B is for Blog

MBA Students Caring for their Community

2009-04-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

My day as a ThunderCares volunteer

In the watery light of an early Saturday morning, ghosts of white t-shirts float luminescent around the Thunderbird campus pavilion. The word “ThunderCares” trumpets from the chests of t-shirt wearers. The Thunder is short for Thunderbird School of Global Business Management. The cares is the verb all of us volunteers will do today in various forms and at various locations around the Thunderbird campus community.

The Thunder is short for Thunderbird School of Global Business Management. The cares is the verb all of us volunteers will do today.

For the Thunderbird School community, today is one of two days a year to reach out into the surrounding community and lend a helping hand. ThunderCares Day started about three years ago as an activity for members of Thunderbird’s NetImpact Club - a nationwide organization for leaders “who are changing the world through business.” The purpose and value of the club’s volunteer activities resonated with leaders of the school’s student government, as well as with students, and soon ThunderCares days became a school-wide activity.

Kate Denney is the NetImpact group’s Events Coordinator and in charge of ThunderCares Day. She says that typically ThunderCares Day attracts 120 plus students. Today there are about 150 people, including a professor and his daughter, signed up to volunteer at the various pre-selected locations.

“We have six groups that we’re helping today including a charter school, a food bank, a xeriscape garden, and a horse stable. We also work with a group that helps resettling refugees,” Kate tells me. I ask her how they choose who to help. “We generally just call organizations and ask if they need a group of volunteers. We have been trying to build more of a relationship with the organizations. Today, except for one group, all of the clients are repeat customers.”

“We have six groups that we’re helping today including a charter school, a food bank, a xeriscape garden, and a horse stable. We also work with a group that helps resettling refugees.”

Personally, I’m drawn to the idea of MBA graduate students giving up a Saturday morning to volunteer out in the community. Granted there are bagels and coffee, free t-shirts, a barbecue lunch, and the possibility of extra credit points for some classes. However, most of the students do not seem tortured to be here. In fact, all of them are upbeat, chatty, and looking forward to doing something useful for others off campus.

When asked why she’s volunteering today, student Shelley Pursell says, “It’s a way to give back to our community, and it’s a good way to get our name out there.” She signed up to shovel horse manure at a local stable today. I am relieved that I am put on the botanical xeriscape garden.

It’s 8:30, so we prepare to depart to our destinations. The botanical gardens are part of a place called Sahauro Ranch Park, in the heart of Glendale, AZ. It’s about an eight minute drive from the Thunderbird campus. I ride with students I’ve never met before: Adam; Matt; and Suguna. Adam is from the Middle East, Matt is from the U.S., and Suguna is from India. All of them will graduate in May. Adam and Suguna both say that ThunderCares day is a good way to meet other students – although they expected more people today.

At our location, we gather around the Garden’s volunteer coordinator who gives us a brief history and background of the Sahauro Ranch Park xeriscape Botanical Gardens. Xeriscaping is the practice of water-efficient landscaping; from the Greek word “xeros,” meaning dry. These particular gardens are also home to a variety of roosters, peacocks, and guinea hens. In fact, two of the peacocks strut leisurely, paying the group no heed, on a low wall next to us.

The Garden’s volunteer coordinator makes a round with a cooler of water, donuts, and bananas. As she encourages us to eat and drink, she keeps saying “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

My job is to trim down a plant with a complicated name and thick branch-like stalks with long-handled clippers. It turns out that I’m not to trim as much as I’m supposed to hack the poor bush down to a bald clump of sticks. The Garden volunteer coordinator assures me that it makes the bush grow back even fuller. My partner in destruction is my car-mate Suguna. It is Suguna’s first time to participate in ThunderCares as well. I ask her if she has done anything like this before. She tells me that in India that “there aren’t many opportunities like this [community volunteering] where I am from.”

My Work Before and After

After about an hour of work, the Garden’s volunteer coordinator makes a round with a cooler of water, donuts, and bananas. As she encourages us to eat and drink, she keeps saying “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

After two hours of work and a short tour of the rest of the gardens, we head back to the cars. Adam is pleased with what we were able to accomplish. “It’s so great you know? What would take them days, we could do in two hours.”

When we gather for the ThunderCares picnic, all of the volunteers are in good spirits. People ask each other what they did at their site as they wait for their burgers and beers. Shelly is a little indignant that it seemed that all their work was undone at the end. “You shovel all this manure, but by the time you’re done, they’ve already messed them again.” Someone else puts the job in perspective by asking her to imagine if that were her full-time job. She can’t.

Soon, talk of looming projects and deadlines signals that the time for looking outside of our individual lives is coming to an end. However, the community experienced this morning – among groups of students and around the city – is very real. You can see it making new connections and strengthening established ones. It will also serve to drive students to volunteer again in the fall.

A Torrent of New Media Art

2008-04-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

“The painting of a reindeer on the wall of a cave in France, or the portrait of a dead ancestor in Egypt, or a cross on the wall, or the replica of a saint in the stained glass of a chapel, each opens a portal to an imagined world, beckoning us to cross the gap between the image here and what is, or was, or might be there,” (Gitlin, 2001, p. 27).

The suggestion behind Todd Gitlin’s book, Media Unlimited, is that humans have always sought an alternate reality (when all basic needs are met) which has ultimately led us to the media torrent that overwhelms our society today. This hunger for knowledge of the “there” combined with the emergence and urgency of the money economy which flourishes in democratic societies has created the modern torrent of inescapable noise and images. The torrent has tributaries of technological inventions such as the books and magazines, the walkman, and the television which has made it stronger and swifter and which has caught the American imagination and held it captive.

What I failed to see behind Gitlin’s book was the “give” of our world with its constant images and sounds. Number one in Neil Postman’s “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” is that technology both gives and takes (Postman, 1998). From Gitlin, we can fully understand the take … confusion over which reality is real, lack of internal thought, and a time waster. I would like to explore a give … the give of art exposure and the give of a new medium to art.

Images and sounds are created by someone. And if these images and sounds are the “conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Mirriam-Webster, 2005), couldn’t they by definition, given by the Mirriam-Webster dictionary, be called art? According to the New Media Caucus, New Media art includes art that is “expanding with developments in digital technology and artists working in newly emerging media such as robotics, virtual reality, interactive and installation environments as well as artists working in established digital areas of video, sound and graphics,” (New Media Caucus, 2008). And just as the interpretation and definition of art is controversial and subjective, so it goes with new media art. But, by lumping all images and sounds into the same category of consideration, Gitlin misses his chance to educate on media discernment and offends those who take pleasure in creating image and sounds.

The Torrent
Is the torrent of images and sounds testament to American gluttony and its capitalistic society? Or is it because artists now have many mediums in which they can express themselves? “As costs fell, technologies that had at first had been the province of the rich drifted into the middle class and then, within surprisingly few years, crossed over to the majority,” (Gitlin 2001, p. 52). With this accessibility of technologies, wasn’t it also easier for people to create photographs, posters, films, and recorded music? The daguerreotype replaced portrait painting, film replaced the daguerreotype, and digital photography replaced film. With the accessibility of each new medium, came new ideas and forms of art – and each fought to be recognized as such. “Many critics decried the rise of the multiple or editioned artwork in the 1960s as a sign that the purity of art was lost,” (Jordan, 2007). Such is the prolific nature of new media art that museum curators, collectors, and academics are scrambling to make accommodations for it in their galleries, their classrooms, and in their ideas of art. While not everything found on YouTube or MySpace can be considered art, the art world is acknowledges that more people now have outlets in which they can express themselves. “Artists, and many people who would not define themselves as such, are collectively pushing back against the commodification and corporate consolidation of information, sometimes using parody and subversion, sometimes exploring entirely new forms of expression for their own sake,” (Ray, 2006).

In Aldous Huxley’s (1932) Brave New World, the citizens of London go to movie theaters called feelies that advertise, “All-Super-Singing, Synthetic-Talking, Coloured, Stereoscopic Feely With Synchronized Scent-Organ Accompaniment” (p. 154). In other words, movies where you can see, hear, smell, and feel the same experiences as on screen. When it is pointed out that these feelies offer no meaning to the audience, the writer agrees, “Because it is idiotic. Writing when there’s nothing to say ...” (Huxley, 1932, p. 199). However, the writers and producers in Huxleys’s world live in a controlled and manufactured society, whereas we still live in a state of democracy where the freedom of expression still exists … something I believe Mr. Gitlin well understands.

Gitlin, T., (2001). Media Unlimited: How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives. New York Henry Holt and Company.

Huxley, A., (1932). Brave New World. New York. Harper.

Jordan, C., (October 10, 2007). Art for the Masses. Smithsonian.com, October 2007. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://articulations.smithsonianmag.com/archives/229

Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, (2005). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art

New Media Caucus, (2008). NMC New Media Caucus. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://www.newmediacaucus.org

Postman, N. (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. Denver, CO.

Ray, R., (November 6, 2006). A century of art crammed into a decade: Panelists cite thrills, threats to new media. MIT News Office. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/new-media.html

Being Repsonsible for my Media

2008-04-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

This week’s class (Gonzaga University: Social Dynamics of Communication Technology) introduced me to the video documentary OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism directed and produced by Robert Greenwald as well as to Edward Hermann and Noam Chomsky’s A Propaganda Model. OutFoxed claimed to provide, “an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know” (Greenwald, 2004). And A Propaganda Model dissects what Hermann and Chomsky call “systematic propaganda” used by the dominant elite through mass media. The propaganda model consists of five news constraining methods which “filters” the news into a form that leaves Jane and John Public with news that has been defined by others (Hermann & Chomsky, 1988).

In light of this week’s class material, I became concerned with how tainted my news is, so I did what any good communication student should do, I took a critical look at my primary news source: National Public Radio (NPR).

Of the five filters Hermann and Chomsky propose in their Propaganda Model, I had questions regarding ownership and profit orientation (filter 1) and NPR’s reliance on information provided by the government (filter 3). NPR is a product of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) which is a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress as a result of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It estimates that it reaches an American audience of 26 million a week and according to the CPB revenue reports from the 2003 fiscal year, NPR is largely funded by their listeners (34%), corporate underwriting and foundations (24%), and CPB allocations (13%) (National Public Radio, 2008). I thought that with public monies as the main source of funding and being a nonprofit organization that NPR would have little to no problem with ownership. However, because it is publicly funded with tax dollars, more criticism stems from the public regarding fair representation. Websites NPR Sucks! and the intellectualconservative.com have issues with federal monies going to support what they believe is a progressive agenda. And Hans Zeiger, a Seattle Times columnist writes, “Nothing is illegal about Leftist propaganda so long as it plays the game of the free market. But don't ask the rest of us to pay for it (Zeiger, 2004).

As part of NPR’s Code of Ethics regarding credibility it states that “activities of NPR that fall outside journalism and daily production - corporate underwriting, foundation funding, marketing and promotional activities - do not jeopardize our journalistic independence or involve NPR journalists in activities inappropriate to their roles” (National Public Radio, 2008) And yet, at www.socialconscience.com there is a list of the many perceived ways NPR represents/supports the agenda of Lockheed-Martin, Walmart, and other industries. Meanwhile, NPR Sucks! claims that the leading supporting liberal foundations are overrepresented at NPR. The New York Times even found it worthy to run an article titled “Wal-Mart Tries to Shine Its Image By Supporting Public Broadcasting” (Hays, 2004).

Filter 3 of the Propaganda Model warns us of the media’s dependent ties with the government as well as the use of the government officials as expert and unbiased sources. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was established in the Act as a corporation independent of the government and yet it is true that the CPB’s Board members are elected by the President. Furthermore, according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), NPR sources were found to represent the elite majority. “These sources—including government officials, professional experts and corporate representatives—accounted for 64 percent of all sources.” The study also claimed that government officials created the largest source segment (Buttersworth & Rendall, 2004).If this study is accurate then it would account for the results from a Google search on “NPR Bias”. Many of the sites found in this search complained about the station’s treatment of the Iraq War and Middle Eastern politics including http://nprcheck.blogspot.com, http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/80604/, and http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3326. As A Propaganda Model illustrates, the power and reach of the Pentagon’s communication vehicles is too vast too simply ignore. NPR’s coverage of the war should be carefully considered and alternate sources reviewed.

In light of the mixed reviews on NPR by its harshest and mildest critics, I believe that no news source is without bias, including NPR. As Hermann and Chomsky state in the beginning of A Propaganda Model, in a world where the pursuit of interest-fulfillment is a game played by governments and people of wealth and prestige, it is nearly impossible for the media not to be influenced and filtered (Hermann & Chomsky). For my part, I will listen with a slightly more critical ear to NPR and I accept that my blog here is tainted by the use of A Propaganda Model as my primary media evaluation tool. I will say on the behalf of both CPB and NPR that they each have an ombudsman who is appointed to represent the public. FAIR urges the public to write to the ombudsman with any concerns for inaccurate or biased reporting. NPR’s ombudsman is Alicia C. Shepard.

Works Cited

Buttersworth, D. & Rendall, S. (2004) How public is public radio?: A study of NPR’s guest list. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, May/June 2004. Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1180.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. About CPB. Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://www.cpb.org/aboutpb.

Greenwald, R. (Producer), & Greenwald, R.(Director). (2004). OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism [Motion picture]. United States: Disinformation Company.

Hays, C. L. (2004, August 16). Wal-Mart tries to shine its image by supporting public broadcasting. The New York Times. Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E5D8123FF935A2575BC0A9629C8B63.

Hermann E. S., & Chomsky N. (1988) Manufacturing consent. New York. Pantheon.

National Public Radio (2008). What is NPR? Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://www.npr.org/about.

Rick. R. (2005, June 16). The bias of the network. Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://www.nprsucks.com/opinion5.htm.

Social Conscience Inc. (2003). Campaign to make NPR accountable for representing Lockheed-Martin over the people: When we tried to stop a war from starting. Retrieved April 12, 2008 from http://www.socialconscience.com/firenancy.

Zeiger, H. (2004, January 5). Privatize PBS and NPR. Article posted to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2992.html.