Audio: "Occupy Wall Street after Zuccotti Park," an Interview with Sasha Costanza-Chock
Back in November, Associate Professor of Civic Media Sasha Costanza-Chock spoke with NPR's Brook Gladstone about what comes next for the Occupy movement (image and link courtesy of shass.mit.edu and NPR's On the Media):
Associate Professor of Digital Media Fox Harrell spoke recently with Action Speaks, whose podcasts celebrate great, America-changing anniversaries.
Last October 12, when Fox spoke with them, it happened to be the 39th anniversary of "Pong"...
Pong introduced America to video games and now there seems to be no turning back.
[...]
As more and more people around the world use video games to pass the time, to teach and learn and to create alternative realities, it is time for us to consider what its implications are and whether or not we are leading or being led--and to where.
Fox and two fellow panelists discussed the rise of video games and the need for a nuanced understanding of the impact of games, just as we've learned to apply to other media.
Action Speaks is broadcast on their presenting station WGBH in Boston and on over 250 other radio affiliates around the United States.
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.
Interview with Fox Harrell: "How An Artist-Scientist Conjurer Thinks, Works and Lives"
Our thanks to Anne Khaminwa for conducting this great interview with Fox Harrell for the International Review of African American Art:
He occupies a charmed space in the academy, holding a joint appointment in the Comparative Media Studies Program, the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
One question underlies and unifies these pursuits. "How," Harrell wonders, "can I take advantage of what computers do well -- such as representing and transforming information -- to help us to better understand, and improve, the human condition?"
[...]
Harrell is interested in how computation can create powerful new forms of phantasmal media -- interactive narratives, computer games, social media, AI-based art, and "new forms unanticipated by any of those." He believes that digital media can transform users' ideas, improvise new aesthetic meanings, and critique society and culture.
"The Social Game Craze": Mia Consalvo on NPR's "On Point"
Earlier today, CMS Associate Professor Mia Consalvo spoke with NPR's Jane Clayson about the rise in popularity of social games like Farmville.
We all remember connecting with friends over a game of cards, Parcheesi or Monopoly. These days, games are more popular than ever--but increasingly they're virtual and played on Facebook.
[...]
And while they're free to play, the small fraction of serious players who pony up cash for coveted virtual goods means the business of social games is booming.
Consalvo was joined by Nick Wingfield, technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Frank Lantz, director of the NYU Game Center.
Caduceus to be featured on Classroom 2.0 live this Saturday
The Education Arcade game "Caduceus", created in partnership with Boston-based Fablevision and Children's Hospital Boston, will be featured on Classroom 2.0, with designers Alex Chishom and Wade Munday. Caduceus transports children to a world of science and alchemy--teaching them about the challenges of modern medicine in the process.
Learn more about Caduceus at generationcures.org and about The Education Arcade's central role in its development here at cms.mit.edu.
From Sticky To Spreadable: The Antidote to "Viral Marketing" and the Broadcast Mentality
Many thanks to CMS alum/C3 researcher Sam Ford for putting together the presentation below. It also features former CMS director Henry Jenkins and C3 researcher Joshua Green.
How do you understand and measure success in social media?
How do you create content that audiences not only pay attention to, but want to share with others?
Do you really want to make a video "go viral"?
How does the language you use to describe social media campaigns impact the end result?
Based on years of researching how and why people spread news, popular culture, and marketing content online through the Convergence Culture Consortium for the past several years, our speakers are currently working on a book entitled Spreadable Media. This Webinar will look at what "spreadable media" means, why the concept of "stickiness" is inadequate for measuring success for brands and content producers online and ultimately why marketers and producers should spend more time creating "spreadable material" for audiences than trying to perfect "viral marketing." In this one-hour session, the speakers will share the ideas and strategy behind "spreadable media" and a variety of examples of best--and worst--practices online for both B2B and B2C campaigns.
"Breaking Down Advertising's Walls": CMS researcher Sam Ford in Fast Company
Sam Ford is a CMS grad, a CMS researcher, and a director of the communications company Peppercom. He's also now a blogger at Fast Company.
In his first post, Ford writes about convergence culture's reasonable obsession: breaking down walls between media.
My movement from an academic working with industry to an academic within the industry was driven by my interest in how companies and their audiences converse; what better place to study that conversation than public relations? In my position today at Peppercom, I remain especially interested in why and how the industry and the academy should collaborate around media and the humanities. My posts here at Fast Company this week will focus on this theme: what can the industry learn from the academy, and vice versa?
She's introduced just around the 40-minute mark, and be sure to listen soon, as the Beeb only leaves World Service recordings posted free online for a week.
Henry Jenkins at the Aspen Institute, Forum on Communications and Society
CMS Co-Director Henry Jenkins last month joined the likes of Madeleine Albright, Craig Newmark, and Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson for a panel on how public policy and private initiatives can better meet the public's information needs.
Jenkins participated in a similar panel at Aspen last year on media and values and blogged about the experience:
As I found myself making small talk with everyone from the heads of major media companies to former members of the Bush administration, the one topic which seemed to have captured everyone's interest was Harry Potter. Almost everyone had stories to tell about the experience of reading the final book in the series. In Convergence Culture, I suggested that fan communities might offer us better chances to talk about shared values across the ideological divides that currently shape American politics because they offer us shared fantasies and common reference points. Well, this was a pretty dramatic illustration of that principle at work.
Jenkins interviewed for PBS' Frontline on the future of News
CMS Director Henry Jenkins was interviewed recently for PBS' website companion to their 4-part Frontline series, News War, touching on topics covered by the New Media Literacies and Convergence Culture Consortium research initiatives.
We are living through a shift in the communications environment on a scale that has only occurred a few times in human history, comparable to the shift from [an oral tradition] to literacy, the emergence of print and the rise of modern mass media. Each of these moments fundamentally altered pretty much everything in the culture, touching every major institution, impacting all aspects of everyday life, and fundamentally reshaping our understanding of what it meant to be human.
CMS Director Henry Jenkins on participatory culture and participatory democracy
CMS Director Henry Jenkins is featured in this podcast at ThoughtCast, discussing "the path from 'participatory culture' to 'participatory democracy.'"
Henry Jenkins interviewed for documentary about the controversy surrounding violence in Video Game
As reported by Dean Takahashi in his blog for the San Jose Mercury Times, CMS director Henry Jenkins is one of a number of interviewees for Spencer Halpin's documentary Moral Kombat, a documentary about the controversy and dialogue surrounding the issue of video game violence. Halpin includes commentary from people involved with the issue from the gaming industry, academia, the legal profession, journalists, as well as government and the military.
The current edition of MIT's ZigZag podcast (Episode 12) features CMS Director (and Project NML Primary Investigator) Henry Jenkins and Project NML Research Assistant Neal Grigsby discussing the Project NML Exemplar Library, and the TATs Cru graffiti exemplar in particular.
Interview with Prof. Henry Jenkins on Serious Games, Videogame Violence & More
Professor Henry Jenkins speaks with GameDaily BIZ regarding his new book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide as well as his upcoming appearance at the Serious Game Summit in October, where he'll be presenting a keynote on the age of media convergence and collective intelligence.
Interview with Henry Jenkins and Ernest Adams at Future Play
Thunderbirdsix.org sits down with Henry Jenkins and Ernest Adams for an interview at Future Play (scroll down to episode nine). You can also download an MP3 of the interview.
From The Guardian: "The great art of the 21st century will not be on canvas but on computers. Jack Schofield talks to Henry Jenkins to find out why games are the new Goya." (read the article)
The Education Arcade game "Caduceus", created in partnership with Boston-based Fablevision and Children's Hospital Boston, will be featured on Classroom 2.0, with designers Alex Chishom and Wade Munday. Caduceus transports children to a world of science and alchemy--teaching them about the challenges of modern medicine in the process.
Sam Ford is a CMS grad, a CMS researcher, and a director of the communications company Peppercom. He's also now a blogger at Fast Company.