Meta-Aware Journalism

Do you think media is aware if itself as media?  That is, does the media in its delivery of content reflect a self-critical or self-aware role it has either in its constitution / composition or as part of an overarching genre?  For this blog, find a newspaper article (or any other media source around you) on a topic of your choosing and ask if it contains a metatextual component.  In this way, does it reconfigure or recognise itself as writing?  If so, do you think it means to subvert, satirise, or accurately depict the content?   This blog topic wants you to explore the different relationships that exist before our eyes in media, especially in relation to our role as reader/listener/viewer as well as to the role of the journalist or media source in general.  

The Onion provides a useful starting point: http://www.theonion.com/   There are *several* other sites out there if you enter in the appropriate search terms in your Internet browser.

Radicalism in Print Culture

Your first blog/journal topic is on radicalism in printing. For this, you will want to think about how technologies of (print) production shape our access to information.  For example, consider  Gutenberg, Martin Luther, William Blake to SOPA and beyond in your responses.  Given our discussion on open-source, you may want to use "Wikipedia" as your first point of entry for each aforementioned person or political bill.

Your entries are due in two weeks (February 7th) either in class with your print version or online with your blog entry.