Manufacturing Consent – The “agenda setting” function of the press. Start about minute 32 for an example of the strongest interpretation of the agenda setting theory.

Cambodia: Year Zero – Advocacy journalism. This is an example of advocacy journalism in the Vietnam war era: journalists arguing for change of some sort even as they also do traditional reporting. It is also an example of “adversarial” and “watchdog” journalism, where journalists 1) take a strongly critical stance toward the insitutions and/or individuals involved in the story or 2) approach their work as providing a check on abuses of power.

“What is Media Studies? Key concepts explained!” – A useful summary of key concepts of media studies. This gives an introduction to analyzing all different kinds of media–especially how to look at visual form and representation–and it can all be applied to journalism.

“Cultural History Advice for Students from Professor Ken Bartlett” – He’s kind of condescending, but explains cultural history well.

“Every NYT Front Page Since 1852” – A digital journalism history project by Josh Begley.

“Blackface: A cultural history of a racist artform” – From CBS news, with interviews with two cultural historians who explain how they look at media from the past to understand the history of race.

Ray Kurzweil: The Coming Singularity – Google’s Director of Engineering predicts the coming singularity, or the point when humans and supercomputers will merge.

This is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium is the Massage (1967) – Interview with Marshall McLuhan explaining his ideas about the consequences of living in an “electric age.”