The Rule Against Drinking on TV

Did you know that little Doogie Howser, MD is old enough to drink? Well, of course, it's been many years since that sitcom first aired, back in September of 1989, and many years since it last went off the air, over two decades ago, in July of 1993. Since then, the star of the show, Neil Patrick Harris, has gone on to bigger and better things, and emerged as a major comedic talent.

But, it seems, he's not too big to shill out for the advertising industry, and in particular for beer commercials.  Perhaps you've seen his recent starring role as a pitchman for Heineken Light beer?







Hey, there's no question that beer commercials have a long history of being some of the most amusing forms of advertising you can find on American television. But that doesn't change the fact that the product they're selling, alcoholic beverages, is associated with negative effects that are far from funny or entertaining. 

And as you may know, back in 1987 I co-authored a research report based on an analysis of the myths and cultural meanings of beer commercials: Myths, Men & Beer: An Analysis of Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television, 1987, by Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, Lance Strate, Charles Weingartner. You can download a scanned PDF of the publication from ERIC, just click here.  I'm not sure exactly how many print copies were distributed and sold by the research sponsor, the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, but I know it numbers in the tens of thousands, at least. I also published several articles and chapters on the subject as a follow-up, one of the lesser known ones can be found online here.

Anyway, getting back to this particular commercial, let me put aside the way that the ad associates beer with a disregard for rules, and how that relates to the American cultural myth of masculinity, with rules seen as a challenge to be overcome rather than a structure to honor and work within, and how the romantic notion of being a rule-breaker may be a staple of hero narratives, but is particularly problematic when it comes to concerns such as underage drinking, and drinking and driving. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that this ad brings up the question of why is it that you never see anyone actually drinking beer in television commercials? The ad seems to suggest that it is due to regulations, which implies federal legislation passed by Congress, or policy adopted by the Federal Communications Commission or the Federal Trade Commission. Many people out there seem to believe this is the case, and see it as another case of unwarranted and unwanted government intrusion on the private sector.

And they're wrong! The government has nothing to do with it, neither the executive or legislative branches. As it turns out, the rule originates with the broadcasting industry. Now, let me note that this question was brought to my attention by Jon Greenberg, a staff writer for PunditFact, which according to their website,

is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and the Poynter Institute, dedicated to checking the accuracy of claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers, political analysts, the hosts and guests of talk shows, and other members of the media.

We define a pundit as someone who offers analysis or opinions on the news, particularly politics and public policy. One can engage in punditry by writing, blogging or appearing on radio or TV. A pundit is not an elected official, not a declared candidate nor anyone in an official capacity with a political party, campaign or government.

PunditFact is funded in part by $625,000 in grants over two years from the Ford Foundation and the Democracy Fund. Seed money for the project was provided by craigconnects.

So, anyway, I was one of many sources that Jon contacted to check up on the claim made in the beer ad, which was evaluated as being "mostly true" (meaning not entirely): A "regulatory thing" means you can’t show someone drinking beer on camera.  You can click on the link to see the article in its entirety (no, I'm not quoted in it, but it's still worth a look). It begins with a discussion of the Heineken ad, and then poses the question:

But we wondered about the director’s claim that a "regulatory thing" stops people from drinking beer in commercials. We’ve seen plenty of beer commercials and just always assumed that someone was drinking at some point.

The fact is, however, ad makers successfully are getting us to see more than is on screen.

In case you were wondering, it’s not the long arm of government that’s stopping people from a sip of sudsy brew. A press officer at the Federal Communications Commission, the body in charge of decency and other rules for broadcasters, said FCC rules are silent on drinking on camera.

"Congress has not enacted any law prohibiting broadcast advertising of any kind of alcoholic beverage, and the FCC does not have a rule or policy regulating such advertisements," she said, citing the agency’s website.

If there’s an iron fist, it belongs to the broadcasters.

Tara Rush, senior director of corporate communications at Heineken USA, said the rules come from TV networks.

"This is a regulation with the actual TV networks," Rush said. "It’s a long-standing rule."

The broadcasters’ trade group, the National Association of Broadcasters, has no policy itself, but a spokesman sent us articles that describe how each network is free to set its own standards and, as it stands, when it comes to beer, they frown on public displays of ingestion.

The Heineken ad alludes to this. Near the end, the director talks about network execs getting in a room to agree on a set of rules.

Now, speaking of the NAB, what I did find in response to Jon's query was an article entitled Ad of the Day: Neil Patrick Harris Doesn't Get Why He Can't Drink Heineken Light on TV But here's the explanation, if you're interested, by David Griner, which appeared in Adweek magazine. And Griner provides a somewhat different explanation of the NAB's role in the matter:

While it's not really explained in the ad, there's no law keeping Harris—or anyone else—from drinking a beer on camera. The United States government doesn't actually limit alcohol marketing at all, or as the FCC notes, "Congress has not enacted any law prohibiting broadcast advertising of any kind of alcoholic beverage, and the FCC does not have a rule or policy regulating such advertisements."

The brewing industry's Beer Institute has its own voluntary guidelines, and they're generally OK with showing beer drinking, too: "Although beer advertising and marketing materials may show beer being consumed (where permitted by media standards), advertising and marketing materials should not depict situations where beer is being consumed rapidly, excessively, involuntarily, as part of a drinking game, or as a result of a dare."

However, several broadcast networks continue to stick to a long-expired portion of the Television Code that prohibited showing alcohol being consumed. (Thus the ad's reference to "network execs in a room somewhere.")

Also, Canada has a bevy of beverage restrictions, including a rule against showing "scenes in which any such product is consumed, or that give the impression, visually or in sound, that it is being or has been consumed." As you can imagine, other countries have their own rules, too, making a beer ad with global reach a truly hamstrung affair.

So in short, yeah, it's complicated. And it's not too likely to change anytime soon.

So, there is a historical connection to the NAB, and specifically to its Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters, one that continues to influence industry policy. Unfortunately, the link provided by the Adweek article is to a Wikipedia entry that does not specifically reference the policy on showing people consuming alcohol on camera, and I was not able to find a copy of the Code itself through a cursory search online. But I do find Griner's explanation to be reasonable and persuasive, and kudos as well to Canada for its contribution towards keeping the advertisers in check. 

I should add that Griner also suggests that, "we can probably expect a similar gag to come around every few decades," reminding us that back in the 80s a similar commercial aired, featuring Paul Hogan, aka Crocodile Dundee, hawking Foster's:







Returning to the PunditFact piece, here's the response from the beer industry's spokesperson: 

A spokeswoman for The Beer Institute, the voice of brewers and distributors, told us their members are loath to take chances with network policy.

"If you’re putting an ad together, you will be as conservative as possible so you know it will get past all the networks," said Megan Kirkpatrick, director of communications at the Institute.

Kirkpatrick said the brewers have no desire to stir things up and risk stirring a cry for a new law.

"The fact that it is self-regulated now, that’s not something brewers would want to put in jeopardy," Kirkpatrick said. "It’s the way they have operated for decades. You show a lot of people enjoying a football game or enjoying a baseball game but you don’t show any consumption. I don't think you’re going to see that change."

Perhaps.

Rush left us with this tantalizing thought about the long-standing rule.

"Some networks are now beginning to change it," Rush said.

Note that Kirkpatrick's assurances are not backed up by the official guidelines of the Beer Institute, as noted in the Adweek article. And while the PunditFact piece ends on a lighthearted note—"We doubt Heineken is hoping for a quick shift. If commercials start showing people sipping away, that Heineken ad will be about as enticing as, well, old beer."—based on past history I think we can assume that the beer industry would love to see the broadcasting industry's policy altered, and eradicated. 


And maybe you're saying, what's the big deal, anyway? My response is that alcohol is a special kind of product, which is why the United States Department of Justice has a special Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. There are laws regulating drinking age and prohibiting drunk driving. We expect individuals to refrain from drinking while on the job in most occupations, and in a variety of other situations that require a measure of seriousness and decorum, not to mention concentration and coordination.

And we impose few limits on communication in the United States, in keeping with our First Amendment, but we do impose some on commercial speech, such as truth in advertising, and the ban on tobacco commercials. There are very few limits imposed on alcohol advertising, however, too few in my opinion. This isn't about bringing back Prohibition, it's simply about asking for a reasonable amount of restraint. In holding to this one truly modest rule that says you can't show someone drinking on camera, broadcasters are acknowledging the fact that there is a significant difference between alcohol and toothpaste, between alcohol and smart phones, between alcohol and bottled water. I for one hope that our broadcasters will be able to not only hold their liquor, but also hold the line.

And I don't know about Neil Patrick Harris, but I am pretty confident that a certain Doogie Howser, MD, would agree...

Promoting Health, Media Ecology Style

So, I've been away for the past several days at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Media Ecology Association, which was held at the University of Maine (and kudos to convention coordinators Paul Grosswiler and Ellen Rose for a wonderful event).

One of the sessions I participated on was called:  Media Ecology and Health Promotion in a U-Shaped World, and it was organized by David J. Waters.  David is Professor of Comparative Oncology and Associate Director of the Center on Aging and The Life Course at Purdue University, and since 2000, he has served as Executive Director of the Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation, a not-for-profit research institute located in the Purdue Research Park.  David started the session off by presenting a paper entitled, “The Challenge of Promoting Health in a U-Shaped World,” and another David,
David E. Duncan of the BioAgenda Institute ended the session with a talk entitled, “Getting Health Messages Right: A Science Writer's Perspective,” both presentations being outstanding.

So, I was sandwiched in-between the two Davids, and with the title, “Getting Health Messages Right: A Media Ecologist's Perspective,” which was supplied by David Waters.  I started out by noting that the subject of health does not come up all that often in media ecology circles, but there is much that our field can offer to the study of health communication, and health and medicine.

I also mentioned my involvement in the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety funded study of beer commercials, courtesy of Neil Postman, which was published as the research report, Myths, Men and Beer (by Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, Lance Strate, and Charles Weingartner, 1987 which is still being distributed, for more information click here).  We recommended that beer ads be banned from television, a proposal that many in Congress were sympathetic to, and which led to all of the designated driver and "know when to say when" campaigns on the part of the beer industry.

I also noted that the assignment for the first year of the late, lamented media ecology doctoral program was to research the history of a medium or technology that was introduced prior to the 20th century, and a number of the students in the program chose medical technologies like the stethoscope, the thermometer, eyeglasses, etc., and I also draw on that work, as it was discussed in our classes.  Moreover, Postman devoted a chapter to medical technology in Technopoly, drawing in part on Ivan Illich's book, Medical Nemesis, and that's not to mention McLuhan's analysis of ads for aspirin and the like in The Mechanical Bride.
 
And of course I also noted my own experience as the parent of an autistic child, and the discussion that I include in my book, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study.

For my presentation, I prepared notes in an outline form, and I thought I'd share those notes here on Blog Time Passing, for what they're worth.  As notes, they don't provide complete and thorough explanations of the subject matter, but perhaps they might be of interest and use to someone out there. 

Getting Health Messages Right: A Media Ecologist's Perspective

Lance Strate

1.  Thinking About Health From a Media Ecology Perspective

A.  Body as a medium, as our primary medium, as the medium and mind the content 

B.  Medical intervention as altering the media environment, analogous to new medium, side effects as euphemism, undesirable, unanticipated, indirect, but real effects, Postman, Technopoly, iatrogenesis, e.g., prep for colonoscopy and kidneys

C.  Medium as language, body language, how does body talk to us, how do we talk about the body, e.g., as recently came up in general semantics circles, refer to symptoms as complaints; clients vs. patients; baby was in distress vs. baby almost died; negative patient care outcome as euphemism for death

D.  Relationships (Bateson systems perspective), how do I relate to my body, is it me or not me, a shell that I occupy, how do medical professionals relate to patients, as body or person, what kind of relationship, authority or guide?  

2.  Getting the Message Across

A.  Preventative messages hardest to get across, e.g., seatbelts, smoking (anti-smoking campaign initially increased desire to smoke);

B.  Henry Perkinson, No Safey in Numbers, computing leads to quantification of everything, leads to risk-aversive society.  Quantify risk, but how much is acceptable, we demand that risk be eliminated, but while reduction possible, elimination impossible.

C.  Risk only acceptable if it’s a matter of choice.  Anti-smoking campaign ineffective because smokers say, it’s my choice to take this risk.  Change came with second-hand smoke campaign, with victims who do not choose to take the risk, but are forced to.

D.  Tony Schwartz, The Responsive Chord, know your audience, don't test ads, test audiences

E.  Resonance, make message resonate with what audience already knows

F.  Broader sense, understand the culture, Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers

G.  From media ecology perspective, to know the culture, have to know the media environment out of which the culture emerges

3.  Oral Cultures

A.  Oral traditions, collective memory

B.  Vast storehouse of knowledge about the environment, importance of botanical information for medicine

C.  Emphasis on the specific, not principles

D.  Except by analogy, Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, superstition, e.g., rhino horn and male potency

E.  Generally knowledge is shared and accessible, age important, limited specialization (medicine man or woman)

4.  Literate Cultures

A.  with writing comes accumulation of knowledge and specialization

B.  writing enhances abstract thinking, ability to make generalization and posit principles, but downside is stereotyping, ignoring the individual patient and only look at class, one size fits all, one drug cures all

C. writing also enhances analysis, able to focus on specific organs and systems and understand them better, but perhaps at expense holistic view of body as system

D.  ancient Greece, alphabet, 5th-4th c. BCE, Hippocrates, origin of medicine

E.  literacy limits access to knowledge, creates divisions between groups, specialization, Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place

F.  progress slow until 15th century printing revolution and knowledge explosion

G.  Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change in Early Modern Europe, tables, diagrams, illustrations; empiricism & publication, Modern Science

H.  Increasing volume of knowledge leads to increasing specialization

I.  With specialization come specialized language which further limits access

J.  High degree of separation between practitioner and client

K.  Need for schooling

L.  Innis, The Bias of Communication, Monopoly of knowledge

M.  Growth of professionalism

N.  Illich, Medical Nemesis, critique

5.  Visualism and Technology

A.  literacy and print lead to visualism, as opposed to orality based on sound

B.  visualism fosters objectivity, objectification

C.  body as object

D.  Cartesian dualism, mind/body, body is visual, mind is oral

E.  Shift from listening to patient to reading the body as text, through technology, visual and quantified

F.  Stethoscope (acoustic but treats body as thing), thermometer, other medical devices objectify, measure, and provide visual output

G.  surgery as visual examination; photography, X-rays, ultrasound (use sound to generate image)

H.  Eyeglasses, visual, extensions of man, body can be modified, not stuck with what nature gave you

I.  Medical technology and Jacques Ellul, Technological Society, technique as emphasis on efficiency, pills, drugs, as instant cure; Neil Postman, Technopoly

6.  Electronic media environment

A.  Reversal of print in some ways, extension in other ways (knowledge, specialization), creates a tension

B.  Dissatisfied with objectification of the body, want to be treated as a human being, whole person, holistic medicine

C.  Suspicious of monopoly of knowledge, which is weakened by accessibility of electronic media, from Dr. Kildare to WebMD

D.  Want second opinion, choice, agency, alternatives, alternative medicine, while still wanting efficiency

E.  Retrieval of oral culture, folk culture, homeopathic remedies, misinformation, can't just disprove, cultural problem

F.  General decline of authority (Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place), mystification and legitimation, suspicious of medical establishment, motives, profit, withholding treatment, conspiracy; iatrogenesis

G.  Example of vaccination and autism; fluoridation of water

7.  So what now?

A.  Medical professionals need to be honest about limits of their knowledge rather than invoke authority

B.  need to focus on human person rather than just body

C.  approach as relationship, partners

D.  make information accessible, do not withhold, example of conspiracy of silence regarding autism

E.  Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections, "Educationist as Painkiller," now, painkiller must be educationist, educate rather than inform and dictate

F.  people want choices, there are always choices, and they also want to know what is the most efficient of the choices

G.  Also need to focus on groups (peer groups, interest groups) rather than authority relationships with individuals, serve as guides, advisers

H.  Family group, workplace

I.  Social networks, in face-to-face situations, and online

J.  Social media, have to be a member of the group, not specialized professional on a pedestal

And that's about it.  I hope to be able to publish an essay on this topic in the future, time and tide willing. 

So until next time, my friends, stay healthy!

Life Before Search Engines?

Life before search engines?  Especially, life before search engines that are easily accessed via mobile devices?  I vaguely remember it, yes.  Maybe you went to the library to look something up.  Maybe you had books of your own that you could look through to find the answer.   I remember as a kid being really impressed with the Almanac, especially the one called Information Please!  

And of course there was the old encyclopedia.  Typically,  parents were guilted into buying a set for their kids--don't you want them to succeed in school?  Now we have wikipedia, of course, but in a larger sense, the web itself is our encyclopedia, encompassing all knowledge.


But what if you didn't have any reference works handy?  How many questions went unanswered, for want of a search engine?  That's the point of this cool cartoon that one of my MySpace friends recently shared with me.

Notice how the contrast here is between search engines and television, aka the boob tube.  And yes, the point is a good one, television numbs the mind, to an extent, while the internet promotes active engagement, to an extent.  So maybe our cartoon couch potatoes have some reference works nearby, and are just too mesmerized by the old cathode ray tube (life before LED) to get up and look for answers.


But, of course, another option available to them, and the only option before there were books, before printing, before literacy, before writing, was simply to ask the person next to you.  Ask and ye shall receive...  Of course, what you receive might be something like, I don't know... or a wrong answer.  You never know what you're going to get (kinda like Forest Gump's box of chocolates).  But that's how we did it, through speech, oral communication, relying on memory, knowledge being what's inside our heads--as Walter Ong puts it, you know what you can recall.


And if the question is put to more than one person, you might wind up with a difference of opinion on what the answer is.   The result might then be argument, in the sense of debate and disputation, at least discussion and dialogue.  And it may well be that that organic process of human communication is itself more valuable, in regard to learning and understanding, than the mechanical process of obtaining the answer itself.  Not always, but often, I would wager.


Speaking of wagering, this is where the famous phenomenon of the bar bet comes in.  A bar is of course a social situation, and alcohol a social lubricant.  People get to talking, and sometimes get argumentative.  Two people disagreeing may turn to a third, and say, hey buddy, settle a bet for us.  Often, the person they turn to may be the bartender, who is still sober, or relatively so.  Given the frequency with which this sort of situation might come up, bartenders often had a copy of the latest almanac handy, not to mention the Guinness Book of World Records.


Speaking of which, I just googled it, and it turns out that it's now just called Guinness World Records, and although a book is still published annually, it's also a website (another sign of the decline of print media, sigh).  According to its wikipedia entry, "the book itself held a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted series of all-time. It is also one of the most stolen books from public libraries in the United States." The history of this book is also quite interesting, so once again I'm going to quote from the Wikipedia entry:

On 4 May 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. He became involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the koshin golden plover or the grouse. That evening at Castlebridge House he realised that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird.

Now, I just can't help but interject that, with this quote, this post has become related to, in an offhand way, my earlier post, Be Very Afraid. Just saying...  Anyway, back to the entry:

Beaver knew that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs in Britain and Ireland, but there was no book with which to settle arguments about records. He realised then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove popular.

Beaver’s idea became reality when Guinness employee Christopher Chataway recommended student twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been running a fact-finding agency in London. The brothers were commissioned to compile what became The Guinness Book of Records in August 1954. One thousand copies were printed and given away.

The first edition was published in 1955, and soon became an annual.  Today, they're no longer associated with Guinness Brewery, in fact, believe it or not, they're owned by Ripley Entertainment.  But it is interesting to note the connection between the beverage and the book, and to recall that bars and beer are social media of the non-electric variety.


And what becomes of the bar bet when answers are just a google search away?  What becomes of the process of argumentation, and the social search for information, please, from others at the bar?  It seems to me that, in our search for quick and easy answers, we've lost something much more valuable, that we're the poorer for trading information for interaction, in this instance.  The questions are more valuable than the answers, the process more than the outcome, the journey more than the destination.  Again, not always, but more often than not.


So anyway, nostalgia aside, here's my nod to Guinness as food for thought!

Why yes, yes I am.  In fact, being snowed in today, I think I'd like one.  Time to get the old human search engine going, and do some googling around in my fridge, I know I have a few bottles left in there somewhere...  Ah, there we go...  Here's to life before search engines, those were the days...

My Presidencies Past

So, on Friday January 31st, I stepped down from a position I held for over a decade, president of the Media Ecology Association. This makes for an occasion for reflection, and I thought I would take the occasion to reflect upon the idea of presidency, as a symbol and office.

I'm not going to get all political on you, don't worry about that, I'll just state the obvious point that American culture makes something of a fetish of the idea of being president, as a consequence of it being the highest office in our government, and the most powerful political position in the land (and when the U.S. became the most powerful nation in the world, that made the President the most powerful person of all, it seems). Moreover, it's a commonplace that the balance between the branches of the government has shifted since the founding of our republic, with the executive gaining increasingly more power, leading to a kind of regal presidency.

But of course, as general semantics makes clear, the map is not the territory, and the meaning people ascribe to the word President may not match up with the reality of the situation. In one sense, a president is one who presides, and in countries with parliamentary governments, the president is a ceremonial office, while the real power lies with the Prime Minister (this system does not have the same separation of legislative and executive branches that we do). Prime Minister sounds somewhat weaker than president to me, perhaps because historically the prime and less than prime ministers were the king's ministers, meaning they ministered to the king. And there's a bureaucratic quality to it, as in ad-minister, as distinguished from authority. But the synonym for Prime Minister, Premier, which I assume comes from the French, sounds much stronger to me. In fact, it comes across as ominous, since that was what the leader of the old Soviet Union was called. As such, Premier strikes me as akin to führer, which was what they used to refer to Hitler, enough said about that. But old Adolf's title was Chancellor, which has a more mixed resonance, being at times another alternative to Prime Minister or Premier, at other times something more like President. Of course, dictator is a time-honored term, going back to ancient Rome, and in one sense what's so terrible about dictating or taking dictation? Ah, the power of the word, spoken and written.

Of course, I'm not covering all the terms, especially not those undemocratic ones like king, emporer, baron, duke, etc. Yes, dictator, führer, and the like are democratic in that the presuppose that the people have consented to authoritarian rule. Fascism, communism, socialism, national socialism aka nazism, all are movements of the people, all derive legitimacy from the reality or illusion of popular support.

Also, I remember learning about the United Nations as a child in elementary school, we even took a class trip there (I was especially impressed with the Chagall window, which I wrote about in a blog post entitled Art and Memory), and I can recall how odd it seemed when I learned that the head of the UN was called the Secretary General--wasn't secretary a girl's position?, I wondered at that time, as it typically was the office that was held by a girl, as opposed to Vice-President, Treasurer, or President, in clubs and such). Girls took dictation, they didn't dictate. Hey, I'm just reporting, not condoning.

We do learn about politics in grade school by electing class and or school officers, who in the lower grades don't do very much, but it does teach a lesson about democracy, and the basic offices that we all know, President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. But even with this experience, there still is a child-like fascination with the symbolic value of president. Several years ago, the fact that I was president of the MEA came up in conversation with my son, and he responded, You're the President??? The expression of surprise, astonishment, and incredulity, was matched by the sense that he was impressed if not awestruck by this fact.

By the same token, it's been argued that television presents a skewed, and childlike view of our federal government, by reporting mostly about the President's activities, as opposed to the Cabinet or Congress. Simply put, images of a single individual or two individuals work best on TV, larger groups simply don't play well. So television feeds the trend in politics and popular culture of an imperial presidency in the US.

I should add that I did try to tell my son that it was no big deal to be president of an organization, it's pretty commonplace, after all. In the business world, in the age of massive multinational conglomerates, being president of a company is no great shakes, doesn't mean you're the boss, which is why for years now all the talk is about CEOs, the acronym for Chief Executive Officers, who in effect are the president of all of the presidents of all the companies that the corporation owns. And in most organizations, we typically use president as an office and not a title. I would be referred to as president of MEA, but never as President Lance Strate. For the most part, it is only heads of state, notably the President of the United States, who are referred to by the title President, as in President Obama, or Mr. President. Otherwise, the only other example I am aware of would be the presidents of colleges and universities, so that the head of Fordham University is President Joseph M. McShane, SJ (SJ indicates that he is a Jesuit). So, President McShane, yes, President Strate, no. And while serving as president, I consciously tried to avoid putting on airs, so to speak, often not capitalizing president, for example, and referring to the talk I would give at our annual convention as the President's Address, rather that the Presidential Address, which sounds too hoity-toity to my ears.

One of the techniques that general semantics suggests to improve critical thinking and consciousness of abstracting is to turn singular terms into plural ones, and therefore, to understand that there is no one thing called president, but many different kinds of presidents and presidencies. As noted above, president in our political system is quite different from president in a parliamentary system.

With this in mind, I actually served as three different kinds of presidents of the MEA. When we founded the organization on September 4, 1998, there were only five of us present, and we decided that four of us would be provisional officers. So I was actually a provisional president at first. Then, at our inaugural convention in June of the year 2000, the members present approved our first constitution, and based on it, I was directly elected to a three-year term. But that fall we held a meeting to discuss and consider the was our organization was organized. We had input from Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, Paul Levinson, Joshua Meyrowitz, Susan Drucker, Gary Gumpert, and especially James W. Carey, and decided on a new structure, in which the membership would elect members of a Board of Directors, twelve in all, with staggered three-year terms, so four seats would be decided upon in a general election each year. And the board would meet every January and at that meeting elect the officers, starting with President. So we drew up the necessary changes to the constitution, they were passed at our 2001 convention, the elections were held that fall, and the first board meeting occurred in January of 2002. I was then elected by the board to a one-year term as President, and re-elected every subsequent year through 2008, the year I told the board would be my last. So that was 7 one-year terms where I was the MEA Board of Directors' president.

So, this was not my first presidency. I have also served as president of the New York State Communication Association. This started with me being elected Vice-President Elect in 1996. That was the only election I took part in, the rest was a matter of automatic succession. At the annual meeting in 1997, I became Vice-President which, under this kind of set-up, is the most important and labor intensive, as you are in charge of running the annual conference. And that's exactly what I did in 1998, and at that point I became President. Being president amounted to little more than running executive council meetings, nothing very strenuous, and quite the opposite from my MEA presidency where I was involved in just about everything we were doing. NYSCA also considered Immediate Past President, the year after serving as president, as an official office. And there used to be a extra year in there, starting with Vice-President Elect Elect, which some organizations still have. This is a system that is marked by lots of turnover, which if fine for labor intensive work like running a conference, but not always the best thing for running the organization itself. It's a system that's necessary when it's hard to find leadership, when people are reluctant to serve, when there isn't a whole lot of enthusiasm and commitment. It works fine for large, national or regional organizations, especially when they can employ an Executive Director to insure stability and continuity. For small organizations like NYSCA, it can be a prescription for disaster, as a string of bad leadership can ruin the organization, and I've seen it come close to that twice. That was our concern when we opted for a more conservative model for MEA.

So, this was not my first presidency. My first presidency was when I was in college, at Fordham University. I was a member of the Cornell Drinking Club. It's official name was Majura Nolanda Bethel Lamed or something like that, we were never quite sure, it was supposed to mean something like Nothing but the finest in the house of learning. The club was euphemistically known as a social activity honorary. But it was best known by its nickname, The Mummies. We met every Wednesday evening at a bar called The Chapter House, where we had our own private keg, and had members only meetings in a special room downstairs. The agenda consisted mostly of chugging contests, which was also the main initiation ceremony. I admit to not being great at chugging, but I was good enough to get in. And being elected president of the Mummies was not a matter of being the best drinker--it was an administrative position. My main duty was to drop the keys that signaled the start of the chugging contests.

So, three presidencies, each one different and distinct. Will there be a fourth? I wouldn't rule it out, but not just yet...

Studying Media

So, Twyla Gibson, who's from the University of Toronto's McLuhan Program, a genuine media ecologist, and an expert on Eric Havelock in particular, contacted me this past fall saying that she was editing a new online journal up there, and asking if I had something on McLuhan that they could publish in the first issue. The journal is called Media Tropes, and the first issue has recently been published. You can click on the title to take a look at the site, and see what's in the issue. Just wait a minute before you do, I won't keep you long.

So, when Twyla asked me for an article, well, it just so happened that I had a speech that I had given several times by then, the first time being back in 2002. It's gone through several different titles, for different occasions, but overall I think this one is the best, and I think the piece itself is pretty accessible for an academic essay, and serves as a nice introduction to McLuhan's notion that the medium is the message, and a nice introduction to media ecology. So I made a few minor revisions, added the references and citations, and voilà!

You can access and download the article as a PDF file, courtesy of our friendly neighbors to the north--thank you Canadians, we love you!!!















You may have to register first, but I don't think that will result in the Mounties knocking on your door.

And of course, downloading means never having to say you're sorry (and never having to read the damn thing!).

So now, without further ado, here is the article, available free free free for your downloading pleasure:

Studying Media as Media: McLuhan and the Media Ecology Approach

And now, I'd just like to say thank you, and good night, eh? Oh, and pass the Molsons!

Social Media on Social Media

In a previous post entitled The Professionalization of Social Networking, I wrote about PR professional and social media expert Paull Young, of Converseon, Inc., who came to speak to my Interactive Media class. I'm pleased to report that he recently was interviewed on the program Happy Hour, which appears on the Fox Business Network cable channel.

Now, I have to confess that I never heard of the Fox Business Network cable channel before, I guess this is their answer to CNBC, and I'm not entirely sure that our cable service even carries it. But fortunately, though the magic of YouTube, I was able to view the segment, and share it with you.

The setting of this program is intriguing, bringing to mind the long-running sitcom Cheers. It certainly looks good, although I have to wonder if all that background noise is such a good thing? It certainly becomes more and more of an issue for us old folk, although the interviewer and interviewee's talk was totally distinct, so maybe they do know what they're doing. Oh, and kudos to Paull for not letting the old Aussie accent get the better of him (but what's up with that sweater, man?).

Of course, as any media ecologist will tell you, in the end, no one remembers much of what you've said on television, they just remember that you were on television, and that is impressive! And so much more when it can be amplified via the internet. So, you can go directly to YouTube to see the clip in its native environment, or just watch it here. And this is what the person posting it wrote:

Paull Young of Converseon discussing Social Media and small businesses on the show Happy Hour. The big social media secret is to listen to your customers and give them something that they want. Who knew?

And here's the interview:

Magic Hat

So, I'm a guy who likes to have a good beer or two, every now and then. Maybe more now than then, like right now, as I write this. You might say I'm a bit of a beer snob, I won't try to dignify the situation by suggesting that I'm some kind of connoisseur, I just like some flavor with my suds, whether it's a light Mexican Sol or Pacifico or a German wiess beer, or a good old pint o' Guinness Stout. I'll even take some cheap Genesee Cream Ale now and then. Just please, please, no Budweiser!

So, yesterday I stopped by a local liquor store to pick up a six--in New York State, where I grew up, beer was never sold in liquor stores, but only in supermarkets, grocery stores, and beverage centers, while in New Jersey beer is only sold in liquor stores. And I saw a beer I don't remember seeing before, that really caught my eye with it's orange and brown label and packaging. The brewer's name is Magic Hat (how about that!) located in South Burlington, Vermont, and the name of the beer is the enigmatic #9!!! A reference to The Beatles perhaps--remember Revolution #9 (number nine, number nine, number nine...)--or to Cloud Nine maybe, or the nine lives that cats are said to have?

I really can't tell. But the name is followed by the following description: "flavored not quite pale ale" which is also a bit mysterious. Definitely what McLuhan referred to as a cool medium. In fact, a nice, cold one. Anyway, on the little label on the neck of the bottle I found the following text:

The ancient ritual of brewing a distinctly rich and flavorful beer is nothing short of magic. Our mysterious mix of time-honored ingredients, chaotic chemistry, humble patience, and blind faith age into the secret brew we share in the rousing company of good spirits.

Tell me that's not intriguing, and ya gotta love the reference to chaos theory--maybe a bit of the old magic ecology? So, I open the bottle, and notice that under each cap is a little message--shades of Snapple! The one I just opened said "It's all a Movie, but it's Your Movie" which isn't exactly fortune cookie profound or Snapplishly noteworthy, but does add a little bit of fun to the proceedings.

But none of this means a lick if da beer don't taste good. But if it didn't taste good, I wouldn't be writing this, would I? And it is good, excellent really, absolutely delightful, and surprisingly so. It's definitely on the pale side, light, but it does have a lot of flavor, a fruity quality that's not too strong, just enough to give it a little extra something. The bottom line? I found it utterly delightful.

Now, you may be wondering if this is some kind of paid endorsement. It isn't. This is entirely unsolicited, 100% me just wanting to share this with you, and recommend something that is both interesting in regard to packaging, and a really great beer. I am getting nothing in return for this.

But, if the Magic Hat Brewing Company sees this and wants to send me some more, well, I won't protest.

But even if you are an absolute teetotaler, let me recommend their website to you. I took a look before writing this, and I have to say that it is also quite involved, and a bit mysterious. One frustrating thing about it is that I couldn't copy and paste their images to pretty up this post, or copy and paste their text, so I had to type the following in all on my lonesome--see what I do for you? Here's what they say about #9, which appears to be one of about a dozen or so beers that they sell:

A Beer Cloaked in Secrecy

An ale whose mysterious and unusual palate will swirl across your tongue and ask more questions than it answers.

A beer brewed clandestinely and given a name whose meaning is never revealed. Why #9? Why, indeed.

A sort of dry, crisp, fruity, refreshing, not-quite pale ale. #9 is really impossible to describe because there's never been anything else quite like it.

And they're right! I really can't compare it to anyone other beer I've ever had.

Anyway, the website, http://www.magichat.net, is more than a little strange-looking, intriguing in its imagery, offering "amusements" and "happenings" in addition to information about the beers, a shop with t-shirts and the like, a search engine for finding outlets that carry the beer, and under the heading of "Mother Ode" there's "A Brief and Illuminating History of the Magic Hat Brewing Company, An alchemistic tale of great intestinal fortitude and mental fermentation" all in the form of an extended poem!

I should add that I think there are problems with this web design. It's attractive, fun, intriguing, but difficult to navigate or get a handle on. I'm not sure it's as effective as it could be. But you can go judge for yourself now, if you care to. Me, I'm going to get another #9.