Megan Lucia
(WTNG 321)
Fraser begins to discuss the problems with the assumptions that many people make about the public sphere. One of the first ones that she talks about is the topic of open discussion. She explains how women and other minorities at the time were not able to participate in the political side of the public sphere because of what society thought of them. She then goes on to discuss how certain non-empowered social groups may develop un-equal cultural values. The second assumption that she discusses is that there should only be one public sphere. She claims, that there are many different people in our society though so it would be hard to have only one public sphere.
Workspace
9/8/16
9/12/16
What makes a good radio show?
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Sequence- To make a good radio show to ther person talking must have the story in a sequence so it is easy for listeners to hear and understand the story. It also helps listeners follow to the story better and helps them with the imagery part of the story. When you are listening to the radio you are not able to visualize anything so it helps if the people on the radio create a story for the listeners.
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Music - Having music in between different parts of a story helps the listeners be more enganged in the story and helps them to continue listening.
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Making small notes- If you are doing an interview with someone, make sure that you are taking notes of what they are saying while recording them as well. It makes it easier for you in the editing process.
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Discussion- Having a discussion at the end of the radio show about what you previously talked about helps listeners wrap the discussion up in their minds.
9/15/16
While writing the "I am From" poem there were a few challenges that I faced one of them being which things I wanted to omit from the poem that would not make sense. For these types of poems there is a lot of information that you are able to write but the facts that I included about my self were the ones I felt would most make sense. The facts that I included made me reflect on my childhood a lot. Trying to remember moments was kind of tough as well, since it was a long time ago. To make the poem more organized I made a list of facts that I could remember off the top of my head. Then I took the list and made it shorter in order to make sure it made sense and could accurately tell the story of myself. It was hard just to schoose only a snipet of facts from my life because there have been so many events but I tried to only choose the ones that would fit the theme of the poem.
9/19/16
Sana and Chanda
Question to Ask:
1. What kind of questions make you feel more comfortable?
2. What type of interview format do you perfer?
3. Would you pefer to have an interview that has more of a structure or not?
4. Are there certain things that you would not want a interviewer to ask?
9/26/16
The main takeaway from the conversation with Sana and Chanda was to be personal in our interviews. They both agreed that being natural/ yourself in the interview process is really key. Being fake or not really interesting in the interview makes the person being interviewed feel like they are not valued or that they are not really needed to be interviewed. Being comfortable toward the person you are interviewing makes the whole process better. Doing your research about the person you are interviewing before hand is also really important. It can help guide you in the questions you want to ask and how you want the interview to go.
Peer Review of Audio Bio
Two of the main things that I took out of the peer revision of my audio bio was to maybe introduce skiing in the beginning of the audio bio along with winter because I mostly talked about skiing in the audio, and there was also some muffling in the audio. One of the main things that I am going to work on for the next draft of the audio bio is the music. For me, I didn't like the song that I chose, it was a little to mellow, and just does not really fit the story well. Also I am going to work on the script a little more maybe add or get rid of some of the things that are more important in telling the story of myself, to make a meaning out of the story.
10/13/16
Part 1:
Chapter 4 discusses how stories could possibly be put together chronologically, or possibly have what you record at the end of the interview to be edited to be at the beginning part. It also discusses having sort of like a hook at the beginning of your story to have the listeners be interesting in the story that you are telling. Signposting was a big part of the chapter. Signposting gives the listeners an easier way to follow along with the story especially if the story is longer. It lets listeners know when the story is about to change, and helps them not to get loss in the transcript of the story.
Part 2:
One of the major points that I will take from this chapter is the order of which the video should be put in, while editing. In the beginning of the interview they both told us their stories full out, so we were not able to use the some of questions that we wrote out before hand. We will have to figure out how we are going to break their stories down so that the order makes sense and flows well. Also the fact that we interviewed two people is something as a group we will need to figure out. We will need to discuss how we will be able to include all the important aspects of both of their stories without leaving out any important details.
10/24/16
Sound is metaphorized as the "Deep Sea" in Chapter 4 because there is so many parts that go into sound, just like in the deep sea there are many different things living down there. You have to think of sound as many moving parts like the deep sea. The metaphor is meant to convey a sense of movement and how sound can work with the narrative piece of the story. In the beginning of the chapter they state that you have to think musically from the start. In terms of our video stories we are going to have to take into consideration as to what they are saying and how we can either include sound effects or music in the background. You just can't place music in any spot of the story line that you want it has to make sense with the order of the story and flow with it as well.
11/3/16
1. The primary purpose of the edit is to go throughout the entire project that you have created and really get into making changes to it if necessary. It is not an easy or short process but every step in a edit is necessary for the project to be completed and have an actual story line to it. During the edit process the sequential order of things is looked at. In order for the story to make any sense there has to be a sequence to it, so the listeners can actually follow what is going on in the story. The main point of an edit is to deconstruct your project and to have a multitude of people critique it and sometimes criticize it so it can be a story that a variety of people will be able to listen to and to understand.
2. Both framing and signposting are essential to story telling. Framing is when the creator of the work creates one main story line, so that the viewers can depict what is occurring and they will be able to follow along better. Framing also sets the background of the story, and the angle that you want the story to be focusing on. Signposting is when in a story the person telling it gives a warning to the viewers that something important is about to happen in the story line. It makes the viewers of the story listen more attentively.
11/10/16
Everyone that gave feedback on the video stated that from the video they got the main idea for these two women to be sharing their stories was to show how much they struggled during the war and why they came to America as well. Also how they had no choice but to flee Liberia because of the terrible things that were occurring there. Everyone also enjoyed as to how we organized the video, and the sequence that it went in. The only thing that some people suggested was to have a little background as to why the translator is there, and her purpose for being there since she does speak in the video. The majority of people stated that the pacing of the video was good and that it fit the story line well. It gave them time to reflect and to take in how important their stories are. The main suggestion that everyone made was the subtitles. As a group we have discussed this and will be working on trying to caption the video in order to make sure everyone can understand what the two women are saying. Also adding something about Charles Taylor I think will be important in our revisions because people viewing this video may not know anything about him making the story confusing.
From an outside perspective on the video, the person enjoyed the video but at times was confused as to what was happening. She told me that the main problem that she had was understanding what they were saying, which goes along with captioning the video. Since she was not sure what they were saying at some points it was hard to be invested in the video. Another point that she had stated was the instruments at the end were very loud and it had a very abrupt ending. She suggested to me to add their names in the beginning of the video because it was hard to pick out what they had said their names were which is a very important part of the video.
11/14/16
Part 1:
Oral history is someone's historical background summed up in a few minutes or so. To have oral history as a "co-constructed process of narrative composition"means that they have to coincide with one another. The oral history part and the narrative composition have to both make sense. It is hard to shorten someone's life into only a couple of minutes because someone's life is much more than a short video. To attempt to "map coherence" onto to the "disorder of the lived experience" means that you have to organize the person's oral story, and try to make it comprehensible to an audience of people. People's life stories can be confusing and all over the place but it's the job of the story teller to create a piece of work that is easy to comprehend. For our own project this has a lot of merit. The refugees stories are very complex so it is our jobs to make sure every detail that they want to have included but what you want to have included as well.
Part 2:
The Olive Project really takes a spin on the typical multi-modal composition. It has a multitude of pictures that are grouped together in a topic and audio that she took from the interview with her grandmother that go along with the pictures. The pictures help the listeners follow along very easily with the story. Writing for public audiences can be difficult because they do not know the story as well as you do. The Olive Project really makes it easy for viewers to follow along with the use of both pictures and audio that are grouped together nicely. This project shows how hard it can be to represent someone's life, but I think it really shows how well someone can represent someone else's life just by playing audio and using pictures. I also think this type of multi-modal composition makes it easier for viewers not to get bored as easily because each segment has a different story, and it's not really in any sequential order so the listener can view any story that they want to. I think from the Olive Project that it is really important for the person wanting to have their story told to be able to speak and not have the interviewer speak as much just because it is their story. The Olive Project shows how well only a person's voice and pictures can show a powerful and meaningful story without it being too overwhelming.
11/17/16
Question 1:
The purpose of the article was terms or definitions can have a different meaning for everyone. Depending on our knowledge or our own understanding of the world our definitions of words may differ from others. From this article it relates to the concept of how people have their own definitions of words by showing how multi media texts can vary and how they can mean something different to other people. Each of the different types of multi-media texts have their own individual struggles to them. For example, the creator of this article needed the help of others to complete the project to make it look unified and he could not do it on his own.
Question 2:
One of the concepts that I found most interesting was the result of new media, and how media has changed over time. There are many new consequences of new media and how it shapes a person's perception of it. Another concept that I found interesting was the idea of understanding texts. Mostly on the fact as to how we manipulate them, and how we ultimately create them. With the concept of understanding texts brings up the concept of multi-modality and what that means as well. There are so many ways a person can make a multi-media text but the way that they do so must make sense for what they are trying to achieve. The last concept that I found interesting was the idea of the mediated world. Medium back in the day wasn't regarded the way as it is now, it is a completely different concept. This section brings out the fact that we had a transition from the radio to where we are in today's society.
11/21/16
I think everyone in my group contributed equally, we all used our own ideas and pooled them together to create a video which I think turned out really well. Since I was the one responsible for filming I had all of the footage on my laptop, so we used iMovie on my computer. The captions was the hardest part for all of us, but thanks to Dani she was able to get most of what the two women were saying which was very helpful. We all collaborated on what segments of the interview we wanted to include and what font we wanted to use. The one thing about the video that displeases me are the subtitles, because they are so far up the screen so it cuts off the women's bodies. In iMovie there was no better option but to use that type of slide for the subtitles so we were stuck with using that. If I had the opportunity to do this project again, I think I would definitely situate the women not up against the glass background and have them all sitting next to each other. Ma Sarah was not sitting so her face would face the camera but she was sitting on the other side of the table so in the video it looks like she's not really looking at the camera. The biggest struggle with this project was working with iMovie because it is very touchy and does not let you do many things. If I had the opportunity to do this project again I would most definitely watch more videos on how to work with iMovie. Besides the couple of the things that I do not really like about the video I think it came out really well, and really reflects the main goal of the project which was to showcase someone's story.
12/5/16
Part B:
Something that I would like to emulate in my own reflection from looking at the other reflections today is to really explicitly state the objectives that I have met in the class, and not just the video process. I think for the final draft I am going to have to incorporate the readings that we discussed in class and the objectives into my reflection. I also think the drafts that I looked at today are very organized. For my final reflection I am really going to need to break things down probably into the objectives so it's easier to understand how I fully completed them. My plan for moving forward with my draft is to write all of the objectives out and figure out how in the community story telling project I completed those objectives because I think that will make my reflection more organized and it will just flow better. I also might add some more audio elements to my reflection just to make it have more multi-media elements.