FRONTLINE: the pbs documentary series not the flea medicine

Just been made aware of these series of documentaries. I watched the "ghosts of rwanda" doc for class and its amazing (and harrowing obv). eager to watch the NFL one.

Superbug episode last night was scary as shit, thanks in part to scary production choices.

yea this 1 was p great/horrifying

today i introduced the project where my sts have to watch a frontline doc/write about it and, as predicted, at least one person went to the website for the flea medicine.

: )

Oh dear.

Hey I finally watched the NFL concussion episode. Really, really good. Poor Dr. Omalu.

Also LOLed cynically at the BU neurologist talking about how there was a lot of sexism in the air when she was facing down the Dudes of the NFL, then cut to NFL dude being like, "There's no sexism. If she had a problem, it was because she wasn't taking the right tone when she told us the information." LOLbarf

...

That lady was amazing and I loved her voice.

Update on superbugs -- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/do-hospital-workers-really-wash-their-hands/

The findings aren't really as amusing as stuff like this

So two years ago, the hospital expanded its campaign, creating posters featuring physician and nursing leadership from each unit declaring that they supported good hand hygiene.

The aim was partly a guilt-trip, “to just kinda put people in a tight spot,” Elliott said. For example, he said, “The chief of a certain unit was known for not washing his hands.” So they splashed his picture on a poster declaring his support for the policy to encourage him, and everyone in his unit, to wash their hands. “That person started washing his hands,” he said.

Ugh a doctor who doesn't wash his hands? Gross. What a jerk.

Seriously. But if my mom's malpractice suit taught me anything it's that Don Henley levels of assholery flourish in the profession.

^^Well, yeah.

Haha

lolll

#takeiteasy

today i found a student trying to access flatline dot org :-/

also there is a new one coming up -- keywords include murder investigation, law enforcement, domestic violence
some of the details in it kinda freaked me out for reasons i would prefer not to go into here

On the night she broke up with her police officer boyfriend, 24-year-old Michelle O’Connell was found dead from a gunshot in the mouth. Next to her was her boyfriend’s semi-automatic service pistol.

The local sheriff’s investigation concluded it was a suicide—but was it?

In A Death in St. Augustine, premiering Tuesday, November 26 at 10 p.m. (check local PBS listings), FRONTLINE and The New York Times investigate the death of this young, single mother in Florida — and how effectively police handle cases involving their own officers, especially when there are allegations of domestic violence.

^this was really good. it's basically hi-brow murder porn as opposed to the investigation discovery bargain basement take on tru crime reportage(which is still amazing dont get me wrong). i wont talk abt specifics yet in case ppl still havent watched it

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-gunshots/

^^ read it through with video clips

Best true crime deconstruction I've read since the David Grann piece about the arson that wasn't.

new one tonight about insider trading
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/to-catch-a-trader/

Interview with Frontline's correspondent

PBS has an appleTV app now that's changing my life

well, next week's episode is probably going to be really good:

In Secret State of North Korea, FRONTLINE shines a light on the hidden world of the North Korean people, drawing on undercover footage from inside the country as well as interviews with defectors—including a former top official—who are working to try to chisel away at the regime’s influence.

I wonder if they interviewed Djong Yun?!

the older one on the battle over teaching evolution vs. creationism in... I think... Pennsylvania, was truly great. I always forget to watch these when they are first on, but catch up with them later and am rarely disappointed. they tend to be really bracing; they shake me up. can't say that about much--or perhaps any other--TV.

I finally watched the Death in St Augustine episode - sad/great stuff

The one about insider trading/SAC was good but kind of light on the major revelations.

I could only take about half of the North Korea one that premiered last night. I think I have to let it sink in a little before I watch the rest. It has been with me awake and asleep since I saw it. The courage it took to get that footage is just totally beyond my grasp.

lol/sob

PRESS RELEASE: FRONTLINE PRESENTS “GENERATION LIKE”

Tuesday, February 18, 2014, at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
www.facebook.com/frontline | Twitter: @frontlinepbs #GenLike
Instagram: @frontlinepbs #GenLike
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/generation-like/

Whether they’re getting retweeted by members of One Direction, or liking the Hunger Games Facebook page for a chance to be included in the movie’s credits, today’s teens are directly interacting with pop culture — celebrities, movies, music, and, increasingly, brands — in ways never before possible.

Tweet pictures of yourself at a Lady Gaga concert, and maybe she’ll call you from the stage — a moment sponsored by the cell phone company Virgin Mobile.

Send Beyonce your selfie, and maybe it’ll be included in the Pepsi-sponsored intro to her Super Bowl halftime show.

Do kids think they’re being used to promote these brands? Do they care? Or in a new teenage reality where being Internet famous seems to be just a click or a post away, does the perceived chance to be the next big star make it all worth it?

In Generation Like, an eye-opening follow-up to FRONTLINE’s 2001 documentary The Merchants of Cool, author Douglas Rushkoff returns to the world of youth culture to explore how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media — and how big brands are increasingly co-opting young consumers’ digital presences.

“Today’s teens don’t need to be chased down by corporations,” Rushkoff says. “They’re putting themselves online for anyone to see. They tell the world what they think is cool—starting with their own online profiles. Likes, follows, retweets, and favorites are the social currency of this generation.”

And they’re a very real currency for marketers: instead of selling the product to the teenage audience, the idea is to get the teenage audience to sell the product to itself — and for corporations to collect big data in the process.

“Companies know how to take that data, and turn it into money,” one marketer tells FRONTLINE. “The people who are handing over the data — because they’re hitting, ‘I like this’ or ‘I like that,’ or they’re telling all their friends, ‘Will you please come like me? — they have no idea what the value of that is.”

From the agency that’s leveraging the Twitter followers of celebrities like Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries) to make lucrative product endorsement deals, to the “grassroots” social media campaign behind the Hollywood blockbuster The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Generation Like explores how companies are increasingly enlisting kids as willing foot soldiers in their marketing machines.

In the social media age, does the division between marketing and authenticity still exist? What’s the hidden alchemy that brands are using to capture Generation Like? And who are the people behind the curtain making it all happen?

Generation Like is a powerful examination of the evolving and complicated relationship between young consumers and the companies that are increasingly working to target them – and their fans, friends, and followers.

And who are the people behind the curtain making it all happen?
i can't wait to see the human donut holes who do this.

human donut holes lol

And who are the people behind the curtain making it all happen?

http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/styles/gallery/public/images/27186.jpg

Oh man I still think abt bits from merchants of cool. The Mook and the Midriff.

A new two-parter

Witnessing Syria’s War Through the Eyes Of Its Children
February 11, 2014, 10:40 am ET by Jason M. Breslow

The findings of a recent United Nations report cataloging the toll of Syria’s civil war on children are stark. Nearly three years into the fighting, more than 10,000 children have been killed, 3 million have been displaced from their homes, and another 1.1 million now live as refugees.

The details are chilling: The U.N. found that government forces have used children as human shields, shot at children with snipers and detained children as young as 11 for their alleged association with the opposition. In detention, children have been held in the same cells as adults, sexually violated and in some instances tortured:

Ill treatment and acts tantamount to torture reportedly included beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons; electric shocks, including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails; sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions; cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure to the torture of relatives.

Abuses have not been limited to the regime. The report found that armed opposition groups have “engaged in the summary execution of children,” recruited children for combat, and taken children hostage in exchange for ransom or the release of prisoners. And the extremist jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) “has set up Islamic schools in which children are reportedly indoctrinated to fight for ‘jihad,’” according to the report.

Amid such turmoil, the notion of a normal childhood has all but disappeared for the young bystanders of war featured in tonight’s FRONTLINE investigation, Children of Aleppo. In the film, FRONTLINE returns to Syria’s biggest city for an intimate look at life during wartime through the eyes of children.

One of the characters profiled in the film is Farah, an eight year old who says her favorite activity is helping her father, a rebel commander, build bombs. It’s dangerous work, and Farah knows it. In the following excerpt from Children of Aleppo, she describes the day her father was nearly killed while making a bomb with a fellow fighter.

Generation Like is totally bananas

Did anyone else watch it? I feel the need to double-down on my already rabid distaste for having things sold to me at every turn, but it also verified that this is definitely a generational thing. I think I took "I don't want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything" super duper seriously when I was 14 and never let go. No so for kids today, that's for sure! I didn't feel old so much as I felt right. Seeing the guy who handles celebrity social media made me sick, he was gross. And that poor Hunger Games girl. I had a student who was like that for Reba McEntire, of all people. Anyway, I recommend this one for a lighter Frontline.

Also I had no idea who Tyler Oakley was before seeing this. Oh and the little girl with braces broke my heart.

There are only 2 ilx posts about Tyler Oakley (one of them is mine) and they both say "I have no idea who this guy is."

I can't stop thinking about this tbh. The whole notion that i should aggressively advertise every aspect of my preferences, opinions, activities, face/body, etc and cultivate a group of people who pay attention to me is so antithetical to the way I've thought for my entire life that it's not exactly surprising that I'm so horrified. Still, maybe this just means that I'm overly modest and old fashioned at best and paranoid about my privacy at worst. Either way, the worldview shown in this doc is powerfully repellent to me atm.

kids who like ian somerhalder like junk food and makeup, whod of thunk it

I'm sad I missed that one!! Is it going to show again?

You can prob watch it online -- all their movies stream on the website, at least most of em do.

the worst part of this was def this kid -https://twitter.com/Babyscummy

the rest - eh

You can want Frontline online, and you have been able to for a long time now! I used to watch it a lot around the time of the Second Iraq War. Here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/generation-like/

The whole notion that i should aggressively advertise every aspect of my preferences, opinions, activities, face/body, etc and cultivate a group of people who pay attention to me is so antithetical to the way I've thought for my entire life that it's not exactly surprising that I'm so horrified.

OK Cupid makes me really conflicted for this reason, since it necessitates some degree of capitulation to this way of thinking, and encourages you to consider others this way too. Going to watch this as soon as I get the time!

er, watch, as well as want.

A few things that stood out to me about Generation Like
-every time you 'like' something, you're making somebody money.
-the notion that this generation has no idea that they are doing the advertising for companies, that companies plan this in such as way that kids never see that it wasn't their idea. I guess this isn't anything new, but it seems different to me.
-no one understood what selling out could mean.

I loved the sellout thing. I feel like the only period in human history when children (not adults) were invested in the idea of selling out was the 90s. Even in the 90s there were plenty of kids willing to commodify their tastes. The narrative of Little Scumbag neglects to mention that he is part of a tradition of skateboard video clowns. Tyler Oakley could have been on the Mickey Mouse Club. Was it really better when children were being used ... the old fashioned way?

Watching this now (thanks, Roku!) and realizing this generation of kids is pretty much incomprehensible to me.

The girl with braces and the baby scumbag parts were definitely the creepiest for me. Way to celebrate the sexualization of children, Internet.

I dunno...they seem comprehensible to me? Kids want attention and lack the wisdom to choose self-restraint. That's always been the case.

Yeah nothing was shocking to me, just showed me how little involved I am with the internet. I guess it surprises me that people actually become famous by way of youtube, because I've never taken it seriously, I don't think I've ever watched a viral video. I hardly ever use youtube for anything other than occasional music videos. Same with Facebook, which is mostly photos of my daughter. Which is what concerns me about how things are progressing. This will be the world my daughter will grow up involved in, where ads aren't even thought of as ads. I mostly hate ads, companies trying to sell me stuff. I would pay for cable if it had no commercials. I would even pay a lot more for internet service with no ads, that would be a perfect world for me.

that repulsion with advertising/being sold something is the most lingering part of the feeling in the air where/when i grew up. my mom told me in 7th gr that people wear brand names on the outside of their clothing because they're insecure and i have pretty much believed that my entire life. to see brands and brand loyalty (and even personal branding, if i'm going there) become so dominant -- it's just repellent to me, i have no other way to describe my reaction to it.