Susan Jacobson

I have a ton of work to do before the first of August or so. I am putting together a survey of college students' news consumption habits that I hope to unleash on my students sometime in the fall semester. The idea is to try to get some hard data on students' use of informal news sources. So far, in reviewing the literature, I have found hard statistics that show people under the age of 35 generally eschew the daily newspaper and TV news, but information about where they get actually get their news is a little sketchy. I have found several articles that describe a laundry list of student news expectations - news has to be free, fast, convenient, short, entertaining, etc. - but no surveys. Some of the articles may be based on studies done by news organizations themselves, which were not made public, but I have only found a couple of articles that reference such studies.



Of course, I expect this survey to feed into my Mobile Journalism agenda. Given the news delivery expectations of the young, what form can news and information services take in mobile media? Is there any way to preserve Kovach and Rosensteil's notion that the Primary Purpose of Journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing? These are some of the questions I am hoping to explore with my students in the fall.



So for now I am holed up in my apartment with elmo_the_cat. To make up for the lack of interesting events in my life (at least until Thursday, when I go to Arbaccio's to play Pinochle - I wonder if I can con persuade them to let us play for cash instead of points?), here are some of the photos from my recent - first - trip to Europe, specifically Germany - for your enjoyment. I discovered the first photo while trying to find Potsdammer Platz in Berlin. It's weird to run into concrete evidence of people and places and events that, until then, you had only read about. The second photo is from Dresden, and the third is the remains of a Socialist Realism murl on a building in Dresden. It's hard to imagine that Dresden was part of East Germany at one time, but artifacts like this one pop up every now and then in the city. ( See more photos here. )

In the center of Dresden is a complex known as the Zwinger. It was initially built by Augustus the Strong in the late 1600s, after he returned from a trip to France where he got an eyeful of Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles, and decided to build his own complex in Dresden. As usually happens with these generation-spanning building plans, Augustus died before the Zwinger was complete, and his heir did not have enough money to finish the job. What was left was spectacular enough, though.



Augustus the Strong was one of a long line of German kings named Augustus. (Technically I think he ruled over Saxony and not the totality of Germany, although he was also "elected" King of Poland.) There is a very long mural of the various Augusti near the Zwinger in Dresden, but I did not photograph it. Augustus the Strong has kind of a mixed record - he built the Zwinger and built up an impressive collection of jewels that is on display in one of the four museums that are now housed in the Zwinger, but he also got Poland involved in a bunch of different wars. Funny how a Saxon ruler became King of Poland.



Now the Zwinger houses four museums, and hosts outdoor concerts on the lawn in the summer. If I understand things correctly, both the Zwinger and the Semper Opera House next door to the Zwinger were completely destroyed during the World War 2 bombing of Dresden. The citizens of Dresden voted to rebuild the Zwinger even when the city was part of East Germany. The Opera House was just recently rebuilt, and had its first performances this summer while I was in Dresden. To rebuild the Zwinger and still make it "look old," the Germans used some kind of Limestone in the building process that would turn black from the rain. ( See more photos of the Zwinger here. )

There are two centerpieces to Dresden - the Zwinger, which I will post about later, and the Frauenkirche, an early Lutheran church built in the 1700s that was completely destroyed in the Dresden bombings of World War 2. In 2004 the Germans completely rebuilt the church, pretty much exactly as it was initially designed, going so far as to use the original building plans as a guide. There are paintings in one of the museums in the Zwinger that show the church as it stood during the 1700s and 1800s, and it looks *exactly* as it does now.



The church is dominated by a dome and a bell tower that is the highest point in the city. You can go to the top of the bell tower and see all of Dresden. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died after I got to the top of the tower, but I got a good shot of the dome.



This is the one shot of the city that I got off before my camera died. It was not a very good one.

Well, I'm back. I had a fantastic time in Europe. And while I have many amazing photos to share with all of you of the sites I saw - Westminister Abbey, the Zwinger, Le Tour Eiffel - the best part of my stay was the friendly folks I got to hang out with. So this entry is dedicated to the people I spent my wonderful summer vacation with, beginning with kuaimao and her hubby Tim. They were soooooo kind to let me impose on them for a few days, and showed me such wonderful hospitality, I don't know how I will ever repay them except to let them know that my door is always open to them. Here we are at a pub in London, watching the Germany-Mexico World Cup match and making a toast to amaliestar!



My last day in London I hung out with my friend Nick. We went on the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel with amazing views of the city that was erected for the Millennium Celebration. Londoners liked the Eye so much that it's now a permanent fixture on the London skyline. Nick and I walked all around London, and in the evening saw Avenue Q, which was in previews in London. It was hysterical! Avenue Q opened on Broadway a couple of years ago and won all of the Tonys, and is now opening in London. You can see a World of Warcraft spoof of one of its songs The Interent Is for Porn.



I explored Dresden and Leipzig with Cara and Kaoko. Here they are in front of the fountain of the amazing Dresden Zwinger, the center of town where all of the museums are located. I will post more photos of Dresden when I get back from my July 4 weekend. ( See More Friendly Faces Here )

I am in Dresden at the ICA conference. I keep running into people I know - like Ed Lenert, pictured above, whom I met in New York City, but who has since become an endowed chair at the University of Reno. He's developing a convergence journalism program there, and is interested in mobile journalism. We may try to collaborate with our students this fall. A very nice woman from Media Ecology also ran into me when I was with the Dean, and gushed that she knew who I was because I had won the dissertation award! That was nice... ;-)



Dresden was the city that we bombed back to the stone age during World War 2. There are *still* a few buildings that bear the rubble of that attack, but one of the most famous is this church in the Center of Dresden. The big rock in the front is the remnants of the old church, the new one is just behind it.



I was happy to be abel to hear Manuel Castells speak on Monday evening. I have tried to meet him in person a few times since then, but have not had any luck yet. He has a new book coming out based on his massive study of global mobile media usage, which I would like to find. ( See More photos from Dresden, including Das Habermaus )