Shaun and Tay’s Semester Project FINAL

TO VIEW OUR PROJECT, IT IS UNDER THE MEDIA TAB. THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY WE COULD PUT IT UP. CLICK THE FILE AND DOWNLOAD IT.

We really enjoyed doing this semester project. Our first step in  envisioning our project was to come up with the idea; we thought what  could be more perfect than social media. Everybody today has one form or another so one of our main goals was to see which one was the most popular.

Then we thought we could tie this into the news and media especially with all the recent tradgedies. We feel it is important to keep up to date on news and stay educated as the facts develop. And as we all know social media sites have much quicker news than waiting for a printed copy. In our video was asked about the idea of accuracy; it was interesting how the answers varied. Some people felt that social media was a reliable source of news while others felt it was only good for pop culture and not national news.

We were very suprised about how many people said Intstagram was both their favorite social media site as well as their main source of gettings news. Facebook was a close second in these two categories which we predicted even before the project because there is a much greater sense of interaction on facebook beause you can send direct meessages as well as create your own pages. Also people now use all these sites not even through just a computer, there is ipads, kindles and iphones so news is much more mobile and on the go.

The idea of approaching people added a very interesting element as well. We had a mix of strangers and people we knew and it was funny because a lot of the strangers were more willing to talk to us than most of the people we knew. This had to do with a lot of people just not wanting to be on camera for their own personal reasons. We think that is was cool to get both stangers opinions as well as people we knew. Also to have a variety of locations kept it from being bland and boring because noboduy wants to look at the same location with the same questions being asked.

Overall this project was really fun for us but also very informative. We learned a lot about peoples favorite social media sites, where they get their news and are those sites reliable. Also if they are willing to talk to someone on camera, some people said they would answer our questions just not on camera.

We hope you liked our project! We enjoyed making it and hope you enjoyed watching it!

-Shaun and Tay

The Stereotype of An Athlete

https://www.facebook.com/TheStereotypeOfAnAthlete

Hey guys!

So this entire semester I have gotten in touch with multiple athletes around campus and I was able to ask them all a series of questions and get photographs of them as well. Each athlete gave me a picture of themselves playing their sports as well as a picture of them involved in something else. What was interesting to find was how people’s alter activity could be so different from each other. I was also able to talk to three non-athletes and get their opinions on athletes around campus as well. I found it interesting to see different opinions that these non-athletes had.

I started out on Tumblr and ended up on a Facebook page because it was so much easier for me to network and get my page out their and known. It was really cool to see myself getting more and more likes and people liking the page and viewing posts.

I hope you have all enjoyed! And I had a really good time making this project and creating it all and speaking with different people! Thanks for listening!!

 

-Taylor

Semester Project Wrap-Up

My semester project involved going around to various locations on campus and quizzing students on their pop culture knowledge. The four locations I chose were the pub, library, commuter lounge, and the radio station. I asked each individual four questions ranging from movies to television to cartoons. I recorded their results and used it to create a visual collage displaying all of the results. The process of coming up with the right questions that were not too difficult and not too simple took an amble amount of time. The end result wasn’t what I was expecting as the results were similar for all four locations. Therefore my question of what location at M’ville contained the most pop culture shabby students, will remain unanswered.

Hey everyone!Here’s the link to our blog! www.spring-breakers-mville.tumblr.comWe hope

Hey everyone!

Here’s the link to our blog! 

http://www.spring-breakers-mville.tumblr.com

We hope this encourages you to expose yourself to other parts of the social media other than what everyone is using out there!

-Val and Jaz

 

Hello,

This is the link to my semester project….

http://mymvilletouchstone.wordpress.com/

Hope you like reading about my life in Manhattanville College running the Touchstone!!

I had such a good time learning about word press and I think just by looking and reading my blog posts it explains exactly what my intentions and outcome were.

Enjoy,

Laura

The Perception Project

” This is my representation of the word ‘home.’ I took this photo of my home in CA before I left to attend school in NY.” Gabrielle Escarrega

 

This semester I created a Facebook page that I maintained weekly, with the exception of spring break and the prior week to finals. Each week I requested individuals submit personal photographs representing specific words that allowed them to express their personal thoughts and feelings through imagery. Throughout this assignment I provided a “word of the week” which span over a timeline of of eleven weeks. In these eleven weeks I posted eight words: Value, reflection, passion, challenge, beauty, celebrate, adventure and home. What I discovered in this semester project is more people than I expected were interested in sharing their personal experiences and participating in a collaboration to project varying views and opinions.

In my first week creating this page I introduced what my page was about and its purpose. I believed it would be an easy task to create a community Facebook Page, but quickly learned that this process required the creator to obtain 30 likes before the page is recognized on Facebook. Although this created an initial barrier in creating my semester project I was surprised to find individuals quickly “liking” my page. After a day my page was a recognized as a community page on Facebook called, “Life Through Their Eyes.”

Throughout this semester I made a continuous effort to engage people and connect to others by liking other photography pages. I also attempted to further promote the page through Tumbler and find individuals with similar projects. I was able to connect to other pages that were related but did not share the same objectives. I linked to photography journals that posted photos representing a timeline of their life. I found these pages to be very interesting since my project primarily focused on the visual aspects of expression. Unfortunately I was unable to get individuals from Tumbler to like my Facebook page, but I think this is possibly because individuals who are avid bloggers are more interested in the capabilities of specific platforms; therefore, Tumbler bloggers and Facebook users prefer to maintain their accounts based on their interests and involvement on social media.

Throughout the middle of the semester I did search for studies regarding image and word association but did not seem to find any that particularly related to my semester project. What I did find while doing background research was a study that related to individuals responses after hearing a word and associating it with a noun. This study focused on how images and  words affected individuals spontaneous responses to other words. In relation to my project this study was interesting because while  providing words throughout the semester I found individuals responded better to Facebook posts that included images rather than just words. Furthermore it seemed more individuals responded to more elaborate photos of landscapes or photos without people, rather than photos with people. I believe this may be due to individuals avoiding images they can’t relate to. Also individuals tend to appreciate artistic photographs over  average photographs.

My biggest challenge throughout this project was time. People have a very short attention span and I believe the most effective way to keep them engaged would have been to post something daily. Regrettably I found it was difficult to post more than a few times a week due to time constraints and work in other classes. Also I did not have enough photographs to provide daily.

My semester project provided me with a more comprehensive understanding of divergent voices in convergent media. By requesting individuals to assist in the collaboration of my page, it brought over 30 voices together to create what I consider an opportunity to see how others perceive one single word. It is incredible to think while many of us read books, see photos, or watch videos, there is often going to be a  a varying degree in which we comprehend words. Therefore it was a fascinating experience to see how differently and similarly many participants perceived words. In some sense it was reassuring to see how strongly people felt about specific words and their motivation to share these feelings on the page. In addition it was a positive experience to see how humanistic the participants of my page were while sharing their personal relationships and life events. Throughout my semester the timeline of photos displayed on my page can say a lot about a person, and I believe the individuals on my page shared important moments that will influence their perception of words for the rest of their lives. 

If you are interested in seeing my semester project:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Life-Through-Their-Eyes/337852879650238

Project Untitled: A Journey of Creative Expression

from the site Project Untitled 

“Project Untitled” was designed to explore one key question: how could creative expression spread through the Internet, specifically through the power of story telling? The Internet and social media is in many ways a godsend as it allows you to communicate with people from every part of the world that you could possibly imagine, in a way that would be almost impossible before. And so I proposed to write a story that would grow and change form with each person it was passed on to. And at the end of it, see if the story was still unified and comprehensible. Two of the class themes that I focused on were digital collaboration and participation through creative means.

This project was by far one of the most interesting and creative ones I have accomplished in my two years at Manhattanville College. I enjoyed it because it allowed me to not only explore topics in my major, communication studies, but also how broadly it connects with other disciplines like my minors, literature and sociology. As someone who has never taken a digital media production course, learning how to use applications such as iMovie and Garageband independently to create a cohesive project of this magnitude was both a risk and a challenge that I ultimately enjoyed. “Project Untitled” encouraged me to use my strengths in a creative fashion and inspired growth and the addition of skills and abilities in other areas.

Final Semester Project Update

As the semester comes to a close, here is a brief update on how the blog has been going. To be completely honest, I have worked as much as possible on this blog which well, wasn’t as much as I was hoping. If I could have devoted more time to this throughout the semester as much as I wanted to I think results would/could have been better. To date I have 30 followers on my blog, at this point majority of them I have no idea who they are (which as creepy as that might be, it’s really kind of cool!). I intend on continuing this project post-class as it is something I really enjoy doing. One of the biggest issues of this was finding the time to write reviews, deeper into the semester time became limited. However, I was shocked to see that even though I hadn’t updated it as often as I intended my following grew.

To recap what my semester project was about, I made my own version of Pitchfork or Brooklyn Vegan (minus the shows). My project in a sense was music criticism/journalism. Many people practice this type of journalism which I consider brief and told by someone who knows music (which I am no only a beginner). Feel free to check out any recent reviews or updates below: http://fitzpleasurepleasure.tumblr.com/

I wanted to use my voice with other projects similar to this one and show that even an amateur like me can write about music and share my opinion on what I think is worth listening to. Although music tastes vary among people, my main goal is to close the gap of being picky to a certain genre and explore the true meaning of being a music enthusiast- showing that music has no boundaries or discrimination. Reggae and EDM together or Indie and Rock, genres can always blend to create an enjoyable sound- you just need to have the open mind to find it.

This is not the end but only the beginning to a blog I enjoy working on.

The Art of the Type

My blog is pretty much done- so I’m submitting the link.

http://theartofthetype.tumblr.com/

To summarize the blog was supposed to show the importance of typography and the moving image- two things that may contract one another in a regular circumstance. The blog was supposed to show the importance of the title screens as a whole and to show their role in relation to the film- be it foreshadowing in most circumstances, and as an elaboration. 

Some stats: The blog originally had 34 followers, and now it has 21 LOL. It’s amazing that if you hashtag people will come out of the woodwork. Anyway- I had user participation and I got to speak to the girl who runs a movie title card tumblr.

I may post a few more, but as of right now I’m done. So check it out and I guess I’ll explain it tomorrow

We can get through this ya’ll! 

My Life as a Meme

Welp as I dust off my wordpress account I figure I’d do some final postings- one of my favorite memes is Lazy College Senior- because this is my life currently (and I’m sure everyone else’s even if you aren’t a senior XD). I love this meme because it is universally applied and it really creative. It thinks of every scenarion. It’s an offshoot from the College Freshman meme. Anytime I do an assignment this meme pops into my head. I think the meme is so perfect. The meme got started late 2011 and still inspires college students everywhere. There have been a few derivatives- leading to lazy elemenatry school kid. The meme speaks for itself!