Educast Ireland

Fair dealing

MUCH OF THE CONTENT produced for audio playback and downloadable at podcasting.ie is done by and for third level students. As such, it's worth exploring how selections from books, music and spoken content from other sources can be used in a justifiable manner. We turn to the Copyright Association of Ireland for information concerning fair dealing, education and archiving.

Fair dealing.

A work may be used by anyone for the purposes of research or private study without the permission of the author, provided the use is conducted in a way which does not prejudice the rights of the copyright owner. The work may also be used for criticism or review or for reporting current events, with the same proviso, and provided further that the use of the work is accompanied by an acknowledgement identifying the author and the title of the work. This bundle of exceptions is known as "fair dealing".

Educational uses.

The use of author's works for certain educational purposes is permitted. These include the use of the work in examinations, and the inclusion of a short passage from the work in an anthology for schools. Portions of educasts, underway in Ireland and inside view podcasts are extracted for use in examinations.

Libraries and Archives.

Several of the MP3 files open for download from podcasting.ie have also been submitted to the National Digital Library Resorce. Libraries and archives are given limited rights to copy works under certain conditions. Public libraries and certain educational establishments may also lend works without infringing the rights of the author.

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See the Copyright Association of Ireland for more details.

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Long Tail Big Scenes

We catch up with Terry and Laurie Porter, Harley bikers from California, when they spend a podcast session in Mellifont Friary to discuss things like the SonyEricsson W810i Walkman phone, Americans in Europe, The Long Tail, why to carry a laptop on a Harley, making big scenes explode in Hollywood, jobs for multimedia degree students, weeknight barbeque tips and some podsafe music from Shiny Toy Guns, Randall Cousins and Steffen Coonan. It’s 45 minutes of conversation and musings in a 32.2 MB 96kbps MP3 file. Follow the rest in the shownotes. »

What is RSS

PAGING BACK three years, we ask the question, "What is RSS?" RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication, lets you receive instant information updates. With RSS webfeeds you are in control — you decide what you want to read and when you want to read it. A simple news reader makes this possible. You can make the readers work with your email clients or on your mobile phone. It's really easy to do.

Once you subscribe to a site's RSS webfeed or even a search engine feed, your news reader goes out and grabs the updated information saving you the time it takes to visit each site. The latest information as soon as it is published comes to your news reader. One of the easiest to use is the Google Reader.

Major news sites, blogs, and a growing number of corporate websites publish their content as RSS webfeeds. Millions of sites such as BBC World News, The New York Times, and EasyDeltaV.com use RSS to deliver headlines and summaries.

Some browsers like Firefox automatically check for webfeeds when you visit a website, and display this icon when it finds one. This auto discovery will be in the next Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office releases.

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RSS Starter Kit -- "Why use RSS?"

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Tony O'Malley Everywhere

WE VISIT BUTLER GALLERY routinely with busloads of third level students from Tipperary Institute and this month it's to see the journals of Tony O'Malley. His work is all over Ireland at the moment. Besides being on display in the Butler, a major retrospecitve hangs in the Irish Museum of Modern Art--his third exhibition there in just over a decade. HE hangs in Dublin's Graphic Studio Gallery until 12 November and Taylor Galleries hosts an exhibition of gouaches, works on paper and oil paintings from 11 November.

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Why we wiki

AT TIPPERARY INSTITUTE we help revise items in wikipedia and World66 because both of these editable communities offer a good experience with social software. Besides, both sites have developed a credible presence while proving the merit of collective publishing.

Traffic to the multilingual network of the wikipedia has grown 154 per cent over the past year, according to research firm Hitwise. It is set to overtake The New York Times on the web, the Drudge Report and other news sites.

Wikipedia recently attracted 22.3 per cent of users searching for information on 'Gaza Strip,' tying the CIA World Factbook. It has drawn five times more US traffic than Google News, Yahoo News or BBC, according to Hitwise.

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1000 Bucks for Travel Thoughts

World66 will pay you to travel. All you have to do is help World66.com update their guidebooks by writing while traveling. They have ten travel grants waiting for travelers with a plan a good writing skills.

How does it work? It works in a pretty straightforward way. You submit your proposal for you trip. We review it and we tell you if we will sponsor you and we agree on what youn need to write to be sure you get the money. During your trip and afterwards you write about the places you've visited. If you've done what we agreed on we pay via Paypal.

What is the term? You have to submit your proposal before 1 January 2006. You need to finish travel  before 1 January 2007.

How do they select the winners? By the proposal. You have to be headed towards places that are in need of a write-up. They look at writing skills and motivation.

What happens to the wirte-ups? They're published with a Creative Commons license.

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See the World66 submission form.

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Why They Write

LONG-TIME BLOGGERS have an assortment of reasons to explain why they write online. I do it because good writing inspires. It feels like art. One of the reasons for maintaining a classroom blog is that it offers a forum to practise writing. In the newspaper industry, where training is woefully underfunded, sharing the lessons of great reporting and writing remains one of the best ways to learn the craft. It's the spirit behind the "Best Newspaper Writing" series, The Providence Journal's "Power of Words" site, Lee Enterprises' "Writing Matters," Bob Baker's "NewsThinking" and "No Train No Gain," home base for newspaper training editors and coaches. All of these sites deserve frequent visits by those beginning to learn Media Writing.

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via Poynter.

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Flickr in classrooms

FLICKR -- Next academic term is Flickr's time to enter the Media Writing classroom in Tipperary Institute, as a product description technology. The tasking involves progressively deeper involvement with the photo-sharing technology, starting with an abstract description of what the web service does, a detailed description of the Flickr API, and adding notes to Flickr photos.

We have collected photos of multimedia developers at work and will have multimedia students annotate images with relevant information to identify the kinds of apparel people wear, products sitting on desks, and articles in offices. This exercise has a practical purpose--it is designed to develop an awareness of product placement. When seeking sponsorship, promoters need to know how to leverage product placement. Wired explains why:

As consumers turn away from traditional advertising, marketers increasingly are exploiting product placement opportunities in such popular television fare as CBS's "CSI," and Fox's "24" and "Alias." "Nobody watches traditional commercials anymore," says Richard Rizzuto, who heads up a New York marketing firm. "In five years, it's going to be 90% branded entertainment and 10% traditional advertising."

With a little bit of development, a third-year project will bolt object-tracking technology onto a video. Then viewers can use a laser point or mouse to click an item on the video screen--like an iPod skin or a mobile phone--and find more information on it.

Scott Newman, CEO of GoldPocket Interactive, which is pitching such technology to cable operators, predicts object tracking will be widely available to TV viewers by the end of 2006.  "All the technology is there. It just needs to be deployed."

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Wired via News Scan.

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Three steps to creative writing

THE ARTISTS WAY -- Julia Cameron specifies three "Basic Tools" that she uses to improve creative writing. We are using elements of each step in the Media Writing course in Tipperary Institute.

1. Streams of consciousness writing. Set your alarm clock to ring one half hour earlier than usual; get up and do three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing.
2. Take yourself on an Artist's Date. You have to agree to buy yourself a treat each week.
3. Take a weekly walk. Go far enough to place yourself into an "unthink" zone.

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Julia Cameron -- Walking in this world ISBN 07126605364

Fifty Tools to Better Writing

TIPPINST -- We have added Poynter's "50 Writing Tools" to the reading list of our Media Writing course in Tipperary Institute. They're also strongly recommended for writers of Irishblogs.

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Roy Peter Clark -- "Fifty Writing Tools"

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Fifty

Best essays online

DERVALA -- Here's a great tip from a great essayist: "Philip Lopate’s anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay. This is desert island stuff: 75 essays, from Seneca to Richard Rodriguez. It stops just in time, too, before this last decade’s boom in pity-me memoir and precocious autobiography".

From Hanley: "As more of us choose tell the world our opinions on our breakfast, it’s good to be reminded that a fine personal essay can make us feel more alive. And that soul-baring, like strip-tease, intrigues most when it reveals slowly and artfully".

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Philip Lopate -- The Art of the Personal Essay ISBN 038542339X
Dervala Hanley -- "The Art of the Personal Essay"

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Citizen Metereologists

CLONMEL -- We have started thinking about a meteorological station for Tipperary Institute in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland. If we get it up and running by September, we will join the citizen metereological movement spawned by WeatherBug. It's a way of blending citizen journalism with weather reporting. Our ace card: we have very presentable reporters who are well-able to make 30-second mobisodes out of the weather reports.

The Citizen Meteorologist movement is hopelessly American at the moment but what the hay! If we have a Backyard Tracking Station, we should be able to claim the right to an Irish channel. Fact is, anyone who purchases a Backyard (soon to be localised as "BackGarden" or "BGWS") can register to report on their blog.

Steve Outing wonders, "Is this an attempt to put professional meteorologists out of work, replaced by amateurs with high-tech backyard devices? Of course not, yet that's the reaction I often hear to citizen-journalism initiatives. Just as citizen news reporters can complement the work of professional journalists, this citizen weatherman concept will augment the work of paid meteorologists. The benefit goes to the weather news consumer, who getsdeeper coverage of local weather events than has been available before".

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Steve Outing -- "Citizen Meteorologist"
WeatherBug -- "Give the gift of weather"

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Media Writing Exams

TIPPINST -- After spending part of a sunny Sunday grading exam scripts from my first year Media Writing course, I'm scribbling a few reminders as revision notes for the next cohort. It looks like everyone who took the final exam passed the course but only because of compensatory marks earned during continuous assessment. This is the first time in four years that people have failed the final exam. It means the final exam requires a tough revision.

• Those who opted to answer Michel Foucault's question--"What makes an author?"--finished in the top third of the final exam results.
• We teach how writing an idea helps protect it. When we tested various kinds of protection, students could define a trademark better than a copyright, registered mark and patent. Few could list distinctions between a copyright and a creative commons copyright.
• Film review session feature in the Media Writing course. Most students wrote well about dehumanising elements of Bladerunner. But when comparing Bladerunner to "I, Robot" fewer than 20% of the essays cited names of actors, characters, or directors.
• One of the most valuable skills in writing for the web is writing for placement. Although students understand the importance of hyperlinks in creating visible content, some could not elaborate on the role of a title and a headline on a web page. Most students know their Googlenym--it's surprising that nearly 20% did not know how to find their content on the internet (without citing an exact URL or without using their name in the look-up phrase).

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Tipperary Institute's Media Writing Course is available without a key but requires payment of enrolment fees for tutorial assistance.

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Cross-cultural imperative

TIPPINST -- One obvious point of using Yahoo! 360 is you quickly become aware of the international reach of the program. I have "friends" on three continents. I have discovered that I need the Chinese fonts installed on every system where I access my Yahoo! 360 blog. Said another way, we need to install all flavours of Chinese fonts on all computers in Tipperary Institute because we have routine correspondence now with Chinese students and Chinese bloggers. This is probably good advice for all Irishblogs.

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Bonus Link: Irish Born Chinese weblog.

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Digital Storytelling Festival

DSTORY -- The 8th Annual Digital Storytelling Festival is moving from Sedona, AZ,  to the broadcast studios of KQED in San Francisco. It opens on 7 October 2005. Pre-Festival workshop runs 5-7 Oct and the post-festival workshop continues from 10-12 Oct. The festival is an annual event where the digital storytelling community gathers to examine compelling projects, to share information and ideas that inspire, invigorate and create a thoughtful dialogue around digital storytelling. Some interesting storylines, emanate from those with Irishblogs.

At Tipperary Institute, we use digital technology to create media-rich stories that impart meaning. It builds communities, gives a status to personal and legacy storytelling, and promotes the Auld Sod. The boundaries of digital storytelling continue to expand, now with the use of hand held devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones for situated story purposes.

As JD Lasica points out, the Bay Area is one of the most active areas for digital storytelling, and many consider it to be the birthplace of the movement.

Pricing is reasonable:

• $350 Festival Registration (Evening of Oct. 7 to Oct. 9)
• $200 Festival Registration for students
• $725 Digital Storytelling Bootcamp Workshop and Festival.

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DSTORY -- event info for 8th annual digital storytelling workshops.
JD Lasica -- "Digital Storytelling Fest moves to SF"
Bonus Link:Roland Fuchs -- personal story of Flugtag 1988

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Jamie Oliver's School Lunches

EBURY -- Annabel Karmel writes a helpful book of Favourite Family Recipes that extend the thoughts aired by Jamie Oliver's school lunches. Karmel cites "brain boosters" and "brain drainers" when suggesting which foods to use and which to avoid feeding school children.

Top 10 Brain Boosters

1. Porridge with sultanas: slow-releasing energy.
2. Extra-lean grilled beef burgers: rich in concentration-boosting iron.
3. Grilled salmon fishcakes: rich in omeg-3 oils for making brain cells.
4. Boiled eggs: contain phospholipids for enhancing memory.
5. Bananas: bursting with potassium needed for memory.
6. Water: being dehydrated reduces concentration.
7. Milk: rich in protein, which boosts levels of tyrosine, the brain-energising amino acid that increases alertness. 
8. Multigrain bread: good for B vitamins, needed for concentration
9. Berries: rich in supernutrients that protect the brain from pollution
10. Apples and pears: great slow-releaseing energy snacks to help fuel the brain between meals.

Top 10 brain drainers

1. Sugar-coated breakfast cereals, whie toast with jam: these cause a rapid rise in blood sugar levels, followed by a short, sharp energy low
2. Crisps: lots of salt, which can be dehydrating and disrupt concentration.
3. Orange squashes: these contain E102 (tartrazine), which can make some children hyperactive.
4. Meat pies, cakes, biscuits: contain trans fats, which hinder brain development and function.
5. Boiled sweets, gims and Smartie-like confectionary containing E104 (quinoline yellow) and/or E110 (sunset yellow). Both can trigger hyperactivity and disrupt concentration.
6. Cola drinks: rich in sugar and caffeine, which can overstimulate and hamper concentration.
7. Cheap, fatty burgers: little meat content, so little brain-boosting iron.
8. Fruit drinks: these are full of sugar, which triggers the sugar rollercoaster and hyperactivity in some children.
9. Standard flapjacks: packed with fat and sugar, which, when combined in large amounts, can make children sluggish.
10. Energy drinks: they may be called energy drinks, but they are packed with sugar, which, again, sets children on the rollercoaster of distracting sugar highs and lows.

Yahoo 360 review

YAHOO -- Because it's a free and easy way to integrate content, we are using Yahoo 360◦ to complement the learning objectives of Media Writing, a first year course on the multimedia degree programme in Tipperary Institute. Students and members of the Irishblogs group are reporting that it takes no more than 10 minutes to set up a Yahoo! identity and then to acquire a simple URL for an easy-to-find blog. The important thing to realise is that most students don't see it as blogging; for them, Yahoo 360◦ is an online note-taker that doubles as a place to share revision notes. The second most important thing to realise that when dealing with a Border Manager that controls the inbound flow of email, you cannot offer more than a dozen invitations to people using the campus mail system. A high volume of invitations shows up as spam and gets blocked.

Those are snap impressions from the first day of usage. The real commentary will come from students themselves during the coming weeks as they populate their blogs with material extracted from written journals, then followed by the results they earn on their final exams.

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Also on Yahoo 360◦ -- Bernie Goldbach's Yahoo blog
Sent mail2blog using Nokia 9500 Communicator Typepad O2 services.
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Traveling to TippInst

(Editor -- We asked for some feedback from Transition Year students concerning the journey they take every morning to attend the Schoolworks Programme at Tipperary Institute. Their moblogged thoughts and comments to this post reminds readers what it's like to endure consecutive days of minibus rides.)

THURLES -- The bus journey from County Offaly to Thurles in County Tipperary takes us an hour and a half, we have to get up early and the roads are bumpy, the bus is small and cramped and we don't get a break.

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Sent mail2blog using Nokia 9500 Communicator by Siobhan Scarlett.

Slices of Blink

BLINK -- Sometimes it helps to try the ideas that authors write about because if they work for you, they must be worthwhile for a lot of other people as well. We test Malcolm Gladwell's theories about half-slicing moments of observation by dissecting Blink [ISBN 0316172324] with 18 teenagers. The idea is to see whether Blink survives the attention span of a well-disciplined Irish Transition Year student. If Gladwell passes the half-slice test, the book must be good. If he cannot hold the attention of at least 10 of the group, we don't order the hard cover for the college library.

Each student received a slice of Blink overnight. After reading a half-slice of Blink, they will make comments below about their experience.

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Malcolm Gladwell -- Blink ISBN 0316172324
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Common sense blogging

INDEPENDENT -- Tom Murphy offers sound advice to bloggers in a column carried inside the "Jobs & Careers" insert to the Irish Independent.

Murphy isn't going to put himself in the line of fire with the contents of his blog. "Where possible I avoid talking about my employers' business .... (A)t no point would I openly critique my employer. I just wouldn't do it."

Murphy himself has 300-400 readers a day. "They'd be a mix of marketing, PR people, journalists and analysts. It's a wide mix."

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Elaine Larkin -- "On being a blogger" in the Irish Independent, 17 February 2005.
Sent mail2blog using Nokia 9500 O2 Typepad service.
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More on Signer

CLONMEL -- Comments by Gerry Fogarty on the Media Writing course:

Signers Koffer is a provocative work as he uses unconventional and unusual methods in his endeavours. He arouses a significiant response whether in support or in opposition. He provokes interest while also instigating disapproval, most of the criticism leveled by the Media Writing class was that Jackass was better.

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Send mail2blog using Nokia 9500 Communicator by Gerry Fogarty on the Media Writing course.
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Sculptor Signer

CLONMEL -- We have Roman Signer's "Koffer" with us in our Media Writing class and we plan to explore Signer by responding to several statements and by answering several questions.

• What segment titles and three-sentence summaries can be drawn from "Signer's Koffer"?
• What characteristics of a boy racer feature in Signer's handling of his Piaggio?
• "Exploding scenes of Signer's Vision."
• What does Signer sculpt?
• What would motivate you to see Roman Signer's artwork?
• Is video the art or is performance the art of Signer?

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Regret for Offence Caused

IRISH TIMES -- One of the set pieces of Irish life is the apology for inconvenience caused. The editor of The Irish Times reinforces this precept by issuing an apology for remarks made by Kevin Myers in a column written about unmarried mothers.

The editorial reveals a careful mix of apology and posturing.

Irish society has changed hugely in recent decades and at a pace that has been breathtaking. Much of this change is for the good and has been led by The Irish Times. Stigmatising social differences is no longer as acceptable as it once was and rightly so.

We have become less willing to tolerate the passing of casual, cruel judgment on the lives of others, less willing to ignore the pain thoughtless slights and name-calling inflict on the vulnerable. That is social progress.

But with these changes come challenges: Irish society, no less than some others, is being confronted increasingly with the consequences of dramatic social change - changing precepts about the family, about marriage and partnership, about children and their welfare, about rights and responsibilities, collectively and individually.

There are many important issues that merit debate and The Irish Times will, as it has in the past, stimulate, facilitate and report this discussion. There is no doubt that remarks made by Kevin Myers in An Irishman's Diary last Tuesday have caused great offence and grave hurt to many of our readers. A sample of the complaints is reflected on this page today. Readers are angered and appalled, not just by the nature of the views expressed by Kevin Myers about unmarried mothers and their innocent children but by the manner in which they were expressed.

Kevin Myers returns to the subject today with a rather different message of "unconditional apology". He accepts that the reaction to what he wrote was not merely driven by political correctness or social conformism. He deliberately used the word "bastard", he claims, believing that there was no stigma attached to it. In this, he was wrong.

The views he expressed were not, and are not, those of The Irish Times. The Irish Times defines itself in part by providing a platform for divergent views. The opinions of one columnist will differ from another; they may at times conflict with the editorial policy of the newspaper, as in this case. However, it should be pointed out to readers that the whole editorial process tries to avoid undue interference in the opinions of columnists, except on factual and legal grounds. And when it does occur, the newspaper, more than any other, is criticised for censorship.

Journalists in The Irish Times are committed to free speech and the promotion of robust debate even if, at times, odious things are said which are offensive to some readers. There is a fine line between strong views stimulating necessary debate and odious opinions causing hurt and distracting from real issues. Exposing a mindset which could stigmatise innocent children forms part of the debate. The Irish Times regrets the offence caused.

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Irish Times Editorial -- "Regret for Offence Caused"
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Green Day in Class

CLONMEL -- From Corey Minagh:

We pulled apart "American Idiot" by Green Day during our Media Writing Class. There are some things worth noting about the album and its presentation. The whole concept/idea of the album is for an angry group of young Americans to air their views against the "American Idiot" who is controlling their nation. The lyrics, are straight from the heart and have done more than influence the "red neck agenda" which  is Bush. But it is perhaps the art work and more so the cover of  a heart shaped grenade having the blood squeezed out of it, clearly states what Bush is doing to what is such a powerful nation. They want him out, and express this through their music.

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MW131 -- Handout for examining "Green Day" in class.
Bonus Link: Gavin Sheridan's "US-EU Relations"
Tipperary Institute Media Writing is supported by Moodle.
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Scratching out a Logo

Ian Landsman shares his experience of working with Mike Rhode, graphic designer who created a new business logo for his company UserScape and his product HelpSpot.  He documents each step of the process from the initial drawings by hand to the selection of the final colours. Some of the ideas that bubbled up include “text as logo”, a helping hand, a group of users, small group of users, and some abstract users/symbols based on an @ sign.

All of the conceptual drawings were done with pencil-to-paper, which is the process we teach in our multimedia degree programme. The first pass of pencil to paper is a wonderful expose of a design mind at work.

The concepts evolved into specific options, constrained by strong colour requirements and pixel dimensions.

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Brian (Micro ISV) -- "Creating a logo"
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Angry Kid

ANGRY KID -- Comments from Niall O'Brien about Angry Kid: Darren Walsh has managed to create a highly unique form of animation known as pixelation with his creation Angry Kid. His Angry Kid character has managed to cross national boudaries with a multi-lingual message, all while still remaining funny as hell! Check it out! Angry Kid

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Write it down

GOOGLE -- There are 30.1 m references to "write it down" found by the Google search engine. That search result drops to 600,000 pages containing the exact reference to "write it down" on web pages. A9 finds 157,000 incidences of the phrase along with 714 images, some which are very applicable to the phrase.

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Class Notes on Creative Commons

Media Writing class notes from Lilly Doran:

You can use the Creative Commons to make your work available to the public without losing the original rights associated with the material. Your rights  will  just be amended.

 

1. Your details must be associated with your work.
2. Metadata is used to associate the work with you, your details must be registered with CC. This is for crawlers, so they can verify where the work is.
3. The readable licence will make it easier to access the work as long as the creative of the material is credited.

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Tsunami copyright

DLTQ -- JD Lasica asks, "Does big news trump copyright?" The question arises on the back of the spread of an amateur video taken in the height of the damage in south Asia.

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JD Lasica -- "Does big news trump copyright?"
Don't Lose the Question -- "Can we just disregard copyright issues during a Tsunami? "
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Online writing that pays

RUSSELL BEATTIE -- Although he doesn't have an Apple computer, when Russ Beattie writes about Apple, he attracts global viewers. On top of that, he knows that stuff written about Macs attracts people more than stuff written about mobile phones. Not only that, but the advertisements Beattie uses on top of his website generate a nice little earner that skyrockets with the mention of Apple.

Now things may change after the Christmas shopping season. However, the lessons learned will tick over as points of best practise for those who want to get paid for what they write.

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Russell Beattie -- "Daypop 25 and $150"
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Blog is top word

REUTERS -- Merriam-Webster Inc. announced that "blog" is the top word of 2004, based on the number of people looking up the term in its online dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines blog as "a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks". For what it's worth, "Irish blog" is one of the top 10 words referring people to this web site.

Eight entries on the publisher's top-10 list related to major news events, including "incumbent" and "partisan". I wrote about "cicada" earlier in 2004 and that also landed in the Webster Top 10 list.

Springfield, Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster compiles the list each year by taking the most researched words on its Web sites and then excluding perennials such as affect/effect and profanity.

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CNN -- "Words of the Year"
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Tutorial on iPod Battery

PALLB -- Pål Børsting has developed an excellent tutorial on reclaiming battery life from an iPod. His format of the tutorial, development of the information and accompanying screenshots make a good example for completing the Media Writing tutorial assignment. His main point is to automatically update selected playlists only.

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Pål Børsting -- "Restore and maximise battery life"
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Not available

CLONMEL -- With Christmas break fast approaching, Tipperary Institute will enter the ranks of the not available images. Google has 1100 not available images, Yahoo half that amount but they're more diverse.

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Passive-Aggressive Syntax

ZEFRANK -- Ze Frank has excellent advice for those who think they need to fire off a "fuck off or die" e-mail when upset. His short Flash presentation reveals a passive-aggressive response strategy that works.

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Ze Frank -- "Communication Skills through Passive Aggressive Communications Solutions"
Bous Link: Dervala Hanley explains one manifestation of "bite me".
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Words about plagiarism

NEW YORKER -- "Words belong to the person who wrote them. There are few simpler ethical notions than this one, particularly as society directs more and more energy and resources toward the creation of intellectual property." The New Yorker makes this point in an article that examines how storylines to "CSI" and "Law and Order" come to the screen. Sometimes the ideas don't originate with the scriptwriters.

Malcolm Gladwell's article about plagiarism winds its way into the music business where U2 fans will be glad to hear how simply using a sequence of notes from another song isn't a rip-off. Using a range of notes is no more than a mordent, a turn. Rock groups have borrowed notes from each other thousands of times before. Oasis can't say they own the composition of every line to "Morning Glory" and subsequently demand payment from U2 for infringing on the same notes when they play from their "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" album.

Gladwell puts it in perspective by citing a prinicple often-mentioned by Stanford lawyer Larry Lessig.

Creative property, Lessig reminds us, has many lives—the newspaper arrives at our door, it becomes part of the archive of human knowledge, then it wraps fish. And, by the time ideas pass into their third and fourth lives, we lose track of where they came from, and we lose control of where they are going.

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Malcolm Gladwell -- "Something borrowed"
James Corbett -- "U2 prove that downloads help sales"
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See The Incredibles

CLONMEL -- Wil Wheaton offers yet another reason Media Writing students will report back to Moodle with their impression of Pixar's The Incredibles. Here's Wheaton's take:

What an amazing movie! It is a brilliant example of why story is so very important. The animation is phenomenal — particularly the simulated hair and water motion — but without the amazing story, talented voice performers, and stellar direction, it would all be for nothing.

Wheaton predicts "this movie will utterly destroy all previous box office records for Pixar films, and may even make a run at some top-grossing live action movies. Yes, it is that good."

I like Wheaton's conversation with his wife when they walked out of the theatre following the film.

"Hey," I said, right after we passed it, "You had me at 'hello.'"

She looked back at me, and smiled. "I know! There are great movie quotes all over the ground here!"

"No," I said. "You had me at 'hello.'"

"Right," she said. "And there's 'Here's looking at you, kid,' and there is 'May The Force be with you,' and there is —"

"No," I said, and turned her to face me. "You," I poked her in the stomach, "had me," I poked my own stomach, "at 'hello.'"

"Oh." She paused for a second and blushed, "I like that a whole bunch."

"Well," I said, "You did."

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Wil Wheaton -- "As time goes by"
Chris Pirillo -- "That's Incredible"
Receptionista has to see it because it has the voice of Sarah Vowell in it.
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What is an Author

DUBLIN -- We are unpacking Michel Foucault's concept of authorship in a MAVIS session at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. It starts with Michel Foucault. He is not a Freudian, a Marxist, a structuralist, a phenomenologist, a sociologist, or a historian, but his work draws on ideas and assumptions and methods from all of these areas or disciplines. He is a postructuralist thinker who is well-known for his essay "What is an Author?".

Foucault discusses criticisms of The Order of Things, a book in which he investigated how humans became knowlege objects. Foucault examined "discourses" and "discursive practices" in fields such as the social sciences.¹

In The Order of Things, Foucault discussed several naturalists, including Buffon, a French 18th century writer, and Charles Darwin, a British 19th century writer, as belonging to the same "discourse," or discursive family. Critics questioned this association, asking Foucault how he could put two authors who were so different, in time and place, together in one grouping. It would be much the same as putting Dave Winer and John Sterne into the same category of "Tech Writers" even though the two men have very different channels to market. In Foucault's mind, we should not be concerned with the idea of individual authors but instead should view discourse as the groupings of memes.

In a well-developed stream of thought, Foucault asks why it is so important to trace ideas back to specific authors. Why do we insist that ideas or concepts--such as who invented RSS--are the handiwork of a single individual?

Foucault sharpens discussion around the relationship between an author and a text, and the manner in which the text points to the author as a figure who is outside the text, and who creates it.

In fairness, Foucault does place an author in the Derridean centre of the text, the place which originates the text yet remains outside it.

But before he does that, Foucault points to the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. Beckett says, "What matter who's speaking?" Foucault sees this sentence as an expression of some of the major principles of contemporary writing, or what Foucault calls ecriture.²

Foucault believes that a writer's particular individuality is canceled out by the text, by writing, because readers view "writer" or "author" as the function of language itself. In the humanist model, the categories of author, text, and reader seemed self-evident and separate: an author is someone who produces a text, which is then read by a reader; the author was the source and origin of some creative power, which was unique to him or her.

In the poststructuralist view, relations between author, text, and reader are replaced by an understanding of the relations between language (as a structure) and subjects (positions we inhabit within the structure of language).

Foucault says "the author is dead" because he believes authors have no claim to the centre of focus in an idea. He will bestow on authors part of the subject position in a work, but not the centrepiece of the work. By declaring the death of the author, Foucault deconstructs the idea that the author is the origin of something original. Foucault subordinates authors and makes them the product or function of writing.

This is an important idea whe considering whether an "author" is actually a "movement" or a "thematic." The surname of an author could represent a movement. For example, "Freud" is the guy with tomes of psychoanalysis but "Freud" is also a common citizen. Freud's name gives the texts attributed to him more status than texts which have no author. The name of the author is thus a signifier, which accompanies only certain texts to the exclusion of others.

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¹ For Foucault, a "discourse" is a body of thought and writing that is united by having a common object of study, a common methodology, and/or a set of common terms and ideas; the idea of discourse thus allows Foucault to talk about a wide variety of texts, from different countries and different historical periods and different disciplines and different genres.
² This ecriture is related to the French feminist idea of "l'ecriture feminine." One of the hallmarks of ecriture is the interplay of signifiers.The ecriture that Foucault is discussing tends toward the monologic, rather than the dialogic.
Roland Barthes -- "The Death of the Author" in Image-Music-Text via MAVIS and Mary Klages.
Bonus Link: Evelyn Rodriguez -- "Stuff: A Portrait"
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Copyright in the iDebate

CLONMEL -- If you like an image you see on the internet and you download it for use in your own space, you could be misappropriating the image. That's the point made by several people discussing Joi Ito's use of an "iDebate" image. The image and its connotations are interesting enough on their own. The discussion they spark on digital rights management should be required reading for creative developers worldwide.

One elegant work-around involves marking images with Creative Commons licensing metadata. That's a concept taught in the Tipperary Institute Media Writing Course and one that all web developers should consider.

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Joi Ito -- iDebate
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New Irish Student Magazine

OXYGEN -- The team behind Oxygen.ie plan to launch The Spanner and distribute the glossy magazine free at colleges and universities throughout Ireland. The company behind the venture, Foresight Communications, also organises the annual Student Media Awards.

A wide range of advertisers support the print run of 50,000 copies. The magazine plans to leverage the 90,000 registered members of the Oxygen website and hopes to expand the Oxygen brand through the print medium.

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Catherine O'Mahony -- "Oxygen.ie throws spanner in works" in The Sunday Business Post, Octoboer 17, 2004.
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Lessons I've learned in life

Facts about life that I've learned along the way.

• Caution: The trap you set might catch you out.
  
• Warning: Your accomplice in crime might doublecross you.
• Fools talk way too much chattering about stuff they know nothing about.
• Youth lasts as long as smoke.

In conversation with Magz Leddy

CLONMEL -- Magz Leddy likes "circles cause I like to think that everything is continuous its also a symbol of equality as there is no top or bottom." We should illustrate this post with a circle from Magz.

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Media Writing -- "25 things about Magz Leddy"
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Shark Tale another animated success

AP -- In a wonderful tribute to quality script writing and top-class performances, the animated fish story "Shark Tale" swamped the competition, opening as the top weekend movie with $49.1 million and potentially breaking the record for best October debut. John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix's firefighting adventure "Ladder 49" premiered in second place with $22.8 million, according to studio estimates.

The new flicks bumped the previous weekend's top movie, "The Forgotten," to third place with $12 million, raising its 10-day total to $38.3 million.

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David Germain -- "'Shark Tale' Hooks Movie-Goers With $49.1M"
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Copyrighting cars

CLONMEL -- In the parking lot of Tipperary Institute, people are talking about rstrictions on buying car parts. Strict design-copyright protection prevents the growth of a spare parts market. Major automakers control 88% of the EUR 10 billion-a-year crash parts market. Independent suppliers could swell replacement parts such as body panels, headlights and side mirrors.

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What is moblogging

BLOGGERCON -- Dave Winer offers up his take on moblogging. Out of necessity, I've had to moblog since early 2001 because of the amount of public transport I used to and from work. Most of my work is mail-to-blog with Nokia Communicators.

Over the years, I learned that it's very important to rely on a back-end system that consistently performs. I appreciate the solid data performance of both O2 and Vodafone in Ireland--levels better than what a moblogger would find in the States. I also marvel at the dependable content mangement service with Movable Type and Typepad. They are a pleasure to use.

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Dave Winer -- "What is moblogging?"
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Seven writing tasks

CLONMEL -- The first lesson of the Media Writing course sets seven tasks to be done.

1. Mark up key sections of wireless notebook.
2. Freeform: Define the term "multimedia."
3. Freeform: List five things to remember about the first day of college.
4. Prime Topic: Reflect on Hellboy as a cartoon character and on the movie as a work of science fiction.
5. Freeform: First and last sentences of Hellboy.
6. Resources: List the URL for the Media Writing course on Moodle.
7. Publications: Cite publication details from Eats Shoots and Leaves.

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Define multimedia

CLONMEL -- We are starting another academic year and I ask the same question year after year. "Define multimedia." It's part of our writing course.

Elizabeth Doran: "Multimedia is information presented in various formats, such as text, audio, video, graphics and images. It enhances users experiences helping to grasp information better and faster."

Ben Galvin: "Multimedia consists of a variety of things including photography and games. People use multimedia to get a message across by different forms of communication through newspapers, radio, and television."

Michelle Horgan: "It is the study of all the types of media. It is a practical and creative course and is a way of expressing yourself through the different forms of media."

Siobhan Joyce -- "Multimedia refers to the delivery of information that combines different content formats for example motion picture, video, audio, still images, pictures, animation and text."

Mags Keane: "Multimedia is different ways in which information is communicated example television, radio, Internet."

Amy Landers -- "Multimedia is the use of more than one medie,eg.radio,film,newspapers and television. It involves using all of these media through the use of a computer."

Aoife McMahon -- "Multimedia is combined forms of media. written, visual, and audio. Combined they can entertain and educate. Multimedia is pretty much everywhere you look, the internet, television, newspapers, films. Imagination, creativity, art and technology help these media come together."

Melissa McMahon -- "Multimedia is a diverse area of film, television, radio, newspapers and magazines.Multimedia has the ability to deliver different outlooks and produce stories of public interest. Multimedia uses different forms of communication and presents analytical information to the public."

Catherine O'Brien -- "Multimedia is information presented in more than one format, such as text, audio, video, graphics and images."

Niall O'Brien -- "Using a computer to present multiple types of media simultaneously, in an integrated manner. These include sound, graphics, video, text, animation, or any other form of information representation."

Stephen Walsh -- "Multimedia is using multiple forms of media to present information in multiple ways eg. sound, video, text."

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Irish Eyes -- "define multimedia"
Media Writing -- "Define multimedia"

Flickr Photostream of the contributrors.
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September 17, 2004 in Writing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 15, 2004

Before you die

KILKENNY -- Lists of simple answers invite easy reading. When the Kilkenny People asked eight passersby "what would you like to do before you die," some answers were the same.

• Two of eight want to go bungee jumping.
• Four of eight want global travel with Australia, Spain, America and Brazil featuring in the plans.
• Two want to play soccer on an international pitch.

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Edwina Grace -- "Voxpop" in the Kilkenny People, September 17, 2004.
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September 15, 2004 in Writing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 10, 2004

Creating tutorials