MediaSmarts Blog

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Upcoming events

The Association to Reduce Alcohol Promotion in Ontario is accepting submissions for the ARAPO Recognition Award until Friday, February 29th. (Yes, it's a leap year.) In the words of their Guiding Statement, the award is for “recognition of individuals (e.g. journalist, teacher, student etc.) or organizations (e.g. schools, businesses) that have made, and continue to make, outstanding efforts to reduce the effect of alcohol promotion in Ontario.” Nominations must be made jointly in writing by two or more members of the community, following a format you can find here.

$uper Bowl

The Super Bowl has long been seen as the “tent pole” of American consumer culture: an annual game that routinely pulls in viewers at a scale otherwise achieved only by one-off events like series finales and celebrity car chases. It actually drives sales of TVs: the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association reports that 2.5 million people plan to buy a new TV for the express purpose of watching the game, part of an overall $8.7 billion in Super Bowl-related consumer spending.

The evolution of 2.0

The term “Web 2.0” was coined to describe (and, in part, predict) the rise in user-created content on the Net. Recently there have been two stories that show interesting developments in Web 2.0's evolution: bumps in the road to the anticipated convergence with television, and the rise of 2.0 as alternative journalism.

Buried treasure

Why are movies so often unlike their trailers? The answer may surprise you.

Edward Boyd, 1914-2007

Profile of the late Edward Boyd, who pushed Pepsi to market to African Americans.