1.  At the core of digital communications is something called packet-switching.

In brief, packet-switching takes messages that were once indivisible and divides those messages into tiny little “packets.”  Once messages are in these packets, it’s lots easier to send those messages over telecommunications networks, like, for instance, the internet.

The Sandman is the personification of packet-switching.  (That’s the Sandman in Marvel Comics, by the way, not the Sandman in the Roy Orbison song).  The Sandman can dissolve into little particles of sand — packets — and these little particles of sand can then go wherever they want to go.

2.  In the olden days when I bought a newspaper…

…I got news and sports and editorials and this and that and (once upon a time) lots and lots of advertising.  Somewhere in there was probably what I wanted to read — but it was locked inside an indivisible newspaper package.

Currently, when I get on the packet-switched internet and Google the news, I don’t have to deal with newspaper packages. Instead, I deal with news “packets.”  Maybe one of those packets, for instance, is the New York Times.

And then, when I go to the NYT website, I find more little packets — headlines, they call them.  So I click on a headline, and I read what I want to read.

And I say yay for the NYT, because I didn’t have to buy a package to read a packet.

3.  Some people think newspapers are packet-switched too much.

These people think the NYT is nuts.

These people would like for the NYT to continue to sell you a newspaper package — because that’s what newspapers have sold you for a long time, and that’s what some people are still trying to sell you.

4.  Some other people think newspapers aren’t packet-switched enough.

If the NYT can “packetize” their news, these other people ask, why can’t the NYT packetize the price of their news?

If I only read Malcolm Gladwell’s articles in the New Yorker, for instance, why shouldn’t I pay just for those articles instead of paying for the whole New Yorker magazine package?

“Packetized” payments for individual articles — or even individual words — are called micro-payments.

And some people think micropayments are a really good idea for newspapers like the NYT and magazines like the New Yorker.

Others don’t.

5.  But, before the Sandman becomes the Micropayment Man…

…he gets to bust up Rupert Murdoch and the newspaper packaging cartel.

Shouldn’t take long.

With all the rain we’ve been having (30 consecutive days, at last count), I’ve had quite a few days of wanting to just lay on the couch and do nothing. So I got to wondering, “What do other people do on rainy days? Is everyone as lethargic as I am?”

So I conducted a completely unscientific, totally unreliable survey that asked the question, “What’s your idea of the perfect way to spend a rainy day?” My respondents were whoever was in the hall when I passed out the papers. (My thanks to all those who filled out the green sheets!) Here’s what I learned:

Watching TV is a popular pastime. But nobody watches Masterpiece Theatre or the History Channel. Sure, some people listed TLC, Bravo and the reality realm (cooking, decorating, fashion). But most of the favorite rainy-day viewing centered around sitcoms, which makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. A rainy day is sooo depressing; laughing makes it better. So it’s no mystery that responses included SpongeBob SquarePants, Sex & the City, The Simpsons and Gossip Girl.

Movies are also a popular rainy-day activity. Now that Netflix has movies you can watch instantly, on TV or computer, you don’t even have to wait for them to be delivered by your friendly mail carrier. What movies do people watch, you ask? Well, the comedies rule there too. Disney is a big favorite; that’s no surprise.  What lifts a sagging spirit more than singing candlesticks or dancing dwarfs?

It wasn’t all sweetness and light, though. Casablanca, Indecent Proposal and Fiddler on the Roof made the list too.

Some people actually read on rainy days. Responses varied from The Pelican Brief by John Grisham and The Stand by Stephen King to a collection of short stories by Shirley Ann Grau and trashy novels.

In all fairness, the people answering the survey questions were mass comm majors, so it’s not so bizarre that most of their answers centered around media activities. (In all honesty, most of the questions dealt with media anyway!)

As you can imagine, SLEEP was a very popular response. And seriously, isn’t it really the perfect way to while away a day that’s too nasty to venture out into?

What is New Orleans? The Center for the Study of New Orleans wants you to know.

If you haven’t heard of the Center for the Study of New Orleans it might be because it’s new. And when you’re looking at a city that’s nearly 300 years old, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

You’d think studying New Orleans would be a no-brainer.  We don’t need passports or lengthy plane rides.  No booking a hotel room months in advance.  And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we believe the only things worth studying are ancient and away from us.

Well, Dr. Leslie Parr begs to differ. In fact, she’s said, “New Orleans is one of the few cities in the world that can sustain such intense study.” And aren’t we lucky? We’re already here!

Dr. Parr, director of the Center, is well known to those of us in the School of Mass Communication. She’s our photojournalism faculty member and holds the Shawn M. Donnelley for Non-Profit Communications professorship. Through her efforts, the Center has become a reality and will host its second event Wednesday, Oct. 21.

In trying to determine “What is New Orleans?” a distinguished panel – moderated by Loyola English professor and playwright John Biguenet  – will ask, “How do you define a city?” While we might all have our own answers to that, the Center has invited Susan Saulny, a New York Times reporter and New Orleans native, Larry Powell, professor of history at Tulane University, and Richard Campanella, a Tulane University geographer, to weigh in the past and present, the geography and people that make up the Crescent City.

Like the Center’s first program, “An evening of Jazz and History” held Sept. 3, this event will take place in Nunemaker Auditorium (Monroe Hall) and is free and open to the public. It starts at 7 p.m.

But the Center’s work won’t stop there. Already there are plans for a third program, “New Orleans in the ‘60s” scheduled for Jan. 20. And on tap is a new minor for students wanting to take a more in-depth academic approach to learning about New Orleans.

If you want to know more about  the Center for the Study of New Orleans just visit www.loyno.edu/csno. And we’ll see you Oct. 21. BYOB (Bring Your Own Beads).

Anyone hanging around the School of Mass Communication over the past few weeks has heard about Networking Night at Loyola, right? If you haven’t, you probably aren’t spending much time on the 3rd floor of the Communications/Music complex. Networking Night at Loyola is an opportunity for mass comm students to meet and mingle with media and communication professionals from the New Orleans area. While its intended purpose is to facilitate connections for possible internships and mentorships, it’s a great opportunity for students to find out who’s who in the media world and develop relationships that might eventually lead to jobs.

Networking Night at Loyola is important for students looking for spring and summer internships. As the internship coordinator for the SMC, I encourage anyone even remotely considering the possibility of an upcoming internship to stop by Studio A on the 4th floor on Tuesday, Oct. 13 (6-8 p.m.) to meet, greet and eat. (Yes, there’s food. There’s ALWAYS food!)Wear your business casual, bring resumes and get your 30-second elevator speech ready.

Don’t know what that is? According to Barbara Gibson, ABC, a communications consultant in the UK, a 30-second elevator speech is two or three sentences “that describe who you are, what you do and the kind of contacts you hope to make.” That way you can introduce yourself to those who are there are find good interns, mentees or possibly even coworkers.

Networking Night at Loyola is also an opportunity for students in this semester’s Strategic Event Planning and Management class (CMMN A394-002) to show off their event planning skills. The 17 members of the class – who come from Loyola and Tulane, mass comm and other majors – have worked since the first day of the semester on planning and executing this event. Any one of those 17 will be quick to tell you that event planning is fun, but it’s hard work, too. And they’re being graded on their performance at the event, as well as their planning and the post-event follow up.

Everyone involved in Networking Night at Loyola is looking forward to a great turnout. We hope to see you there.

Recently, in Slidell, in my very own neighborhood, a naked burglar was caught on tape by a home surveillance system.  At which point, I began to think maybe I should have a home surveillance system too.

Most governments, it seems, think like me.

London has its “Ring of Steel” surrounding its central business district.  And New York City is steadily increasing the number of surveillance cameras within the Big Apple.  Very soon, if not already, you will be unlikely to walk in any public area of New York City — or any other large metropolitan area — without being recorded.

Privacy proponents are concerned about this, of course, but it really does seem inevitable given current trends.  And, once you begin to add the number of people in those same large metropolitan areas who are snapping away with their digital cameras and cellphones, it becomes almost certain that somewhere out there right now, on someone’s disk or hard drive, there is you.

At the moment — fortunately — these large-scale surveillance systems are fairly ineffective in observing individual behavior because of the many practical problems associated with trying to manipulate and filter huge amounts of images.  As long as we remain tiny needles in these giant digital haystacks, this is likely to remain the case.  However, once automated filters are perfected — face detection software among them — things may change.  Already, these systems are proving valuable in what legal types call forensic investigations:  tapping the growing archive of pictures and videos already on file.

But, here, for the moment, let’s imagine another use of omnipresent cameras, a more public use.  Could these cameras become the “news”?

Everyday, prior to driving to and from Loyola, I would like to learn what the traffic is like along my route.  The every-twenty-minutes-or-so of radio updates I (sometimes) get are too far apart.  Current web-based traffic services too often rely, to their detriment, on the diligence and accuracy of the public.  What I would really like is a series of webcams along my route.  Don’t tell me the news: show me the videos.  I can do the rest myself.

Likewise, if there is a high-speed car chase, why can’t I see it, rather than listen to a belated sound bite?  If there is a pothole that needs to be fixed, why can’t I pinpoint that pothole on my laptop screen — and check back to see how soon (or not) it gets fixed?  If there is a political speech I want to hear, why can’t I listen to that speech live, as it happens?

Conventional broadcast news channels have allowed me to do some of these things — but never on my own terms.  When I listen to that political speech on conventional broadcast channels, for instance, I am also forced to endure the commentary and the advertisements attached.

What happens, I wonder, when I am able to access the “news” on my own terms?  What happens when I become an eyewitness to the world?

There are important privacy issues to consider in the promulgation of surveillance cameras in London, New York, and elsewhere.  But these are problems of ownership and control, not problems of information.  One of the great potentials of cheap and ubiquitous new media technology — omnipresent webcams, for instance — is to provide the public with the opportunity to actually use that technology, not merely be “protected” by it.

There are days I’d like to be a biology teacher or a marketing professor. You give your notes, you grade your tests, your students’ successes (or lack thereof) show up on the grade book, and then you go to the next semester.

In mass comm, particularly in public relations, our successes don’t just show up in final grades. They’re very PUBLIC (no pun intended). The work our students do, in and out of class, tends to appear in very public places:  the pages of the newspaper or magazines, online or enacted in front of other people.

If a student does badly on a test or project, they can bury their heads in shame, swear to do better the next time and buckle down to pull that grade up.

If a mass comm major screws up a writing assignment or layout, it’s there for the world to point fingers at, mock or even ridicule in print.

It’s tough to take criticism from a client who says your campaign isn’t feasible. Get a 54 on a Scantron test, and you hide it in your notebook. You don’t have to share that 54 with anyone. Try doing a special event when dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of Monday morning quarterbacks and self-proclaimed event planners are just waiting to say, “Well, it could’ve been better if you’d done this” or “Why didn’t you do that?”

Of course, these same opportunities ultimately lead to better, more experienced students. They also lead – eventually – to solid internships, bulging portfolios and incredible job offers. Because while the efforts of mass comm majors are very public, they’re also very hands-on. It’s not about memorizing dates for a test or simply making an oral presentation. It’s experiential learning, doing the work they came here to learn, implementing theory into real-world practice. It’s thinking critically and acting on that thought, then evaluating the result to see how it could be improved in the future.

Sure, nobody likes public humiliation. The very thought of it drives us to be our best selves. As Nietzsche said,  That which does not kill us makes us stronger.  In mass comm, it makes us better writers, editors, designers, photographers, event planner, PR practitioners, advertising copywriters and media planners.

When prospective students come to the third floor to visit the School of Mass Communication, I chat with them about the usual topics:  the content of our courses, the vast and diverse opportunities for hands-on learning through internships and student media, the accessibility of the faculty. I essentially parrot the same concepts they’ll hear from all the other “official” sources on campus – that Loyola is a great place to acquire an excellent education.

But I add something extra – a little lagniappe, as we like to say in South Louisiana.  I tell them at we have a great time here.

And we do!

Sometimes the fun comes from wearing a crown to class on your birthday. (Did that earlier this month.) It may be shouting and doing the happy dance when Dr. Rogers and the Batemans win another national PR championship. Or The Maroon staff hauls home more LPA awards.

Our fun can come in a more dignified manner. Just last week the advertising copywriting class took seven random words and wrote the first paragraph of a short story. We laughed out loud at the results! (And yes, there IS a relevance to ad copywriting in that assignment.)

Several of the ad students – now the Ad Club officers – had a great time last week, sitting on the floor and chatting with Dr. Cal about the new year’s possible programs. Their enthusiasm spilled over into exuberant planning and hearty laughter.

We know how to party outside the classroom. The SMC’s annual Halloweenie Roast is a chance to drag out those crazy costumes, eat hot dogs roasted by the grillmaster, Dr. Bob, and develop a greater sense of community among our majors.

In the spring we celebrate our successes at our Spring Fiesta, sitting outside in the sunshine and listening to music – with food, of course!

And we just have an upcoming joint mixer for ad and PR majors, faculty and alums at Bruno’s. (Thursday, 5-8)

It’s not that we don’t take the work of higher education seriously. We work hard to teach and learn the fundamentals of our profession, to develop better critical thinking skills and to be of service to others. We just happen to find fun in most all we do, whether it’s the conclusion of a major project, the joy of being one semester closer to  graduation or the thrill of scoring a wonderful internship.

One day, a lost high school senior and her mother wandered into my PR Cases & Campaigns class, asking to sit in. I warned them that this wasn’t a typical class; Campaigns is more like controlled chaos or kindergarteners’ time in the play yard. With a dozen or so students working in competitive teams to create promotional campaigns for nonprofit clients, it’s anything but a sedate, stereotypical college setting. Not a lot of note-taking and testing go on in Campaigns. There are tears, and there is work, lots and lots of work. But there is also laughter and a great deal of satisfaction at providing a valuable service to a worthy community organization that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

When the visiting student emerged an hour later with a big, goofy grin on her face,  I knew we had a convert and a future freshman. She and her mother couldn’t say enough about how great the class was and how much everyone seemed to truly enjoy what they were doing.

And isn’t that the point? Fun and learning are not mutually exclusive. As Ben Howell Davis says, “If it isn’t any fun, why bother?”

Why indeed?

It seems to me, when you are dealing with large companies, you much more often receive bills in error than you receive refunds in error, no?

Of course, if the “errors” these companies make are indeed in one direction only – always in their favor rather than in your favor, for instance – then those are not really “errors” at all, are they?

A similar situation now exists regarding copyright law and, most particularly, the concept of “fair use.” There are currently provisions in copyright law for the use of copyrighted works without permission — under certain conditions. One of the more significant of these conditions is “fair use.”

Most generally, “fair use” of copyrighted material is use for limited and transformative purposes, e. g., for comment, criticism, or parody. This includes educational use.

As an example, consider videos on YouTube.  Specifically, consider this video:

Dancing Toddler (YouTube)

If you listen closely, the toddler in that video is dancing to a song by Prince. And, Universal Music, as owner of the rights to that song, requested that this dancing toddler video be taken down as an infringement of their rights of ownership.

Now, you might think this request by Universal Music is just plain silly, but, when that request was made, YouTube did not consider it silly. YouTube pulled the dancing toddler video.  And that video stayed pulled for (according to Wired magazine) about six weeks.

This is YouTube’s policy on the matter: If YouTube gets any sort of request like this (i. e., a “DMCA request” ) asserting that a copyright violation has occurred, then YouTube complies with that request and removes the video from their site.

The problem here – as you might suspect – is that there are lots and lots of big companies like Universal Music paying lots and lots of lawyers to file thousands and thousands of DMCA requests, and there are very few, if any, mommies video-taping their dancing toddlers who want to get into any sort of long, drawn-out battle with the lawyers.

As a result, YouTube is much more likely to make an “error” in over-zealously restricting what videos can be shown than in over-liberally allowing copyright to be infringed. This means that lots and lots of videos will be taken down that really shouldn’t have been. ((Including, by the way, a Lawrence Lessig video.)

But don’t take my word for it.  Judge for yourself.  Check YouTomb, which keeps track of all the videos YouTube has pulled from their site.

Over time, this creates a decidedly chilling effect on fair use – not just for mommies with dancing toddlers but for anyone and everyone who would like to take advantage of their fair use rights.

Some people – like the mom above – are trying to fight back, but without really much help from the government that created our current copyright laws. It’s more often non-government agencies — the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance — that offer legal aid and support for fair use and other important and publicly beneficial components of existing copyright law.

Of course, YouTube appears more than willing to acknowledge and correct any “errors” made in complying with specious DMCA requests.  But they seem much less willing to make sure those errors never happen in the first place.

1. Beginning in 1970, Howard Cosell and his ABC colleagues transformed NFL Monday Night Football into theater without really needing to reference the games involved.  The drama on the field, after all, was erratic, sporadic, and unpredictable; the drama in the booth had a script.  Part of that script was Cosell’s famed catchphrase:  “Telling it like it is.”

2. CBS’s 60 Minutes dates from the same period, with its innovative use of confrontational news packages squeezed into prime time, liberally sprinkled with close-ups of Mike Wallace.  Occasionally, the drama of the confrontation colored the facts.  But ratings remained high.

3. In December 1980, NBC broadcast a meaningless NFL game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins with no announcers.  No play-by-play.  No color.  No drama.

NBC never repeated the experiment.

4. In 1980, Walter Cronkite announced his retirement.  Walter Cronkite’s popularity paralleled that of network television and, during the 1960s and 70s, it was Cronkite, as anchor for the CBS Evening News, who was the voice, face, and heart of broadcast journalism.

Cronkite’s well-known tagline: “And that’s the way it is.”

***

I’d like to think we’ve had enough drama, enough dramatists, enough teasing, enough teasers, enough taglines, enough catchphrases.

Enough stories and enough storylines.  Enough storytellers.

More information.