Guest Lecture 06 - Sept 13 (10-12) - Roger Wallis

.

Time and place: Tuesday September 13, 10-12 in lecture hall L52, BUT, I will try to change to a better lecture hall so please check back!

Title: "The development of radio - past, present and future"

Guest: Roger Wallis, professor emeritus at Media Technology, KTH

Talk: This talk is based on five decades of interacting with radio, both as a consumer and as a producer behind the microphone.

To understand media development one has to focus on three types of factors and their mutual interaction: cultural, technological and financial. The lecture will trace the development of radio focusing on these factors. With examples from personal experiences, the lecture will take us through the development of forms of distribution (AM, FM radio, satellites, cable, Internet), available choice, the changing concept of "public service" etc. This leads into a look into the future. Will Internet radio, where anyone in theory can be his or her own producer, provide the the big guarantee for diversity of output? Or will streamlining tendencies, often couples to concentration of ownership of media companies, lead to all of getting more and more of the same.

About: Roger Wallis has worked in both radio and TV for over 4 decades, both with music and documentary programs as well as with news gathering/presentation. He has written books on the music and news industries. Roger Wallis has been a professor in the Department of Media Technology and Graphic Arts since 1999.

.

No lecture on Monday!

.

The lecture on Monday (Sept 12 at 15-17) is cancelled. A few more lectures will be cancelled, but some other lectures will instead appear on the schedule - especially during week 39 when we have been fortunate enough to get some international speakers who just happen to pass Stockholm by to also pass KTH by and give lectures about radio in our course. (I mentioned this at the introductory lecture.)

More info will follow about changes in the schedule.

.

Seminar 2 - instructions and links

In february this year Mats Svegfors, Director General, and Cilla Benkö, Deputy Director General of Swedish Radio, initiated an ambitious attempt to write a book on the future of radio, and other media, together with the audience – “Journalism 3.0 Media Ecology and the Future”. They published a series of chapters, in both Swedish and English (and as sound files in both languages) to open up the dialogue and to make the “book”, or website, a forum for lively debate. Since then, the “book” seems to have been transformed into a blogg, at least the Swedish site.

The assignment for seminar 2 is that you should:

- read and/or listen to 1) the preface, 2) the first chapter, and 3) the chapter “Radio, a reborn 85-years old”, either on the Swedish (more lively) site or the (more booklike) English site

- write a short review in English, in 50-150 words, where you present an argument about the book and/or its content. The argument could focus on the initiative as such (the management of public service radio inviting listener feedback in this form), on layout of chapters (missing perspectives, or particularly important ones), on the view of the future of radio as presented in the book, or, for Swedish speaking students, the character of the blogg posts.

Change of lecture hall for tomorrow's guest lecture

.

I sent an SMS to everyone from within Bilda, but realize that there might be some who were not reached and so write the same thing here:

The guest lecture tomorrow (Friday) with Henrik Olinder (in Swedish) has been moved to lecture hall K2. The time is still 10-12.

There were no lecture halls available before, but now there was and that is preferable instead of sitting in a seminar room.

Please note that quite a few changes in the schedule will be announced during the following days.

.

The conversation goes online

.

As I told you last week on the introductory lecture, the biggest commitment during this course's start-up phase is turning up to listen to all our great guest lecturers. It's great that so many of you come to the lectures, but by all means, please also come in time! The number of students increased by pretty much 50% (from 33 to 48) in the first 7 minutes of today's lecture. Charlie and Ori gave you an extra hour by starting 09.00 instead of 8.15 - the least can do to reciprocate is to be there in time. Please make it so the next time!

Beyond the lectures, there are some other things happening during the start-up phase of the course (and that are part of the examination of the course). One is writing the essay you just handed in, and another part is preparing for, and showing up at the seminars (starting tomorrow with seminar 1 - see the instructions here).

Charlie and Ori talked about inspiration and creativity and about generating and holding on to good ideas during a design process. We'll partly use the four seminars for these purposes, but, four seminars is not a lot and the sheer number of students taking this course is very large; the conditions for everyone contributing to, and for everyone to be heard in our seminar conversations around radio/the future of radio are not that great. So, we'll expand the conversation by also taking it online.

As I also told you at the introductory lecture, one of the important things during the start-up phase is for us to work together towards creating a set of common understandings about the theme - radio - and about important (future) trends in radio. Charlie and Ori, being architects, sketch. We, being media students, blog. As you know, this is the course blog, but there is also a "companion blog". Most of you have been invited to become contributors there (i.e. you can create blog posts there). Half of you have accepted that invitation and half are still pending. I will send out a new invitation/reminder and this time you should accept it, because each student has to contribute to the "class conversation online" at least two times during the start-up phase. This will make the companion blog a rather lively online space, at least during the duration of the start-up phase. What can you contribute with, and what are the requirements?

You can typically contribute with:

- A blog post with some information or tips about (the future of) radio, for example events happening in Stockholm or elsewhere, or newspaper/magazine articles about radio, or radio programs about radio etc.

- A blog post with a summary, analysis, critique or just thoughts that were initiated by a guest lecture in the course

- A blog post with a summary, analysis, critique or just thoughts that were initiated by course literature (for example the ads or the text for tomorrow's seminar, Nina Wormb's article or Adam Davidson's Planet Money podcasts)

- A comment on someone else's blog post

We will not specify how long your contribution should be in terms of number or words etc. The important criteria is that your contribution should add value. "I agree", "me too" or "the lecture was great" does not add value. The instructions for seminar 1 says "prepare for the seminar by [...] writing down the one thing in your analysis that you think is most interesting and insightful. Please write around 100 words". A great contribution to the companion blog could for example start with your analysis/insight, and develop it beyond your 100 words in the form of blog post.

.

Essay 1 deadline confusion

.

It says in a previous blog post that the deadline for handing in essay 1 was yesterday (Sunday September 4 at 23.59 at night). However, I noticed that I happened to set the deadline one day later in Bilda, i.e. for today at 23.59.

That means that the dozen or so people who have not completed the essay still have almost 6 hours to do it.

Good luck

.

Guest Lecture 05 - Sept 09 (10-12) - Henrik Olinder (in Swedish)

.

This lecture is given in Swedish!

Tid och plats: Fredag 9 September, 10-12, lektionssal M33

Titel: "Kriskommunikation och när radion blir informationsbärare"

Gäst: Henrik Olinder, Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB).

Innehåll: Henrik kommer att prata om kommunikationens betydelse vid kris, om det talade språkets kraft och om vårt behov av symbolhandlingar. Henrik tar även upp det kommunikativa perspektivet före, under och efter en kris och kommer att spela upp några exempel från radio för att visa på detta.

Om: Henrik Olinder jobbar på Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap och har tidigare jobbat vid Styrelsen för psykologiskt försvar samt vid Krisberedskapsmyndigheten. Henrik bedriver utbildningar inom området kriskommunikation sedan tio år tillbaka främst för informatörer. Han är även redaktör för studier och metodhandböcker inom området kriskommunikation samt styrelseledamot i Sveriges informationsförening. Under 2011 kommer han att ge ut boken "Bildens retorik i journalistiken" (Norstedts) tillsammans Brigitte Mral.

.