Media Resources for Economics

Music Resources

Music for Econ by Brian O'Roark contain dozens of animated songs that provide an economic interpretation of the artist's original lyrics.

Flat World Economics This is an album consisting of 8 original economics songs in an MP3 format.

Bailout by Merle Hazard. Created in 2009, this country song and video focuses on the financial crisis.

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News Resources

Media for Microeconomics A database over 300 citations to audio and video stories about topics covered in principles of microeconomics from major news outlets.

Stossel in the Classroom A set of videos by John Stossel (mostly from his reports on 20/20) for use in both microeconomics and macroeconomics courses.

Freakonomics Radio Podcasts from Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics.

NBC Learn Micro and Macroeconomics news footage from NBC. High quality and very current.

Audioecon makes economics instruction more engaging for students by providing economic issues and stories via audio content.

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Video Resources

Econ 1-0-What? Contains hundreds of "fair use" video clips that can be used to teach economics. Highly recommended! 

Movies for Economics Provides a database of feature films that relate to economics.

Television for Economists Provides a database of television episodes that relate to economics.

The Economics of Seinfeld This website showcases scenes from Seinfeld that are useful in teaching economic concepts. 

Teaching Economics with YouTube Contains a set of teaching resources of interest to economists that can be found on You Tube.

Economics U$A 28 videos that can be used to learn introductory economics. 

Commanding Heights Three-part, six-hour documentary on the effect of globalization on the world's economies.

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Visualization Resources

Econmemes Hundreds of funny econ-related memes.

Gapminder This extensive, and unique, approach to utilizing data increases student interaction with statistical data by producing videos, Flash presentations and PDF charts showing major global development trends with animated statistics in colorful graphics.

GeoFred This web page provides an application that allows users to create thematic maps based on a particular set of economic data.

The Decline: The Geography of a Recession This visualization by LaToya Egwuekwe, chronicles the onset of the Great Recession of 2007-1010 using unemployment rates by county. 

Visualizing Economics This website provides a large set of interesting visualizations on a variety of topics related to economics.

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Worth a Look

Journal Economic Education on-line section Provides a extensive list of media for use in face-to-face instruction and also in the inverted classroom.

Game Theory.net Has an extensive online listing of popular culture references to game theory.

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Creating Your Own Media

One does not need a large budget, fancy studio, or Ph.D. in economics to create original media that is informative, funny, entertaining, and educational.

Here are some examples:

• (http://www.musicforecon.com) Music for Economics, includes a method for transforming popular music into Flash animations about economics. The website describes the method in detail. Many of the postings have been designed and created by students from economics courses around the country. A knowledge of Flash is not required. Many instructors can achieve the same objectives by having their students use PowerPoint, a platform that many students are already quite familiar with.
• Every Breathe Bernanke Takes This highly original YouTube video created by the Columbia Business School uses The Police's classic song, "Every Breathe You Take" to poke fun at Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke.
• Hey Paul Krugman (A Song, A Plea) A song, featured on YouTube, asking Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman to work on the Financial Crisis Bailout.
• Econ Remix A YouTube video produced by four students in Dirk Mateer's Principles of Microeconomics course.
• Can't Spend This This parody is a remake of MC Hammer's Can't Touch This produced by five students in Kim Holder's Macroeconomics course.

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