Medios y temas sociales – Medios mejores que ganen más

Dec 8 2012 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA 8 Comments

No transaction without TRUST; <em>no trust without evidence of VALUES</em> –But WHOSE values…?

No transaction without TRUST; no trust without evidence of VALUES –But WHOSE values…?

Multimedia, For media people, Para:, Videos

1. The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer [summary regarding Spain] [global summary in English] , the conclusions of which are presented in this video, shows a major drop in credibility and trust, towards almost all institutions, in practically all of the countries included in the study. That said, what's new…? Let us examine a few press headlines from the last three years, chosen at random, to understand what set off this crisis in trust, and the way it is affecting the media: “MGM Studio Files Bankruptcy; Eyes Lender Takeover” [MGM Studios, producers of the James Bond franchise, declare bankruptcy in court]; Jonathan Stempel; Gerald E. McCormick & Dave Zimmerman, eds.; El Economista.es; Nov. / 3 / 2010. “The Music Industry is Dying a Slow Death. Not just because of illegal downloa...

Feb 20 2012 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA 1 Comment

WHEN EVEN THE MOST COURAGEOUS CRY…

Specialized, For media people, Para:

PAPER PRESENTED AT THE CONFERENCE: "VIEJAS IDEAS, NUEVAS CREENCIAS: MÉXICO HACIA EL SIGLO XXI: LA LITERATURA COMO TRANSGRESORA DE LAS FRONTERAS DE IDENTIDAD" ["OLD IDEAS, NEW BELIEFS: MEXICO TOWARDS THE XXI CENTURY: LITERATURE AND ITS TRANSGRESSION OF IDENTITY BORDERS"], ORGANIZED BY UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA METROPOLITANA (U.A.M., MÉXICO) AND THE UNIV. OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY (U.S.A.), IN JULY, 1995, IN THE BUILDING THAT HOUSED THE FIRST PRINTING PRESS IN THE AMERICAS, MEXICO CITY, D.F. . VERSION CORRECTED BY AUTHOR: ╺ ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╸ . THE "IMAGO MUNDI" OF WHEN THE COURAGEOUS WEEP. . “──This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights:He will take your sons and make them serve with his c...

Jan 20 2012 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

THE POWER OF SOUND –…by its effects you shall know it; talk by Julian Treasure

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When one of us wants to communicate with others, we figure out how we can make use of the resources at our disposal, to do so. This means that for purposes of communication, a series of processes aimed ultimately at the expression of our message are deployed –causing it to reach the person we want to receive it–. We have many ways to achieve this. For example: We can express ourselves using sounds, voice, gestures, actions, and by illustration (through the use of images, alphabets, ideograms or codes); as well as through dramatizations… And regardless of whether this is achieved using natural or artifical means (or methods, or technologies), new or old ones –like electronic media and mobile devices–. What matters here, is not so much which means we choose, as what message we are e...

Dec 31 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

Little by little, you can grow ACCUSTOMED TO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING!

For media people, Para:, Magazine

There are internationally recognized scientists and thinkers in Mexico. One of them –and a graduate of our University (UNAM), invented an intravenous serum known as the Sodi polarizing solution, which is commonly used in hospitals all around the world. I am obviously speaking about Dr. Demetrio Sodi Pallares –may he rest in peace. And all of his research, theories and therapeutic successes arise from a common seminal idea: The certainty that, with respect to our metabolism, an excess of intracellular sodium ions reduces the body’s ability to react adequately to illness. To state this more clearly: The amount of salt we are used to consume, is bad for our health. A case in point: Western medicine arrived in Kenya long before the Western diet did. Thanks to this, medical records ha...

Dec 20 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

MARGINALIZED LITERATURE, a new vision of an everlasting cultural issue

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This article is devoted to a literary and cultural format that has existed for centuries, not as a particular or singular work, but rather as a constant perpetuation of definable narrative schemas –schemas that always adapted to the latest technology available. . In the realm of “elite” culture, it is considered acceptable to discuss, for example, the timeless nature of art or the validity of the slogan ars pro artis (art for art's sake), since, as Souto says, there is a certain “timelessness in art, that cleanly demarcates the author's interests, as they fade away in the light of the poetic reality by which the work transcends.[1] In the realm of popular culture, however, we do not talk –perhaps– about timeless works, so much as timeless schemas: There is nothing as short-lived a...

Nov 7 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

Steven Pinker: THE PRESENT FAILURE OF ELITE ART TO ATTRACT US is linked to the blank slate theory.

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In his book The blank slate; the modern denial of human nature (published in 2002), Steven Pinker, MIT and Harvard neurolinguist, gathers scientific evidence that all humans are born with innate traits, which are inherent to our species. In the present talk, Pinker remembers this book and how everyone around him expected it to generate an irated, intense, reaction against –which it did. Implicitly, Pinker thus accepts the impressive pressure that is exercised over researchers, university teachers and thinkers in general, in order to prevent them from standing for anything that may adversely affect current agendas (political, economic, social...) –their limits differing broadly from the ones most people think. In other words: Intelectual leaders are subject to the same pressur...

Oct 24 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

O, YEE PROUD PRINTED LETTER…!, or How we have come to forget the worth and value of orality and “normality” in the last 100 years.

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. An incredible but true story... - I - I once was told that many years ago, the Mexican Ministry of Education undertook an important mission: That of measuring the I.Q. (Intellectual Quotient) of our indigenous peoples, in order to adequate our school system’s curricula and conditions to their real needs. A large number of teachers, psychologists and pedagogues armed themselves with batteries of written tests, and set themselves to the task. The results, however, couldn’t have been more disheartening: Most communities sampled –according to the experts, scored so low, that we should consider our “Mexican Indians” to be intellectually disabled...! The project and its results were quickly silenced and buried. No-one dared to publish its “discoveries”, yet no-one could tell ...

Oct 17 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA No Comments

When and WHY MASS MEDIA DIE

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1st International Conference ‘A favor de lo mejor’ [In favour of what is best, in media], National Auditorium, Mexico City, D.F. Panel: The horizon ahead (for mass media), April, 21st, 1999, 5pm. Transcription --corrected by author: ¿WHEN AND WHY MEDIA DIE...? Along the centuries, many wars have been fought on paper;let us now talk about those spontaneously fought by consumers... I have very little time to convey to you the results of 14 years of research –14 years during which I have studied what people want to see and hear in the media. Today I will present what I consider the most surprising conclusion arising from my work, something even I could not anticipate at the outset of my studies. I will limit myself to the discussion of this one discovery, because you, my au...

Aug 22 2011 by Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA 1 Comment

Everything YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR VOICE…, but couldn’t find whom to ask!

For everybody, Magazine, Editor's choice

Dedicated to Claudio Lenk (r.i.p.), Roxana Coll, Ignacio Cobeta, Víctor Osma, and Concha Doñaque. - I - Our voices have an almost magical power to attract or repel other people. And in many indigenous cultures –oral and rural ones, a person's voice is that person –it reflects their soul, their essence, their self. “There is no index of character so sure as the voice” (Benjamín Disraeli). For those of us who use our voices in our professional lives (teachers, actors, singers, salespeople, therapists, speakers, politicians, street vendors, receptionists, and many more), our voices are everything. We must educate them, mold them, and train them, lest –if we do not– we irreversibly damage or even lose them (nodules, polyps, edema, aphonia, dysphonia, etc.). Yet..., it is very difficult to f...