As part of my PhD activities, i also teach an ongoing 300 level course in new media theory at the Indiana University School of Informatics.  Two years ago, i thought that a fun and interesting way for students to engage the particular qualities of new media would be for them to produce viral videos.  Students have told me that this is true, and they have responded this year with some fantastic, insightful work.  Here are this semester’s videos:

As you can probably guess from the range of themes and styles the requirements for the assignment are very few.  What you might not guess is that these students had to write an accompanying essay on how their creative choices were designed to impact the viewer’s experience, as well as the likelihood that the video would spread virally.  After watching hundreds of these student videos and reading the accompanying essays over the last two years, one thing is becoming clear: the next generation of communicators, business practitioners, parents, citizens, etc. are developing a new fluency not only with the tools of new media, but also in the cultural understanding of how these media shape our lives and our culture.

Note: for those of you who watched these videos  and find yourself thinking “this isn’t serious communication,” go back and watch these again for the deeper themes like the parody of our overblown infomercial culture, comparisons of cooking to communist military parades, a rap video about the healthcare debate, satire of frat life and a commercial for a divorce agency called “Lord of the Rings.”  Then fast forward 5 years, and imagine the themes that these (now) 19-year-old students will be producing when they have been exposed to customers, office politics, social movements, etc. and have been given a budget to hire staff, buy better equipment, and build production infrastructures.