Playing with Fire

By John Kamerer

Kindle Fire display. Image from Bloomberg.com

I recently came into possession of Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Now, I’ve been a long-time user of Apple’s iPod touch/iPhone and have used iPads at work, so I’d like to share my findings for those on the fence about whether to buy an iPad or the new Fire device (I’ve also had a Kindle Keyboard since back when it was the only type of this device on the market, so my background experience should also help those looking for their ideal e-reader).

Hardware: The Fire is significantly smaller than the iPad, and is a bit minimalist when the devices are compared side-by-side. The only button is the power button, which is located next to the charging port and headphone jack on the bottom of the device. A possible problem I see is that it would be easy to accidentally bump the power button, but a simple workaround is to simply turn the device upside down (due to the lack of physical buttons, the Fire works exactly as well flipped as it does normally).

The fact that it only comes in an 8GB size (2GB of which is reserved for the operating system) can be a bit of a problem for users with lots of music and videos, but presumably if you relied on Amazon for all of your digital media it wouldn’t be much of an issue due to their cloud storage system.

Twitter Trend Analysis

By Kati Tusinski Berg

Sample tweets from students in Berg's ADPR 1800 course.

A couple of years ago I totally resisted Twitter, but over the past year I have come to enjoy it as a way to connect with colleagues, students and industry pros. Thanks to my colleague Gee Ekachai (@FvrythingPR) for encouraging me to get up-to-date with my social media skills. I have tried to develop a professional brand on Twitter than relates to my work as a professor in public relations in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University. Not only do I use hashtags for my courses (e.g. #adpr1800 and #ccom2000) but this semester I created a semester-long project for my ADPR 1800 Principles of Public Relations classes.

Students were required to create a public, professional-oriented Twitter account for class. I spent one lecture at the beginning of the semester reviewing online professionalism and ethics to remind them about the implications of posting inappropriate content online. Then students chose at least three PR professionals (e.g. @augieray or @ginidietrich), PR agencies (e.g. @ogilvypr @BraniganComm PR-related organizations (e.g. @PRSA or @PRnews) to follow on Twitter.

Masculinity in the Media

By Dr. Pamela Hill Nettleton

A student asked me recently, “Why do you study men? Most feminists study women.” An excellent question!

I asked her, “Well, who has the power?”

If humans are to come to a fuller understanding of our selves as gendered beings, scholars also need to study the other gender (hint: there are at least two, and women aren’t the only folks on the planet who are gendered).

I am far from the first person to repeat the wisdom that White is a race, too; male is a gender, too. Being White and male (and we can toss heterosexual in here, as well) becomes culturally invisible when it is considered the “universal” condition—though it obviously is not universal at all. Those of us who study race, sexuality, and gender gain much information and insight from turning the research spotlight onto those who are so in the center that society treats them as symbols of universal humanity.

And so I study masculinity as it is created and performed in the media. Often, on television.