Media Conversations 6--Be There or Be Square!

So, it's been a bit hectic lately, what else is new, but really it has. So I apologize for not letting you know about this sooner, but hey, no time like the present. I've helped to organize, along with David Walczyk of Pratt Institute, a conference on media literacy and education which is being held this Thursday through Saturday here in New York City. If you're around, you really should try to catch all or part of it.

The conference is being held at Pratt Institute on 14th Street on Thursday evening and during the day on Friday. Then we move east and slightly uptown to Gramercy Park and the Players Club for a Friday evening session. Then all of Saturday's sessions will be in the McMahon Hall Lounge at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus.

I should add that the conference is being cosponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, and by the Media Ecology Association.

Here's a cool poster that one of David's students made for the event. It looks great:




The only thing is, the dates are wrong. The conference is only running June 4-6. If you show up on June 7th, there won't be anything going on.

So, what's it all about you may ask. Well, you can go check out the conference website now, or at anytime you like. It has the full schedule and tells you about the various participants. Here's the URL: <http://www.mediaeco.com/moc09>. But I'll also put the schedule in below.

Before we get to that, let me tell you about some of the highlights and things I'm especially excited about.

Thursday evening we're opening with some cool stuff, including the first New York City screening of the documentary Consuming Kids, and a keynote presentation from Tom deZengotita.

Friday morning we have a session on journalism that includes Alan Hayakawa, the son of S. I. Hayakawa, and I'm really looking forward to meeting him; among the others on the session are Neil Hickey of the Columbia Journalism Review, who was for a long time the editor of TV Guide, back when it was America's top magazine, as well as the online guru for the New York Times, Alex Wright.

Friday afternoon we have a session on childhood with Rosemarie Truglio, a dear friend and Vice-President of Research for Sesame Workshop, and also including Twila Liggett, creator of Reading Rainbow, Ed Miller of the Alliance for Childhood, and Mary Rothschild of Healthy Media Choices. This session is followed by one on new media literacies featuring David Walczyk and Paul Guzzardo.

I am especially excited about our Friday evening session at the Players Club, made possible by my friend and colleague Meir Ribalow. And it's worth going, just to check out the Players Club itself, which was founded by the brother of John Wilkes Booth. Meir and I are going to participate in a discussion about heroes and role models with Maria Cooper Janis, the daughter of Gary Cooper, and the actor Victor Slezak, among others.

Saturday morning we're having a session with an international focus that includes my old colleague and collaborator Ron Jacobson, Jordi Torrent, who organized these conferences in the past, Paul Mihailidis, and others.

Saturday afternoon we'll be concluding the conference with a screening and discussion from The LAMP--Learning About Multimedia Project courtesy of Katherine Fry of Brooklyn College, and then a panel discussion on Mapping the Media that will include media literacy maven Renee Hobbs, Thom Gencarelli (a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics and Vice-President of the Media Ecology Association), Bill Petkanas (Editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics), and Martin Levinson (President of the Institute of General Semantics).

Well, this will certainly give me a lot of material to blog about, and I'll be sure to do so, and provide more information about these folks, with links and everything, when we get down to it. But for now, I hope you can make it to the conference, and please help to spread the word. Here's that URL again: <http://www.mediaeco.com/moc09>

And, no, I didn't forget that I promised to post the schedule here. Here ya go!

Media Conversations VI
An International Conference on Youth, Media, and Education
Free and Open to the Public

June 4-6, 2009
New York, New York

Co-sponsored by
Pratt Institute
Fordham University
The Players Club
Media Ecology Association
Institute of General Semantics

http://www.mediaeco.com/moc09

Thursday, June 4th
Pratt Institute
144 West 14th St., 2nd. floor

5.30-6.30 pm Multimedia Presentation
Thus Spoke the Spectacle
Eric Goodman and Mike Stevens

6.30-8.00 pm Welcome and Screening
'The Bungled and the Botched' : The Necessity of Psychological Sustainability
David Walczyk, Pratt Institute
Followed by...
The Manhattan Premiere of the film Consuming Kids (67 minutes)

8.00-9.30 pm Keynote Address
Introduced by Tula Gianini, Dean, Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science

"Teaching media literacy in our schools: why it is so easy to do badly and so hard to do well"
Tom DeZengotita, Dalton School/New York University/Harper's Magazine


Friday Morning and Afternoon, June 5th
Pratt Institute
144 West 14th St., 2nd. floor

10:00am-12:00 pm Panel Discussion
Media Education and the Future of Journalism
Cynthia Walker, Saint Peter's College (moderator)
Donna Halper, Lesley University
Alan Hayakawa, Patriot News
Neil Hickey, Columbia Journalism Review
Beth Knobel, Fordham University
Alex Wright, New York Times

1.00-3:00 pm Panel Discussion
Childhood and Media
Jessica Hochman, Pratt Institute (moderator)
Gretchen Hams-Caserotti, Darien Public Library
Twila Liggett, Marymount Manhattan College
Ed Miller, Alliance for Childhood
Mary Rothschild, Healthy Media Choices
Rosemarie Truglio, Sesame Workshop

3:30-5:30 pm Panel Discussion
New Media Literacies
Paul Guzzardo, Urban Designer and Media Activist (moderator)
Thomas Gillespie, Quinnipiac University
Peter Gutierrez, Curriculum Developer; NCTE Commission on Media
Alex Quinn, Games for Change
David Walczyk, Pratt Institute

Friday Evening, June 5th
The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South (East 20th Street between Park Avenue South and Third Avenue is renamed Gramercy Park South)

7:30-9:30pm Panel Discussion
Heroes and Role Models in Movies and Other Media

Meir Ribalow, Fordham University (moderator)
Maria Cooper Janis, Filmmaker
Susan McGregor, Friend's Way
Lee Pfeiffer, Cinema Retro
Victor Slezak, Actor
Lance Strate, Fordham University


Saturday, June 6th
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus
McMahon Hall Lounge
155 West 60th St. (between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues)

10.00-12.00 pm Panel Discussion
Media Education in the Global Village

Ron L. Jacobson, Fordham University (moderator)
Mary Bosco Amakwe, Seton Hall University
Paul Mihailidis, Hofstra University
Holly Morganelli, Pratt Institute
Jordi Torrent, Media Literacy Education Project, UN-Alliance of Civilizations & Duende Pictures

1.00-3.00 pm Screening and Discussion
The LAMP Learning About Multimedia Project

Katherine Fry, Brooklyn College/The LAMP
D.C. Vito, The LAMP

3:30-5:30 pm Panel Discussion
Mapping the Media

Thom Gencarelli, Manhattan College (moderator)
Renee Hobbs, Temple University
Dan Latorre, Scholastic Magazines
Martin Levinson, Institute of General Semantics
Bill Petkanas, Western Connecticut State University



So there you have it. Be there or be square, and I do hope to see you there if at all possible!