Institute looks at mass media

"Mass Media and Culture in America" is the theme of the annual Institute on National Affairs in February. (The lectures listed below will be at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Sun Room.)

Events kick off with Lorraine Ali, music critic for Newsweek, who will discuss "Music and the World Outside of MTV" on Monday, Feb. 3. Before joining Newsweek, Ali was a senior critic for Rolling Stone, a music columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Mademoiselle, and a regular contributor to GQ. She was voted 1997's Music Journalist of the Year and won Best National Feature Story honors at the 1996 Music Journalism Awards.

Waters

The campus community is invited to "An Evening with John Waters: Negative Role Model" on Tuesday, Feb. 4. Waters' films include Cecil B. Demented, Pecker, Serial Mom, Cry Baby, Hairspray, Polyester, Desperate Living, Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos. He also wrote Shock Value, Trash Trio, Crackpot and Director's Cut.

Clifford Stoll will take a look at the world of computers during his talk, "Stop the Internet I Want to Get Off!" on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Stoll has been involved with computer networks since their inception and is an astronomer and computer security and network expert. His newest book is High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian. He currently is building software for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"Motherhood in the Media: The Last 30 Years," is the topic of a talk by Susan Douglas on Thursday, Feb. 6. Douglas, a communication studies professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, recently completed a book examining representations of motherhood in the media from the late 1960s to the present. She is author of Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination and Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

Events wind up with Michael Gartner discussing "Print and Electronic Media" on Wednesday, Feb. 26. Gartner has been the page one editor of the Wall Street Journal, editor and president of the Des Moines Register, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, general news executive of USA Today and Gannett Co., president of NBC News, and editor and co-owner of The Tribune in Ames. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1997. Currently he is a trustee of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt. Gartner also is a lawyer and owner of the Triple A Iowa Cubs baseball team.


Institute on National Affairs
"Mass Media and Culture in America"
Sun Room, MU, Feb. 3-26
4-9934

Monday, February 3

• 8 p.m., Lecture, "Music and the World Outside of MTV," Lorraine Ali, music critic for Newsweek.

Tuesday, February 4

• 8 p.m., Lecture, "An Evening with John Waters: Negative Role Model," John Waters, writer and film director.

Wednesday, February 5

• 8 p.m., Lecture, "Stop the Internet . I Want to Get Off!" Clifford Stoll, astronomer and computer security and network expert, Berkeley, Calif.

Thursday, February 6

• 8 p.m., Lecture, "Motherhood in the Media: The Last 30 Years," Susan Douglas, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Wednesday, February 26

• 8 p.m., Lecture, "Print and Electronic Media," Michael Gartner, Des Moines, lawyer and former newspaper editor.