Assistance with media:
Penn State Media Commons (use for editing studios, training with most any technology, etc.) The student link under this site is quite helpful. This page walks you through “Project Planning” (Media Commons workspace, etc.), “Production” (borrowing equipment, etc.), and “Post-Production” (various tutorials).

Technology Project Resources sheet (outlines the above)

Vimeo’s Video School (Choosing a Camera, Shooting Basics, Editing Basics)

lynda.com at Penn State. This site offers sweet video tutorials on iMovie, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

You can also find a lot of text-based tutorials on these programs through Penn State Media Commons Tutorials.

Copyright:
“Talking Copyright with Dan Cahoy,” an RCL Course Cast on Copyright (including helpful tips)

PSU’s Copyright Perspectives (videos: “What if you could prevent yourself from making a mistake?”, “Remixing Media,” “Problems with Plagiarism”)

Free Media Library (background music, pictures, sound effects, etc.)

A few project samples:
The Firing of Joe Paterno

Out of state students and tuition at Penn State

Adderrall abuse at Penn State

State Patty’s Day

(Not a student example, but the first five minutes to Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me. [Along with the stuff Spurklock does to catch the viewer’s attentions — the use of music, visuals, the voiceover — pay attention to his use of framing questions to set up the controversy.])

And what not to do: a near literal fan video of Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

Group worksheets:
History of a Public Controversy Work Plan (due 11/8 in person or via email)
Peer Evaluation Form

…including, but not limited to:

various words: “patriot,” “American,” “Republican,” “Democrat,” “Green,” “pinkwashing,” “greenwashing”….;

food, farming (organic), fashion, media, political discourse, trends in sports, fantasy sports, memes, body cleanses, civic participation, virtual civic/political action, smoking, tattoos, consumerism, fake news, “Liking” on Facebook….

A cool way to look at this is to consider current trends where the trend’s history doesn’t seem immediately obvious … where you consider the idea, but you can’t immediately trace its “arc”, but you’re interested in tracing it because there’s something cool or mysterious about it … and by tracing it, you’ll find out some cool stuff about it, as well as its cultural/historical relevance.

Your essay will work very roughly like this:
Put your topic into historical and cultural context. What are you going to argue about its evolution? Is its evolution apparent? And from the prompt: “Explain how this portends a new set of ideas and values that are brought to bear on our culture.”
Where did the trend start?
Examples of its growth and change (using research). Consider specific moments in its evolution. These moments add up to where this thing is today.
Return to thesis idea.

Visually:
X (where this thing seemed to have started / its murky roots) ————–> Y (where it is now) & what happened along the way? how did it change and shift? & what does this mean culturally?

Example: Cleanse fad. Did this start with 50s ideas of beauty? What (possibly strange) health trends might have come before? When did traditional cleanses begin? What do cleanses say about our current sense of health? What seems healthy? Who is healthy? Action(s) taken to be healthy? Does this relate to our sense of self worth? Our sense of beauty? How does this relate to being spiritually or emotionally cleansed? Etc.