Communications

I've been conducting an experiment over the last week to test how blogging can supplement a mini-marketing blitz directed at a specialized target audience.

Within 4 working days, I was able to contact the moderator of a Sundance Docs & Blogs panel discussion, contact and receive a response from all of the panelists, and receive an e-mail response from the editor-in-chief of indieWIRE who had just commented on his blog that "there is so much going on that the competition for attention is fierce."

I have been noticing that there are a number of articles questioning the relevance of network news since tonight is Tom Brokaw’s last broadcast as the NBC Nightly News anchor.

The Echo Chamber documentary focuses on the network news because of the influence that the media logic of the electronic medium of news has on the national political discourse...

I have been struggling with how to incorporate the methodological flaws of the Media Research Center into my documentary film. For the first time, I have organized my thoughts as clearly and succinctly as I can in this blog post.

But the medium of web writing and the medium of film are completely different, and it will be very difficult to make the same caliber of an argument within The Echo Chamber documentary.

A writer has more freedom to use complex words and phrases that carry very specific meanings, and adding a hypertext link allows the reader to learn more about the difference between an inductive and hypothetico-deductive method of scientific inquiry.

Names are important because they carry meaning.

I named my production company "MetaThought Productions" after a textbook called "Tools of Critical Thinking: Metathoughts for Psychology" by Pepperdine University Professor David A. Levy.

My mission statement explains further:

Our mission at MetaThought Productions is to expand consciousness by exploring the limitations of our attitudes and beliefs. By "thinking about how we think," then we can gain the perspective to be able to break out of our dominant paradigms. We accomplish this by producing multimedia outreach tools for liberals and progressives that stimulate dialogue with conservatives. The Echo Chamber documentary intends to build understanding between the polarized ends of the political spectrum by providing an emotionally engaging catalyst for discussing grievances with the mainstream television news media.

This is a meta-blogging post to analyze how I can use the blogging forum as a means to overcome my writers block.

I’ve been "slogging" through the process of writing up my business plan. I’ve made quite a lot of progress, but I’ve hit a wall.

I then discovered something very interesting yesterday – that blogging can provide an interesting way to overcome my writer’s block.

BLOGGING WRITING STYLE
This business plan was going to be mailed out to a few key producers and funders. When you’re writing to a few people, then you try to make it as polished and perfect as possible.

I had a volunteer transcriber write in the following comment about my last e-mail message, "Kent, I hate to tell you, but if you are placing your confidence in facts clearly communicated in even the simplest terms, you are heading for a HUGE disappointment."

She’s right, and I’m hoping to make my film more than just a stream of facts. That doesn’t work. The presentation of the facts must be done in an emotionally satisfying way to be truly effective.

Barry Richard’s article is called "Emotional Deficit in Political Communication" and it gives insight as to how to the emotional nature of our popular culture has infiltrated our political discourse. (Political Communication, 21:339-352, 2004)

The Independent Television Service, which funds a lot of PBS documentaries, just sent out their newsletter which talks about why political documentaries are becoming so popular.

A key impetus for most of the films discussed here, and Uncovered, Hijacking [Catastrophe] and Bush’s Brain, in particular, is getting information and points of view to the American people that have been ignored by the mainstream media in general and television news in particular. Increasingly, moviegoers are looking to documentary filmmakers for the kind of investigative journalism and behind-the-scenes reports that were once the province of the networks. Relying on grants and television funding but in no one’s employ, independent filmmakers uncover and pursue stories without worrying about upsetting advertisers, embarrassing a board of directors or violating prime-time or parental guidelines.