After taking this ENG363W course, I feel as though I have completed and achieved many of the goals stated in the WPA outcome statements. First and foremost, our focus was Race, Gender, and Making Media as the title of the class states. I have also focused on different topics in each of my personal, individual projects: Disability and Media, ResLife and Media, and Invisible Children. I have been challenged not only to respond to various mediums, audiences, and topics, but also to use various new mediums in writing in order to respond such as blogging, making a documentary, as well as the always engaging hyper-essay. Writing in these different genres forced me to change the way in which my writing engages with the readers and my audiences. Through responding and "writing" in these different mediums, I have begun to develop my own voice as an upper level writer at Emory. In finding my own voice, I have been forced to continuously think critically. I wrote to learn, inquire, and communicate. I wrote to learn about how social and cultural groups and their knowledge and usage of media. I eventually learned all the different ways and reasons why these groups have been deprived of media and maybe are inept in the world of social media. Through my documentary, I inquired about a particular social group that I consider to be a huge part of my life and investigated how my fellow peers in these group saw the role of media as well as how they would respond (if any differently than I have been in class) about how education is currently using technology and media and how society is pushing these institutions to use media in an educational manner. In my final hyper-essay, I am communicating to my audience what I believe activism to be as well as what the activist group Invisible Children Inc. is does in order to ACTIVELY combat injustice. Through all our workshops in class, I have benefited tremendously from peer evaluation and group discussion. Even when my work is not shared, I benefited from seeing what my peers had been working on and learning through their work. I also ended up learned about various new topics and ideas in our global culture that I was not aware of before or was not aware of the significance in our growing, fast-paced, ever changing society. I believe this class to have been a huge benefactor to my liberal arts education here at Emory.
So as you can see, I never actually blogged about my progress in making my documentary, my first documentary ever. At the time, I had no progress to blog of. After completing the filming, editing, and screening of my final product, what I have to say is WOW. WOW, what hard work. I never truly realized how many little details go into to making sure the documentary is filmed best not just for you but to please your subjects and benefit your viewers. Now that I realize how important each aspect is I want to take a moment to reflect on these aspects in PSA form. MAKE SURE YOUR SUBJECT FEEL COMFORTABLE. I interviewed many of my close friends and colleagues. Some of us couldn't even look each other in the eye without laughing. I had to step back and allow another friend to conduct one of interviews while I merely watched to make sure everything was going smoothly in order to keep the documentary professional and not full of giggles. CHOOSE A QUIET SPACE. It can be quite challenging on a college campus to find a quiet space. But, Emory is big, you'll find one and your documentary will turn out so much better. Lastly, GO OVER THE QUESTIONS. Don't coach your subjects. Don't train them to answer how you want to steer your project rather this simply goes hand in hand with making them feel comfortable. As long as you do not go over each question in serious detail their answers will still be genuine.
Overall, I was extremely impressed by my peers documentaries exposing the use of media in various communities. I was most struck by the many different social, racial, and gender groups that were exposed in the making of these videos. For me, this was my first time learning about these groups and becoming aware of their goals and missions. One of my favorites was my classmate Ivy Kang's documentary on the Asian Pacific Islander Movement. Check out her documentary website. 300 words, can include bullet points, in which you:
-define the topic clearly -raise questions you would like to pursue -define any assumptions/hypotheses you start with -define a specific audience outside of this class Founded in 2004, Invisible Children is a global organization with the mission of bringing awareness to the violent and cruel activities surrounding the youth of Central Africa due to Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. Invisible Children acts as a nonprofit humans services organization that utilizes the power of multimedia. Their four part plan includes media, mobilization, protection, and recovery. The spear headers of this organization create documentaries to introduce new audiences and populations to the crimes currently being inflicted on the African youth. The second aspect of their plan(mobilization) demonstrates the true power in numbers. They uses artist relations to hold charity concerts with performers such as Mumford and Sons, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and many more. They also have a national tour which brings "lecturers" to schools in America in order to inform the American youth of these terrible crimes being inflicted on their peers. They sell t-shirts, bracelets, provide flyers, etc. so that even those who did not get to see a formal speech or documentary about said topic can become aware of this issue. In terms of protection, Invisible Children, Inc has formed relations with regional partners in Central Africa to warn of remote LRA attacks and encourage a peaceful surrender of Kony's Army. Last but certainly not least: Recovery. Invisible Children, Inc. has centers focused on rehabilitating children who were victims of these crimes. They focus on education and economic recovery. My goal in writing this 2nd hyperessay is to, like this wonderful organization, make this invisible children visible. Moreover, I am to show that activism requires more than raising awareness or a simple protest. Rather, activism requires us to ACT and change the world. It requires movement. In order to evoke action among us citizens media and the awareness that it brings must be inspiring, compelling, and most importantly it must find some way to connect with its audience. In turn, the connection will strike individuals and bring about ACTION against the injustices of the world. This week in class we spent a lot time discussing Occupy Wall Street and the 950 smaller activism movements that resulted from. In my freshman seminar entitled Citizenship here at Emory, we spent the the latter half of the semester reading Joseph Stiglitz's "The Price of Inequality" as well as watching documentaries about the subject. In this class, we discussed the specific details of what the protesters where arguing and whether or not their was truth to the power of the 1%. The discussions where extremely informative of what the Occupy movements were truly about. However it was not until we watched the documentaries, listening to the audio and seeing the visual acts of wrongdoing that I truly understood what the we the 99% were protesting for. This goes to show how strong the power of media is in not just informing but educating the youth in social and activist issues of the global society in which we live. The media inspired me to research and investigate on my own to find out more about the movement that was truly fighting.
In Eltantawy and Wiest's "Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory", they discuss the power of social media in informing not just the youth but also the general public of current events and issues. The social media provides not just the information and basic facts but also empowers the creation, organization, and implementation of social movements around the world. However, at a certain point the social media and articles posted about sensitive topics become overwhelming. There are too many views and opinions that it becomes too overwhelming to form your own opinion and find you own voice in the topic. At least, that's how I feel.....Often times, I find myself taking on the opinion of others without fully researching the topic in order to just move on and steer away from the confusion. However, it is important to note that just like me the person forming this opinion may not have fully researched to topic. SO while media is all well and good without using Henry Jenkin's method of participatory culture of education and truly investigate the knowledge on our own instead of simply accepting what we see blogged and plastered all over the internet as fact and truth, we cannot truly creat According to Henry Jenkins, participatory means the property of culture. But how can culture be a property and whom or what entity owns said culture. In class many of the issues related to the digital divide we have discussed thus far seem to stem from gaps and lacking in the education system of the United States. Since in the 21st century, culture most created and defined by media it is safe to say that education owns culture. As the New London Group stated education's "fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, [Creative] and economic life". Moreover, the education that owns culture is not necessarily that that involves a desk, pen, and paper. Rather, it incorporates all forms of education. It includes both sit down lecture method and the interactive method. And, as media is now shaping the culture of the 21st century. Media as well as digital education is essential to the growth of our American society and our global society.
Children today are becoming ever more engaged in the online community. They view the World Wide Web as email, chat, social networking, games, etc. While many parents and guardians see these activities as risky for young children, it is their children's method of expression. It is how they become participatory citizens of society. They become engaged in social, capital, and civic culture. Yes, the World Wide Web may be dangerous for children but without it many children will not be exposed to the culture and way of life that allows one to thrive and succeed in the 21st century until much later in their life and some children will never be exposed to such education. With this education, children and adolescents are learning to break social barriers that many adults today continue to struggle with and thus hinder their successes in life. Even though informal education is still in its experimental stages, the youth seem to be thriving more than ever and at younger and younger ages. With earlier exposure to the online community, the youth of today are able to give feedback and find ways to improve the digital world in ways that do not occur to the adult population. Some bloggers and researchers are beginning to call this informal education provided by the online community the ideal learning environment or "affinity spaces". Affinity spaces are ideal because they are constantly narrowing the gaps between age, class, race, and gender. These environments are also ideal because they depend on peer-to-peer teaching and encourage classmates to share their knowledge and skills while also learning and appreciating the knowledge and skills of their fellow peers. For my midterm ethnography video project, I want to “research” and find out more about how a club that is a big part of my life uses media to promote itself and execute everyday activities and tasks. This year I am Sophomore Advisor to first year students at Emory living in the residence hall with them. My job along with the other Sophomore and Resident Advisors in my building to plan programs (activities and events) that promote cultural, social, and intellectual diversity among the hall and the student population at Emory and moreover any other community they consider themselves a part of. I want to interview some student leaders within Emory’s Residence Life and Housing community i.e. the Sophomore Advisors and Resident Advisors in my residence hall as well as the several other residence halls available to students at Emory. I also want to connect with some of the professional staff members and show the differences and similarities for how and why they use media and social networking to promote ResLife at Emory and also to incorporate into the programs and everyday activities. I wish to explore any challenges that they have experienced in using and making media for this organization. Another interesting angle to approach is how the students living within these halls see the successes/failures of ResLife using media and how they have used it to connect with their hall mates and the activities that go on within the halls.
Today about 60% of educators and administrators have begun using social media as a tool of engagement both in the classroom and in their professional lives. They encourage interaction among students and the media that they are already active in throughout the day via youtube videos for supplemental learning, webinars and podcasts, and entering the growing world of blogging to express his our her ideas openly to the global cyber community. With this digital education, children and adolescents are learning to break social barriers that many adults today continue to struggle with and thus hinder their successes in life. Even though technological and digital education is still in its experimental stages, the youth seem to be thriving more than ever and at younger and younger ages. With earlier exposure to the online community, the youth of today are able to give feedback and find ways to improve the digital world in ways that do not occur to the adult population. It is important that we continue to find new ways to engage students both within the classroom as well as in their everyday lives in this participatory education Since social networking removes actual face to face interaction, individuals tend to feel more open to sharing personal information and details about their life in the cyber world than in the real world. For people with mental disabilities, especially children, their everyday social interactions are hindered because of their impairments. Essentially, they fear social rejection more so than a mentally and physically able bodied child. With the ability to hide behind a profile picture and not having so witness other reactions to their social network profiles, disabled individuals can utilize social media and networking sites to bridge the gap between themselves and other able bodied individuals. They can experience interactions with their peers that they may have been afraid to experience before. In a way, social networking sites can be considered a form of speech therapy if you will. Rather than sitting in a speech and language lab or lying on a psychologists couch, these disabled children who have access to the digital world and are instructed on how to use it can interact and build relationships as if they were living without any sort of disability.
In my first hyper-essay, I will explore the topic new to me: the digital divide between disabled and enabled as well as inquire about solutions to narrow the gap. In class we talked a lot about the digital divide between privileged and oppressed. This discussion led us to all sorts of oppression and minority groups both ethnically and socially such as Native Americans living on reservations, public school students in poor areas, to any sort of minority group being represented in the media. My goal for this hyper-essay is to delve deer into the lack of accessibility to media, more specifically social media for the disabled. Before we can explore this topic further together we must first identify an important stigma that comes we being disabled or impaired. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, disability is a condition that damages or limits a person's physical or mental abilities. The condition of being unable to do things the so-called normal way. On the other hand, impairment means to damage or make worse in some material respect. Society tends to believe that these to words are interchangeable when in fact they are not. Disability lends to a more negative connotation when used to refer to a social group. Like all negative connotations it empowers dominant groups. In this case it empowers the abled, but more specifically not the abled advocates for the disabled rather the abled who ignore struggles of the disabled. My goal is to bring light to this issue and moreover, empower this disabled as well as their abled-bodied advocates. Empowerment of the disabled and impaired can help integrate them back into society and essentially bridge this gap of digital divide. Since social networking removes actual face to face interaction, individuals tend to feel more open to sharing personal information and details about their life in the cyber world than in the real world. For people with mental disabilities, especially children, their everyday social interactions have been hindered because of their impairments. Essentially, they fear social rejection more so than a mentally and physically able bodied child. With the ability to hide behind a profile picture and not having so witness other reactions to their social network profiles, disabled individuals can utilize social media and networking sites to experience interactions with their peers that they may have been afraid to experience before. It is essential that we as abled-bodied individuals work to bridge this gap so that the disabled and impaired can interact and build relationships as if they were living without any sort of disability. As if they were not just another minority group being oppressed by the media. The digital divide among races and populations is an issue that has been building on for decades. The problems associated with lack of access began when society began segregating racial groups in schools, public, and everyday life. One of the major periods of segregation in our American culture was the period of time when Native Americans were forced to live on reserves as outlined in Race After the Internet's "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure". Since indigenous tribes were relocated from their homeland to reserves they were deprived the various new and innovative technologies that came into existence such as personal computers, the internet, phones, smartphones, ipods, etc. Without these very technologies we would not be the thriving society that we are today in America. However, since tribes out onto reservations were deprived of these innovations, they could not thrive with us and began to fall behind in terms of successes and opportunities. Today the government is subsidizing the placement of computers and computer labs on reservations. However, just Jonathan Sterne mentioned in his article about computer literacy in education, simply providing access to computers is not enough. If we do not teach or demonstrate how to use computers and the internet at a level that the rest of society functions at how can we expect the access gap to narrow.
Another aspect of the issue is whether or not to allow new voices on the internet. One phrase that I found particularly interesting from this weeks reading comes from the chapter "New Voices on the Net? The Digital Journalism Divide and the Cost of Network Education" ....."In the information society, diverse communities' capacity to tell their own stories is especially critical" (246) The authors and contributors of this chapter go on to say that America has entered a world of illusion since Barrack Obama's election to the US presidency in 2008. That many citizens believe that America has entered into a "post-racial" era, when in fact this is not the case at all. Yes, we are not persecuting them, or keeping them out of schools, and higher education directly, but we are indirectly hindering them and their ability and opportunity to thrive by keeping minority communities and societies out of the media and the journalism world. Today, only about 15% the media, journalism, and news industry is composed of minorities. By not allowing minority populations to express their ideas via the internet and the innovative actions that are the 21st century how can we expect to narrow the digital divide. First, we must tackle computer literacy, and then we must allow these minority races and social classes to not only engage in technological forms of communication for education, but also to engage in a leisurely manner and therefore cultivating and expressing their thoughts and opinions. Jonathan Sterne’s chapter “The Computer Race Goes to Class” suggests that the gap between races online primarily begins with education. After tracing the history of computers, Stern came to the conclusion that earlier access to the digital world leads to greater success for individuals in the future. After having identified computer literacy as an essential ingredient to success in the 21st century, Stern acknowledges the lack of computers in certain school that exists in certain areas of the US, areas of a particular race. It is no lie that richer schools provide their students with greater access to the Internet and the cyber world. They have more money and can therefore enhance their schools. For these reason public schools are underprivileged districts, lack large quantities of computers and sometimes lack computers altogether. I completely agree that computer literacy requires more than simply access to the digital world. Schools cannot simply place a computer or two on their grounds and expect students to all of a sudden become not only computer literate but to become thriving individuals in the virtual and technological world. Advanced, moreover required, computer literacy can only be achieved when taught and studied. After all, as with all aspects of one’s life, practice makes perfect.
The fact that students of certain races do not have access to computers in large numbers or a computer literacy class directly leads to a digital divide between social classes. Some act or movement clearly needs to be made in order to bridge this gap between classes. With the growing presence of technology in the business sector, the demand for computers and computer literacy in each classroom increases. Simply donating a single or a few computers to disadvantaged schools does not narrow the digital divide as in Apple’s case. Even though the divide is still quite large, I am still proud that House of Representatives and Senate have made strong and substantial efforts to tighten it. It is important that classrooms do not inherit computers just because that model will not sell to consumers. Hewlett Packard’s efforts to no only provide computers to classrooms but also to train teachers is wonderful. All of these efforts demonstrate to me that the gap is not going unnoticed by those who have the power to change it. I found the end of Sterne’s chapter on the computer race particularly interesting. He states that the politics of race mold the Internet and digital world but not just because of the divide in access but also because of what is present in the digital world once individuals receive access. Politics of race mold the character of the Internet just as much the Internet shapes the politics of race. By this, I believe Sterne means that even though the digital divide is partially due to racial politics, racial politics also affect the academic journals, blogs and information that can be found online. |