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Video on Critical Media

Students from my Alma Mater, Miami University, in the Interactive Media Studies department (where I took several classes), have just been recognized for a DVD they produced.
A project designed by a professor and students in Miami University's interactive media studies (IMS) program to help high-school and college students think critically about the media won the Grand Prize Faculty/Student Collaboration Award from the Fair Use Free Speech Film Contest. The contest is sponsored by the University Film and Video Association (UFVA) and the Center for Social Media at American University in Washington, D.C.

Bettina Fabos, assistant professor with a joint appointment in interactive media studies and journalism, led 18 students in an IMS capstone class in spring 2006. They designed a DVD, "Critical Media," which contains 18 segments ranging from five to eight minutes.

The segments confront a wide range of media issues, including the problem of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, racism in local TV news, the Channel One in-school commercial TV news service, and the ethics of the U.S. government's public relations practices. The DVD uses many excerpts of television, film and print, using copyrighted material under the legal exception for fair use and criticism.

"The DVD encourages students to become critical consumers of media messages and more knowledgeable about the political and economic circumstances in which our commercial media system operates," said Fabos, who has a professional background in documentary video production and journalism.
You can watch the video here.