Popular Culture revolves around so many factors, and simply being popular is certainly high among them. This generally requires appealing to a wide audience, and how a media creation can do so seems to balance on some pretty thin tightropes these days. This article by Cara Buckley about how the release of the movie Captain Marvel has played out through digital media discusses the impact of critical platforms, trends in social norms, and trolling on the reception of movies and their place in our culture. Indeed, even their right to develop a healthy existence, or at least as much as the metrics and contributors to Rotten Tomatoes allow them to.
Archive for the ‘Chapter 5’ Category
What’s your Pick?
Posted in Chapter 5, tagged Best Year in Movie History, Washington Post on December 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »
For some interesting discussion and debate, the end of the year is the time for lots of lists! Create a framework so that you can have some healthy debate about what has been exciting, inspiring, moving, thought-provoking, or even repelling in this year’s media creations, from movies to series (TV or through other platforms) to various streaming formats. Seek out some other reference points too, whether critics, vloggers, or bloggers, and develop some objectives for the discourse.
In the meantime, here is an interesting piece for some historical perspective that might be eye-opening to students: a recent Washington Post piece in which critics weighed in on the best year for movies. It’s fun reading and great for debate. And for classrooms right now? How about having everyone create similar lists or opinion pieces related to YouTubing or games or whatever types or genres of media that you want to target in order to share perspectives or opinions. Go for it as you might be wrapping up a course or starting a new one!
Byte the Vine
Posted in Chapter 1, Chapter 5, Media Literacy, tagged Anastasia Bell, Bytedance, Casey Neistat, Medium, Musical.ly, Snapchat, The Merchants of Cool on October 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Three years ago, on these pages was the post Snapchat 101. Haha, how quaint. Right? Heard about Bytedance lately? Or Musical.ly? (If not, check out this thoughtful piece by Anastasia Bell from Medium, if you hadn’t seen it earlier this year.) So what is the price of “meaningless stuff” — as some describe the content shared through apps like these? We’ll be calculating these prices for a long, long time, I think. Some things change, and some never will — like the elusive nature of trends and what new gotta-do-it twist will draw in teens and even younger viewers, and now creators, of media. And while certain content of The Merchants of Cool might seem “old” by now — are the core messages of it really all that passé?