Different forms of writing require different technologies to use. Simply sending your grandmother a “Happy Birthday” email, and you certainly would not text your boss about an important and urgent matter at work. These matters should be dealt with using the appropriate technology. You should write your grandmother a nice letter, and if your boss needs to know about an important message then he or she deserves a phone call. This is why the mode, or form of technology, we use to communicate is essential. It is not simply about the words we say but also how we say them. With the increasing forms of technology that become available to use for communication comes the burden of assessing which form is most appropriate for your message.

During the process of drafting up ideas, producing, and editing our documentary, Project Image, we considered many factors to create the mood and portray our message. The purpose of our documentary is to draw attention to the effects that social media has on our self image as a society. Primarily, we sought to reach millennials as they often use social media more than older adults. Millennials have had the opportunity of growing up with social media so it has affected the way that we view ourselves much more.

In order to appeal to our audience we interviewed college students, used interesting music, and provided examples of social media such as the videos from Snapchat placed in the documentary. In order to depict the proper tone for the documentary, Lele and I decided it would look good in black and white as opposed to color. This change made the documentary more somber and serious so that the audience paid attention to the task at hand. However, since the video is black and white it seemed rather boring we cropped the shot in a variety of ways to zoom in and out to keep the audience interested. Another strategic decision that we made was to change from black and white to color at the end. The music shifts at a pivotal point to a more upbeat tone and the image shifts from black and white to color. I think that this really drove home our point.

Fortunately, our group worked very well together and the project came together pretty seamlessly. Everyone played an equal role and held their weight. My role was to edit the video, and I feel proud of my work and think it turned out like we wanted to. Everyone contributed ideas and offered me feedback to make our video look great and communicate our point to the audience. I think that if we could do it again we would have liked to develop a few more questions to really frame our message and we also would have liked to diversify our interviewees by having more boys. I think this would have allowed our message to appeal to a wider audience. Unfortunately, with time being a factor it was hard to find more boys. Overall, I think that the project turned out very well.

2 significant takeaways I had from chapter 1 were:

1. Comics are not always in “strips”. This view of thinking about comics is a very narrow one. In fact, comic artist Will Eisner refers to them as “sequential art” because they tell many different kinds of stories. What sets comics apart from a simple book is that they can depict feeling, sound, and emotion easier.
2. The start of comics and sequential art dates centuries back to hieroglyphics and cave drawings. They have in common the fact that they are in a deliberate order as opposed to randomly thrown together.

Chosen Narrrative: Noah’s Ark

i am going to condense this popular Bible story into a 12 slide/ image narrative. I will show Noah speaking to God, building the ark, loading the ark with animals, the beginning of the storm, the flood, and finally the storm calming. This should be easy for the audience to understand since the story is so popular. I would like to draw the 12 images in order to illustrate as opposed to a PowerPoint presentation.

This is a 32 second video PSA for the No Kid Hungry campaign in America to raise awareness of child hunger. By using celebrity Jeff bridges, the campaign gained leverage and other celebrities joined in.

Exploring Anxiety and Depression

People suffering with mental illness face a huge stigma. Mental illness is the only disease that we blame the victim for. Is this because we can not see exactly what is wrong with the brain so we just do not believe it? In reality the brain, just like any other organ, can fall victim to disease. While we may still have a lot to learn about mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, psychiatrists and celebrities such as Demi Lovato and Robin Williams have helped shed some much needed light on a dark reality.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/20-feelings-that-sum-up-having-both-depression-and-anxiety#.jbXnGBX38

This week I looked for forms of communication within texts of my everyday life. I listened to radio talkshow about the Iowa Caucus, read articles about General Mills Cereal, and watched many commercial advertisements. These are three prime examples of how communication modes can vary across media forms. For example,  it is very important for a writer or speaker to pay attention to the linguistic sound of how a person hears or reads a speech. In commercials, actors use gestures in order to portray how they are feeling. Body language can help a lot when portraying a message. However, a radio talkshow host may be using gestures while speaking but since his audience can’t see that he must be very intentional in the way he speaks. For radio hosts, aural and linguistic modes are very important. This includes the pauses he takes for his listeners to think or the fluctuation in his voice to emphasize an important point.

On the other hand, while reading an article about the challenges General Mills is facing as society increases its health awareness, I noticed the included advertisement examples. The article also included ads by General Mills that use visual and spatial elements which are similar and help show kids that cereals such as Trix and Lucky Charms are fun. Bright colors are also visually important because it communicates fun and happy feelings.

While reading the article, spatial pauses such as page breaks and paragraphs were helpful. Spatial pauses are important because a reader is more likely to read an article if it is broken up in to visually manageable paragraphs as opposed to one large, never ending paragraph that consumes the whole page. The page breaks allow readers to better absorb and break up the information so that they can fully understand the message. All 5 modes of communication can be used differently or together, but all are equally important.

I will admit that often times I do not check the credibility of my sources as much as I should. This is not to say that I follow news blindly. Typically, a source seems credible if it is a .edu or .org site. I also try to stick to big name news sources when it comes to looking up world events. I once was talking to a friend about something that I read on Twitter which he told me was a fake account. This shows how easy it is to produce false news today and that good news can be lost in the overpowering noise of social media and false reporting sites. Deciding what news to believe is easier when it comes to print sources such as magazines, newspapers, and books. This is because a print source must be credible and funded with a great deal of money in order to be published. This often means there are many people researching and editing the information before it is published. We must be careful in today’s world where anyone with Internet access can say whatever they want.

Overweight People

Often times, those who are highly overweight are viewed as not only unhealthy, but gross/ lazy/ disgusting.