘reality’ of the world ‘out there,’ the media engage in practices that define reality” (Media Society 168). So basically, of the 160 media images that Kilbourne uses to help us understand that our reality of the image of women isn’t a reflection of what is out there, it’s the media’s definition of what women out there aspire to be.

Both flicks’ take home messages imply that the changes that need to be made to exterminate the objectification of genders in media have to be made by first changing attitudes and actions towards genders. Although I thought that Beyond Beats and Rhymes was a more well-constructed piece of media aimed to attract the attention of its target audience, and that there were times in Kilbourne’s film that I thought were exaggerated and some assumptions were taken too far, Kilbourne’s film presented a more persuasive case because it empowered it’s audience to take action. For me, anything that makes me want to get up and actually do something about an issue tells me something about myself, regardless on how hard it tried to “sell me.” Nonetheless, both of these films tell us of how the media is telling us how we should be ideally, how men should be men, and women should be women. And, in my opinion, no one can tell you who you “should” be.

Some clips of the flicks:

Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 3


Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes

The day we tried to Focus The Nation at Champlain

A couple of weeks ago (the week of Jan 28) Champlain College joined millions of students from across the nation who participated in an organized mission to bring awareness to climate change. The project is/was called, “Focus the Nation,” a national educational initiative designed to face this challenge of our generation. More than 1300 schools, including most of Burlington’s colleges, universities and high schools, participated in events, including a simultaneous, nationwide educational symposia, called a “teach-in,” creating in-class dialogue on global warming solutions for America. Champlain’s efforts were (are) co-sponsored and organized by Sustain Champlain (learn more about it here) and Champlain's Student Environmental Club. We even attempted a "car-free" campus on Thurs, Jan 31st, where everyone who commutes to school was encouraged to take an alternative method like bus, walk, carpool.

While in my "Media Issues" class, our multi-dimensional and talented media guru, instructor Rob Williams, asked us to group up and throw together a rough cut of a PSA for Focus the Nation at Champlain. We basically had a day or so to write, shoot and edit. Well, three of us in my group had ZERO video editing experience, and at one point we lost all our initial footage... but Ethan saved the day! NO BIGGIE... and this is what we came up with:



This is another one from another group that is worth mention, and certainly one of the best in class:

The Happiness Blog

Well it's snowing, and snowing... and then melting, and freezing. Lovely. I have spoken to more people and overheard conversations where people are sick of it already. A friend in class mentioned that she was skeptical about the groundhog this year, that he seems to have his own agenda.

This weather is far from inspiring unless you can be a bit grateful for something small each day. If you can't beat it, or move, then you have to join it or you'll drive yourself crazy. It's the little things in the *achem* weather like this that you can try to appreciate; a friend of mine and I walked out of work yesterday and were giddy that the sky wasn't COMPLETELY dark at 5:20 p.m. Take what you can get. I can already hear the pessimists reading this grumbling under their breath.

For some additional tips on finding the sunny days in the middle of winter, life coach and author of The Happiness Zone, Lenora Boyle, has some bright little morsels to help lighten your life in both her blog and her website. She is a "Transformational Coach in the US and abroad, for the past 20 years. She is an Option Method Trainer, Certified TeleClass Leader, Certified Passion Test Facilitator, and Director of her own company, Option Central. As a speaker and coach, she successfully helps people uncover and change limiting beliefs, so they can live happier and more empowered lives."

If that doesn't motivate you to click around her blog and site today, you must not be out of bed yet and haven't looked outside.

It doesn't look like this:

A trip down my media immersion lane...

When I think back to my media evolution, two mediums glaringly stand out in my mind: books and mixed tapes. I started reading at a very early age and used to have a hard time sleeping at night, lying awake in the dark for hours after my bedtime, so I would self-medicate with books. Reading always helped me sleep and helped me escape whenever I was feeling upset. I remember being about six years old and reading the book Helen Keller cover to cover almost every night for a month. I still revisit that book often and revel in wonder at why and how this book mesmerized me so much when I was young.

Books became part of my life very early and I think they helped to stretch my imagination. I wrote a short story in the eighth grade called, “The Magician’s Daughter” when I was sick at home for three weeks with the chicken pox. I handed the story in to my teacher and about three months later she made an announcement at the front of the class that I had gotten first place in the British Columbia English Teacher’s Association Writing Journal contest. I was thrilled and floored, mainly because I didn’t really remember writing it as I was on medication most of the time. Maybe that says something about the famous fantasy writers in history… maybe?

Another medium that has always been with me is music. I remember being young, like first grade, in the early 80s when the Much Music television station was launched (it’s much like MTV only in Canada). I remember sitting on the living room floor and asking my Mom what certain words of the credits were I couldn’t understand that popped up and the beginning and end of each music video. I remember watching Tina Turner and Madonna and signing and dancing along. Because my Mom was young when she had us, these artists were a part of her culture and were influential on me. There is a second grade school photo of me with a missing tooth and in leopard print leggings and a side pouffy ponytail. Oh yes!

I remember being obsessed with mixed tapes. My boyfriends and I would make them for each other and EVERY SINGLE SONG meant something; it’s hilarious to look back now. One thing that really stands out in my mind is a 10th or 11th grade English project that was assigned to us in class. We had to come up with a 15-minute presentation to the class, describing us as individuals and who we were, but using NO WORDS. I was stumped, and then totally stoked because I knew exactly what I would do. Other students struggled, some were inspired, and others just got very creative, as did I.

Back in the day, around the early 90s, my parents had recently purchased a suped-up (is that a word?) stereo system that all of my friends envied; we even had one of the first cd players on the block (I’m dating myself now). However the technology hadn’t advanced enough to be able to mix cds yet. I decided to cut a 15-20 minute mixed tape that expressed about 15 words that I had chosen that described me that I put onto large flash cards. I recorded everything from commercial tunes, clips of television, radio and other tapes and music… you name it; it was on it. I worked harder on that than almost any project I have ever done; HOURS spent lying in the living room editing, rewinding, timing, recording. I was so proud and terrified at the same time to present it to my class. No one else had done anything like it, and it was gutsy. In the end, my class, and more importantly, my teacher, loved it. Everyone laughed and hooted at certain clips they picked up on that went along with the words on the flash cards that I held up. It forced people to have to put the audio they heard and the words they read together in a creative way. I wasn’t allowed to speak to help them make the connection.

I still have that tape and those cards, I carry with them everywhere I have moved to. I recently tried to play the tape for my boyfriend but it wouldn’t play in my tape deck. I was shattered. I need to take it into one of those restoration places because it’s something I want to hold on to forever. That is one of my fondest media memories.

Immersed in the "feed"

In the book I’m reading in my Media Issues class this semester called, “Media/Society,” about industries, images and audiences, we are reminded *yawn* that the “increase in media options in recent years has even led to an increase in ‘multitasking’ – using more than one form of media at a time” (p. 5). Ya think?!?! I can’t imagine my life without media multitasking; I am constantly immersed. Right now I have the television on, I just received a text and sent one back to a friend, all the while doing homework online and managing my RSS feed. I could throw in that there’s some music playing too, but you get the point.

Ya wanna talk about media multitasking? Imagine what life would be like with an embedded brain internet feed? In M.T. Anderson’s book “Feed” we are met with a group of teens set in a futuristic world where uber-technology has converged electronics and telecommunications into the human brain. Called the “feednet” it combines everything we know today about electronics and communication, data collecting and corporate power (and what it might become), and made humans to be completely dependant and obsessed on consumer culture. It’s a bit scary and sad at the same time because it really is a legit theory on the future, that is, if we continue to allow ourselves to be obsessed with immediate gratification in our computer-consumed society.

“…there was this great promotion, where if you talked about the great taste of Coca Cola to your friends like a thousand times, you got a free six-pack of it, so we decided to take them for some meg ride by all getting together and being like, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke for about three hours so we’d get a year’s supply. It was a chance to rip off the corporations, which we all thought was a funny idea” (Feed p. 158).

But the best part is that most of the teens in the book don’t even realize the feed's wrong or acknowledge the role it plays—until it’s gone, of course. Media/Society, a dated “textbook” (it was printed in 2000, which is pretty much archaic, considering how rapidly technology changes), acknowledges how dependant we are to media TODAY let alone in the future, “One way to recognize the importance of the media in our lives is to imagine life without media” (p. 5).

There is a time in the book Feed where the teens are without their feednet for some time because of a “hack.” Imagine a week in our lives today without the internet, let alone technology, and then imagine that hundreds of years in the future. Moral of the story: America is addicted to technology convergence and consumerism and is submissive to corporate power and advertisements. Think before you log on, cause one day we might not have a choice.