Something I realized while doing the readings this week is that we tend to accept data or statistics without really ever seeing any.  In reading Chapter 3 of our textbook, I learned that people have this idea that certain rates have increased even though there is no statistical support for those claims. The two main points or fears that were discussed in this chapter were that “cyberbullying can push people to commit suicide, and second, that online predators routinely use the Internet to lure kidnapping or sexual abuse victims or both” (Sternheimer 2013). The example given is that LGBT teens are more likely to experience cyberbullying than those who are not, however, there is no evidence that they are more bullied now than the past. The amount of bullying has not been statistically increasing even though the reports have. Another point, suicide rates are also not increasing, not according to actual data at least. In fact, many believe that teens are the most likely to commit suicide when the opposite is true. Teens are the least likely to commit suicide and forty-five to fifty-four years are the most likely (Sternheimer 2013). As far as predators go they pose a higher threat offline than they do online. The twisted view that online threats are higher is in part due to media. Some shocking incidents were posted on national headlines, news reports, news papers, and even television series. The wide spread knowledge of these events made them more real to us and made us more fearful. Hearing these national stories made us feel that the events were becoming more prevalent when really they were just becoming more public. These types of stories that made headlines included Megan Meier, “To Catch a Predator”, “Alicia’s Story: A Cautionary Tale”, and the “Craigslist Killer” (Sternheimer 2013). These points relate to media because the media gives us one perspective, we believe that things are increasing when really the data shows that the rates are mostly the same. I feel that now I won’t accept certain things as facts blindly, I will do more research to see the actual facts.

With my continued reading into Chapter 4 of our textbook I learned about new media and popular culture and again how people might not be receiving the bigger picture. You hear all the time “I am worried about the next generation”. Sternheimer explores “What’s Dumbing Down America” by comparing new media to educational disparities. She starts out with a misconception that children and teens watch the most television, when it reality television viewing increases with age. Recently the cause for concern has shifted from television to the internet. But is media the cause at all to blame for Americans becoming dumber? Are Americans even becoming dumber? Looking at the data, Flynn says “today’s children are far better solving problems on the spot without a previously learned method for doing so”. College enrollment rates are also higher more than doubling since 1970. Besides media to blame for any lower intelligence level, we must also consider the issues with schools. Schools in the United States are funded by taxes so teachers want to go to the higher tax base to receive better pay. That means those in the lower tax base are often under trained and lacking experience. Socioeconomic status must also be considered, those in low income areas receive less parent support and increased neighborhood violence (Sternheimer 2013).  It is good to know that the American people are not “getting dumber” and to realize what is causing any sort of hardship to education.

In the Cortés article I learned a different side to stereotypes. Everyone can agree that stereotypes are bad, but what I learned was that not everything making up a stereotype is bad. Not only is not bad, some of the things that create a stereotype are actually essential. Things such as generalizations, categories, and labels. Although they can create a stereotype which is something negative, they also are essential in order for humans to be able to communicate. These essential forms of communication must be used. Schools can help students to learn to use the right forms of these methods of communication. Cortés concludes that students should learn to work with evidence from the media. “This should include the determination and assessment of mass media patterns” (Cortés 2000). Students should not assume engaging the media leads to stereotyping. Issues of mass media stereotyping are too important to ignore.

I really enjoyed reading the article by Larry Gross. It gave me a new perspective of sexual minorities and mass media, mainly focusing on television. Gross describes sexual minorities as lesbian women and gay men. They are self-identified. I have heard that phrase “self-identified” hundreds of times before but I think the meaning really clicked for me this time. Babies are born and given a race and gender. Then they grow up and are treated as if they are heterosexual through socialization, but they go against this and identify themselves as being lesbian or gay. I hope I don’t sound ignorant saying that this just clicked for me. What I mean is that I had a general idea of it before but reading it in this way made me better understand the struggle and feelings behind it. Sexual minorities are unusually vulnerable to television because of “initial isolation and invisibility” (Gross 2001). Recently for the first time all classes and groups can share the same culture and perspectives because they are receiving the same viewpoint through mass media and in this case television. An interesting fact I read in this article was that between 1961-1976 thirty-two films were produced with lesbian women and gay men and out of them 13 committed suicide and 18 were murdered, meaning only one survived throughout the film. The situation for sexual minorities worsened with AIDS. Those who identify as a sexual minority are told to just ignore the media, but that is hard when it surrounds you everywhere and the things it says are hurtful. You can’t be expected to just turn your feelings off. Gross suggests the “most effective form of resistance to the hegemonic force of the dominate media is to speak for oneself”.  I really loved that because you can’t control the media but you can give the facts of your own personal situation and maybe change someone’s viewpoint.

First of all, I have to start by saying it was very cool to read something out of a book written by our teacher. I really liked the message of this chapter of the book. I thought the beginning was interesting that it started off saying Americans have a hard time believing in possibility. That was interesting to me because it is the complete opposite of the American dream, one of the foundations of our country. Interesting to see that shift. I enjoyed learning about the inversion of invisibility and that modern power is manifested in the ability to be avoid being seen. Also that accountability is controlled. I loved the idea of parents and teachers sitting down to talk about education, not just their child but education as a whole. It is profound to think that if parents and teachers did this regularly should would be forever changed and that children wouldn’t grow up to be what business had groomed them to be(Tollefson 2008). A quote I really liked was “People joining together with one another to pursue common interests do no serve the interests of the ruling class”(Tollefson 2008). I liked this because its okay not to serve the ruling interests and to challenge the one way accountability. I also liked to not completely get rid of any one part of the system but to “argue for healthier system where authority is more evenly distributed” (Tollefson 2008).

The last article I read was “Common Sense Media”, many people focus on the how or the why children are being effected by media and they completely miss the content of advertising embedded. Per year children watch an average of 25,600 television advertisements (). 40% of the ads they are watching are not directed toward children (). Embedded ads are those inside a show, like what products the character use. For example, “I want to drink Coke not Pepsi because my favorite television character drinks Coke”.  I learned that online advertisements can be interactive and immersive. I learned that the big things with mobile ads is they can be used throughout the day and give you location based ads. A lot of good articles this week I enjoyed reading all of them!

Sources:

Sternheimer, K. (2013). Does social networking kill? Cyberbullying, homophobia and suicide. In Connecting social problems and popular culture: Why media is not the answer (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press (pp. 47-70)

• Sternheimer (2013). What’s dumbing down America: Media zombies or educational disparities? In Connecting social problems and popular culture: Why media is not the answer (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press (pp. 71-100)

1. Cortés, C. E. (2000). Struggling with stereotypes. In The children are watching: How the media teach about diversity. New York: Teachers College Press (pp. 146-161).
   • Cortes 2000 The Children Are Watching Struggling with Stereotypes.pdf
2. Gross, L. (2001). Out of the mainstream: Sexual minorities and the mass media. In Durham, M. G. and Kellner, D. M. (Eds.) Media and cultural studies: Key Works. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishing (pp. 405-423).
   • Gross-Ch21-Out of the mainstream.pdf
3. Tollefson, K. (2008). The inversion of visibility. In Volatile knowing: Parents, teachers and the censored story of accountability in American public schools. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press (pp. 125-134).
   • Tollefson 2008 Volatile Knowing Chapter 6(1).pdf

4. Advertising to children and teens: Current practices. (2014). Common Sense Media. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/advertising-to-children-and-teens-current-practices.

• CommonSenseMedia-advertisingresearchbrief-2014 15 pages.pdf

Drones at Hollywood’s Premiere Technology Event

Cine Gear

Cine Gear Expo is an annual technology event by and for Hollywood’s entertainment industry. The Expo returned to the historic Paramount Studios lot for its 21^st outing from June 2-5, 2016. Cine Gear primarily targets behind the scenes film and television artists and technicians who sculpt and create the images we eventually see on screens small to large. The focal point for this meeting is the wide-ranging Expo wherein hundreds of exhibitors showcase their latest offerings. Cine Gear also offers numerous exhibitions, seminars, workshops, and film screenings.

AARR clearly doesn’t belong in the motion picture industry! But our friends over at SuperProAerial suggested we check Cine Gear out given the increasing number of drone-related technologies dribbling into Hollywood productions.

I was hoping to make it to the formal dedication of our 67-mile Backbone Trail across the Santa Monica Mountains (40 years in the making) just before Cine Drone, but a host of things slowed my departing Ventura County. So on a warm Saturday morning in early June, we hopped in a car and made a beeline hour’s drive straight into LA and the Paramount Studios Lot.

Drones Few and Far Between

For pure drone enthusiasts, this event was generally a bust. By my tally <3% of the Exhibitors had anything directly to do with UAS. The drone contingent primarily consisted of omnipresent DJI plus a host of video firms specializing in aerial shots for commercials, TV, and film. I had some great talks with these videography firms, especially CineDrone. Perhaps the most interesting takeaway here was the fact while these firms each own a diverse stable of UAV, their default platforms were DJI Inspires. While each said that they select a specific platform from their UAV stable based upon environmental constraints and artistic vision dictated by the particular shot, they uniformly reported that their default platform is an Inspire with one of the newer Zenmuse (or better) lenses.

Comments like “the Inspire is what I use probably 75% of the time as a default,” “I’d say the Inspire is my most common go-to solution, that’s why we have four of them,” and “for travelling [our Inspire] is often the best tradeoff in terms of shot and ease of portability” illustrate the common theme of Inspires becoming the default, generic workhorse of the professional film business.

Steady Shots

The next most obvious takeaway was the incredible burgeoning of steady camera rigs, gimbals and associated hardware. It seemed like every third or fourth booth was anxious to have passersby try out the smooth flow or “anti-gravity” feel of their rigs. Advances here are clearly showing up in our UAV camera/sensor rigs. We all know that of late everyone from Yuneec to DJI has been coming out with rigs that act as handheld steadycam holders for your UAV’s camera, sans flying components. Hollywood is taking this to the extreme with arrays on everything from military spec jeeps to RC cars to gigantic monster booms. Their filming set-ups with often super crazy and impressive!

Virtual Reality

The 3D Revolution is coming. I must have seen at least 15 rigs of differing design architecture, default CMOS, and portability. Clearly everyone will soon be shooting at least some of their stuff in the brave new world of viewer-dictated focus/shot composition and virtual reality goggles. Each of these arrays I examined were either too large for a UAV, too power hungry, or both. The current hardware is well suited to ground based robots or car-based mounts. We seem to be at least a year or two away from anything realistically being carried onboard a sUAS for any useful amount of flight time.

Light Emitting Diodes

I think I was most surprised by the proliferation of LED-based lighting solutions. I would estimate something on the order of 15% of the exhibitors were showcasing LED solutions as either daylight illumination sources or as fully controllable multispectrum color illumination.   These are increasingly able to substitute for gigantic, power-sucking halogen spotlights or colored illumination via complex lighting gel arrays.

Hollywood is certainly pushing the development of LED innovation. LEDs comparative cheapness, power-sipping nature, and comparative cool operating temperatures compared to traditional light bulbs would in and of themselves be reason enough to drive innovation. But add to this the need for many productions to be portable and operate in remote locations and you have the makings for lots of players entering the movie lighting business. While I didn’t see direct links to the drone world here yet, all of the ancillary tech such as dimmers, fine-scale spectrum control, modular nature of the connectors, etc. make for lighting that is easier to attach to a drone.   Our lab has increasingly been calling upon LEDs for our work with our Performing Art colleagues and “drone dancing” performances.

Everything Else

There were also nice hidden gems here and there that I think our lab could benefit from. These include hard drives and file storage, portable power supplies, increasingly lightweight “Pelican” cases, and more varied daylight-capable video monitors.

All-in-all I am happy we made the trek down to Hollywood. But for the dedicated drone enthusiasts out there Drones, Data X Conference in San Francisco was probably a better bet this weekend.