Media Matters

Network Groups
Threshold
2015
Written by Amy Boone

Day 1 Monday

Introduction and welcome to Threshold

Identify 2-3 major NON-LOCAL stories in the
Dallas Morning News, Abilene Reporter News
Small groups

DMN
ARN
social media (twitter, facebook, etc)
other sites (TV news stories, etc)

Explore these questions

What kind of language is used?

Is it formal?
Highly educated?
Casual?
How does it attempt to lure you into reading
more?

Discussion

Write a headline as a tweet for twitter

with the 140 characters only or one of
the other sources.

Day 2 Tuesday

Who are you??

Jot down in one column words and
phrases to describe YOU
In a separate column, jot down words
and phrases that someone else would
use to describe you (may be some of
the same words and some different)

Teenager heading to a singing

audition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Il1mVIjxzMA

Leave a comment for her! No names,

please! Be clever! Witty! Winsome!
Turn the comment in

Who are you??

Want to add your name?
Want to rewrite your comment?

How would someone describe you

based on this comment you made or
other things you post online? Does it
line up with your original lists?

Discussion
Online disinhibition effect is a
loosening (or complete
abandonment) of social restrictions
and inhibitions that would otherwise
be present in normal face-to-face
interaction during interactions with
others on the Internet.

Online Disinhibition

You dont know me: basic anonymity

You cant see me: the screen is used as a
shield and allows people to be someone
they arent in real life
See you later: lots of online
conversations dont happen in real time
so they dont seem as personal

More.
Its all in my head: online vitriol can
seem cathartic and the one to whom
it is spewed doesnt seem like a real
person more of an idea or concept
Its just a game: real rules of
interaction dont seem to apply

Day 3 Wednesday
What is bias?
What constitutes bias in media?

Do you notice any bias? If so, what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=yRm_K9OpYbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=AQhMllQ-ODw

Brainstorm current events

News
Sports
Entertainment

What are the various sides on these

different current event stories? How
might these sides be biased in their
reporting?

Unbiased journalism!!!

You can do it!

Share stories and peer feedback

Does the story give more than one

viewpoint?
Is there information that could be left out?
Is it free of emotionally charged
words/phrases or identifying a group
mentality (working class, unwed mothers,
teenage drivers, etc)?
Did the story avoid extremes (worst/best,
highest/lowest)?

Day 4 Thursday

Write down a
characteristic/personality trait of
each of the following people:

Halo Effect
Why did you assign certain character
traits to the various people?
The halo effect is a type of cognitive
bias in which our overall impression
of a person influences how we feel
and think about his or her character.
This kind of stereotyping sets people
up for automatic success or failure.

Stereotyping
How would halo effect and
stereotyping be alike and/or
different?
Identifying stereotypes

Walk around the room

Use dry erase markers to write around
the pictures.
What stereotypes do you notice?

Discussion
Have you ever been stereotyped?
How did that feel?
Have you ever noticed stereotypes in
media before? If so, when and what?
Have you ever watched someone
else treated a certain way due to a
stereotype? How did that look? How
did that person feel?

New thinking..
What steps can we take to help us
see real people and people in media
through the most fair and realistic
lens possible?
Come up with 3-4 steps as a group
1. ???
2. ???
3. ???

Day 5 Monday

Introduction and welcome to Threshold

Activity

Make up a pretend twitter name that

NO ONE would recognize (be clever!)

Create a response tweet (140

characters) to the following tweet
and be as creative, clever, witty, and
winsome as possible!

omg! I did it! I h8 u @baseballkiller!

U said green would luk bad but ha! I
luk awsome!

Turn in tweet
Mark likes with check marks

Words. MATTER

Once something is said in person or

ONLINE it cannot be unsaid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
DXIBjpjbKtQ

Discussion
Does posting something online give a
false sense of security?
Are we as careful with our online
words as our words to someones
face?
Can we ever really get the
toothpaste back in the tube?

Day 6 Tuesday

What questions do you ask yourself

when consuming media (watching
TV, videos, listening to music,
searching the internet, social
media)?

Five Critical Questions

Who is the author and what is the

purpose?
What techniques are used to attract and
hold my attention?
How might different people understand
this message?
What lifestyles, values, and points of view
are represented?
What was left out?
Digital and Media Literacy Renee Hobbs

Why the questions?

Social media is proven to:

Be addictive
Makes us compare our lives with others
Makes us restless
Give rise to cyberbullying
Glamorizes risky behaviors
Can make us unhappy
Can make us fear being left out

Active vs. Passive Media

Consumption

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjwvJ9E7nIQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP0Hs0ADJY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0aOsLZT8
W8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3MdNe8FHZrs

What if we only are passive

consumers?
What
What
What

IS there?
is NOT there?
is not even real?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
iYhCn0jf46U

Day 7 Wednesday

Draw your picture based on your

prompt no talking!!!

Find your group!

Perspective
How did you find your group?
Everyone drew a frog.
Did you intentionally leave out
important details?

Big story of the week

Who are the characters in this
story?
What different perspectives would
they have?
Think back on the questions from
yesterday and how those play into
the perspectives in this story

Who is the author and what is the

purpose?
What techniques are used to attract and
hold my attention?
How might different people understand
this message?
What lifestyles, values, and points of view
are represented?
What was left out?

Discussion

Why is it important to recognize that

various perspectives will result in
unconscious bias?

Day 8 Thursday

Who are these celebrities?

Duran Duran are an English pop/rock

band formed in Birmingham in 1978. They
were a successful band of the 1980s and a
leading band in the MTV-driven "
Second British Invasion" of the United
States. Since the 1980s, they have placed
14 singles in the Top 10 of the
UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard
Hot 100, and according to
Sunday Mercury, they have sold more
than 120 million records

Sigourney Weaver is an American actress and film

producer. Following her film debut as a minor character in
Annie Hall, she quickly came to prominence in 1979 with
her first lead role as Ellen Ripley in Alien, subsequently
reprising the role in its three sequels: Aliens (1986), for
which she was nominated for an Academy Award
Best Actress; Alien 3 (1992), and Alien: Resurrection
(1997).
Weaver is also known for her starring roles in the box-office
hits Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), and
Avatar (2009). A seven-time Golden Globe Awardnominee,
she won both Best Actress in Drama and
Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1988
films Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl, becoming the
first person ever to have won two acting Golden Globes in
the same year

John Ritter was an American actor,

comedian, and voice actor. Ritter was
best known for playing Jack
Tripper on the hit ABC sitcom Three's
Company, for which he won
an Emmy and a Golden Globe
Award in 1984.

Where are they now?

Does anyone know where these once

very famous celebrities are now?
What are they doing?
Does this say anything about
celebrity culture?

Celebrity Who Am I?

Write down 2-3 current celebrities on slips

of paper and add to pile.
Class will be split into two teams.
One person at a time will draw a celebrity
from the pile and try to get his/her team
to guess the celebrity in TEN SECONDS
without saying the celebritys name.
If the team guesses correctly, that team
gets one point. If not, its the other teams
turn.

What does fame even mean?

Unknown has beens from years
past?
Current celebrities who we only know
from their talents, not from who they
are as people?
Do we see them as people or as an
idea? Do we actually know them?

What if we applied the questions about

media messages to celebrities?

Who is the author and what is the

purpose?
What techniques are used to attract and
hold my attention?
How might different people understand
this message?
What lifestyles, values, and points of view
are represented?
What was left out?

Discussion
Who is a celebrity for whom you
have respect because of his or her
values, message(s), lifestyle, point of
view, personal characteristic(s), etc.?
Why?
Why are we drawn to celebrities who
do not hold our values, point of view,
or lifestyle that we find important?