23/04

Préparation à la PPC

April 5th:

http://theconversation.com/im-right-youre-wrong-and-heres-a-link-to-prove-it-how-social-media-shapes-public-debate-65723

Follow the link to an article entitled Facebooked, study it and get ready to report:

https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/698/new-media/facebooked

In this article written in 2009 at the beginning of the rise of social media, the journalist evokes his own experience of the now famous network called "facebook". His point of focus seems to be to try and assess the benefits of using it and his conclusions are quite pessimistic. If he appreciates the space it offers people to stay in touch with relatives and friends who live far away, he denounces the superficiality of exchanges taking place on the platform as being shallow.  What indeed is the point of exchanging with people you wouldn't even talk to in real life...?

In other words, for him, FB is not a progress at all.  It's just boring.

Now, 9 years later we can say that social networking was certainly not a fad. It is still used by a growing number of people of all generations. Networking sites come and go as people opt for more spontaneous and dynamic forms of interaction but the tool remains and has offered improvement to our lives in many areas such as keeping in touch with distant people and getting involved in online activism.  Paradoxically, they do not solve the problem of loneliness but they do offer a solution to social isolation. People who have no friends in real life have no real friends in social networking life!  But populations which are isolated in a fight for a cause can find a platform to make their issues known to the world...

Big changes in the newspaper!

Video study

Quality press vs scandal sheets

Homework : using your notes, recap the changes that are taking place at the Enquirer and explain Mr. Kane's choices.

Random documents :

Book page 76 : Illustration & text part 1.uneventful. not sensational= boring
_____________________________________

Written Comprehension:
Part 1:
-Identify the narrator (name, job, personality)
-Identify the situation (what? when?)

-Focus on the expression "course of the media training". How do you understand it?

Complément :

- video study : The power of media and its influence on women

- Using the vocabulary and method used for "Doll Face", analyze this video and prepare a presentation of it.

Make sure you talk at least 2 minutes.

The influence of the media on our lives / Being someone you are not

Introductory document :

Doll Face

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=246&v=zl6hNj1uOkY

- express your feelings about the video : How does the video make you feel ?

It makes me feel... uncomfortable / uneasy / oppressed / disturbed...

- qualify this video : How would you qualify it?

distressing / unpleasant / disturbing / scary / frightening / spooky / creepy / shocking...

Keywords for analysis : 

warning / warn the viewer against / attract the viewer's attention to ...

focus on / concentrate on / revolve around / center on...

what is striking about this video is... / what affects the viewer is...

identify with / empathize / sympathize / feel sorry for...

influence / control / transform / alter / change / impress / overcome / upset...

self-esteem / vulnerable / lack self-confidence

destruction / damage / devastate /

addictive / influential / fascinating...

Document page 88 as an introduction :

This is a picture in black and white so we can suppose it's an old picture and an archive. We can see a black man in a public bathroom who drinks from a specific sink for black people. This picture was probably taken in the 50s during segregation and the institutionalized separation when black people were treated like animals and they were obligated to be separated from white persons while white people had more privileges and rights. This situation is also a reflection of the remains of slavery in the USA whenabout a hundred years ago, the civil war opposed the slavers in the south and their oponents in the north with Abhraham Lincoln who was the president who fought for the liberty of slaves, so the tensions hundred  years later were also present.

November 28th:

study of documents page 88

poem by Langston Hughes : Merry-go-round

painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat : Jim Crow

November 29th:

Brown vs Board of Education

December 4th:

Means of protest (introduction)

Picture page 90 (sit-ins introduction)

December 11th:

Non-violent means of protest (demonstration / march / petition / sit-in / go on strike / go on hunger strike...)

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X - common points and differences

speech : Unfulfilled Dreams by Martin Luther King

March 3rd, 1968 -  CO

Recap:

In this speech delivered in Georgia in March 1968, Martin Luther King is addressing a congregation of people assembled in a church. The main goal of his speech is to encourage people in their endeavour to "create a temple of peace" even if it is difficult and they feel discouraged and isolated most of the time. The historical and social context of this speech is dense: on the one hand, the Vietnam War was at the height of its controversy and the Civil Rights Movement was on its way.  Martin Luther King played a part in both, advocating non-violence and perseverence.  Here, he refers the the war "we protest against war" and the feeling of powerlessness "it seems like our head is going against a concrete wall" but encourages the people to have faith that one day the dream will be fulfilled and just having the desire to bring it into reality is already good in itself.

December 12th:

Take it : a speech by Malcolm X - CO

Plymouth Rock explained / Nationalism explained

Productions :

The speech talks about Afro-Americans who don't feel American but more like Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America against their will. And they can not enjoy the benefits of the Constitution which the Americans are so proud of. Today they don't want to feel like bastards anymore. They want to be nationalists and be proud of their values, heritage and origines because they think that is the wave of the present and the future.

He advocates the use of action rather than passive resistance and non violence.

December 14th:

page 92 : the Freedom Riders - CE

 1. The Freedom Riders were a group of black and white people (mostly students) who fought against segregation and inequality between races.

2. They fought against segregation in public transport. Their final goal was that buses would become integrated.

3. They decided to ride an integrated bus across the southern states. They had to face the hostility of white supremacists as they arrived in Montgomery, Alabama.

A group of Klan members was waiting for them.

4. The narrator is a college student.

5. He sides with the Civil Rights activists.  He identifies with them and they inspire him.

December 19th:

6. This story has changed his life in so far as it has inspired him to take action and defend a cause. He wants to do something meaningful.

Malcolm X movie trailer

January 8th:

The Help - movie

January 9th:

Which of the 4 notions could you illustrate with this movie?  Explain.

Myths and heroes? Places and forms of power? The idea of progress? Spaces and exchanges?

January 11th:

Recap on the notions

Myths and misconceptions which justified racism and separation.

The courage it took to break the rules...

Text page 102 (introduction)

Homework : read the text entirely and get ready to report what you have understood and how it relates to the notion Myths and heroes or Places and forms of power.

January 15th and 16th:

Myths and heroes

The text entitled "The Curse" is a very good illustration of the notion myths and heroes in the sense that it portrays a heroic character : Miss Katherine, the school teacher.

The scene seems to be set in a rural white community where separation between blacks and whites was the rule.

We know that this text is set in a southern state because line 35 refers to the Jim Crow laws which forbade black men from kissing white women.

In such a context, we can say that she has a heroic behaviour when she stands up for her own principles by trying to save Sam, the onion picker.  It is not so much that she is in love with him as that she considers the law as absurd since for her, there is no difference of worth between blacks and whites.  For her, they are human beings.

Other members of the community don't see eye to eye with her.  Their behaviour is based on the myth that white people are somehow superior and that there is a form of danger in mingling with black people. (germs, sexual obsession... all sorts of preconceived ideas).  This myth, based on a set of beliefs which had no root in reality, justified the system of organized segregation.

Another illustration of myths and heroes comes through the character of Miss Katherine at the end of the text once she has killed and kissed the sheriff to avenge Sam and stand up for her truth.  She then becomes a legendary character whose reputation grows with time and is probably enhanced through word of mouth. It is doubtful that she would have killed many people but she gained the reputation of "one of the most feared outlaws in all of the west"!

Places and forms of power :

Homework :

- find 2 to 3 ways in which power is exercised in this text

- find an example or two of a place of power mentioned in the text

January 17th:ways in which power is exercised in this text:

- the sheriff intimidates and blackmails Miss Katherine ( perversion of the power of justice : he uses his position for his own interest instead of enforcing the law)

- his office is a place of power in the sense that it represents justice. That's why Miss Katherine goes there seeking support.

- Social power is also illustrated in this text through the pressure exercised by the group / the whole community on 2 individuals (Sam & Katherine) to make them conform to their idea of law and order. (power of a group over individuals). Brutish force (they storm into the classroom and destroy things).

- They act this way because they fear the power of education (represented by the school) and knowledge (symbolized by the books they destroy). When someone acquires knowledge, they become aware...they can think for themselves...they develop the ability to be critical... This is a danger for social structures based on ignorance and myths.