Early Forms of Communication
The first assignment we received this semester was to convey some sort of message through an early form of communication. My group chose to use Native American symbols, from the Sioux tribe, to tell the story of our class. Each table in the classroom was assigned an animal to represent them in our project. We decided to present the message on our version of an animal skin. We glued many sheets of construction paper together and cut it into a shape similar to an animal hide. Each color we used has meaning. The background color of our ‘animal hide’ is yellow, which represents new beginnings. The outer symbols are painted in white to represent wisdom, as they represent the characteristics of the Thunderbird Nation and need to be exercised with wisdom. The inner symbols are painted in red because it represents summer and a time with no shadows, or that has clarity, as we are growing in our learning in this class together. All 5 tribes (there were 6, but one was killed) are united under the Thunderbird (McClurken). Our tribes are united in friendship as we work to weave the fabric of life together (which is knowledge). We must be wise as we do so, and that will give us bright prospects for the future. We felt it was important to convey a message that had meaning similar to how the Native Americans would have used the symbols as everything had meaning. In the end, our class did not understand the entire meaning of the symbols, which shows that communicating with early forms of communication is difficult if you do not have background information to help. You could end up coming up with a completely different understanding than what the original author intended.
The second project we were tasked with completing was Creating a radio broadcast of an event. My group chose to do a radio broadcast themed after the “War of the Worlds” by Orson Welles. Our broadcast begins with the song “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Suede playing. It then moves into me and Jess talking about how a city has disappeared. We end up taking phone calls into our ‘studio’. We eye witness accounts and the opinions that the other characters express get more and more ridiculous as time goes on. Our group used the program Audacity to create the recording and edit the music and the sound effects into the clip. Our project showed, one of the strengths of radio, access. In today’s world, almost anyone can have access to the radio. Radio can help spread information and it can be used to entertain. Also the use of the internet and phones allow people to spread both their thoughts and opinions, because many radio stations now have websites that they allow people to post on, as well as allowing listeners to call the station and speak on the air (the callers in our recording).
Live Tweeting a Historical Event
The third project our class completed this semester was to live tweet a historical event as if you were there. I chose to live tweet the assassination of Julius Caesar. I chose to do the assassination of Julius Caesar. I chose this event because I really wanted to use #weshouldtotallyjuststabcaesar. I did so successfully. I also thought this event would be a good idea to do, because I wouldn’t feel bad about making it funny. A lot of planning went into this project as I really had to think about what people could have said during this event. I made the event seem sort of silly, if the event had truly been live tweeted, it would not have been silly. In fact it may not have been tweeted about until after and those who participated in the actual assassination certainly would not have tweeted during the event like I did. Twitter and other social media is very important today. We have seen the use of twitter become so important in the last few months in relation to everything that has happened in Ferguson. Much of the information that we received about the situation, especially after the first few days was posted to twitter and other social media sites.
The propaganda project was probably the biggest project we did this semester. For this project we supposed to create propaganda campaign. My group chose to base our campaign on the regime in control in the movie “Equilibrium”. The movie is set in a futuristic society (it takes place in 2072) named Libria, where citizens take a drug called Prozium to suppress their emotions and foster obedience to the totalitarian regime. The regime incinerates contraband items that have the potential to stimulate emotion such as music, art, and literature. Citizens who possess contraband and do not take Prozium are known as Sense Offenders. The law enforcement, called the Grammaton Clerics, destroy contraband and execute Sense Offenders. We included a video in our project as well as posters that express the views of the regime. We had make a lot of decisions when putting together the video and the posters. The video is silent because in the world of “Equilibrium” art is banned, music falls into this category. The use of dark images helps to convey the dangers of emotions to the people who would watch this. We used quotes and screen caps from the movie to make the video with the regime that was in place. The posters center around making sure that each person is a good citizen and does not become influenced by art, whether that be music or books. There are also posters directed more towards children telling them that they should make sure to say something to someone if they see a person displaying emotions.