Media Studies 1502  Popular Culture and Media Literacy

Below you'll find some helpful links for Dr. Coleman's MDST 1502 class, including web sites used in class, guides to properly citing sources, and sites that may be useful in writing your papers.

Links

(Please inform Dr. Coleman if you find any broken links here.)

This is a guide to citing your sources using the APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) style formats, brought to you by the excellent Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

Here are two sites that will format your bibliography for you: Easybib.com and Citationmachine.net. (Be careful--these aren't always accurate and don't do anything to help you learn to format citations...)

This is a short description of media criticism.

Here's a short but sweet site explaining media literacy and its value.

This is a treatment of literary criticism from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab and another one from the Internet Public Library.

Here's an online library of literary criticism from the Internet Public Library.

Here's a very basic glossary of terms used in literary criticism; and another, more comprehensive glossary; and yet another solid glossary; and a short but interesting one.

And here's an excellent portal containing hundreds of links to web sites on literary theory and criticism, and another one containing hundreds of links broken down by genres and periods.

These are various online sources of popular film criticism: Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb (Internet Movie Database), and MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine).

Here's a clear and simple discussion of how to write popular film reviews.

Here's a comprehensive glossary of film terms; and a brief list of technical terms used in film criticism.

This is Duke University's take on how to write a film review, and how to analyze visual aspects in particular.

This is Yale University's excellent site on film criticism, discussing elements like mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound.

These are interesting links that illustrate various kinds of media texts and reviews:

  1. Unusual media used to create unusual art

  2. Photos of prehistoric rock art (also known as petroglyphs)

  3. Video of prehistoric cave art created by early kids and adults

  4. Views of the 9/11 Memorial in New York: a. aerial views during daylight and at night; b. close-up views of the names of victims carved into the memorial, the memorial pool from ground level, and the memorial pool from two or three stories high.

  5. Video of the designer of 9/11 Memorial explaining its meaning (but who's to say what it means to any particular individual?) 

  6. Illuminated manuscript of William Blake's "The Tyger" with some lit crit as well

  7. Illuminated manuscripts depicting biblical passages from Ecclesiastes, Genesis, and ? (book unknown)      

  8. Norman Rockwell's illustrations from The Saturday Evening Post (from Google images)

  9. Communicating Universal awe and wonder through macro-photography (video)

  10. More macro-photography of cosmic nebulae

  11. Photographs of the spectacular Pillars of Creation (in the Eagle Nebula) using visible, x-ray, and infrared portions of the spectrum, including a video that combines these

  12. Communicating Infinitesimal awe and wonder through micro-photography (20 images) 

  13. More spectacular micro-photography (30 images)

  14. Yet more micro-photography (10 images) 

  15. And some award-winning micro-photography (20 images)

  16. Satellite images of Earth, chosen with an aerial aesthetic (38 images) 

  17. Nature photography showing fascinating faces, shapes, colors, and survival strategies

  18. Random examples of Dadaism in visual arts

  19. A depressing discussion of Nihilism in philosophy

  20. A description of the symptoms of schizophrenia

  21. A history of vaudeville with various examples of its forms of entertainment

  22. A series of clips of inspirational movie speeches, cleverly edited together---creating one text out of many

  23. A Cecil B. DeMille spectacular: The parting of the Red Sea, from "The Ten Commandments"---the Bible translated to film

  24. Scenes from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"---a more edgy, graphic translation to film

  25. Trailer from George Lucas' "American Graffiti"---note the glimpse into American culture in the 1950's/early 60's, from the perspective of the mid-1970's

  26. Travolta and Thurman dance to the 50's in "Pulp Fiction"---more 50's nostalgia, this time from the perspective of the mid-1990's

  27. "Frankenstein" (1931) The famous "It's alive!" scene 

  28. "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) "She's alive!" (and so are sequels...)

  29. "Young Frankenstein" (1974) A comedic parody of the "It's alive!" scene from Mel Brooks

  30. Madeline Kahn before and after making love to the monster (from "Young Frankenstein")

  31. Opening and closing themes from "The Munsters" TV show (1964-66)

  32. "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975) trailer---a campy, kitschy version of "Frankenstein"

  33. "Frankenweenie" (2012) Tim Burton's animated takeoff on "Frankenstein"

  34. "Frankenstein" has produced literally hundreds of pop culture spin-offs, including movies, TV shows, novels and the like

  35. A funny look at the beginning of the Internet's popularity

  36. Critique of screen culture from the movie Wall E

  37. The meanings of the swastika explained---an example of semiotic analysis (the analysis of signs/symbols)

  38. The meanings of the Confederate flag explained---more semiotic analysis

  39. Intro to TV show "The Big Bang Theory"

  40. Frame-by-frame look at intro to TBBT---an example of television criticism

  41. Newton Minow's "Vast Wasteland" speech about US TV in 1961, delivered to NAB

  42. Minow's 2011 essay in The Atlantic entitled, "A Vaster Wasteland"

  43. Monty Python's Flying Circus ridicules cultural incoherence and discontinuity with, "And Now for Something Completely Different"; and a second version

  44. Roger Waters' (of Pink Floyd) take on Postman---the album, "Amused to Death" (lyrics)

  45. Roger Waters' song, "Amused to Death," performed live with multimedia...what would Postman think of this?

  46. Jon Stewart ridicules TV content on The Daily Show...but does the segment condemn or exemplify Postman's criticism of TV discourse?

  47. How Stuff Works explains difference between "misinformation" and "disinformation"

  48. These are the books most popular on television 

  49. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (full album)

  50. Pink Floyd performs Dark Side of the Moon at Earl's Court, 1994---"Breathe"; "Time"; "Eclipse/Brain Damage"

  51. Lyrics to Dark Side of the Moon---anti-Romanticism?

  52. Romantic rock 'n' roll from The Beatles: "All You Need Is Love"

  53. More Romantic rock from John Lennon: "Give Peace a Chance" live (in bed)

  54. Three series of Romantic paintings, "illustrating" Romanticism's sensibility visually---Metropolitan Museum of Art; Art History Archive; University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

  55. Some background information on the painting "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" (used on cover of one edition of Frankenstein

  56. Two samplers of Romantic music---Liszt, Wagner, Verdi, others; Strauss, Brahms, others

  57. An English book review of Frankenstein from the newspaper The Independent

  58. Dozens of links to book reviews and background information on Mary Shelley

  59. A review of Frankenstein focusing on the monster's narrative

  60. Another review of Frankenstein focusing on the meaning of dreams in the novel

  61. Background information and professional reviews of the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from RottenTomatoes with some amateur reviews as well

  62. Background information and amateur reviews of the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from IMDb

  63. Percy Bysshe Shelley's short poem, "Mutability," quoted in Frankenstein

  64. A thorough and recent review of The Scarlet Letter from The Atlantic magazine

  65. A contemporary (1850) review of The Scarlet Letter from Massachusetts Quarterly Review

  66. Links to dozens of reviews and biographies of Nathaniel Hawthorne from 19th and early 20th Centuries

  67. Film review of The Scarlet Letter from The New York Times with numerous reader reviews as well

  68. Background information and professional reviews of the film The Scarlet Letter from RottonTomatoes with some amateur reviews as well

  69. Backgrouond information and amateur reviews of the film The Scarlet Letter from IMDb

  70. A clever use of The Scarlet Letter in a whipped cream ad

  71. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (video)

  72. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (lyrics) What does it mean? HOW does it mean? By the words? Images? Sounds? Feelings? Does it mean anything at all? Does anybody care?

 

This is my news portal, newsprism.com, where you can surf the web for news and commentary. The news sites are arranged by political orientation, from left to right, in order to illustrate how the rhetoric of journalists and commentators is influenced by their political views.

And this is PrestonColeman.com, where you'll find my works of satirical fiction.