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CMS News Archives
Is local news a casualty of the digital age? A recent report from the Federal Communications Commission suggests that although the broad media landscape is more vibrant than ever, many state and local communities face a shortage of professional reporting, undermining journalism's watchdog role at the local level. This Forum assesses the state of local journalism, paying special attention to the changing environment for news in New England.
Our speakers, drawn from traditional as well as online media, include Callie Crossley, host of her own talk show on WGBH; David Dahl, who oversees local news initiatives for the Boston Globe; and Adam Gaffin of the online news site Universal Hub. Dan Kennedy, a media analyst who teaches at Northeastern University, moderates the discussion.
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The Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT seeks to fill two positions. Descriptions, requirements, and deadlines are below:
(1) Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Game Studies, MIT
MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Science is seeking a tenure-track assistant professor of game studies to start in the fall of 2012.
Candidates should have a Ph.D. with a record of significant publication (or the promise thereof), research activity and/or design experience relevant to game studies. We seek a candidate who will connect the work of our GAMBIT and Education Arcade research labs to the classroom, and who can direct innovative and multidisciplinary research. Relevant areas of specialization include the history, theory, sociology, psychology and criticism of games and play, and expertise in one or more of the following areas: game design; game engineering; player, playing and assessment methodologies; user behaviors and game economics; data analytics; and visual, narrative, and audio design. Fluency in a broader array of humanities-based media studies and experience in game production will be considered a plus.
Applicants should have teaching experience.
Please submit a letter of application, C.V., three letters of recommendation, and work samples online by December 1, 2011 at: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/1032. Hard copies of works samples may be sent to Prof. William Uricchio, Director, Program in Comparative Media Studies, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E15-313, Cambridge, MA 02139. MIT is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.
(2) Tenured Associate/Full Professor, MIT Comparative Media Studies
MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies seeks applications for a tenured Professor beginning in September 2012.
A Ph.D. and an extensive record of publication, research activity and leadership are expected. We encourage applicants from a wide array of disciplinary backgrounds. The successful candidate will teach and guide research in one or more of the Program's dimensions of comparativity (historical, methodological, cultural) across media forms. Expertise in the cultural and social implications of established media forms (film, television, radio, audio and visual cultures, or print) is as important as scholarship in one or more emerging areas such as games, social media, media literacies, digital arts and culture, internet research, network cultures, software studies, media industries, and transmedia storytelling.
The position involves teaching graduate and undergraduate courses, developing and guiding collaborative research activities, and participating in the intellectual and creative leadership of the Program and the Institute.
Candidates should demonstrate a record of effective teaching and thesis supervision, significant research/creative activity, relevant administrative experience, and international recognition.
CMS offers SB and SM programs and maintains a full roster of research initiatives and outreach activities [see cms.mit.edu]. The program embraces the notion of comparativity and collaboration, and works across MIT's various schools, and between MIT and the larger media landscape.
Applications consisting of a curriculum vita, a statement of teaching philosophy and experience, a statement of current and future research plans, selected major publications 3 letters of recommendation should be submitted online by November 1, 2011 at: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/1036. Hard copies of work samples may be sent to: Professor William Uricchio, Director, Comparative Media Studies, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E15-313, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA. MIT is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.
V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, entrepreneur and lecturer for CMS's systems visualization course, recently spoke with Fast Company about the seemingly unscalable challenges faced by the U.S. Postal Service.
The MIT alumnus and and creator of modern email (not to mention the word itself) told Fast Company that despite the USPS's dire announcement of post office closings and a 50% volume drop since 2001 -- in other words, despite the financial pressures placed on the USPS by the ascendance of email itself -- the postal service can go back to its roots and innovate its way out of waning relevance.
As he told Fast Company:
The first U.S. Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin, was a superlative innovator. Like Henry Ford, he laid down a production system with the USPS for the receipt, sorting, routing and transport of mail while setting quality standards of training and delivery.
That was not a mere operational process of tweaking or refining an extant [business] to generate more revenue or reduce costs--but an inventive process.
...adding:
The U.S. Postal Service could offer an email management service to millions of businesses overnight, generating enough revenue to cover costs and make profit without layoffs. Global 2,000 companies and small to medium enterprises alike sorely need email management, which is a massive opportunity. They could also lead the charge in email validation and other solutions for a host of problems faced by email marketers.
Ayyadurai recently produced his own "History of EMAIL" visualization, a clear "what could have been?" and "what could be?" for the USPS.
"Can Technology Save The U.S. Postal Service?" -- Fast Company
Are you an MIT undergrad with a coding background and interest in media? Check out this great opportunity with the AAGO project:
UROP Positions: MIT Center for Civic Media and the Comparative Media Studies Program
Faculty Supervisor: Prof. James Paradis
Project Title:
Aago: Mobile Media Diaries for Youth Citizen Journalists
Project Description:
With the increasing proliferation of mobile digital media tools and online video distribution, there is a need for secure easy-to-use platforms for sharing and organizing media content among youth. While capturing and tagging digital media with time and location is possible, editing and organizing it for producing seamless narratives that can be easily shared online remains complicated. This project seeks to undertake development of mobile tools and online platforms that support young media makers and citizen journalists to create, organize and share digital narratives produced in their own neighborhoods over time, while allowing new forms of inter-generational learning, location-based storytelling and civic advocacy.
Aago is a mobile media platform designed at the MIT Center for Civic Media, in collaboration with the Comparative Media Studies Program and the New School for Public Engagement. The tool is being prototyped using the iOS development environment and currently runs on Apple iPod devices. In addition to the mobile tools, we also plan to design and implement a web portal for youth to share, collaboratively author and publish digital media narratives. The tools and platforms will eventually be released as open source software for wider public dissemination. The current prototypes have been tested with youth this summer and will be expanded to support extensive pilot workshops conducted with youth community groups in Boston and New York City over the coming year.
The project is being jointly supervised by Prof. James Paradis at CMS and Prof. Nitin Sawhney at the New School for Public Engagement. We are seeking 2-4 qualified UROPs to join the project team to work on mobile software development, designing the web platform as well as conducting user evaluation with youth community groups.
Dates: The project will be conducted during the 2011-2012 academic year and possibly extended over the coming summer.
Prerequisites: Working knowledge of mobile iOS programming using Objective C and the X Code development environment OR web programming using PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and HTML5. Experience with digital video production and location-based applications using mobile and web platforms is helpful. Good user interface design and rapid prototyping skills are expected. Experience or interests in working with community youth media initiatives is a plus.
Contact Information: If you are interested, please contact Prof. James Paradis at jparadis@mit.edu and include:
- Resume/CV and links to relevant projects conducted
- Summary of previous UROP experience and references
- Overview of mobile/web programming experience and interest in the project
Over the last 15 years, there has been an explosion of innovation in board game styles and mechanisms. The Settlers of Catan was the game that crossed the ocean from Germany to the U.S. in the late 1990's and kicked off this new era in board gaming. These modern board games, or Eurogames, are more engaging experiences and based less on luck than the typical roll-and-move board game design prevalent in the 20th century.
Attendees will learn about a variety of game mechanisms through discussions of exemplar games and see how these games relate. Many of these mechanisms are appropriate for digital games as well as tabletop games, so attendees will improve their toolkit of mechanisms for their own design work.
Dr. Scott Nicholson is a visiting scholar with MIT Comparative Media Studies for the 2011-2012 academic year, working with the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab and The Education Arcade. He is an associate professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, where he has focused on games in libraries and game design as a pedagogical tool. He was the host of Board Games with Scott from 2005-2010 and is the designer of Tulipmania 1637, a board game published in 2009. In addition, he is the author of Everyone Plays at the Library: Creating Great Gaming Experiences for All Ages, published in 2010 by Information Today.
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