The Audio Prof

Revisiting NATPE–Ben Silverman on Change Part 1

2009-02-12T11:11:00.001-05:00

To me, the title of this posting seems almost ironic. Last semester…which really was only about 4 short months ago…we were discussing NBC’s Ben Silverman in my Electronic Media Programming class. But, the discussion at that time focused on the irreverent way he was doing his job as head of programming for the peacock network. And, the lack of hits he had been able to score during his first year. We listened to this podcast from KCRW’s The Business where the prediction seemed to be that Silverman’s job wouldn’t last the calendar year of 2008.
But, at NATPE 2009 Silverman was being honored with a Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award.
Ben Silverman–Posterboy for Change.
And he has brought about a ton of change at NBC. Green lighting shows to production without seeing a pilot, having major sponsors buy into financing a production based only on the weight of the actor associated with a show (i.e., Ford on the now-canceled Christian Slater show...)

This post continues on my new blog site. Visit it here and set your bookmarks.
The Audioprof Blog

Favorite of ALL TIME!?!–not that there’s anything wrong with that

2009-01-26T09:57:00.001-05:00

In my last blog posting I shared some of the results from a questionnaire that I gave approximately 100 students in the two undergraduate courses I’m teaching this semester. I usually like to start off a semester with such a data-collecting tool because every year I get further and further away from the demographic and psychographics of my students that I need to ask them what they heck they like and how they spend their time. One of the things I always ask are their favorite TV shows right now. [Find out the top 3 by reading the last post].

I also ask them what their favorite TV show is of all time. This is the first time that I every really tallied the results in any systematic way but I can’t say I’m surprised by the winner.

Read the rest of the entry at MY NEW BLOG LOCATION

What the Kids are Watching

2009-01-15T08:32:00.001-05:00

Every semester one of the ways I begin my undergraduate courses is by giving them a little questionnaire asking a variety of things…why you took the course, what you want to do in five years…in ten.

And, since I know that the older I get the the less likely I am to watch the same type of television that my students do, I always ask them about their favorite TV shows. I always ask:

What is your favorite TV show right now?
What is your favorite TV show of all time?

Usually, this is just something that I flip through after I get them…this time I actually did a quick (and by no means extremely precise) tally. And so, without further ado…here are the most reported favorite shows right now:

Some steps to college success

2009-01-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

I have grumbled lately about how much time Wordpress was taking to learn. That brough out a number of kind souls from my immediate community who offered to help. Special thanks to Mark W. Bell who came to my rescue and gave me some good design help andwas willing to spend a couple hours just talking with me about The Audio Prof Blog and what my goals were. I'm hoping to find more time...from this point on...to write some things that cross my mind about media--what's happening in the industry and what's happening in your brain as you pay attention to it. Of course, some of my posts will inevitably be about teaching since that's what I spend much of my time doing here at IU. And, this semester particularly since I'm teaching 3 courses rather than the typical 2:
Electronic Media AdvertisingElectronic Media Sales, andCognitive Approaches to Media
The first two listed are undergraduate courses. The Sales course held its first meeting yesterday (at 8am, ugh). And that got me to think about what advice I would give to any undergrad student about how to get the most out of the university experience...or at least the experiences in my classes. Here we go:

To Read More...go to my new blog site: The Audio Prof Blog

Ugly? Maybe. Common? Yes. Functional? DEFINITELY!

2009-01-04T12:31:00.003-05:00

A few days ago I blogged about considering switching from Blogger to WordPress to publish my blog. It was prompted by some blog envy of my friend Sam Bradley, author of Communication and Cognition. Sam has really tutored himself on the craft of finding, creating, and keeping an audience in the online community. Sam switched to WordPress. Lots of the "serious bloggers" that I know use WordPress. I'm serious, right?

I was encouraged when I received more comments from that blog post teasing about a switch to WordPress than I have in a long time. Now, we're not talking tons of comments here...but lately any comment as proof that people are visiting this page is better than none. Most of the comments pushed me in the direction of using WordPress. "It tells the world you're serious about blogging," one person said. "Blogger is so boring and predictable in its design elements," another chimed in.

So, I tried WordPress. I installed WP 2.7 on my host and started reading the program's online documentation. Trouble was...that documentation seemed to apply to an earlier version of the program...as the Dashboard I was staring at was quite different than what they described. No problem...I'm a fairly intelligent person so I figured that I could poke around until I figured it out.

I haven't been more frustrated with something in MONTHS.

I'm all for the open-source concept! I love the fact that people all over the world are trying to make the program better--more widgets, better graphically, etc.--and sharing their knowledge with dopes like me without any sort of profit motive. My understanding was that I just needed to find a template that I like and install it. No problem. First trouble...there are SO MANY to choose from! I spent several hours obsessively poking through beautiful templates of all types. Finally found one that I liked. It was this one:

WordPress Theme Notepad Second

How clean. How professional looking. My little picture could be there to the right, with a blurb about my research next to it...replacing the "Lorem ipsum dolor" stuff.
And Tag Clouds! I love Tag Clouds. That's the one, I thought. Downloaded it, transferred it to my host. Selected it and viola:

Rob's sloppy page.

Could I find how to upload my picture. No way! Could I figure out how to replace the "Lorem ipsum, et al.?" Must be in the About Me thing on the dashboard, right? I mean, it says "About" right there, doesn't it?

Nope. That resulted in another line appearing somewhere. (Honestly, I edited the statement in "about me" prior to publishing this blog...)

I wrestled with that darn page for an entire afternoon. No luck. Feeling clueless, I decided that it just wasn't the time for me to work on migrating to WordPress.

Cool heads prevailed the next morning, with a fresh set of eyes after a good night's sleep.
"Come on, you should be able to figure this out!" I gave myself a pep talk over a cup (or two) of coffee. "Maybe you just chose too complex of a template."

That's it, start slowly. Ease yourself into this open source stuff. Remember, open source, where the information about how to do it is all out there...free...for the user!

So, I tried another template. Honestly, I think I've blocked out the actual name due to the trauma experienced after spending THREE HOURS just trying to figure out how to change the font color for the postings from orange (orange?!? I just don't get aesthetics I guess...how about a nice black color for my simple prose).

I did start learning stuff...thanks to the power of Google. [Google, who btw, provides me with the free...that free both monetarily AND stress-free...blog host I've been using for 3 years]. I Googled and learned how to change the font size on the menu of my page. I learned what a "hover" was...and how to change that font size. Even learned where to change the font color on my menu. But, the fact that it was in hex didn't help me one bit...do all these people using WordPress know the hex color wheel by heart? Oh my gosh, I am outta touch.

But, after copying and pasting figures like #FFF062G (or whatever!) from one place to another, I did change the text of my menu text from one hue to another. You'd think that would at least help me approach the problem of changing the font color in my posting itself. I mean, this is a simple template. It doesn't even have a place for me to put a picture of myself for cripes sake!

Nope. Couldn't find it. After another 45 minutes...lots of grumbling...and having my family members leave the house...I finally gave up.

Blogger.
My blog is blue. It's blue because I clicked a button saying "make it blue."
It's two columns. That's all I can get. Too bad.
But, when I'm ready to blog...it's here for me.
Functionality. I'll take it.

Change makes me antsy

2008-12-29T20:17:00.005-05:00

So, yesterday I called your attention to the Communication & Cognition blog, now in its new form. Sam Bradley, the C&C blog author, and I have been emailing back and forth as I pick his brain about his recent transition to using WordPress to publish his blog rather than blogger.

I have known about WordPress for sometime now.
My first introduction to it was through friends of our family who publish blogschmog.
But I have been reluctant to switch to it because...well, I don't much like change. I like things to work. And even when it's not working exactly right...I have to get pretty darn displeased in order to make a switch. Now, when it comes to "designing" my own pages for my website and my teaching pages, I don't need much more than Dreamweaver--a program that I have been using and pleased with for about 7 years.

But when it comes to how the blog looks here on blogger...I'm getting tired of it and can't quite make it look better or lay it out better using this program.

So, now I'm thinking about switching too. But that means change.
I've got to download WordPress and see if it's as easy as folks say to learn.
Usually, flexible (which I can tell WordPress is) doesn't equal easy.
Plus, I will need to make changes to my web host, too...as it can't support WordPress under my current plan.

But, compare the look of my blog to that of Communication & Cognition or Blogschmog, or any of those in the WP showcase page, and it's no contest.

But change makes my stomach churn.

Congratulations to two IU T'comm Alumni

2008-12-28T17:30:00.010-05:00

Yes, Yes, Yes, it's been more than one month since my last posting.

I have no real excuse...other than perhaps trying to wrap up a busy semester and get all the loose ends tied up before going away on my first true vacation in almost 15 years.

And, you'll realize why I didn't blog from vacation when you see what else I had to stare at besides a computer screen:

This was the view from my lounge chair at Secrets Capri. My wife and I celebrated ny sucessful tenure decision and (more importantly) our 15th wedding anniversary with a vacation without kids. My mother-in-law came to watch ours...and Secrets is an adult resort which allowed for lots of relaxation.

But, now I'm back and trying to be recommitted to periodic postings on The Audioprof blog.

And, we'll start back at it with one of the primary reasons I started this blog: to brag on Indiana University's Dept. of Telecommunications...its students, faculty, and alumni.

Today, a rousing hooray to two alumni. First, IU PhD. Sam Bradley. If memory serves, Sam was initially inspired by The Audioprof blog three years ago and launched his Communication & Cognition blog. But recently, he has really taken it to the next level with incredibly relevant content and a brand new design. You should really check it out if you never have. And, if you were a regular visitor note the new address for the Communication & Cognition Blog.

And secondly, I am tremendously impressed by IU Telecom alum Brad Holtz. Brad is the Program Director of WTTS-FM. It is an Album Adult Alternative (AAA) station located in Bloomington but broadcasting into the Indianapolis market. I have know what a great PD Brad is from the two class visits he's made to my T344 course. I blogged about one of them here.

But, now he's been nationally recognized by a trade magazine, FMQB.
Holtz has been selected as this year's Program Director of the Year for the AAA format!
See the award announcement on this page at FMQB (scroll to the bottom).

Congrats to you both, thanks for doing IU-T'comm proud!

Mommy, it's Saturday, can we watch an infomercial

2008-11-25T11:38:00.002-05:00

Those of you who are like me can remember how much you liked Saturdays...what my kids now affectionately refer to as one of the "stay at home days."

One of the great things about Saturdays was flopping down in front of morning cartoons while eating Honey Comb cereal right outta the box.

Those days are over.
Financial woes are partly to blame, as are cable networks like Cartoon Network...but here's a story about Fox's decision to scrap Saturday morning cartoons for...infomercials.

Of course...this will grab headlines (like the title of my posting...only read by many more people). But, in reality, this may in fact result in better kids programming on Saturday mornings on Fox affiliates.

If you read the whole Variety article I link to above, you'll see that local affils are trying to find places to air their required E/I (educational/informational) programming. Saturday mornings used to be out because the network had that time all programmed nationally. Now, it seems the affils will be able to at least opt out of airing the informercials in favor of their own E/I fare.

Updates to Publication Web Page

2008-11-14T20:45:00.002-05:00

I've been busy as heck lately...working on getting papers assigned to reviewers for the Information Systems division of ICA has been a good portion of the time.

But, I've also had some good news lately.

Two new research publications have come out recently, and another one accepted for publication...but it won't come out until December, 2009!

Find out more about them on my publications page.

IU Blogs!

2008-10-20T20:33:00.003-04:00

Although I've known about it for awhile, I haven't posted about it here on the blog.

The College of Arts and Sciences has a page that highlights faculty blogs...and yes, more than half of them are faculty from the Dept. of Telecommunications!

I was reminded of this today because Indiana University has now started a special feature called Scholar Blogs. It launched last week, and every year will feature a new crop of a dozen undergrads writing about their experiences on the Bloomington campus.

Be sure to visit the Scholar Blogs page.

Oh, and yes, in case you're wondering, one of the first scholar bloggers is a Jacob Sherry...a Telecomm major!

ICR alumni's research garners interest from Newsweek

2008-10-13T19:21:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to James Angelini, a professor at University of Delaware, who was recently interviewed by Newsweek magazine about a recent publication he co-authored in Journal of Advertising.

You can read Angelini's impressions of the whole thing on his Blog: The Comm & Gender Spot.

International Visitors to the ICR

2008-10-10T17:02:00.004-04:00

Another exciting day in the ICR. I'm just back from my favorite conference, SPR. Sorry to not have blogged from there, just so busy seeing extremely interesting research! In fact, I told my colleague, Paul Bolls, that I was leaving with terrific ideas...and 11 articles that I just HAVE to read!

The conference was held in Austin TX, which I didn't find very interesting. But, the day afterwards I visited my aunt & uncle who live in San Antonio. Here's proof...a picture of me in front of a closed Alamo!

So, now I'm back and happy to have a weekend that is pretty lazy to allow me to catch up on stuff. This past week, though, we were fortunate enough to be visited by a group of 5 professors from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. They are interested in designing a research facility and wanted to see what the ICR was all about. So, with the help of several graduate students, Annie Lang, Walt Gantz, Sharon Mayell (the ICR Lab Manager) and I showed:

Dr.Wei Wen, Chung, Dean of Communication College
Dr. Herng, Su, Chair of Journalism Dept.
Dr. Shang Ren, Kwan, Chair of Radio & TV Dept.
Dr. Tsai Yen, Li, Chair of Information Science Dept.
Dr. Pao Fang, Chang, Associate Professor of Journalism Dept.

some of the types of studies that we can do in the facility.

Here's Sungkyoung Lee talking about one of the studies:

And Annie explaining the importance of understanding context when interpreting psychophysiological measures:

It was a very pleasant visit and I was very proud to show off the ICR.

Short Film Shows the Power of the Right Words

2008-09-20T22:15:00.003-04:00

Many thanks to former student Jennifer Robinson, now of the Interactive Television Research Institute in her native Australia, for passing on this short film that shows the impact that good marketing can have.

It's less then 6 minutes long...

Give it a look.

The Story of a Sign

Visit to Ohio State Successful

2008-09-19T21:01:00.003-04:00

It's been 10 days since I've updated. Sorry. Busy time.

Today, in fact, I was a part of a terrific panel as our Department's Colloquium Series.

Maybe more on that later.

But I wanted to share a little story.

Ten years ago or so I was an Assistant Professor at University of Alabama in the Telecommunication and Film Department. And, in order to continue my work I needed to get a physiology lab up and running. I had inherited all the equipment...it was in a storage room but I wasn't sure how to get it functional.

In our our lab use a program called VPM, written by a Professor Ed Cook at UAB to collect our physiology data. Because he was so geographically close to me in Tuscaloosa, I asked him to come down and consult with me. He was gracious enough to agree and soon the Media and Psychophysiology Lab was functional. I'll never forget his kindness.

And I remembered him fondly when Zheng Wang --an IU Telecomm. PhD. who is now at Ohio State--asked me if I would come and help her set up her lab in Columbus. She, too had inherited some equipment that were in somewhat a state of storage.

So, last weekend I went to visit her in Columbus and had a great time. Here I am with Brutus the OSU mascot...which is a nut as far as I can tell...but here he is dressed up as an astronaut.

And later in the weekend I was able to find my way into the OSU stadium which I understand is called "The Horseshoe." Apparently there was a big game that weekened between OSU and USC...but it was an way game as you can tell by the "crowd" around me.

And, most importantly, I'm glad to report that the Wang Lab is now all ready to collect data.

Go Zheng!

Radio continues to try to be...relevant? Helpful?

2008-09-09T15:26:00.003-04:00

And honestly, this may indeed help out.

Here's a story from Radio & Records:

-->
Originally Posted On Sep 8, 2008 5:05 PM ET
Song Tagging Technology Comes To FM Radio

By Mike Stern

A group of nine broadcast companies have announced their commitment to providing electronic data that will enable consumers to tag songs they hear on FM radio for immediate purchase bringing the music discovery and purchase processes closer together than ever. The first device to make use of this data will be the Microsoft Zune as part of a new set of features for the MP3 player.

Stations operated by Beasley, Bonneville, CBS Radio, Citadel, Clear Channel Radio, Cox Radio, Emmis, Entercom and Greater Media will be broadcasting the song tags enabling consumers to purchase music heard on over 450 radio stations across the country at the outset with more rolling out soon.

The impetus to pursue this idea came from radio broadcasters. "We approached Microsoft about this," says executive vice president of distribution development for Clear Channel Radio Jeff Littlejohn who was deeply involved in the project. "But it didn't take much selling."
The technology uses song "tags," unique identifiers for each individual song that are encrypted and sent over an FM radio signal. Consumers with devices that can capture the identifier can either immediately purchase the song via digital download or save the information for purchase later. With the Microsoft’s Zune having an integrated FM tuner and wireless connectivity, the purchase can be essentially immediate if the user is in a Wi-Fi hot spot.

"It's a great way to make a simple radio really interactive," says Littlejohn. "Radio has been interactive through Web sites for a long time, but radio itself has not been interactive before. The idea of linking music discovery in just a couple of clicks to actual purchase is revolutionary."
A recent Microsoft study showed that 61% of respondents say radio is their primary source for discovering new music. “Radio is one of the primary ways people discover new music, which is why we have built an FM tuner into every Zune portable media player,” said Chris Stephenson, general manager of Global Marketing for Zune at Microsoft. “The leadership of these radio broadcasters has played an integral role in enabling millions of Zune users to tag and purchase songs directly from FM radio.”

While Microsoft will be the first to utilize the technology, it is not restricted. "This is able to be more than just Clear Channel, more than just HD Radio, more than just Apple or Microsoft," says Littlejohn. "It is a way for the entire industry to enable interactive music purchasing." He continues, "It can go beyond music as well. There are other things that could be tagged. It could also go beyond MP3 players. It's not a large leap to see FM radios starting to make their way into cell phones which are connected and would enable instant purchasing."
The technology, which uses RDS coding, is similar to that being used for HD Radio tagging which has been heavily promoted recently. The difference is in the wireless connectivity which allows FM tagging to be used without needing a cabled internet of any sort while HD tagging works with a docking station.

"From a radio broadcaster's standpoint this gives listeners a reason to come to my radio station and a reason to come back to my radio station," says Littlejohn. "It gives them an interactive feature they haven't previously had."

Orienting to Volume Changes--More IFS data!!!

2008-09-02T06:39:00.007-04:00

Classes start for the Fall Semester tomorrow...well, today for those on a Tuesday/Thursday teaching schedule. And, I've spent the past few days getting syllabi ready for the coming term. One of the fortunate things is that I'm teaching "This is your Brain on Media,", the class I taught for IFS, again this semster as an S105 seminar. I was therefore able to keep what worked during IFS and revise what didn't.

As you may suspect if you've been following this blog lately, one thing that did work well was the student experiments. And, it's time to report on another one.

This was the second "Attention Group." They were interested in abrupt changes in volume in media and whether such a change would result in the automatic allocation of cognitive resources to processing the message. This is a phenomenon known as the orienting response. At first, the group seemed intent upon testing this in movie clips...but they had trouble finding examples...even though they were "sure they had seen them"!

In the end, music was what they selected (which The Audio Prof did not discourage!). The found four songs where the music was very quiet for an extended time and then got very loud. Furthermore, two of the songs were familar (Ironic from Alanis Morrisette and Bring Me to Life from Evanescence) and two of them were unfamiliar local bands that one of the students knew.

The students collected heart rate data during the songs presentations, which were played in random order to 4 other students. Then, they identified the points in each song where the volume change occurred. Here's what they found:

Now an orienting response is identified with a momentary deceleration in heart rate. And, this graph shows changes from the point at which the volume change occurred (the place where both lines are at "0" on the left side of the figure). And, you see that heart rate went down for both types of songs...so, they oriented to the volume changes just like the students thought would happen. Plus, they wondered whether familiarity with the song would have an impact. And, it seems that it did...the orienting responses were larger if the subject didn't know the song. Makes sense, right?

Congratulations to "Attention Group, Music" members:

David Benmen, Michelle Feder, Eliot Suitor-Feld, and Alexandra Wojtal

A look at some IFS data

2008-08-24T15:37:00.004-04:00

I'm sure I have said this at least once over the last three weeks, but IFS is extremely intensive. Not only for the students, but also for the professors. At church this morning I saw two other professors who are in the program, and all three of us are exhausted. I don't know whether to feel discouraged or uplifted that the other two professors have done IFS before...and are still wiped out!

My family has gone off on this hot and muggy Indiana afternoon to go swimming at a friend's pool. I decided to stay home, somewhat because I wanted to get a blog posting up, but also because I'm just tired.

Looking back on the three-week experience, I am amazed at how far the students and I were able to get. Over the course of 15 days, four different student groups were able to generate their own original research hypotheses, identify the independent and dependent variables in them, find examples of media stimuli to satisfy the different levels of the independent variable, collect physiology data as dependent variables, analyze that data and present it to the class!!

Over the next few blog postings I've like to give you a sense of the very interesting questions and results they generated. The first week was devoted to questions about attention to media. In the ICR we primarily use heart rate as an indication of attention/cognitive effort. The first group to collect data wondered whether people would pay different amounts of attention to television stories depending upon whether they were exposed to audio-video presentations, video-only presentations, or audio-only presentations. Those of you familiar with this type of media research, will find this question to be highly influenced by the reading the students did in the Reeves & Nass book entitled The Media Equation. Of course, as an instructor, this made me ecstatic because it meant they were actually reading the textbook!

So, the members of "attention group lizard" found segments of video online from the National Geographic Channel (that's where they got their name) and manipulated them to meet the different levels of their independent variable. And although, like all the data I'll present from IFS, they only had time to run three or four of their classmates through the experiment, here's what they found:

It's obvious that most of the differentiation is in the early part of each message, which appears on the left-hand side of the graph. Substantially lower heart rate (indicating more attention) occurs during the "monkey" video clip. In this video clip there was only video in the students concluded that subjects paid more attention early on during that portion of the stimulus presentation because we are quite unpracticed at processing television shows without any sort of audio. Helping them to reach this conclusion, was the fact that the least amount of attention was paid during the clip that contains both audio and video -- the same way we are so accustomed to watching television.

Congratulations to the members of this group:

Andrew Platkin · Jeremy Rytych · Adam Siemer · Tommy Scott · Logan Gants

and best of luck during your time here at IU!

Quick bit of Audio News

2008-08-19T10:04:00.003-04:00

I'm in the middle of adminstering the second unit exam to the IFS class. I can't believe how hard these guys have been working, and how much ground we've covered in 10 days!

I'll be posting some of the (quite impressive) data that the research groups collected during their lab days over the next few posts.

But, for now, I thought I'd pass on a story of a big radio conglomerate--one that often gets bad press as the evil empire--doing good.

Story (thanks to Media Week): Clear Channel creates The Pink Channel.

Here's the XM page for The Pink Channel

This is your Brain on the Lilly Library

2008-08-12T09:40:00.005-04:00

One of the things that the Intensive Freshmen Seminars are designed to do is introduce the new freshmen to wonderful opportunities and facilities here on the IUB campus. For lack of a better word, we take FIELD TRIPS. Now, sometimes these fit nicely with the content of the course. My colleague, Andrew Weaver, is teaching an IFS course on Human Agression. He was able to send his students to the IU Art Museum and ask them to look for examples of violent or agressive behavior represented in art. Great idea!

Other times, the field trips are only tangentially connected. But, they still seem encouraged by the IFS. For my course, some of the connections seemed a stretch...I sent them to the art musuem, and I suppose art is a medium...

But, yesterday, we visited the Lilly Library...a special collections library that I'm sad to say I hadn't yet visited in my 10 years in Bloomington. It was fabulous! And, the students had an engaging time. Check this out:

Here's Brittany and student Jeremy looking at a sample of the library's collection of miniature books.

Sam takes a picture of one of the worlds only Gutenberg Bibles.

My IFS intern Jeremy looks at an Audobon painting.

One of the biggest "hits" of the visit was the Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection. Here are Stephanie, Adam, Michael and Meg stretching their brains in different ways.

And finally, here's Ross holding one of John Ford's Oscar statues! After all, Ford won 4 of them...more than any other director...so I guess he could donate at least one, 'eh?

Ross is interested in becoming a Telecommunications major...and so I told him there is a fair chance that this won't be the last Oscar gold he'll hold

First week of IFS is in the books

2008-08-09T19:20:00.006-04:00

It's been a wonderful week in S105 as me and a group of 18 freshmen have embarked on exploring how the human brain interacts with mediated messages as psychological stimuli rather than just genres of entertainment.

I've been amazed at how far the group has come in a short time. They are exhausted and slightly overwhelmed at the speed with which we've covered stuff. And, frankly, so am I. That's why they are called INTENSIVE Fresmen Seminars, I suppose.

But, in five short days we've been able to have two different groups (my attention groups) come up with separate hypotheses concerning what causes us to pay different amounts of attention to media. Plus, we have been in the ICR lab collecting data to test those hypotheses. Interestingly, one of the hypotheses focused on television and the other on audio-only media (music).

Here's a few pictures of some of them in the lab yesterday.

Eliot making sure Brittany is comfortable getting ready to have her heart rate measured.

Eliot again (I think, with his back to us) and Alex (watching the EKG on the computer monitor) discuss the heart rate data being collected with my IFS intern Jeremy.
In Lab A, Tommy kept meticulous notes about the four subjects his group collected data from...plus had a great sense of humor about it all that helped those being "hooked up" relax.

Tommy's group has already been able to analyze their data, and found some pretty interesting results. I won't spoil the story now...they haven't presented it to the other students yet, but be checking back.

Meet the Parents

2008-08-03T21:16:00.003-04:00

So, yesterday evening the IFS summer started.

In an introdutory meeting with my 18 students...AND (at least some of) THEIR PARENTS.
I have to admit what I admitted to them...that this meeting made me somewhat nervous. Likely because I'm not used to having two different ages of "audience."

But, it turned out to be a blast. Great group of people. Some came from rather far away--Memphis TN, Long Island, Memphis. But, many were from the Indiana/Illinois/Missouri area. All excited and nervous and tired (it was a very hot day for them to have been moving in).

And now, tomorrow, it all starts for real. Three hour class from 9-noon.

And then There Was One

2008-07-25T09:32:00.003-04:00

Today, as expected for several days, the final vote was cast by the FCC signing off on the merger between XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio services.

You can read a story about the swing vote here.

Those of you who, like me, are subscribers to one of the current services may be interested in what the two companies promised the FCC they will provide in exchange for merger approval.
Read the conditions that were provided by the companies earlier in the summer and approved virtually unchanged today (at least, that's what the B&C story says).

We'll see if it's too good to be true or if the wording is vague enough that consumers get the short end of it.

Whoa! Did you See That?!!!?

2008-07-22T08:53:00.003-04:00

That's what I heard in 2004 during the SuperBowl Halftime show. I was at the home of a colleague, who was (is) a big Philadelphia Eagles fan and therefore hosting at Superbowl party. Not being a fan of Janet Jackson or Justin Timberlake, I was using the halftime as a way to go into the other room and sample the great guacamole that someone brought.

That's when "it" happened. The famous wardrobe malfunction . An event which sent the industry into a tailspin of wondering to what extent stations were responsible for the contents of live events. And an FCC fine of CBS-owned stations led to a creative chilling effect and had an indirect impact on Network/Affiliate relations...something we discuss in T344.

Yesterday, that fine was thrown out by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read all about it

And, today, the FCC responds saying they didn't think it was arbitrary.
Read the response from the FCC Chairman Martin.

This is your brain on media now online

2008-07-18T16:55:00.003-04:00

I have 90% finished the syllabus for S105--The Intensive Freshmen Seminar Version. It's now online.

Took me a while to wrap my head around how to fill 3-hours of class time. There's NO WAY I was going to fill it all with lecture. Students would shoot me! But, with field trips and demonstrations and such, I'm really looking forward to it.

Of course, there's still a lot to do to prepare for in the remaining 2 weeks.

Spent the last half of the afternoon in the ICR with a couple of grad students. We're trying to figure out how to measure eye movements so we can use it as a basic eyetracker for those interested in such studies.

It's Hotter Outside than it is in Radio Sales

2008-07-16T13:30:00.002-04:00

When the economy is bad, people cut back. I know, because at $4.19 a gallon, gas is too expensive for me to use to drive to the local Panerra to have lunch with a friend. I rode my bike. Yup, it's 90 degrees out with 90% humidity. Yup, I was a sweaty mess when I arrived, and had to bring another shirt. But, it's part of cutting back when times are tough.

Businesses cut back too, and one of the first places to feel the ax is advertising and marketing. Radio is feeling the pinch to an even greater extent than forecasters thought.

According to a new study by the Radio Advertising Bureau, local advertising sales was off 10% in June compared to last year. National radio plummeted 13%. Of course, much of this is an indication of radio advertising being perceived as less efficient than other forms. Posting of actual ratings performance for advertisers to actually evaluate (something which radio has never done) may help confidence in the future. But, for now, buyers aren't buying.

My Vietnam...Your Iraq

2008-07-12T08:50:00.003-04:00

That's the name of a new documentary produced by IU-Telecomm professor Ron Osgood. Went to a screening last night and found it a very moving piece. It tells the stories of parents who are Vietnam vets and who have children deployed to Iraq. Unbelievable stories. You can find out more at the production's website.

If you get a chance to view it in the future, you certainly should.
I went home and hugged my kids tighter than usual afterwards.

Here's a way to get the juices flowing...or let your mind glaze over

2008-07-07T20:54:00.002-04:00

Today was not as productive a day as I had hoped...either in the writing realm...or prepping for S105.

Got a slower start to the day due to thunderstorms.

Then, it was meetings! (Isn't this summer).

Still, tonight via Twitter, I was pointed to this site.

Check it out.

Very cool way to just relax...or let your artistic beach bum come out.

This is Sand

Time Flies During Washington State Vacation

2008-07-06T13:26:00.006-04:00

Blogging has taken a hiatus while I took 3 weeks off to go to the great state of Washington. It's the state that both my wife and I grew up in, and the place where our parents still reside. And, so, every year we try to go and spend a good deal of time there.

This time we spent about 10 days in a place called Birch Bay. It's on the coast (with a name like that, imagine)...and the temperatures were colder than normal. So, it was rather chilly to those of us who have had their blood thinned by the midwest heat and humidity. Still, a wonderfully relaxing time filled with great beauty and the occassional sand sculpture and bald eagle.

Then the last week or so of our visit was spent in the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, & Kennewick) visiting my folks. The Tri-cities is on the eastern side of the state, and it's a desert climate. So, after being lulled by temperatures in the 70s and 80s (and the occasional 60s!) on the coast, Richland woke us up with three strait days in the 100s!

Here time was spent looking for water to keep cool in. Here's a picture of me trying to keep track of my kids at the aquatic playground at Kennewick's Playground of Dreams

And, my dad & stepmom's neighbors had their grandkids visiting...and had set up an inflatable pool just right for jumpin'

Overall, a great trip with me ignoring work (for the most part).

I did do a major tidying up of the design of my homepage, though, using dreamweaver. I'm not a professional designer by any means, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Now, we're back in Bloomington and I'm getting ready for my Intensive Freshman Seminar...I've got LOTS of work to do to prepare for that, but I'm pretty excited about it.

And, expect more blog posts...hopefully.

I've given myself an incentive my including mention of the audioprof blog in the letter that was sent to the IFS students enrolled in my class...so I can't let it get too out of date!

FOUR doctors in the house

2008-06-06T17:39:00.004-04:00

Congratulations to Dr. Narine Yegiyan who today successfully defended her dissertation entitled

Experimental investigation of resource allocation and memory for central and
peripheral detail as a function of motivational activation

One of the key tenets of her disseratation was the dual-motivation systems concept which suggests that human beings have an "approach" (appetitive) system and an "avoid" (aversive) system, each of which act in different ways.

After her defense, Dr. Yegiyan presented members of her committee with T-shirts that had a well-known (at least to us) graphical representation of the activation fuctions of the appetitive and aversive systems.

Here's a picture of Drs. Yegiyan, Grabe, Potter & Lang (the latter 3 proudly wearing their new shirts).

Narine begins her new position as an Assistant Professor at UC Davis in the Fall.

A Storm Like No Other

2008-06-04T20:24:00.002-04:00

I have NEVER experienced a thunderstorm like the one I witnessed this afternoon while in the ICR.

Check out this photo from Bloomington Herald Times Online

The Congrats Keep Comin'--This time, grad students

2008-05-30T07:21:00.004-04:00

The graduate students have been busy in the Department of Telecommunications over the past semester as well. Let's start with research. Congratuations to Sungkyoung Lee who is the first member of the ICR to collect and present research data using the fMRI. She was able to conduct an experiment looking at how the brain responds to either real-life celebrity faces, or faces of animals, or faces of animated people or animated animals (from Disney cartoons, for example). Here is a picture of her presenting to her poster at the Indiana Neuroimaging Symposium in late April:

If you would like a copy of her poster email me and I'll pass it on to you.

Secondly, congratulations to Spencer Stuart and the entire group of graduate students involved in GameZombie.TV. I've blogged on GZ before when it first got started. But, it has gotten bigger and better. And...it has earned a Webby Award. The equivalent of the Academy Awards of the internet, apparently. Here's the official IU press release and a link to a related story in the Bloomington Herald-Times.

Grad students in Telecommunications at IU are given freedom to design their own programs around their own interests...and the results can be astounding.

Congratulations Part II

2008-05-25T10:26:00.003-04:00

So, I'm sitting in the Ballroom at Le Centre Sheraton in Montreal. It is the International Communication Association conference, and it has, of course, been a blast both socially and intellectually. But! I promised myself that before I could blog about what's been going on here I would need to finish the promised installments of congraulations to people associated with the Department of Telecommunications. Since I focused on undergraduate students last time, let me turn the spotlight onto some great news for faculty.

Congratulations to Mike McGregor who was promoted to Full Professor at the same time that Mark Deuze and I were promoted to Associate Professor. Mike has been an important member of the department since 1983 when he joined us following a position as council for the FCC. He is a past Department Chair and currently serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Another long-time contributor to the Department and IUB in general is Herb Terry, who was recently named the President of the Bloomington Faculty Council. The BFC represents the faculty in decisions affecting the operation of the campus. Congrats to Herb!

And, the department continues to be a place where important research and production takes place in the area of virtual worlds and gaming. As a testament to this, congratulations to Ted Castronova for receiving a grant from the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland and Atlanta to build a browser-based virtual world called Greenland which will be sued to study the history of money.

And, also bringing in a grant related to virtual worlds is Lee Sheldon who is part of a team of IUB researchers funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create a game called "The Skeleton Chase" which will evaluate the extent to which game interventions can influence physical activity and other relevant healthy behaviors among college student populations." Here's the official IU press release.

Wow! Lots to be excited about at IU Telecomm.

Playing catch-up--Congratulations Part 1

2008-05-17T20:36:00.005-04:00

I have been so terribly delinquent on blogging. And, honestly, I think that the main culprit has been Twitter. Those quick 140-character updates make it very easy to feel like you are connecting with people.

So, I'm going to be trying to play catch-up for the next few entries.
A lot of GREAT things have been happening in the Department of Telecommunications that I want to recognize.

First, I am very pleased to report that both my colleague Mark Deuze and I received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor! This is a long process...that I have blogged about here and here. I am glad to have it behind me. And, it feels better EVERY DAY.

Secondly, as I have mentioned many times before, our department has extremely talented students. And, in April at the Multivisions conference, we recognized nine of them with departmental scholarships.

So, again, with apologies for being more than a month late...congratulations all:

Bannerman Award-- Thomas W. Wilson
Brewer Award-- Seth Tober
Chairman’s Award-- Mathew Bregger
Darragh Award -- Xiaofei Wang
Johnson Scholarship -- Craig Shank
Norvelle Scholarship-- Alison McMillan
Shull Scholarship--Mary Cho & Allison Conway
Murphy Award--Jessica Moore

An ode to the ABD student

2008-04-28T09:06:00.001-04:00

No Dissertation from ticoneva on Vimeo.

For the second time in my life...Earthquake

2008-04-18T06:10:00.003-04:00

About 20 mintues ago, I felt my house shake.
No lightning...no thunder...
Weird.

I thought it might be an earthquake...but the dog remained quiet, so I figured it was a strong wind or something.

Then, my colleague Drew Bucksbarg sent out an email confirming it!

Here's the "proof"

Good news and a co-active website

2008-04-15T06:57:00.003-04:00

Got word yesterday that an article was accepted for publication!

Potter, R.F, Callison, C., Chambers, T., Edison, A. (in press). Radio’s Clutter Conundrum: Better Memory for Ads, Worse Attitudes Toward Stations. International Journal of Media Management.

That's always a way to make my day, I'm such an academic!
And, this one was a long-time-comin.' The delay was all on me, though. Carted this data and manuscript around with me since my days at Alabama.

And, now, here's a link to a website that is very "co-active." In other words, it's a site that makes you feel positive and negative at the same time. Check it out, but be careful, it's rather addicting.

http://www.3trillion.org

Two new books

2008-04-12T22:02:00.002-04:00

Just added two GREAT books to my electronic bookshelf.
You can check it out here.

Bad Guys Music and Good Guys Music

2008-04-06T18:31:00.002-04:00

So, my son is all about computer/video games now. Of course, he's only 5...so I know this is likely to be the beginning of many years to come. With a recent visit from Grandma and Grandpa came a Star Wars game that can plug into our TV set.

It's a great game...once we established the 15-minute-a-day-per-kid rule.

Even I like to play it.

Pause to let that sink in to you.

The other day was a son & dad day in our house for who knows what reason.
We were sitting at our dining room table eating lunch.
As usual, he starts telling me about the latest level he's on...he's up to level 4, he says with some pride.

Then he says, "You know dad, when the bad guys are on the screen you hear... dun, dun, du-dun, du, du-dun, du, du-dun..."

"But, when you hear the good guys it's du-du-du-dum du, du-du-du-dum-du, du-du-du-du."

You know the tunes.

Then he pauses for a few seconds and says "And guess what, the good guys' notes are always high notes and the bad guys' notes are always low notes."

They learn that music literacy pretty early.

Emotions Sure Are Peculiar

2008-03-28T13:42:00.004-04:00

Many of you know that I study, among other things, emotions and how people respond emotionally to media. But, even though I study them and make predictions about how certain types of media variables will move people emotionally -- doesn't mean I have a clue about how things move me emotionally.

I just got back from our T600 series where today's speaker was a guest from the Singapore MIT Game Lab, whose name was Jesper Juul. The title of his talk was "Games for making friends and enemies: a small theory of games in social contexts." The study of games -- computer games, online games, even boardgames -- has become a big deal here at IU telecom. Since I'm not a gamer, but I have been working with several students who are, I try to attend as many such talks as I can to get a feel for what interests them.

During Juul's talk he was discussing the personal stories that often surround and individuate videogames for people. An example he gave was the game Animal Crossing something which I (of course) had never heard of. But beyond merely talking about the game, he directed us to this website that told a very personal story of Animal Crossing.

Now I'm also a researcher who studies music and its effect on people emotionally. And of course, this animal crossing tragedy has a very touching and emotional soundtrack to it. But there I was in the middle of the T600 meeting room surrounded by a packed house of graduate students and faculty from both IU telecom and SLIS, experiencing a perfect storm of emotional hot buttons. The music. The fact that my wife and kids often circle around the computer monitor at home playing Funkeys. The fact that about a year ago I lost my own mom to MS. Never mind that my mom never played Animal Crossing, never even touched a computer. Didn't matter. Tears came and it took all I could to keep from leaving the room to have a huge cry.

Emotions are peculiar.

Spring Break Storm Reminds Me of Music's Influence

2008-03-09T14:26:00.004-04:00

As my friend Sam Bradley wrote in a recent blog posting, one of the things you get by living in the midwest is and unpredictable, cold, and snowy winter. Here's how my family and I spent Saturday...the first full day of Spring Break.

The storm actually came through Friday morning...starting while I was waiting to meet a friend at the Bloomington Bagel Company when the power went out. There were about a dozen or so of us sitting around there...a few of us "regulars" who know each other primarily as faces we recognize we see several mornings a week as we take advantage of their good bagels/muffins/coffee and free wi-fi. Three was the chatter of people making or filling orders and talking amongst themselves. And, as usual, in the background was the music of XM Radio. They usually have The Loft playing.

So, anyway, after a subtle 'pop' sound all the power went off and we sat there in only the natural light and silence. After about 45 seconds the power came back on, allowing the sound of orders being placed and filled. The chatter started up again....but something was wrong. What was it? It was the music. It was absent. And the place just wasn't the same. The energy seemed the drop down about 20 notches! It was amazing. I've recently been thinking more and more about the influence of music. I've published a piece with Francesca Dillman Carpentier in Media Psychology on tempo as a structural feature in music. Plus, I've been reading a great book on the topic recently...a title that I hope to finish over break.

But, this personal experience really drove it home.

Sales Professional Talks to Sales Class

2008-03-05T21:00:00.005-05:00

Today in my Electronic Media Sales course, T343, we had a departmental alumn come and speak about his 18 year career as an Account Executive at WGN Radio. I first met Tom Bortz at last year's Multivisions Convention and he was kind enough to agree to come talk to my class this semester. (It helps that he, like so MANY IU alumni loves Bloomington...and that tonight was IU senior night for the basketball team!).

Tom did a wonderful job of connecting with the students and reinforcing some of the things that I've been teaching and that they have been reading.

For example:

Sales is not for the thin-skinned, but rejecction from a prospect is not a rejection of YOU. But, you need to learn how to turn the objections into positives...and the more you can practice it the better you get at it.

The importance of finding out as much information about the prospect as you can in the discovery meeting.

It is helpful to learn as much as you can about the station and its product [For example, new AEs at WGN begin by spending their first weeks sitting in on all the show hosts/talent].

The world of media sales is not 9-5...you are always looking for prospects, clients, ideas.

The client renewal starts the first day you get the order...you must service them.

But, there were also new pieces of information--things that I haven't gotten to yet (or that I might never have gotten to). For example

He discussed intricacies of commission...that commission is based on net sales while goals are set on gross--prior to subtracting of agency commissions etc.

And that even when the client goes with an ad agency it is important to retain a good direct relationship with a client. If the client likes/respects you they can influence the agency buy because the agency buyer works for the client.

We learned about tools like Media Monitors and how they can use it to estimate how much a prospect is spending on media in a city like Chicago.

That WGN radio has internships...including sales internships.

In fact, here's a picture of a student talking with Tom afterwards about an internship possibility.

Another great year for IU Telecomm @ ICA

2008-03-04T14:18:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite academic associations is the International Communications Association.

Luckily, I belong to a Department that not only values participation in ICA, but is filled with people who do great work. Check out this press release:

March, 2007 - Two Top Paper Awards Among Seventeen Departmental Papers Accepted for Presentation at International Communications Association Annual Meeting in Montreal, May 22-26.

Information Systems Division
Top Paper Award:
Zheng Wang, Annie Lang & Jerome Busemeyer-- Motivational Processing and Choice Behavior during Television Viewing: An Integrative Dynamic Approach.

Ted Castronova--A Virtual World Experimental Test of the Law of Demand

Seth Finn, Robert F. Potter & Sungkyoung Lee--Every Word Matters: Correlating Word Information Value In Persuasive Messages with Physiological Arousal Responses.

Satoko Kurita, Sungkyoung Lee, Zheng Wang & Annie Lang --How much is too much?: Media Structure, Content, and Cognitive Load, and Overload

Robert F. Potter, Annie Lang, Josh Brown, Rena Fukunaga & Adam Krawitz-- Brain Activation During Risk: The Influence of Trait Motivation on ACC Activation During Choice and Consequence.

Robert F. Potter, Paul D. Bolls, Jacob Koruth, Kevin Wise, Rachel Bailey & Annie Lang--Heart Rate Variability Analysis Suggests a Reinterpretation of Cardiac Responses During Media Messages.

P.G. Nadorff, Sungkyoung Lee, Brian Wilson, Annie Lang, Bernice Pescosolido & Jack Martin-- Mass Media and Stigma: How portrayals of mental illness impact social stigma.

Andrew Weaver, Soyoung Bae & Robert F. Potter--Physiological Responses to Manipulation of Violence in a Primetime Drama.

Brian Wilson & Julia R. Fox-- Exploring the Effects of Audience Laughter on Information Processing

Narine S. Yegiyan, Brian D. Wilson, Ya Gao, Sharon Mayell, Zheng Joyce Wang & Annie Lang-- Approach? Avoid? Both? Processing Coactive Motivational Media Messages

Game Studies Division
Top Paper Award:
Chase Bowen Martin & Mark Deuze-- The Independent Production of Culture: A Digital Games Case Study

Law & Policy Division
Xiaofei Wang & David Waterman -- The Economics of Foreign Language Media in the U.S.: An Empirical Study of Radio Markets

Mass Communication Division
Betsi Grabe & Erik P. Bucy-- The struggle for control: Visual framing, news coverage, and image handling of presidential candidates, 1992-2004.

Betsi Grabe, Narine Yegiyan & Rasha Kamhawi-- Experimental evidence of the knowledge gap: Message arousal, motivation, and time delay.

Sojung C. Kim & Erik P. Bucy-- International Crisis News and the Evaluation of Threat: Viewer Responses to News Coverage of the North Korean Nuclear Test

Global Communication and Social Change Division
Enyonam Osei-Hwere & Patrick Osei-Hwere -- Nollywood: A multilevel analysis of the international flow of Nigerian video films.

Journalism Studies Division
Mark Deuze-- The Media Logic of Journalism

Great link forwarded by a former student

2008-03-02T13:30:00.002-05:00

Several times a semester I remind my undergrads that, when they are rich and famous and working dutifully in the telecommunications industry, I would certainly appreciate it if they would remember to send me information and articles they come across that I could use in my current classes.

My thanks to Amy Alyward a former T344 student who sent me this terrific blog entry by Paul Grein of Yahoo Music.

It's a reminder of the importance of knowing the CRITERIA researchers base their findings on. In this case, the findings are the top music albums in the land. Turns out, the #2 album last week by numbers was Michael Jackson's 25th Anniversary Album of Thriller. Then, why doesn't it appear in the Billboard 200? Find out by reading Grein's article.

Find it here.

Twitter--Not sure about it, but it pays off with a new website

2008-02-24T13:12:00.002-05:00

After almost a year of planting little bugs in my ear by friends and the occassional student I have spent this weekend exploring and playing around with TWITTER.

This still seems to be like some sort of terrible, addictive drug for someone who tends to obsess about stuff anyway...and I'm not quite sure I'll stick with it for the long term.

But...one of the things that happened is I was very quickly being "followed" by people I don't even know. It sounds pretty ominous when I put it that way...and it seems pretty harmless (as long as I don't release too many specific details.)

Anyway, I digress...although I think I'll eventually just purge the darn program from my desktop, it one of the people that started "following" me visited my website (www.theaudiprof.com) and happened to send me a nice note saying that my research looks interesting.

So, being nice, I figured I should go visit this guy's website and be able to comment on it in my reply. While there, I found this terrific website:

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php

I have only started poking around there...but it seems fabulous for all those interested in audio.

Check it out.

A Training Session on Media Lab

2008-02-22T21:21:00.003-05:00

The weather was terrible. Ice pellets over about an inch of snow. I've never been a fan of creme brulle, but that's what walking on this stuff reminded me of. Even worse, though, was walking on the shovelled walks and plowed streets.

But, that wasn't enough to keep eight grad students from showing up for a tutorial on two great programs we use in the ICR--called Media Lab and Direct RT.

The ICR has a great set of grad students. Since I've been here, there has been a great tradition of the more senior ones teaching the newer ones about the research culture in the lab along with the software and hardware applications. While a lot of that takes place informally, we also periodically have more formal tutorials. Today, even with the bad weather, Sungkyoung Lee and Satoko Kurita gave a great introduction to the programs. And, the event couldn't have happened without the help of ICR Manager Sharon who set up all the equipment and organized everyone's schedules.

Here's some pictures

Scientists like to see EFFECTS--but does that taint our knowledge?

2008-02-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

I'm an experimental scientist. I design experiments where I introduce one variable and see if it causes a change in people's response. For a simple example, I could introduce the variable of music into a group of radio ads and see if ads with background music caused people to say they were more likely to say they liked the ad.

And, I'm looking for an EFFECT. I want to see a statistical difference between the responses of those who heard the music ads and those who heard the non-music ads. If I don't find that effect I'm disappointed--and I'm primarily upset because I know that without finding such an effect it is highly unlikely that the manuscript of the study will get published. That's because scientists (and journal editors, and journal reviewers) like to see that their experimental manipulations have effects.

Of course, what I forget...as do other scientists, journal editors & reviewers is that a LACK OF EFFECT is still knowledge that we didn't have before. If theory gives me every reason to expect that music will lead to better liking of the ad...and music in fact doesn't then that should lead me to wonder why? Is there something about the particular music I chose? Or, maybe even more importantly, is there something wrong or imprecise about the theory I've used? This lack of effect is something that other scientists should know about so they can begin wondering about the possible reasons for it. But, without the ability to get the LACK OF EFFECT paper published...no one but my grad students will know about the result. [And, as an aside, they will indirectly learn that it isn't as important as the EFFECT paper].

Now...this bias toward wanting to show that something caused and effect is, arguably, of no harm at all in the study of mass communications. But, consider details of a report I heard on the radio the other day. Apparently, a group of medical doctors have investigated both the reports submitted to the FDA and the manuscripts published associated with 74 studies conducted on the efficacy of 12 antidepressant drugs.

Figure this: Of the 74 studies, the FDA found 38--just about half--that were positive...showing those EFFECTS that scientists love so much. Of those 38, all but one were published.

Now, consider the 36 other studies...the ones that didn't show effects. Only three of those were published as "negative." There were eleven others that, according to the authors of the study, were published as finding "positive" effects...exactly the opposite conclusions arrived at by the FDA.

Now, if you figure that doctors read these journals...and, perhaps, drug companies refer to the conclusions of presented in these journals...then this is a big concern. The conclusion from the article is that this led to an increase in presumed effectiveness of 11-69%!!

Read the whole article here.

New (Relatively) Homepage

2008-02-01T21:53:00.001-05:00

I know that I've been lax in the blog-writing department lately. Lots of things I want to write about...just not much time.

And I don't have much time now, either. But, it has dawned on me that I never officially 'unveiled' my new home page...something that I designed around Christmas break.

Check it out here: www.theaudioprof.com

And, one of the things I've been enjoying keeping up with lately is my page devoted to books I've been reading. It was a way of proving to myself that I was doing some reading for pleasure. Check it out here:

http://www.theaudioprof.com/books.html

Happy Reading

Good Advice from Jacobs School of Music Faculty Member

2008-01-22T06:56:00.001-05:00

Check out this bit of good inspiration from the IU News Room.
It focuses on Jeff Nelsen, a faculty member from the IU Jacobs School of Music who is also a French Horn player and a member of the Canadian Brass. Nelsen, apparently, teaches people how to be "fearless" in their performances. And we all perform: business people, college professors, performers, students looking for their first entry-level job in their career field.

Here's the press release.

My favorite: "Don't compete. Did Einstein compete? Did Mozart?"

Change Blindness Video

2008-01-17T12:38:00.000-05:00

As a comment mentioned, I've been quiet lately.
Lots of stuff going on.
None of it I really want to blog about.

But, another semester has started, and I'm teaching a course called Cognitive Approaches to Media. In it we try to peel open the "black box" of the brain. We start with the topic of perception, which led us to a discussion of a phenomenon known as change blindness. One of the most prominent researchers in the area, Daniel Simons, has a great lab website that you should check out.

But, also look at this YouTube video that one of the students in the class sent to us.

Think you're hearing voices? It may be a new cable promotion

2007-12-14T19:34:00.001-05:00

I regularly listen to a podcast called The Business which comes out of KCRW in Santa Monica. It talks about goings on in the business of Hollywood. This week the show gave a very brief mention of a promotional campaign going on in the Soho district of NYC.

Imagine this...you are walking down the sidewalk in Soho and all of a sudden hear someone audibly say "Who's there? Who's there!?!" You look around because you are sure someone's asking YOU that question. But all you see are other hectic Sohoians (?) walking to their destinations. Except, now they are wondering why you are spinning around looking for someone that's talking to you. But there isn't anyone. It's a BILLBOARD for the new A&E show callled Paranormal State--and it's talking only to you!

The board uses the same technology developed for personalized audio tours in museums to speak to isolate single people walking by and send an isolated audio signal to you. Read about this campaign here in an Ad Age article. Or, for a slightly less institutionalized take, here's a blog about it on Gawker.

This also just reminded me of another story I heard on a favorite podcast, On the Media.
It's about a billboard that doesn't narrowcast to just one passerby...but broadcasts it's thoughts about MANY passersby on the streets of Las Vegas. This is a promotional gimmick for an outdoor advertising company. Listen to this story here:

Brief Smile for a Busy Time

2007-12-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

It's finals week.
My Teaching Assistant is busy grading.
I'm busy grading.
Plus, this is the week when I need to take reveiwed papers and make decisions about which papers to program for the Information Sytems Division of ICA this year. {You can see another blog post about this here}

But, I saw a story about this in the paper this morning.
And I had to take time to visit http://www.wackywarnings.com/.

You should too.

I love gadgets...but I also NEED them

2007-11-26T14:03:00.001-05:00

CNN.com has an interesting task for you to waste some time with.

Rating your top 10 electronic gadgets.

Mine:
1. High Speed Internet
2. Laptop
3. Wireless internet
4. TIVO
5. Flash Drive
6. Cell phone
7. Ipod
8. PDA
9. Satellite Radio
10. TV

Click here to rate your top 10

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Great history piece on Border Radio

2007-11-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

My students will tell you that I claim history isn't something that really interests me.
I know it's important, but I just rarely find books about history that keep my attention.

Well, maybe what I need to do is investigate more auditory history pieces.

You will certainly enjoy this piece from WNYC's On the Media about how early radio broadcasters who ran afoul of US laws escaped them altogether by heading to Mexican stations that BLASTED their signals into the US and allowed their broadcasters to say just about anything they wanted.

Now, I knew that Wolfman Jack had gotten his start on an "x" station...but I never had it in context. Great job by Jamie York.

Listen to it here:

Great Alumni bring Knowledge to Current Students

2007-11-16T10:03:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons that I love working at IU is that we have great alumni. In fact, the IU Alumni Association boasts of being the largest in the world…

And, luckily, the alumni from the IU Department of Telecommunications are terrific when it comes to giving back to their alma mater. I’m talking about giving of their time and knowledge to students and faculty. I have been on the receiving end of an abundance of such giving over the past couple of weeks. So much so that I’ll need to give it to you in two blog posts. Here’s the first:

It started with a visit from Mark DeBoskey who is the General Manager of Jazz 88.3 in San Diego. Mark has spent most of his career in SoCal working in radio. But, he got his start at student radio WIUS-FM. He came to town two weeks ago for a board of directors meeting for that station (now known as WIUX). Luckily for me he contacted our department’s director of alumni relations, Legene White, and told her he was coming to town. Legene knew that, with my background in radio, I’d enjoy meeting with Mark, and she was right. The three of us spent about an hour in my office listening to his station’s stream, talking about challenges associated with creating a successful (non-NPR) non-commercial station, and how much Bloomington has changed…and how much it has stayed wonderful old Bloomington…in the years he’s been away.

Then, this past Monday, I had a double-dose of alumni relations as two former students from the department were back on campus to visit with my current students. The first was Brad Holtz, the Program Director of WTTS-FM, an Album Adult Alternative station in town broadcasting to the Indianapolis market. Early this semester I had asked him to visit my T344 class and he graciously agreed. It was tremendous. He talked about the role of a radio Program Director being that of brand manager—responsible for not only the music on the air, but also the events, concerts, live broadcasts and web content. He also was able to discuss the role of consultants in radio…which is why I love bringing in alumni to talk to my classes…they talk about stuff I would never have brought up.

The students thought Brad was great, as the line up of students getting his business card afterwards indicates. I’ll certainly ask him to return in future semesters of T344.

Later that day Norbert Mundorf was a guest in the ICR-lab meeting. Norbert received his Ph.D from our department in 1987 and I first met (face-to-face, anyway) at that meeting where he discussed his research on self-efficacy and its impact on tendency in college students to report heavy-drinking behavior. Later, I took him to the ICR in Eigenmann. When he was in the ICR, working with Dolf Zillmann, it was located in a house on Dunn Street. And, interestingly, he lived in Eigenmann! Here's a picture of Mundorf with our department chair Walt Gantz.

Now, my alumni experiences continued this week when, on Wednesday, I took a flight to New York City! I’m actually finishing writing this on Friday…sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting to fly back to Indy. More on my NYC experience next time…

Something I'm Really Looking Forward To

2007-11-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

When I find time to think about it, of course...
Indiana University is a big place...with lots of students attending it. Like more than 36,000.
IU also does a very nice job of designing programs to help make this place much smaller.

The Intensive Freshmen Seminar program is that type of program.
I first heard about the IFS from Mike McGregor during a faculty meeting several years ago. It sounded like someting I would like to do eventually...it was one of the things that I said I would wait for until after tenure. I figured that it was close enough to that time. So, I applied to teach a course that I'm calling "This is your brain on Media: How TV, Computer Games, and Radio Capture Your Attention and Play with your Emotions." And, it was accepted!

So, I won't be teaching my normal summer school stint of T340--Advertising...instead I'll have most of May, all of June and July to work on my research (which is a benefit, of course). Then the last 3 weeks of the summer break, August 4-22, I'll be spending 3 hours a day with 25 Freshmen teaching them about something I love to talk about: cognitive processing of media.

I'll post the syllabus for the course on my website as time grows closer (and as I find the time to finalize my ideas). But, for now I'm pretty excited to think about that opportunity in my future.

And, I'm also pretty proud to be one of THREE faculty in the Department who were chosen to be a part of the IFS in 2008. Here's a press release about that.

Not the only procrastinator

2007-11-02T06:19:00.000-04:00

It's good to know that I'm not the only person who works on a "just in time...push it to the deadline" mentality. This is the first of two years I'm in charge of the paper competition for the Information Systems Division of the International Communications Association. The deadline was 11pm November 1st....last night.

It is now 6:22am the morning of November 2nd. Yesterday at this time the division had 43 papers submitted.

This morning there are 103.

I'd write more but I'm preparing for a colloquium presentation I'm giving to the faculty of my department.

When is it? Today at 12:30, of course.

The NSF makes a huge step in radio portability

2007-11-01T06:52:00.000-04:00

Now, this is a radio you can take anywhere!

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110566

Research that Compliments Teaching

2007-10-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

Like many departments, the IU Department of Telecommunications publishes an alumni newsletter. Ours is called the Telecomment and I'm happy to say that many of the latest versions are now available online right here.

Maybe it's because I'm an alum of the doctoral program of the department, or maybe because graduate education is something that is a large part of my life these days, but the latest issue--on graduate education and research in the Department--is something that makes me feel fortunate to be a part of such a wonderful place. Read that particular issue here.

But, no matter where I worked, the following article by IU T'comm faculty member and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences, truly captures the important role research plays in liberal arts education.

IU as a Research I Institution
by Annie Lang, Professor of Telecommunications and Associate Dean for
Research in The College of Arts and Sciences

Along with her roles as professor, highly-respected and funded researcher, and mentor to graduate students, Lang is in her third year as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences. It is from this overarching vantage point that she discusses university research as it complements teaching.

Have you ever wondered what it means to be a major research university? It's a curious thing that by and large the 30,000 undergraduates who flock to the Bloomington campus, including the 800 or so who major in Telecommunications, do not come because of the word "research." Indeed, the word, to the extent they consider it at all, likely brings to mind memories of all-nighters in the library or an exhausting morning searching the web for information on some obscure topic in order to turn in one's term paper on time. But for the 1900 faculty who work at IUB, research or creative activity is likely the fundamental reason why they are here. It's a curious thing how poorly understood is the role of research in a major research university.
Have you ever wondered what universities do? Probably your answer is that universities educate the populace. And indeed, if you read the newspaper, watch TV, listen to your legislators, or talk to average Americans, you would get the impression that that is the primary goal of the University. But let’s take a look at the larger picture. The primary goal of a major university is to produce, store, and pass on knowledge. Knowledge, not graduates, is the fundamental commodity of universities. The storage of knowledge results in great libraries, great reference works, great museums, and great archives. The passing on of knowledge results in students, graduate students, and graduates. The production of knowledge is research.
America’s system of major research universities is the greatest producer of knowledge that has ever existed in the world. Those who attempt to quantify such things suggest that knowledge is being produced at a rate never before seen in history and much of that production happens in our universities. Every faculty member in a major research university is driven by the desire to understand something as it has never been understood before. Their research and creative activities vary fantastically depending on discipline and training but their over arching goal is the same. They are motivated by the desire to produce new knowledge and new creations.
Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences at IU produce a fantastic variety of new knowledge. In the Fine and Performing Arts that knowledge may consist of a new play, a new technique in digital lighting design, a new interpretation of a classic play, a sculpture, an interactive digital event, or a new type of kiln for firing pottery. In the foreign languages it might be a new translation of a classic work or a linguistic analysis of how language influences culture. In the sciences it might be identifying the functional relationships between fruit fly genes and behavior, inventing a new material, modeling climate, searching for new articles, or understanding how brain architecture and function influence substance abuse. In the humanities it may be an historical analysis of human society, a new film, a new poem or novel.
Like our colleagues around the university, the faculty of the Department of Telecommunications engage in a wide variety of research and creative activities to produce new knowledge about how people use the media to communicate, new ways of communicating, and new communications. Indeed, our department is almost a microcosm of the wide variety of research and creative activity that occurs across the University. Some of our faculty are critics and interpreters of the modern media environment, others study how various aspects of mediated messages influence psychological, emotional, and physiological responses in media users, yet others produce new media forms and content, while some analyze the impact of governmental laws and policy on the media industry. The result of all this research activity is to improve our understanding of how media and media industries affect individual media users, society, and the world.
It is not uncommon for people to think that the university’s research and teaching mission are in conflict. They may feel that too much time is spent on research and not enough time on teaching. They may feel that faculty involvement in research distracts them from teaching. They may feel that too much money is spent on research and not enough money is spent on teaching. Certainly, any great university must balance its research and teaching missions. But, that balance is not the balance of two unrelated but weighty burdens, rather it is the task of balancing two weights which are completely connected to one another by a myriad of flexible cords. Imagine a dumbbell, but instead of a stiff metal rod connecting the two weights, there were a thousand metal filaments of different lengths and strength connecting the two weights. The task becomes not one of balancing: research up, teaching down; teaching up, research down. Instead, the task is strengthening the filaments and supporting both ends.
What are the connections between research and teaching? Perhaps the strongest link between the two is graduate education as most doctoral students are in training to become faculty. They are learning how to produce new knowledge and they are learning how to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. They are students of what is not yet known and they are teachers of students. But this is by no means the only link. Every day faculty bring new knowledge, new research, and new ideas which arise from their research into the classroom. Faculty at a research university are not teaching old ideas buried in a textbook written by someone else. Instead, they are teaching living, changing, evolving knowledge which they have helped to create. They are experts teaching knowledge so new it has yet to be archived in a textbook. Faculty and graduate students bring the excitement of discovery and the understanding that knowledge is ever changing and ever-growing into the classroom. The university provides a wealth of opportunities for students who want to participate in knowledge building.
Faculty research provides the opportunity for students of all levels to take part in the university’s central undertaking--production of new knowledge and creative activity. Funding for research and creative activity provides much of the capital to build the laboratories, to buy the equipment, and to provide the venues which allow all of our students to take part in this endeavor. The new knowledge produced enriches not only the lives of the students involved but also enriches our culture, our science, and the everyday lives of people around the world.
In my role as Associate Dean for Research I have been awed by the range and depth of research and creative activity occurring in the College. I have been privileged to talk to hundreds of faculty about their research and to try to help them find the support they need to succeed at their particular endeavor. It has been a pleasure for me to learn about everything from Anna Karenina to zebra fish, with stops along the way at Creole languages, mars rocks, mud flumes, the mathematics of oncology, neutrino detectors, Sylvia Plath, telescopes, virtual worlds, and X-ray crystallography to name a few. I hope you find this issue of Telecomment to be an equally interesting journey through the range of research and creative activity going on in Telecommunications here at IU.

More Pics from Savannah

2007-10-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

Upon arriving in Savannah for the SPR conference, everyone kept telling me how much they loved the city. However, I wasn't taken with it. It seemed just old...and smelly...kinda like I felt about New Orleans when I visited it pre-Katrina.

But, it turned out that this impression was only of the streets near the Hyatt where we were staying. On Friday afternoon I went out walking with Yuki Fujioka, a friend and colleague on faculty at Georgia State University. And, what I found was a beautiful town...I found what everyone loved about the place. Fountains:

Architecture and wroght iron:

And of course the squares.

Although, technically, these next two pictures were not taken in one of these. It was taken in Forsyth Park. Which was hosting some sort of wonderful outdoor art show. Paintings like these were all over the place...there were about 30 of them and all really beautiful.

And, there was the impressive Forsyth Park Fountain.

Next report from SPR, I'll give a summary or two of research posters.

First pictures from Savannah and SPR

2007-10-24T06:55:00.000-04:00

Last weekend several of us from the ICR Lab went to Savannah GA to attend the Society for Psychophysiological Research conference. As regular readers to TAP-blog know, this is by far my favorite academic conference of the year. I'll have more about the science in days to come, but for now here are a few pictures:

First, one to let you know that work did actually get done there. Above are two of our doctoral candidates, Sungkyoung Lee and Satoko Kurita at their research poster on Friday night.

Now, for some of the fun. One of the places we kept hearing about was a restaraunt called Mrs. Wilkes. The website for the place, doesn't do it nearly the justice it deserves. Although I admit to being skeptical about whether it would be worth it, when this was the line we encountered about 20 minutes before the place even opened:
But, I figured it would be time to catch up with friends old and new. Here's Missouri School of Journalism's Kevin Wise & Paul Bolls, Hawaii's Andy Kaufman (he was a student of Paul's at WSU), Johnny Sparks who is on faculty at University of Alabama--in the same department & college where I once worked, so it was nice to gossip with him. And, Julie Fox...my colleague from IU...we both think it's a shame that we have to go out of town to find time to have lunch together!

Also, waiting in line gave me my first glimpse at Savannah architecture and ambience. More on that later, too. When we got in, we were seated at large tables of 10 people. For those of you doing the math, 4 of whom we didn't even know. And, the food was served "family style" like this:

Although it may not look like much, it was one of the best meals I've ever had. You know they're doing something right when you ask someone to pass you the TURNIPS because you want seconds!

If you go to Savannah, you gotta go to Mrs. Wilkes!

Trying to do better

2007-10-04T13:42:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to be more consistent about writing.
And, it's been working. More than it has in my recent memory.
Just finished a book chapter with two colleagues, and a journal submission with two others.
Now, I'm working on a journal article that has sat in my "to do" pile for longer than I'm even willing to admit to you.

And, this may be the best part, I'm actually ENJOYING writing again. That hasn't been a feeling I've associated with writing for a long time.

But...one of the reasons I must attribute my improved attitude AND productivity to is that I've stopped doing what, apparently, also afflicts Rob Long of Martini Shot. Listen to this podcast episode (it's only about 3 minutes long) here:

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ma/ma070919check_email

Or, you can also read the transcipt there as well...but even though the guy's a writer, his delivery on this is wonderful.

It's The Audio Prof...Not the Radio Prof

2007-09-30T18:02:00.000-04:00

I have mentioned earlier that I am in my tenure year...and happy to report that the faculty of my department have voted to send my case up to the next levels of consideration. While that is a cause for momentary celebration, it is only the beginning of a LONG process. There are, indeed, next levels...seven of them (assuming I haven't forgotten one).

The case now goes to:
The College Committee
The Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
The Dean of Faculties Committee
The Dean of Faculties
The University Provost
The University President
The Board of Trustees.

It's a long year. But tenure is a big deal--not only for the faculty candidate (trust me, it IS that), but also for the institution. So, they want to make sure that all those with a stake have a peek at every candidate.

Part of the documentation that the candidate must prepare is a personal statement explaining primarily how they came about their area of research interests...what they have done so far during their research careers...and what they will do later. So during that process I have been reminded of how important my experiences with radio were in guiding me to what I now do. Radio was an important companion for me as a child. It was an early career choice and what started my interest in exactly what attributes of radio messages can capture peoples' attention.

But, when I was a graduate student at IU, one of the most respected scholars in communication came to visit our department and give a talk to our lab group. His name is Byron Reeves, a Professor from Stanford. As is typical during informal talks like this one was, each grad student gave a brief introduction of their work. As you might expect, my introduction talked all about radio--explaining how I was interested in how radio messages capture attention, how we can make them more memorable, etc.

After I was through, Professor Reeves told me that I should not describe my interests as being in radio. Actually, what I was interested in, he taught me, wasn't the "box" called radio. It wasn't the delivery system...it was what was being delivered...it was AUDIO.

That was great advice. It took me a long time to break that "radio" habit. But eventually I did.

Not only did writing my tenure statement make me remember this formative event...but so did this article describing how even ad agencies are no longer saying they are interested in radio...with satelite and ipods and websites and radio all being used to deliver audio information. It's not just radio anymore.

That's why I'm not the Radio Prof.

No Happiness in my Ads!

2007-09-02T15:31:00.000-04:00

Okay, okay, almost two weeks since my last posting. Sorry. Busy with writing, teaching, and getting ready to collect more data on several studies. More on this later, I'm sure. For now I'm taking some time relaxing by watching the first season of Eureka , which my wife turned me on to earlier this summer. Reluctant at first, not a big "sci-fi" fan...it is a terrific show which we borrowed the DVDs of season 1. So, I guess I'll recommend it.

But, I've figured that I'd try to tell a story I heard from a friend of mine who works in the advertising industry. He's a writer, actually. And, one who is only in "the biz" because it is a way that he can get paid to do what he loves--which is write. He's the one who told me about the podcast Martini Shot which is a short "inside Hollywood" cast that takes a business view rather than gossipy.

Anyway...this story this friend told me is this:

He had a writing meeting at the agency he works for. Now, this guy is a writer in a way that I am not...while I am mostly interested in getting the gist of my ideas across...this guy crafts messages where every word is chosen. And the order in which he places them is consciously planned. He has given me examples of rhthym in advertising copy that I had never thought of. It's quite impressive. So, here he is in a meeting with a client. And when we say client, we mean the SEVERAL representatives from the client. Can't ever have just one decision-maker in the room. There have to be many different folks in there to earn their keep.

So, my friend presents the ad copy...which, remember, he has crafted to conveny the exact message the client wants conveyed. And, in this piece of copy is the word "Happiness." Now, I trust my friend's professionalism and talent enough to know that when he put in the word 'happiness' that was the best word...either because it fit the sentence/tone/rhythm of the sentence or it conveyed the correct meaning better than anything else....Not bliss, mirth, gaiety, deletation...He'd chosen happiness for a reason.

But, one of the clients said "You can't use the word 'happiness' in any of my ads. Change it." Well, now my friend has two questions. First, how much power does this guy have out of all the client reps in the room? In other words, will his devotion to his craft make him go toe-to-toe with this dude? And secondly, What is it that this guy has against the word happiness?

Well, after dancing around the second question for awhile, it the reason is finally revealed. "The word 'happiness' sounds like 'penis,' and I won't have the word penis associated with my business."

You can almost hear the jaws in the room drop. But then, everyone present probably did what I did the first time I heard this story...and probably what you're doing right now....they repeated the word "happiness" to themselves several times under their breath...My gosh, the guy's got a point! Kinda...close enough...

And, it turns out, the guy had enough power to have my friend change the word. After all, there's craft and then there's making a living.

It's a Small World--Eastern Washington State College

2007-08-28T06:44:00.000-04:00

I live in a typical suburban, midwest neighborhood. The houses here are owned, primarily, by either young families or older, empty-nesters. The other day my family and I were out taking a walk and met one of our neighbor couples. After chit-chatting for awhile, it turns out that the woman had family members who live in Kennewick Washington. Kennewick is one of the Tri-Cities...a trio of cities in southeastern Washington...1716 miles away! And, here we were in the same neighbohood in Bloomington, Indiana.

Talking more, it turns out that her father was a kicker/punter for the Kennewick Lions and went onto Eastern Washington State College on a football scholarship. EWSC would eventually become Eastern Washington University, the place I began my academic career, met my wife, etc...

Later in the day, this same neighbor dropped by our house with a bit of memorabelia her father had given her from his football glory days:

Catch-up Catch-up

2007-08-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

Almost 2 weeks since the last post. Lots has happened. I've finished up my tenure dossier...a little thing that encapsulates the work of the last 10 years. That took a little bit of time, and I keep pretty good records! Now the full faculty of The Department meet to discuss my case and vote whether to send it up the line to the next level. It's out of my hands now...I'll keep you updated as things go along.

Also I've been preparing for a new semester. Two classes this semester:

T344--Programming Strategies
and
T511--Research Methods in Audience Analysis

Looking forward to both of them. And, even though I've taught them before, they took time to prepare. Especially since the graduate one is meeting only once a week this semester...and the last time I taught it we met twice a week. Had to shrink everything into have the days.

And, there was a dissertation that I had to read, written by Zheng Wang who is going to join the faculty of Ohio State University. The dissertation was terrific, but as it was dealing with mathematical models of channel-changing behaviors and physiological reactions to media, it was not an easy read. But, the results were very exciting and I would expect to see MANY MANY pieces of research in top-tier journals in years to come. Congratulations to Dr. Wang.

And, last week was orientation week for new graduate students. Always an exciting time, filled with new possibilities. One of the things we do during orientation week is hold Area of Interest Meetings (AIMs). I was involved in one that was actually just a tour of the ICR, and one on the cognitive processing of media (which also included professors Fox, Grabe & Lang).

Another one I was a part of was the All Things Audio meeting. Often, in departments such as this, you are lucky to have even a single faculty member interested in audio issues. Most production AND research people focus primarily on the visual. But, our department is FORTUNATE to have three faculty members who are interested in sound/audio/music in some form or another. Andrew Bucksbarg, Norb Hebert and I hosted the group of students who are also interested in audio in their own ways. It was a blast.

But, busy.

Here's a link to a fascinating site that I actually got from the All Things Audio AIM. You should check it out:

peter chilvers generative music site

Can't Spot Too Good to Be True? Let the FTC help you.

2007-08-12T14:28:00.002-04:00

Day after day desperate consumers buy products that claim to be effective in curing such maladies as baldness, impotence, obesity, and diabetes. The government has agencies that hold news conferences, print brochures and produce public service announcements trying to warn us that if something is too good to be true, IT IS!!!

But, when surfing the web we don't think about what we know...especially if we are surfing trying to find solutions to our woes. So, the FTC has started to try and protect us in a novel way...by producing fake websites that try to get you to purchase a fake product (using the same tactics other actual sham products use). When you click the "order now" link, the government agency snaps you back into reality...

Check it out yourself!

Thanks to IU Dept. of Telecomm Law & Policy professor Herb Terry for bringing it to my attention!

Can you tell summer's almost over? FINALLY Last Busan Update

2007-08-10T21:52:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm back in Bloomington...and over jet lag...and as the end of the summer creeps closer...I have been focused on getting a little bit of work done. But, now other things I want to blog about are cropping up so I want to wrap up the thoughts and pics from my trip to South Korea.

When we left off on my travel-log, I was leaving the APEC convention location and the skies over Pusan were opening up for a terrible thunderstorm. So, without the possibility of any outside activities, we decided to visit some indoor shopping malls for me to find a gift for my son. I don't quite know how we had gotten upon the topic, occassionally during my trip my host, Professor Kwon, told me the story of Wal-Mart's attempt to enter the Korean market--an attempt that eventually failed. Now, certainly there are many sides to this story, most likely. But according to Kwon, Wal-Mart thought that the same approach they use in the US would translate successfully to Korea: Low prices and high-volume purchases. But, in a country where space is extremely limited (click here for a posting showing XXX a stack of almost identical restaruants stacked on top of each other because of their last of space), the possibility of buying 15 rolls of paper towels is pretty rediculous.

So, Wal-Mart sold their Korean stores to a Korean company that changed the names to E-Mart. And, off Kwon and I went to E-Mart in a pouring thunderstorm.

Of course, there were differences. Parking lots that were, well, actually parking 6-story parking garages. And, each ROW of the parking garages was headed by an EMART employee who either crossed their arms in front of themselves to let you know there were no spaces in that row...or they waived you in if there was an opening. But, regardless, as your car passed by they bowed to you. And not in a "this-is-an-hourly-job-that-I'll-quit-as-soon-as-possible" way. With seeming actual pride in the job they were doing and glad we were there.

Then, just like the parking lot, the store itself was multiple floors. Imagine hundreds of people with shopping carts going up and down flat escalators (I'm sorry I dont' have pictures of that). But, I did take pictures of carts...or at least a part of a cart. Check this out:

Each cart is locked to each other when you enter the store. To unlock it, you need to put in a 100 Won coin. The reason? Because E-Mart knows that even for the equivalent of less than 10-cents, their customers will bring their carts back to get that coin back. And...THEY DO...they all bring them back to the store after depositing their groceries in their cars. No carts in the parking lots...incredible! Oh, here's instructions for those new to the system:

Another thing that was surprising to me was just how LOUD the place was. While the outdoor fish markets were mostly quiet (a surprise in hindsight only), this place was hoppin' with E-Mart employees trying to get you to come over and look at their fish, or kimchee, or whatever. Here's one guy who posed for me...I was so over-the-top with being an obvious tourist...I mean, imagine seeing someone in your local Wal-Mart snapping digital photos every 50 feet...

Before I visited I used to tell my Korean students that I liked kimchi. To me, that was self-explanatory, because I thought there was only one kind...made of spiced/fermented cabage.

But, now I know that just about ANYTHING can actually be kimchied (?). Here's a picture I took of an entire display case of different kimchis. I'd have taken a better one, but apparently this was a counter operated by a particular brand of kimchi. The moment I took a pic the woman behind the counter came scurrying out and told Professor Kwon that these were trade secrets!

So, I'm almost to the end of my my pictures. It was, again, an unforgetable trip and I hope you enjoyed my retelling of it. I thank you for visiting my site to stay up to date, and thanks to those who leave comments every once in awhile.

To truly thank you, I'm leaving you with just a picture of me singing karoke to "With or Without You" by U2. No audio.

But, check this out and just imagine my face superimposed over Bono's.

Busan Korea Catch-Up Part 2

2007-08-04T07:28:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm now almost completely back on EDT. Now just gave to get completely back in the swing of things in the office...the final push of writing and research before the summer is over.

BUT FIRST, another look bak at my fantastic trip to South Korea.

We're up to my final day, which was Sunday. Woke up rather early and went for a walk across the Kyoungsung University campus and into part of the city. One of the first things I came upon was their library (which also contains their student athletic rec center, a performance hall, and their Dept. of Dance). Outside is a cage of about 1000 square feet that contains about 5 huge sea eagles like these (sorry for the out-of-focus).

After a (much-needed) relaxing morning sitting around the guest house, Professor Kwon picked me up and we went up onto a hill that is behind Kyoungsung where I got a great view of part of Busan...through the humid haze:

Now, let me give a little aside. I flew over on Northwest Airlines (although many on my trip referred to it as "Northworst" I honestly didn't have a problem with them). Their in-flight magazine did a story on Dubai, and one of the little inset pics showed indoor skiing in the desert city. Couldn't believe it. I thought to myself "How cool [I often use puns when talking to myself] would that be, to go skiing when it's burning hot outside!"

Well, to add to this incredible trip...guess what Busan has? That's right, it's the Snow Castle is right on this very same hill. And, even though they were just getting ready for a grand opening August 11, we happened to be there on a day when they were having a by-invitatation-only event to have people try the facility out. We thought, for a few minutes, that we were going to actually be able to rent skis, equipment, and such. But, turns out we needed to have been invited. Still, Kwon was able to talk them into giving us 2 entry passes so we could at least take pictures from "the slope."

From below freezing to back outside, where it was 87-degrees and very humid. Off we went to the Westin Chosun, Busan. George W. Bush stayed in this hotel during the APEC summit in 2005. In fact, he rented the entire hotel for security purposes. Or, rather, I helped pay for him to rent the entire hotel during his stay.

We walked from the Westin to the actual APEC Center where the conference actually took place.
A glace over my shoulder revealed the beach which I'd seen during my trip to the Busan Aquarium. However, Professor Kwon told me that this weekend over 1 million people would be on this beach EACH DAY. Couldn't believe it.

So, here I am in front of the space-ship looking APEC center...which is now pretty much a museum dedicated to this bit of international relations in Dynamic Busan.

Me in front of the tapestry that welcomes visitors. In it are the 12 symbols of longevity: sun, cloud, mountain, rock, water, crane, deer, turtle, pine tree, herb of eternal youth (!?!), bamboo, and mythical peach.

Where President Bush sat. Joined on each side by Vietnam and Thailand.

An "artistic shot" of the conference center. I took this just before the thunder we'd been hearing was joined by rain and lightning. We ran to the car in time to get stuck in having 1 million beach goers come off the beach.

With no more captive audience, the advertising blimps were grounded.

So, with the rain pouring down, we went shopping at the Korean version of Walmart...E-Mart.

Impressions on that next time.

South Korea Catch Up--Part 1

2007-08-02T13:34:00.001-04:00

I am now back in the States, safely home in Bloomington Indiana. In fact, I am sitting at a table in the Starbucks loated in the basement of the IU building that houses the ICR. I'm NOT drinking any coffee, though, because my hope is to be able to go home and have a nap this afternoon. Everyone told me that the jet lag was most difficult returning to the States...and they are right. I have tried to get back in the swing of the EDT-zone...but today I am even more groggy then when I first came back.

Of course, some of my fatigue may be due to the fact that I sightseed (?) my tail off while I was in Busan...and that is just now catching up to me. The hectic schedule also kept me from blogging much after the second day there...so I know that I have a lot to catch up on. Since I just missed my bus, I figured I'd get some on it chronicled while I wait for the next one.

So, where was I?

I had mentioned that we went out to a wine bar the night after my talk. The next morning Professors Auh and Kwon met me for breakfast. When they said that we were going to have "cod soup and rice" I was not particularly looking foward to it...not my idea of breakfast fare. But, I must admit that it was delicious. Here's a picture of my two breakfast companions:

After breakfast, Professor Auh (on the left) had to catch a subway ride to the KTX train to take him back to Seoul. Professor Kwon and I met in his office at Kyungsung University to discuss ways that we could collaborate on research projects in the future. Then, I'm sure so that he could get some actual work done rather than just cart me all over the country, Kwon and I parted ways and Soyung Bae (a current masters student of mine, and former student of Professor Kwon AND Professor Auh) and her friend Shin Ju took me to Gyeongju province to do more sightseeing. This was once a major city under the Shilla kingdom---the conqourer of the other two kingdoms around 600 AD. Since Shilla officially supported Buddhism, one of the main attractions here is the Bulguksa temple. Here are some pictures from there:

Inside this main gate--off to the side (behind the orange panels in the above picture) --were huge carvings of temple gaurds

The one of the left was apparently going to anhialate all intruders with his mean mandolin.

Here are some of the inspiring and old pieces of beauty. A drum:

A pagoda
An 18.9-ton bell...And some paintings on the wood ornamenture of the ceiling.

This painting is remeniscent (to me) of the carvings/paintings of native americans I've seen in the Pacific Northwest. I didn't say anything about this at first...but then we went to the tumuli burial mounds in Hwangnam-ri

It reminded me strongly of the almost identical Native American burial ground in Moundville Alabama that my wife and I visited when we lived in Tuscaloosa.

So, now you know what I did on Day three. More later...including shots of me skiing...well, almost. Check back.

Another Busan Entry---now 24 hours behind!

2007-07-28T17:07:00.000-04:00

I am now slightly more than 24 hours behind on chronicling my trip. The two related reasons for this is that my hosts have done such a good job keeping my schedule full with visiting the marvelous historical sights that any spare time I have left is devoted to, well, sleeping. Finally, I had to say that I really needed some rest (which made me feel old!). So, right now it’s about 4:30pm on Saturday in Bloomington. Here in Busan it is about 5:30am on Sunday morning. Last night we arrived back from a full day of sightseeing around 5pm and I made arrangements to eat dinner on my own and not meet Professor Kwon until noon today. Dinner on my own was supposed to be right after I had a much-needed nap. I woke up at 1am local time. Guess I was even more tired than I thought!

But, as I said, it is now 5:30 in the morning and, well, I didn’t have dinner. I’ll write a blog entry ( I think that I’ll keep it chronological; even though that means I’m still a day behind, I don’t want to miss chronicling anything of my trip) and then walk down from the campus guest house to find a place for breakfast.

So, right, let’s start there. I’ve changed where I’m staying from the beach-front Hotel Homers to the Kyungsung University Guest House. Here’s a picture of it.
It’s a huge building, really. Not quite as big as the IMU and is much more reminiscent of Campus View House or Tulip Tree on the IU campus. But it is newer. Plenty comfortable and certainly more affordable for my hosts than the Homer. And, it is likely that there were no more rooms even available at the Homer because over the weekend it is the destination beach for Koreans trying to beat the 87-degree heat with really high humidity. In fact, I’m sure that my touring around in it is one of the reasons I just lost steam last night.

Here’s a few pictures taken from my room on the 15th floor of the guest house. Beautiful Korean hills---which are everywhere. Also, in the second picture you can see the bridge which was right outside my room at the Homer.

So, what happened on my Friday? First, Professor Kwon and I toured an area of Busan called the Dalmaji Hill which is where many English-speaking foreigners live. Interestingly, the value of real-estate in Busan is opposite of what it is in the States: it costs less to live on the water than inland toward the mountains. Apparently this is due to havoc of the salty breezes and fog that blow in off the ocean every morning.

My understanding from the tourist signs is that Dalmaji translates as “moon-viewing” and here is a pagoda dedicated to doing just that (although, when we were there in the daytime it seemed dedicated to a couple families having picnics and older men hoping that the higher altitude would bring breezes to relieve the heat.

After this we had lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant overlooking the water. The place was called the Opera and I would recommend it if you ever find yourself in Busan.

The only drawback to the lunch was that the courses were slow in being served [every restaurant…even the Italian one…serves meals in multiple courses. I mean, like 6 or 7 courses. Not only does it take forever…but there is SO MUCH FOOD and it’s all delicious…that by the time you get to the 4th or 5th course you WANT them to take their time serving you the next course so that you can digest. They, of course, oblige.

So, we were later than we had hoped getting out of the restaurant and needed to proceed straight back to Kyungsung University for me to meet Professor Taik Sup Auh who was Professor Kwon’s dissertation advisor at Korea University. Professor Auh came down to see my talk, which was a very big honor.

The talk went fine. It was a basic primmer on psychophysiological methods and the audience was very interested. Even had some students ask questions, which I found out later is something that culturally they find very difficult to do since in the Korean classroom they only dutifully take notes on every word the professor says. [This is something I need to keep in mind in my own graduate classes when Korean students are in attendance.]

After the talk, Kwon, Auh and Soyung took me to sashimi dinner. Later, Soyung went home and the two gentlemen showed me a Korean night of wine drinking. Although I have a health condition where drinking is contra-indicated, and I had told my hosts that from the moment I accepted their invitation, it is such a part of the bonding/friendship building in this culture that I eventually relented this evening and had a little bit with dinner and at the bar we went to. Sacrifices for international relations.

Well, now I’m starving. I have to go find food…even if a convenience store is the only thing open at 6am. I’ll try to blog about my Saturday before the day is through. For now, let me leave you with a final picture. Although I have enjoyed my trip immensely, and found Korea to be a safe, friendly, interesting, and beautiful country…there are things about there culture that I would take a LONG time to get used to. For example, here’s a vending machine outside the bathrooms at Dalmaji Hill pagodoa:

Aneyong-hi gamseo.

Traveling is not vacation

2007-07-26T18:57:00.000-04:00

It's my first full day in Busan. And when I say full I mean it.

I was able to get some exercise on Gwangalli beach, as I blogged to you just afterwards.

Then, after a nice breakfast at the hotel I was picked up by Dean Mahn-woo Kwon who took me on a tour of the Departments of Digital Contents and the separate Departments of Digital Design. Although they are separate entitites, it is slightly unclear to me the true differences...although there certainly are some as he was always able to verbalize something...I just didn't fully follow the distinctions.

Anyway, here I am in one of their fully digital control rooms...with a crooked tie.

One of their majors is animation, of which they do stop-action animation as a pedagogical compenent. Although I have seen movies using it, I have never seen a setup up close.

I had a huge and delicious lunch at a Japanese restaraunt with Mahn-woo, Soyoung, and two gentlemen from the Busan mayor's office who Mahn-woo is working with on the International Contents Creator's Convention

Later, it was off to the Busan Aquarium at Haeundae Beach. I love aquariums, and this one had creatures in it that I have never seen in facilities in the states (for obvious reasons, as they are pulling from different oceans. Check out some of these:

After that, the Jagalchi Fish Market, a place like none other that I've ever been to. Although similar to Pike Place Market in Seattle, this place is huge...with many vendors outside in the more traditional setting...where the price of the fish goes down as the day gets longer, as they must sell what they've got before the close of business.

Unless, of course, the fish is dried....

There is also a more modern (and air conditioned !) facility where the fish are kept live in open-air tanks for people to select the best...or friskiest...or whatever...I've never bought live fish.

Then they either eat it right there raw or they can take it to restaraunts on the upper floors and have it prepared.

Anyway, these fish often jump right out of their tanks and flop around on the floor. Here I am spreading my goofiness internationally with one of the escapees and a vendor

The Haedong Yongkung Temple was the last sightseeing stop for the day. An incredible place, while most temples are located in the mountains...this is one of the rare ones on the coastline. Here is a sign at the entrance that I'm told reads something like "the mountains are beautiful, the ocean is beautiful, together they are heaven."

At the front are 12 statues representing the animals for which years are named after. My birthyear means I'm a sheep (no laughing). Here's my statue

And, because I've got to go get ready for today, I'll leave you with a picture of me and Budha

Busan morning on the beach

2007-07-25T20:28:00.000-04:00

Annyeong haseo.

Had a good night last night, which for me, in a strange place, is rather unusual. I woke up once at about 3am local time but was able to read until relaxing enough to go back to sleep.

Woke up for good at 6am...the room was too light and I longed for either pair of those darn eyepatches. But, I figured I was burning daylight, so I got up and went for a walk along a nice walking trail they have set up along the beach. Here are some pictures I took. First, here's a daytime shot of the same view from the room in the Hotel Homer:

It is, as you can predict from the haze, very humid here. Much tougher than even in Indiana. In fact, thanks to the 23-degree Celsius reading of the AC in the Homer, my camera lense kept fogging up for the first part of the walk until it warmed up.

Here's an outside shot of the hotel, which is (in case I did not mention it) very nice.

Last night, as Soyoung and her sister drove me in, she pointed out that the buildings in the distance housed floor upon floor of raw-fish restaraunts...although I'm sure that there are differences in each of the establishments, to me it seemed like having a McDonalds stacked on a Wendy's atop of a Burger King and then a Hardee's. That wouldn't happen in the States, and I had never realized how much our views on marketing & competition are due to the fact that we have plenty of real-estate to put space between our competitors. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Oh, and as if there was any doubt, Starbucks is here too. I was quite surprised by another difference between Busan and the States, though. It was 7am and this Starbucks was locked up tight. [Of course, I've since been back for a double-tall iced latte].

There were a lot of people out exercising along the walkway: runners, walkers, several people on bikes. So, I did not feel out of place by picking up the pace to get a little bit of a cardio workout in. Here's a nice ocean-front scene:

And a shot I like to call "Baywatch Busan" as the lifegaurds get ready for a day on the beach:

I did, of course, eventually get off the walking path and get on the beach myself. Here's proof:

One of the men who was out exercising eventually introduced some baseball swings in his workout as he hit rocks from the beach back into the South Sea:

Today, it's off to tour Kyungsung University, if I understand correctly. More later.

Aneyung-hi gaseo.

Enroute to Busan

2007-07-25T09:49:00.001-04:00

Hello from slightly less than 34,000 feet. I’m on the Northwest flight from Detroit to Tokyo…with about 9.5 hours remaining. It is currently 6:14 pm EST. I don’t know what time zone I am currently in…although the video screen about 15 yards in front of me shows a little stick-figure picture of a plane north of Minneapolis/St. Paul…somewhere in Canada---to the northeast of the strangely-named city of Regina. It’s -34 degrees Fahrenheit outside and we’re going about 555 miles per hour.

So far, it’s been a nice trip. Although I had very little time to make my Detroit connection. Basically, I had time to get to the gate, find the nearest bathroom, and then they were boarding. No time to grab a bite to eat. I’m thankful that the gate for the Tokyo flight was close to the arrival gate from Indy…otherwise there would not have even been time for the pit stop.

Still, they have given us dinner. I chose a really tasty Beef Stew which included a small salad and good sized shrimp with cocktail sauce. Now, I’m stuffed---

Two things have bummed me out so far. The first was that I had hoped to be able to listen to some podcasts on my ipod during the flight. When I went to turn it on I found that it had glitched on itself…remaining frozen WITH THE POWER ON. Once I reset it, you guessed it, the battery was dead. So now I’m blogging with the dual purpose being to charge my ipod up off the battery of the laptop. Which, is a risky thing because I’m really not sure whether I’ll be able to charge up my laptop once in Busan. It’s the whole 110v/220v difference that I was never able to truly understand—will I be able to plug in while I’m there or not. Korean grad students contacted all separately concluded about the same thing: “Yes, they are different systems…you should be able to buy an adapter…but I’m not positive….” But, the music in the NWA Air Tunes system has already looped on me and I’m gonna take the risk of charging up the nano.

The second thing that was a minor annoyance was the movie selection on the plane. Three dogs that I have never heard of. But, that’s not truly a big deal because I’ve brought plenty to read and as is always the case when I fly, the moment the plane takes off I’m ready to fall asleep. I’ve napped clear through the first time the drink cart came by. Thank goodness the flight attendant left the pretzels on my extended tray table.

Oh, I can’t believe it’s taken me five paragraphs to describe my complete joy with the long-awaited purchase I used this trip as an excuse to make. I am listening to music with my Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones. I bought them about 4 days ago and have really enjoyed them in the office and working at home. BUT ON THE PLANE THEY ARE FANTASTIC! Usually I would put earplugs in and that would cut down on the barrage of jet turbine whine…but these really cut it down to unbelievably low levels. So much so that when I take them off it is so loud I almost instantly put them back on again. Delicious.

Well, I just checked the status of the ipod charging and we’re moving along nicely. It won’t take as long as I thought. Gonna get back to the reading of the Lonely Planet book on Korea. Hwanjun, a graduate student of mine with a similar interest in music processing, let me borrow it for the trip. I probably should have read more of it BEFORE I left. Well, more as I did read much about Busan and its surroundings I should have read more about general Korean culture. Less than an hour ago I came across this gem: “Casual clothing is fine in most situations as long as it is conservative in tone [no problem there, I think to myself]….In the hot and humid summer months men almost never wear shorts.” What?! Oh no. I can pretty much remember 4-5 pairs of shorts that I packed. After all, they are having 87-degree temperatures and thunderstorms so I figured that made sense. Can’t quite remember how many slacks I packed….

It’s now 2:35am my body time. It has been a little harder for me to sleep than I expected. Luckily, not impossible. It’s just that it is lighter in the cabin than I wish it was. I just keep thinking of the two pair of eye blinders that I have at home. The second pair I had to buy because I forgot to bring the first one with me the last time I traveled! Looks like I’ll have to get a third.

Here comes breakfast. Oh, turns out one of the movies was actually pretty funny. Wild Hogs. Nothing you haven't seen before, but worth the time.
------------------------

The connection in Tokyo was incredibly close. I had to go through security checkpoints again, which was a slow process considering hundreds of people came off the 747. One interesting thing I noticed is that the Tokyo security line was much quieter than those in the states. No officials barking at you to "take your laptops outta the bag" or "take your shoes off." All those instructions are told to you quietly by the one official at the head of the line.

After sweating whether or not I would make my connection (how WOULD I have gotten ahold of people in Busan if I had missed that flight? I have no idea)...we waited for them to load the luggage. Here's a picture of mine getting loaded on, in fact.

Then we waited in line to take off for at least 45 minutes. I got bored. Here's a picture of another plane in the cue with us.

But, the 90 minute flight to Busan was uneventful. A graduate student of mine, Soyung, met me at the airport. She actually grew up in Busan, got her masters degree at Kyungsung and is back here this summer working on some research projects.

Anyway, I'm pretty bushed, so I'm off to find some bottled water, something to eat, and get some sleep. But, let me show you the views from my hotel (the Hotel Homer, believe it or not) which is right on the beach.

Korean Adventure--Day 1

2007-07-24T09:35:00.000-04:00

Well I'm only a handful of hours before I depart from Indianapolis to begin my trip to Kyungsung University in Busan. I'm pretty excited about the adventure and will try to keep you all up to date here via TAPblog.

One thing that makes me sad, though, is that because I won't return before the end of the month, I had to say some early goodbyes to graduate students in the ICR who are moving onto new adventures of their own.

Last night as I left the lab I bid farewell to James Angelini, who will begin his new position as a visiting professor at University of Delaware. Also I said best of luck to Gayle Nadorff. Gayle has been working tremendously hard this month collecting her dissertation data before going off to a post-doc position at University of Connecticut. She's run almost 75 subjects in 30 days, I believe. Incredible.

Korea Bound

2007-07-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

I have not blogged about this yet because it hasn't been finalized. But, now it is...I just got the e-ticket mailed to me and so next Tuesday I'm off to Busan Korea! I've been invited to speak at the School of Digital Content at Kyungsung University. They have an interactive media laboratory in the School, and I'll be talking with them about the usefulness of psychophysiological research methods on answering questions about psychological processing of messages.

I have never been to East Asia. The farthest I've travelled is to Germany and Western Europe. I am looking forward to the trip, seeing a new culture, seeing a new lab, and interacting with the grad students and faculty of Kyungsung!

I'll hopefully find time to blog (with pictures) while I'm on the road.

A peak behind the curtain--audio editing makes us sound better

2007-07-16T08:43:00.000-04:00

Okay, first of all, there is nothing worse than being sick in the summer time.
I have strep throat!!

I'm really bugged about it...because not only can't I swallow or eat...but it's gorgeous outside and I'd much rather be doing things with my family than stuck inside wondering how long I can wait until my next nap.

GRRRRR. I haven't had this since I got my tonsils out at age 7.

Anyway, being mostly stuck inside has allowed me to do some podcast listening, and that reminded me of a piece I heard recently on ON THE MEDIA, a show out of WNYC in New York.

The piece was called "Pulling back the Cutain" and was produced by John Solomon. It's all about how much editing occurs on the audio obtained via interviews for a show like OTM...or any radio news show for that matter. To give you a sense of what I'm talking about, listen to this exerpt from the story which gives an example of how OTM/Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield sounds during the taping of an interview compared to how he sounds afterwards.

Part of the reason why this story fascinated me is because I always thought I was pretty good at noticing edits in audio stories. Local radio news doesn't try to hide when an edit takes place. The ambient sound doesn't match, the speaker's inflections are going in different directions at the point of the edit, etc. But with OTM, I never even THOUGHT about it. That's largely to the credit of the show's editor (and co-host) Brooke Gladstone. But, it's also due to increased sophistication in technology. When I first started editing audio it was done using magnetic tape as the source material...not digital bits. Edits were done by finding the beginning and ending point of where you wanted to cut out, marking it on the back-side of the tape with a grease pencil, and then cutting it with a razor blade...only to tape the two ends back together. If you messed up...you guessed it...you had to tape the whole thing back together and start again. Almost as much a pain in the neck as strep throat.

These days, editing is all done electronically using programs like Pro Tools or Saw or the one we use in the ICR Lab, Adobe Audition. These programs make editing downright fun. Try an edit...if it doesn't work, Ctrl-Z gets you right back where you were! I remember when working on the Double-Units clutter study I needed to edit down commercials from 60-seconds to 30-seconds in length while still keeping the original meaning and information. If I had to do that with a razor blade and splicing tape, forget it. With Audition, it was actually something I looked forward to doing.

ICR student gets published

2007-07-13T10:05:00.000-04:00

In the IU Dept. of Telecommunications there is a graduate course called T540. It is an "independent study" course designed to allow students to get course credit for either doing in-depth literature review in an area of personal interest or to perhaps conduct original research. In order to sign up for such a course the student must find a faculty member to supervise this. It can be a big time commitment for the faculty member, as often the study turns out to be much less "independent" as hoped for.

That was not the case with doctoral candidate James Angelini (read his blog here), who did a T540 under my supervision about a year ago...or maybe it was even two years ago...the days just all merge together really...Anyway, as you can tell from his blog title, James is interested in gender-issues and the psychological constructs of gender as they are perpetuated by the media. He is also interested in sports broadcasts. He combined the two interests into a programatic series of studies, of which the T540 project was an early piece. Last week, James was kind enough to tell me that the study I helped him with was published in the journal Sex Roles. You may be able to access it here. Or, it's possible that I have access to that link due to my IU server account. In which case, you should look for it soon on the journal's website.

Congratulations to James. Good work.

Life Changes on 4th of July

2007-07-05T22:15:00.000-04:00

So, in all honesty I saw it coming.

My wife, kids, and I took a drive on the 4th of July.

We were just going to drive down through the city of Frenck Lick .

You know, just get out and have a nice drive...

Oh, and my wife just happened to come across a website for a dog breeder of a breed that we (okay...I mean she...and the kids....) have been interested in. The breed is the Goldendoodle.

Yes, that's right...the Goldendoodle.

Not a very macho name for a breed.

A friend of mine said it sounded like an Austin Powers movie.

But, we went. We saw the several puppies they had available...and I knew I was toast.

After taking time for lunch...at a casino...what a great dad, huh?...

Allow me to introduce Darcy:

Check out Game Zombie TV

2007-06-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

I promised to write this blog MONTHS ago. Over 3 months ago, to be exact. That's when a group of entrepreneurial students from the MIME program at IU-Telecomm returned from the Game Developers Conference with a dream of developing a computer/MU/video game review website. Actually, I suppose they had the dream prior to attending the conference because they came back armed with video of sessions and interviews of big names in the game world.

Since they have been back they have been busy keeping journals (although not a lot of them lately) and reviews of games. The reviews have been posted more recently and, although they have a little rougher language than I like...I realize I'm not in the target demographic.

If you like games you may want to add GameZombie.tv to your list of regularly surded sites.

And, if you are considering grad school...maybe you should consider a place where the atmosphere encourages following your passions in the same way these students have...check out IU's Dept. of Telecommunication. Read about our Mission and Culture and feel free to contact either Betsi Grabe the Director of Graduate Students...or send me an email.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

2007-06-26T11:01:00.001-04:00

Today is the Internet Radio Day of Silence.
It's to protest huge increases in the amount of royalties that these audio outlets would have to pay, retroactively, on July 15.

Read more here, on the Radio and Internet Newsletter Site.

No Radio for the Audio Prof

2007-06-23T10:29:00.001-04:00

I've just spent a week on vacation with the family. It's good to get away...and more than I have in years I truly tried to leave work behind. In the past we have spent up to 6 weeks on the road in our home state of Washington. When on the road for that long of a stretch...it was almost mandatory that I bring my laptop and reading along and try to carve out some hours to write while the family went to the lake, or swimming, or whatever.

But, this year, with the length of our visit cut back drastically for a variety of reasons...the laptop was primarily brought so the kids could watch movies on the plane. And it truly was a chance to just unwind. (Although I did have to spend a little bit of time finishing my grades for T340).
One of the ways this trip was differrent than my previous ones back to WA is the fact that I barely listened to broadcast radio at all. Now, you may have to know me pretty well to understand how big a deal this is. We spent time in the town in which I grew up...Richland Washington. Listening to the radio there during the 1980s while in high school was one of the reasons why...during the summer before my senior year...I sent letters to all the General Managers and Program Directors in the Tri-Cities (of which Richland is one...the others being Kennewick and Pasco) asking for any opportunity to be a part of their station operations. I eventually got an "internship" of sorts at a no-longer-existing country station: KOTY-AM and KHWK-FM.
I recognize voices of disk jockeys in the Tri-Cities, still. Enjoy hearing the tweaks in formats and positioning statements. The same is true for the Spokane Market...where I worked in formats ranging from CHR to jazz to sports talk. And so, every trip back would include listening to hear what was going on in my old stomping grounds.

But, like I said, this trip was different. No long periods of listening. No listening at all, to speak of. Why? Two reasons that perhaps highlight why my students similarly report NO radio listening. The first was my ipod, and the podcasts that I've been diggin' recently like (The Business, This American Life, On the Media, Radio Lab, and Science Talk).

But, the primary reason for my lack of listening was The first was that the rental car had XM satellite radio. Although I was surprised that several of the stations had COMMERCIALS in them...I was certainly only a few clicks away from music in the vein of the mood I was in due to their alignment of channels by genre (if I was listening to 80s and didn't like a song, checking out what was on the 90s channel one click away usually sufficed. When Nashville** went to commercials...Highway 16 or US Country had something on it that would do nicely). I can only imagine that my listening would have skyrocketed on the talk stations if the family hadn't been in the car...and I probably would have imposed the sports-talk stations ON my family if it was NFL season, not baseball season.

So, there really wasn't any reason to impose myself to commercials...voice-tracked DJs...or songs that I didn't want to hear. Even the nostalgia of listening to stations from my past didn't over-ride the easy entertainment that new technologies allowed me.

** Interestingly, when I was getting links together for this blog, I went to XM's page...of course. The Nashville channel (channel 11)... which was the most irritating in stopping for STUPID national commercials for dating services or car insurance...isn't listed as an option on their website. Wonder why?

Backward Glance on Summer School

2007-06-09T19:51:00.000-04:00

I'm heading into the final week of my T340 summer school class. I love teaching the fundamentals of advertising course for lots of reasons. First of all, advertising is pretty much ubiquitous and there are always current examples for students to be able to relate to. telecommunications industry & management.> Another reason I enjoy advertising is that it is a medium through which some of the best example of modern-day creativity shine through. A third reason I like the class is that much of the work my colleagues and I conduct in the research lab is directly applicable to the task of persuading people to feel a certain way about a brand.

On top of all these reasons why I love teaching this course, this particular semester I have again been reminded how rare an occurrence it is for college students to read the chapters they are assigned in course textbooks. We use a good textbook , and although it suffers from the typical symptom of textbooks in a fast-moving field like Telecomm--namely having examples that are out of date due to the necessity of taking a snapshot of a rapidly moving field--it is filled with important vocabulary and concepts that a student interested in advertising should be aware of. They should especially be aware of them if they are planning on having a career in the field.

Anyway, as always, when I get to the end of a semester I look back upon it and think of how I would do things differently. I am more certain than ever that having periodic quizzes on the assigned reading is MANDATORY. I didn't have them as part of the course requirements this semester. As a result, I'm positive that my students don't read the chapters until about 24-48 hours before the exam. This really slows the learning process...and I'm sure makes it less effective.

What got me thinking about this was an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education that I read this morning which presented research suggesting regular quizzes-which require focused recall of recently...learned information.--lead to better recall for information learned. This improvement not only remains over time, it also occurs best for short-answer quizzes but (maybe surprisingly) even for multiple-choice quizzes. Here's a copy of the article.

Now, come the Fall semester, when I have 75 students rather than the 23 enrolled in the course for this summer session, I may regret having to subject me (or, maybe more precisely my graduate teaching assistant) to that much grading...I'm now just so sure that it would elevate the discussion in my classroom.

Great Day in San Jose

2007-06-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday I lamented about not enjoying San Francisco during a recent trip there for the Interanational Communication Association conference. I've heard feedback from several of you who really like SF...and can't quite believe that I don't. Oh well, to each his own. For me, though, it's hard to compare the crowded streets, traffic, and cold temperatures to the wonderful day I spent in San Jose with my wife's cousin Tanya and her husband Chris. The two of them were graduate students at UIUC, and they visited our home in Bloomington once. So, when they paid me a lunch visit in San Fran and later suggested that rather than doing a sightseeing walk in the cold (but at least sunny) City by the Bay I should visit their house in San Jose, I was happy to agree.

Turns out that they had two dogs, Kaley and Zoe. Here's a family picture:

Their fun for the Memorial Day holiday was to take their dogs to a "dog beach"--a beach where dogs are allowed for certain hours...and on this particular beach the dogs could be off leash. It was a great location, with dogs going crazy:

And surfers catching waves:

While we were running on the beach, the three of us got separated by about 50 yards in different directions. All of a sudden, Chris...who was closest to the dogs...began yelling for Tanya. When we got up to him, we were startled to find this:

A beached sea lion. For a good amount of time I thought I was witnessing some sad event, and even contemplated whether Chris and I could possibly lug this huge thing down the beach and closer to the incoming tide. But, then, off to my right, I saw a pair of small, 8 1/2 x 11, signs on stakes stuck into the sand:

Apparently, this is something that sea lions just...well...do sometimes! It sure looked like it was in distressed...but this small laminated sign made me dispell any sense of guilt and turned back to enjoy the beach.

ICA=Hooray, San Fran=Yuck

2007-06-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

Over the Memorial Day Weekend I hit the road...traveling to San Francisco for the annual conference of the International Communication Association. ICA is, by far, my favorite communication-related academic conference. The research being done is of high quality and that stimulates me to go back to my lab and continue my work. I must say, however, that this year I seemed to be much more focused on re-connecting with friends and former students and meeting new people (including a faculty member from Virginia Tech who told me he is an occassional Audio Prof reader!).

Here are some pictures of a bunch of us out for dinner at a place called Calzone's.

And when I say a bunch, I mean 15!!

Now, San Francisco is not one of my favorite cities. It's ALWAYS COLD THERE and seems pretty dirty and smelly to me. But, here's a few required shots of of a cable car and me riding on it (thanks to Johnny Sparks for letting me borrow the transit pass!)

Now, I look like I gained about 25 pounds by eating at Calzone's prior to taking this ride...

Not so. I just had to have on about 14 layers of clothing...did I mention that it was cold there.

Anyway, back home again in Indiana, and off to teach my summer school class.

Creating Buzz can certainly backfire...or can it?

2007-05-08T13:27:00.000-04:00

Two stories have captured my attention recently.

Summertime is a big season for radio.

People are out doing fun stuff outside...and in order to stay in front of listeners, many stations run billboard campaigns figuring people will be outside driving to the beach (or whatever), the sun will be shining, people will be happy, and what better ways to get your call letters in front of potential listeners.

But then, marketers want to be creative. Can't just put up the call letters on a billboard! Gotta come up with something that will create "buzz" to show how edgy we are.

Here's one example, for a morning show that is syndicated right in my backyard The Bob & Tom Show.

Women in Boise thought the billboard was exploitative. I like the Bob & Tom show...it makes me laugh...and they have certainly done some crazy boards before...ones that were equally in poor taste as this one. But, this one caused an uproar...and resulted in terrible PR, right? Right? Well, that's a tough call because the target market for a station like 96.9 The Eagle ,the station in Boise that posted the boards, may feel a sense of solidarity with the station as it weathers protests from the local community. Plus, the show does have PLENTY of sexual inuendo and the board fits right into that theme. Should it come down? Yes, and it has.

This next one, though, leaves me shaking my head.

Here's a board posted in Cincinnati by News/Sports Talker WLW

The station isn't a Spanish station. It's a news/talk station. A station that shoudl be striving to build credibility in the market. Puns? Ethnic Puns? Makes no sense to me at all.

And boy is it creating buzz.

Another semester "in the books"

2007-05-06T20:13:00.001-04:00

Man, one of the worst parts of my job has to be grading!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who thinks that it's wrong to assign value to work or that judging the products my students turn in somehow inhibits their growth. Honest, constructive evaluation and criticism is good, helpful, and important.

It's just that grading takes so darn long....

And, this semester I had a "new prep." That is, a course I had never taught before. It's the Electronic Media Sales course.

Everything takes longer with a new prep. Preparing the lectures takes longer. Coming up with assignments takes longer. Tests...longer.

All year long I factored that in to my allocation of time.

Except, for some reason, I forgot that grading their final projects would take TIME.

And boy did it. I've been working on them all day. But, now I'm done. Grades are posted. And, in honor of my "new prep" class teaching (to the best of my abilities) techniques in the craft of salespersonship...Here is something from Speed Bump:

Oh, and I should give credit to (now IU PhD graduate!!!!) James Angelini for the idea of posting comics that I find applicable on The Audio Prof Blog.

Time to break the logjam

2007-05-03T11:24:00.000-04:00

This has been the longest draught in my blogging history.
It's not that things haven't been going on...most of the content of this blog is a positive commentary on the great work done in my field of mass communication research and by my colleagues at Indiana University's Dept. of Telecommunications.

But, it is also a way for me to humanize the life of a university professor for current/future/potential undergraduate and graduate students. So, when I had a sad thing happen in my life...it seemed that blogging about it fit the latter purpose of this blog. But, then, how do you write about the death of your mom? It's difficult. It's emotional. It's high disclosure. But, once I decided that I needed to do it if this was to be an accurate portrayal of big events in the life of a professor...I needed to figure out how.

Mom died of a heart attack on Easter Sunday. I did not make it to Washington State in time to see her again before she died. But, I had visited her in October as part of a research trip to the Society for Psychphysiological Research conference in Vancouver BC. That visit was very positive and leaves me with good memories. Here is a picture of her and her husband (my stepfather) at their assisted-living facility...a place that they were very happy to move to about 18 months ago.

I heard that mom had died by placing a cell phone call to my sister while sitting in a plane at the Indianapolis Airport...waiting to fly to see her.
Making that phone call made me realize that the mad dash to try to get there had turned into a slow crawl to wait the 5 days for a memorial service that took place at their church.

But, that crawl began with a drive over Snoqualmie Pass from Seattle to Richland. I had flown into Seattle to save money. And I had also used the internet to book a one-way rental car. I'll let my wife tell the rest of the story. Here's an email that my wife sent out to friends and family....the sad stuff is at the beginning...and then there is the saga of me and the F150!!...

Hello everyone,
I am very sorry to have to make this a
mass email but I wanted to let as many people know with the least amount of
repeats....
Sunday evening, Rob's mom passed away. She had MS and diabetes,
what ultimately took her life was a heart attack but with her body being as weak
as it was it didn't take much. Rob flew out Sunday night to Seattle and is
driving to Kennewick which is 3-4 hours away. He should arrive sometime this
afternoon our time...

...Rob just called and asked me to relate this story just to
lighten the mood. When he arrived in Seattle, at 11pm (one our time), the plan
was to rent the smallest car and then go to a hotel. The car that the rental
company wants Rob to take to Kennewick is not a speck but a Ford F150. I'll let
that mental image settle for a moment. I asked Rob if that came with an extra
step-stool. He said no but if he would remember to use the running boards he
wouldn't have to fling himself up into the truck. And if that isn't funny enough
he said that he might ask the hotel for a pillow to sit on. He said that the
hardest thing to deal with is the looks he gets when he free-falls, I mean,
jumps down from the truck. He feels as though everyone is thinking, "Oh, he is
totally a overcompensating."

Thank you for all of the prayers and well wishes, I will let you
know the funeral details when I know them. Please look at the list of people
that I have sent this too, if I have missed someone please pass it on.

So, with the story of little Robbie in a BIG TRUCK to lighten the mood, I knew how I would blog about mom's death. She would have laughed so hard at that story...she loved to laugh and was partial for the stupid stories her son told.

But, that was weeks ago. And I still remained silent on the blog. It just seemed that I needed to have a special time set aside to write the TRIBUTE. But, time just dragged on...and now I have so many good things to blog about that it was just time to break the logjam and get this down on pixels.

I love you Mom. I'll miss you. Here's a picture of visiting our house in Bloomington just a couple of weeks after we moved.

Department/ICR Open House

2007-03-27T20:50:00.000-04:00

Last Friday the Dept. of Telecommunications invited potential graduate students to Bloomington to show them what we have to offer. Bloomington is...well...in the middle of the country. There isn't a beach around for HUNDREDS of miles. And there isn't a big city nearby. And so, it is sometimes a tough sell to convince people (particularly those interested in studying media, which people perceive HAPPENS on the coasts) that this would be the place to spend 2-4 years of their life in graduate school.

But, EVERYONE who comes to Bloomington (and particularly the campus) says it's beautiful and idyllic and a GREAT place to spend as much time as they can.

And then, there is the work that is done here. From wonderful production (documentaries, animations, dvds, MMPOGs), to excellent scholarship, there is not place like it.

So, that was the motivation behind the "open house."

They met the Chairman of the Department (Walter Gantz) and Director of Graduate Studies (Ted Castronova). Then, I took them on a tour of the campus which ended at the ICR. Zheng Wang and Sharon Mayell, the current ICR Managers, had the place looking great--with posters from academic conference presentations hanging on the wall, sample experiments going on, and plenty of grad students hanging around answering questions of the potential new grad students.

Then, they went to see a departmental alum-done-good: Paul Bolls, who delivered the Departmental Colloquium.

It was a great time!

Here's some pictures:

ICR Manager Sharon Welcomes People to the Open House

IU Telecomm. Alum, and T600 speaker, Paul Bolls talks with Ph.D. Candidate Narine Yeagiyan

Annie Lang, notorious for not wanting her picture taken, hides behind an umbrella with Paul Bolls and Julia Fox

Finally, the umbrella comes down.

Fun times at the Zoo

2007-03-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

We're on the last day of Spring Break (not including the weekend), and now I'm playing catchup on all the work I wanted to get done. Luckily, the weather has turned cloudy, wet, and cold now...so I don't feel so bad sitting in my chair at home with a laptop permanently cemented to my lap.

Good thing we took advantage of the good weather when it was here. Tuesday was wonderful! Sunny blue skies, with a light breeze that kept it from getting too hot. And the Indianapolis Zoo was a terrific place to take the family!

Spring Break--Truly needed

2007-03-12T16:56:00.001-04:00

It's spring break here in Bloomington.
I needed one for sure.
The grant submission is turned in...truly a colaboarative effort, with 6 of us across two Big Ten campuses. Now, we wait for the scientific peer review...which takes months.

One of the the main professional reasons why I chose to come to IU 3.5 years ago was to have access to the support and expertise necessary to learn how to obtain external support for my research. I've been learning "the drill" slowly...and this is by far the most involved I've ever been in the process. So, that feels good regardless of what the outcome will be. Of course, getting the financial go ahead to pursue research questions that--because it concerns the fMRI facility here at IU--I would not be able to pursue without it, would be even better!

So, now that particular hurdle is out of the way, I've got to use this week to catch up on all the other things that I've been sandbagging while working on the grant proposal. Today I did a scientific peer review of a manuscript for a communication journal. I've been doing projects around the house and spending time with my family.

Tomorrow, I think we're going to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Long time comin'

2007-02-28T21:05:00.000-05:00

I've been quiet for awhile. A couple of reasons. The first is because I've been working on revising a paper that I've been writing with Francesca Dillmann-Carpentier for a long time. And I mean a LONG TIME.

It's a paper about the impact of tempo and genre of music on physiological arousal. As always, it's a much better paper after we responded to the criticism and concerns of the reviewers. But...it took a long time. It's back in there hands, now. We'll wait and see if they like the improvements we've made.

Although I've gotten better at it...I have never been good a just "writing a little bit here and there, whenever I have a chance." So, toward the end of the revision process...it kind of monopolized all my time.

Antoher thing that took up some time is that I was called to JURY DUTY on Tuesday! I was "on call" all month. I'd have to call every night and see if they needed me. Juror 729. It was almost the end of the month...and then my number came up. I went into the justice building at 8am.

Went through the voir dire process and then about 3 hours later I...wasn't selected as one of the six. Although I'm glad to have seen the process, and reminded of how great a country we live in...flaws and all, that 3 hours set me quite far behind on other stuff.

One of the things I had to catch up on was reading Seungjo Lee's dissertation! Congratulations to Seungjo Lee, Ph.D.!!! He applied motivation activation to discrete emotion processing. It was a very impressive document...and you should be looking for excerpts from it at conferences to come!

I'm also now behind the 8-ball with lots of work on a grant application that's due March 8!

So, might be a while before I check back in again.

Grammy Red Carpet Humor

2007-02-19T14:55:00.001-05:00

One of the best things about being a professor is when favorite students keep in touch after they graduate.

When I was on the faculty at the Telecommunications and Film Dept. at the University of Alabama, I was also the faculty advisor for the student radio station, WVUA-FM.

In that role, I met Demitri Ravanos. He was the promotions director for the station...and eventually took Audience Analysis and Marketing & Promotions with me. He has kept in touch since he graduated...and since I moved to IU.

He's a part of a morning show (#1 in the male demo...or so he claims) at 96 Rock in Raleigh NC. I appreciate his emails keeping me--and other 'Bama friends--updated on what he's doing in his life and his career.

Now, the other day...here's the email he sent us:

Howdy friends,

Today I want to share with you the hilarity of Rhett and Link. These
are two college students from Raleigh that we sent to the Grammys in
LA to be 96 Rock's official correspondents. All we provided were
plane tickets and a hotel room. Everything they did on ther own.

I whole-heartedly believe that these guys have the talent and
motivation to be famous for what they do. I hope Conan, Letterman, or
the Daily Show see this and give these guys a break. Enjoy their grammy video:

Go check it out!

I couldn't agree more.
My favorite part...the look on Al Jarreau's face.

Let me know what your favorite part was.

Ice, Ice Baby

2007-02-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

It was a weird week for us here in Bloomington.
After a pretty mild winter so far...there was a big sleet storm that came through on Tuesday.
Power transformers blowing up in my neighborhood...we lost electricity two days in a row!

And travel was trecherous!
So, IU closed until noon on Wednesday (the first time since 1996).

But, now that the sun is shining, it's quite beautiful.

Check it out!

Results of Super Bowl Ad effectiveness

2007-02-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

I know that we're more than a week removed from it...but things have been a little busy here at IU-Bloomington.

In fact, it's taken an ice storm to close the University (at least until noon today!) for me to find time to post this.

Another excellent bit of Super Bowl Advertising Research Done by the folks at Media Post and The Center for Media Research (you should really subscribe to their email newsletter!!)

-----------------------------------------------

Ad Rankings For Your Super Bowl File

by Jack Loechner, Monday, Feb 12, 2007 8:30 AM ET

Ad Rankings For Your Super Bowl File

If you missed the complete ad review, or real time reactions to the ads by USA Today, here's a data summary to close out the season. In addition, there's a link at the conclusion of this Brief to view each of the ads individually, for which advertisers paid up to $2.6 million for a 30-second spot.

USA TODAY assembled 238 adult volunteers in Houston and McLean, Va., and electronically charted their second-by-second reactions to ads during the Super Bowl. Opinions Unlimited and Shugoll Research chose the volunteers, who used handheld meters to register how much they liked each ad, and a computer continuously averaged the scores. The scores shown in the chart are the highest average for each ad.

10 Most Popular Ads From USA TODAY's Super Bowl Ad Meter
*Company*	*Description*	*Length(sec)*	Qtr	*Score*
Budweiser	Crabs worship Bud ice chest.	30	4th	8.56
Budweiser	Stray dog and the Clydesdales.	60	2nd	8.29
Bud Light	Rock, Paper, Scissors game for beer.	30	1st	8.28
Doritos	Guy in car, girl show Doritos qualities.	30	1st	7.95
Bud Light	Immigrants learn to ask for Bud Light.	30	1st	7.87
Bud Light	Wedding shortened by auctioneer.	30	1st	7.83
Bud Light	Ape loses out on beer while posing.	30	3rd	7.76
FedEx	FedEx truck on the moon.	45	1st	7.74
Snickers	Mechanics enjoy candy bar.	30	1st	7.57
Bud Light	Scary hitcher gets ride for Bud Light.	30	3rd	7.51
Source: USA TODAY, February 2007

The Rest Ranked by Average "Like" Score
*Company*	*Description*	*Length(sec)*	Qtr	*Score*
Blockbuster	Rabbit uses (real) mouse to order.	30	1st	7.44
NFL	Fans mourn end of season.	30	4th	7.43
Coca-Cola	No more regrets for old man.	30	2nd	7.36
Snapple Green Tea	Fan researches mystery ingredient.	30	4th	7.27
Taco Bell	Lions chat about new Taquitos.	30	3rd	7.26
CareerBuilder.com	Dodging darts in office jungle.	30	2nd	7.10
Emerald Nuts	Robert Goulet and low energy danger.	30	3rd	7.07
General Motors	Factory robot dreams he's fired.	60	2nd	7.06
E-Trade	What one finger can do.	30	4th	7.05
Schick	Quattro tested in gym workout.	30	1st	6.99
Coca-Cola	Video game guy does good deeds.	60	2nd	6.96
T-Mobile	Fan doesn't recognize Charles Barkley.	30	3rd	6.91
Toyota	Tundra accelerates, stops at cliff.	30	1st	6.81
Disney	Movie trailer for Wild Hogs.	30	2nd	6.74
Bud Light	Slapping replaces fist bumping.	30	2nd	6.71
Sierra Mist	Beard comb-over doesn't work.	30	1st	6.66
CareerBuilder.com	Fight for promotion in office jungle.	30	3rd	6.54
CareerBuilder.com	Performance review in office jungle.	30	4th	6.52
Coca-Cola	Black History Month tribute.	30	2nd	6.50
Chevrolet	Bare-chested guys wash HHR.	30	2nd	6.47
Coca-Cola	Inside a Coke vending machine.	60	3rd	6.44
Bud Select	Jay-Z, Don Shula play 3-D football.	30	4th	6.30
Frito-Lay	Black History Month tribute.	30	2nd	6.30
Doritos	Checkout girl gets excited.	30	2nd	6.18
FedEx	Can't judge people by their names.	30	3rd	6.16
Sierra Mist	Karate students defend soft drink.	30	1st	6.15
Disney	Movie trailer for Meet the Robinsons.	30	3rd	6.10
Prudential Financial	What rocks can do for you.	30	4th	5.96
Izod	PerformX sportswear in the snow.	30	4th	5.89
Sprint	Mobile broadband connections.	30	2nd	5.81
Chevrolet	Stars sing songs with Chevy in lyrics.	60	1st	5.78
E-Trade	Bank robs customers.	30	3rd	5.70
Lionsgate	Movie trailer for Pride.	30	1st	5.63
Toyota	Tundra tows load on see-saw ramp.	30	3rd	5.63
Hewlett-Packard	PC, motorcycles, American Chopper star.	30	4th	5.60
Honda	Fuel efficiency of Hondas.	30	4th	5.49
Honda	Elvis' Burning Love for new CR-V.	30	4th	5.38
GoDaddy.com	GoDaddy marketing department parties.	30	1st	5.28
King Pharma.	Guy in heart suit attacked by risks.	60	2nd	5.23
Van Heusen	Man dressed for any occasion.	30	3rd	5.04
Nationwide Ins.	Kevin Federline dreams of rap career.	30	3rd	4.94
Weinstein Co.	Movie trailer for Hannibal Rising.	30	4th	4.77
Source: USA TODAY, February 2007

5 Least Popular Ads
*Company*	*Description*	*Length(sec)*	Qtr	*Score*
GoDaddy.com	2nd airing of marketing department.	30	4th	4.71
Garmin	GPS navigator vs. paper map monster.	30	2nd	4.34
Flomax	Prostate drug lets men bike, kayak.	60	4th	4.22
Revlon Colorist	Sheryl Crow sings new song.	60	3rd	4.09
Salesgenie.com	Salesgenie.com helps sales success.	30	1st	4.05
Source: USA TODAY, February 2007

And, how did the (some of) the advertisers fair with regard to market share of web visits on Super Bowl Sunday... The advertiser websites with the largest increases in market share of visits on Super Bowl Sunday versus Feb 3, 2007 were:

Super Bowl Advertiser Websites Ranked by Change in Market Share of Visits, Feb. 4, 2007 vs. Feb. 3, 2007
*Advertiser/Product*	*Domain*	*Change in Market Share*
King Pharmaceuticals/AHA	www.beatyourrisk.com	1727%
Budweiser	www.bud.tv	1401%
Salesgenie.com	www.salesgenie.com	534%
Pepsi	www.pepsi.com	374%
Snickers	www.snickers.com	234%
Bud Light	www.budlight.com	195%
Go Daddy	www.godaddy.com	74%
Doritos	www.crashthesuperbowl.com	69%
Van Heusen / IZOD	www.pvh.com	66%
Budweiser	www.budweiser.com	56%
Garmin	www.garmin.com	44%
Hannibal Rising	www.hannibalrising.com	35%
Emerald Nuts	www.emeraldnuts.com	33%
Taco Bell	www.tacobell.com	29%
Career Builder	www.careerbuilder.com	25%
Source: Hitwise

Note - the data is based on the daily market share of visits, which is the percentage of traffic, comparing February 4, 2007 visits versus February 3, 2007 visits among all US Internet users from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users

Please go here to view each of the ads individually

Another big year for IU Telecom @ ICA

2007-02-07T06:50:00.001-05:00

IU Dept. of Telecommunications Research Accepted for Presentation at International Communications Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, May 24-28.

Betsi Grabe receives Top Faculty Paper Award in Visual Studies Division.

Faculty and graduate student work includes 19 papers spanning 6 divisions.

Information Systems Division

James Angelini-- Remembering the typical or the atypical? An examination of memory of gendered sports broadcasts.

Julie Fox, Volkan Sahin, Ashley Sanders-Jackson, Brian Wilson, Glory Koloen & Ya Gao--

No joke: A motivated cognition study of viewing The Daily Show and network TV news.

Betsi Grabe, Rasha Kamhawi & Narine Yegiyan-- Informing citizens: How people with different levels of education process television, newspapers, and web news.

Satoko Kurita, Sungkyoung Lee, P. Gayle Nadorff, & Annie Lang-- YO-MAM! Validating a measure for assessing individual differences in motivational activation in children.

Satoko Kurita, Robert F. Potter & Annie Lang-- Is shorter better? MiniMAM: Developing a short version of the Motivation Activation Measure.

Sungkyoung Lee & Robert F. Potter-- Effect of emotion in processing words presented in radio advertisements.

P. Gayle Nadorff, Sungkyoung Lee, Madhuja Banerjee, & Annie Lang-- The human face specificity for visual processing of human and human-like animal cartoons.

Robert F. Potter & Sojung Kim--Does priming a focus on advertising impact perceptions of increased commercial clutter?

Zheng Wang--The method is the message: Dynamic signal detection theory and its use in analyzing recognition memory of mediated information.

Law & Policy Division

Sung Wook Ji--Piracy impact on the theatrical movie industry.

Jung Seok Kang--Institutional determinants of the structure of the daily newspaper industry: A cross-country study.

Mike McGregor-- Unheard voices: Public comment and FCC policy making.

Mass Communications Division

Walter Gantz & Nancy Schwartz--Food advertising likely to be seen by children: Incorporating viewing patterns in content analyses of non-programming content.

Walter Gantz & Zheng Wang--Health content in local television news: A current appraisal

Betsi Grabe-- Presenting panelist on session Future Directions in Television News Research.

Rasha Kamhawi & Betsi Grabe--Why women are not watching: Gender differences in responding to negative, positive, and valence ambiguous TV news.

Political Communications Division

Jung Seok Kang--Economics of newspapers’ presidential endorsement decisions: Evidence for endogenous product-type choices of media firms.

Visual Studies Division

Betsi Grabe-- The liberal bias accusation against journalism: Contradictory evidence from a visual perspective. (Top Paper Award)

Conference Theme Session

Mark Deuze--Presenting panelist on the conference-wide theme session Creating Communication: Content, Control, Critique.

Go Colts! Some quick reflections on Super Bowl 41

2007-02-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple of good years for me in the Super Bowl arena.
Last year it was two of my favorite teams going head to head, and I couldn't lose.
It would either be the Seahawks or the Steelers. (Of course, the team of my birthplace won!)

And now...this year, my HOMETOWN TEAM won.

Congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts!

Like many in Bloomington, we congregated around a neighbor's big screen TV.
Nothing like watching men kiss each other unwittengly due to their craving of a Snickers Bar on a 54-inch screen...and then rip out chest hair. Actually, I thought it was a bad year for creativity in the ads. See them all here. But, I digress...

The games was, of course, a ratings boon for midwest TV stations and across the country.

In single-digit temperatures last night, the team was welcomed back to Indy with a congratulatory parade.

Happy for Peyton Manning and for Tony Dungy...

Dirty Job promoted with Toilet Paper

2007-02-03T08:14:00.000-05:00

I just found an interesting new blog. It's the MIT Advertising Lab blog. Although, its "affiliation" is due to the host being an MIT graduate.

While poking around on it, I found this posting about a unique way one of my favorite shows, Dirty Jobs, is promoting itself in Sweden.

Less than 36 hours until the Super Bowl!

Boston Bomb Scare=Another Promotion Gone Bad

2007-02-01T06:49:00.000-05:00

Recently I've been posting on a radio promotion gone wrong (see here and here).

Well, check out another example. This time (thank goodness) without any fatalities but what surely inconvenienced thousands of people in Boston. Be sure to watch the video link if you've got a high-speed connection.

Incredible. Could it be that our cluttered advertising environment has led to situations where marketers lose their common sense in desperate attempts to cut through?

One nationally syndicated disk jockey thinks so, check it what Mancow thinks here.

Networks promote THEMSELVES during Superbowl

2007-01-30T09:14:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

We're now down to 5 days until Super Bowl Sunday! For the past two years I have had favorite teams in the big game...this year the Colts, last year both the Steelers and the Seahawks. But, even without a "dog in the fight", the Superbowl is appointment viewing for someone interested in advertising and marketing. Although many advertisers are deciding that they can't justify the increased prices (in the hundreds of millions of $$$ as you'll see below), others are finding that the right commercial can cause buzz that's almost unmeasurable.

What's interesting, though, is that because networks know that the game/ads will lead to HUGE ratings, they are willing to pay the NFL for rights to the Superbowl. And, they take advantage of the eyeballs that will be focused on the screen this Sunday night. As the research reported by Media Post Research below, the biggest amount of VALUE taken up by single advertisers are by the host networks themselves promoting their own shows!

The following information is from Media Post Research.

20 Years of Superbowls Yielded 1400 Commercials and 1.72 Billion Ad Dollars

According to TNS Media Intelligence, advertising during the Super Bowl game has accounted for 682 minutes, over 11 full hours, of commercial time throughout the past 20 years (1987-2006). Those 11 hours represent 221 different advertisers, more than 1,400 commercial announcements and translate into $1.72 billion of network advertising sales.

The top five Super Bowl advertisers of the past 20 years have spent $613.4 million on advertising during the game, accounting for 35 percent of total advertising dollars spent in the game.

The FedEx Corporation, as the fifth top advertiser through 2005, was replaced in this year's report (covering 1987-2006) by Walt Disney. This is especially interesting as FedEx Corporation has advertised with the Super Bowl for 19 years, while Walt Disney has only advertised with the Super Bowl for the past seven years.

Top 5 Super Bowl Advertisers (1987-2006)
Rank	Advertiser	# of Years With Ads In Game	Ad Spend ( ($ millions)
1	Anheuser Busch	20	$ 250.8
2	Pepsico	20	$ 190.0
3	General Motors	15	$ 65.7
4	Time Warner	11	$ 63.4
5	Walt Disney	7	$ 43.5
	Top 5 Total		$ 613.4
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, January 2007

Each year, about 62 percent of the network TV ad money invested in the game comes from incumbent marketers who ran commercials the previous year.

Jon Swallen, senior vice president of Research at TNS Media Intelligence, said "While that's a very high retention rate, it's actually lower than the comparable rate for two other showcase TV events. Over the past 10 years, the average dollar retention rate has been 78 percent for the Academy Awards and 67 percent for the World Series," said.

The cost of an advertisement in the Super Bowl has more than quadrupled in the past 20 years, reaching $2.5 million in 2006 for a 30-second unit. For the 2007 game, CBS is reportedly fetching over $2.6 million for each 30-second spot.

Superbowl Advertising Rates (1987-2006)
Year	Cost :30 Unit ($000)	Total Ad Revenue ($ millions)
1987	$ 600	$ 31.5
1992	850	48.2
1997	1200	72.2

2001	2,100	136.4
2002	2,200	134.2
2003	2,150	124.7
2004	2,302	147.3
2005	2,400	159.2
2006	2,500	162.5
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, January 2007

Ad sales in the pre- and post-game coverage, plus ad sales by the network's local affiliate stations, are important components when considering the Super Bowl as an ad revenue-generating machine. For every dollar spent on network in-game ads, these ancillary sources contribute as much as an extra 74 cents.

Ancillary Ad Spend Around The Super Bowl
	1996	2001	2006
Network In-Game	$ 69.4	$ 136.4	$ 162.5
Network Pre/Post Game	$ 22.7	$ 29.5	$ 78.1
Local TV (Top 75 markets)	$ 21.3	$ 28.9	$ 42.2
Totals	$ 113.41	$ 194.8	$ 233.8
"Lift" from ancillary sources	+63%	+43%	+74%
Source: TNS Media Intelligence

The popular perception is that beer, soft drinks and autos are the most frequently advertised on the Super Bowl categories, given their annual presence in the game. However, the perennial leader is promotional advertising from the network itself. In a typical Super Bowl, one-fourth of all commercial time is a plug by the network for its own programming. The value of that air time in 2006 alone exceeded $52 million.

Network Promotions In The Super Bowl
	Time (mm:ss)	% of All Ad Time	Value ($ millions)
2001	5:55	19.1%	$ 24.9
2002	6:55	22.6%	$ 30.4
2003	10:55	31.0%	$ 46.9
2004	9:10	26.1%	$ 42.2
2005	9:45	26.2%	$ 46.8
2006	10:25	22.0%	$ 52.1
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, January 2007

The Major League Baseball's World Series and the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship are two other high-profile sporting events that attract significant interest from TV advertisers. While the World Series has a higher advertiser retention rate than the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl still rakes in more network TV ad dollars than each of the other multi-game events.

Major Sporting Championships Network TV Ad Revenue ($ Millions)
	Super Bowl( Game	World Series (# games)	NCAA Basketball( Final Four (# games)
2001	$ 136.4	$ 136.3 (7)	$ 88.7 (3)
2002	$ 134.2	$ 141.7 (7)	$ 101.9 (3)
2003	$ 124.7	$ 124.9 (6)	$ 117.6 (3)
2004	$ 147.3	$ 114.6 (4)	$ 126.4 (3)
2005	$ 159.2	$ 147.5 (4)	$ 142.2 (3)
2006	$ 162.5	$ 160.8 (5)	$ 154.7 (3)
Source: TNS Media Intelligence

For more information, please visit TNS Media Intelligence here.

Football Withdrawl...Getting Ready for Big Week of Hype

2007-01-28T19:04:00.001-05:00

I love NFL football.
I love their marketing practices.
I love the Pittsburgh Steelers (the reigning Super Bowl Champions for another 6 days), because I was born in the Steel City.

And, I love watching games on Sunday afternoon.
I'll admit that I was not rabid enough of a fan to continue my subscription to the NFL Sunday Ticket on Directv...just too much to do with the kids and family to commit to so many games.

Plus, living just outside of Indianapolis means that I'm promised a competitive game on the local broadcast almost every week.

But today...it was missing. The annual lull before the Super Bowl to remind me of how much I'll miss the NFL for the next 8 months or so.

But, for the next week this will be a GREAT place to be! Less than an hour away from Indianapolis and this place is going COLTS CRAZY. Except, for a big proportion of the Bloomington population that have been Chicago Bears fans for most of their lives.

It makes for a wondeful (and so far friendly) rivalry. And, it seems to be evenly split. I took an unscientifc poll in my T343 class last week, and was surprised to find it 15 students for the Colts and 14 for the Bears.

In our faculty hallway we have Julia Fox who has been posting Chicago Bear clippings from the Chicago Tribune all season on her office door. And RIGHT across the hallway is Andrew Weaver, who grew up in Indy and has started to fire up his own doorway propaganda machine.

Should be a great week...and then comes the games and THE COMMERCIALS.

Be sure to check back.