I Know...It's Been a Long Time!

What inspired me to come out of blogging hibernation? We have some new videos that you need to know about!

Two new videos on aspects of Speech Communication are available for checkout. Both titles are from the Foundations of Communication series.

Public Address discusses the nature of public address and the role it has played in American history, and features Dr. Stephen Lucas.

The Study of Family Communication "shows how the communication process undergirds the wide array of family types" and "explores the family as a communication system." It features Dr. Kathleen M. Galvin.

Try Google Video!

This new Google product (currently in Beta testing) will allow you to search for content from recent television programs.

I did a search for "Dateline and DXM," looking for a Dateline program that I saw on the dangers of abusing over-the-counter drugs such as Robitussin and Coricidin-D. While it didn't pull up the program that I was looking for (a 2004 Dateline episode), it did retrieve a March 2005 episode that also mentioned DXM. I was then able to see screen shots of the program as well as closed-captioned program excerpts.

Google Video searches the text of closed-captioned transcripts to find search matches. To find out more about how it works, visit here.

What I saw as a problem: it does not index past coverage from highly relevant sources--such as the MSNBC page that features video from the exact broadcast that I was seeking.

In some respects, this blog has truly become a repository for Presidential Rhetoric sites.

Why? I'm not quite sure! :)

That said, here's a link to a terrific, new (to me) site on Presidential debates--The Museum of Broadcast Communications' History of Televised Presidential Debates. The site features videos, photos, segments from newspaper articles and more. There's even a great page devoted to the Nixon/Kennedy debates of 1960.

There's some great primary source material here, including internal memos relevant to the debates.

Thanks to Jeff for alerting me to this resource!

An interesting site for Presidential transcripts (meetings, conversations, etc...)

WhiteHouseTapes.org :: The secret White House tapes and recordings of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower

Note: There aren't finding aids up yet for every collection, but it looks like they plan to have them up soon.

It's Now Available....the Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center!

This database provides research and background information on a wide range of social issues (in other words, it's a perfect tool for CAS 100 research assignments!) It contains informative essays from the Opposing Viewpoints books, supplemented by statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

Questions about this new database? Just ask me.