I
would like to explore the media exposure, which children receive today, and how
it affects their perception of gender roles and relations as a topic for my
project. Specifically, I will focus on my 7-year old sister and will make her
the main subject of my research. I will be asking her what kinds of media
(television shows, movies, cartoons, music, social media, websites, magazines,
games, etc.) she consumed each day for a period of 30 days and documenting her
answers via voice recordings, video, and notes. Additionally, I will ask
her how she feels about whatever she watched today, who was the protagonist, whether
she discusses it with friends in school, and what is the one word she remembers
from it. I will then compile her answers with clips of the media examples into
a short video summarizing my findings. Words from her answers will be composed
into a collage in the closing scene (much like the one in my introductory post
on our blog), in which frequency of use will correspond to the size of the word.
The presentation of the project will include a short introduction and screening
of the video followed by a discussion of findings (whatever they may be) with
quotes from our readings, sort of in the TedTalk-style.
I
developed the idea for this project out of the fascination with what my little
sister is capable of doing with the media technologies at the age of 7. She
plays games on computer and her ipod, shares pictures with friends on
instagram, watches videos on youtube, etc. When I was 7, I could barely read a
book probably, not to mention send a text message or comment on a photograph on
instagram. I think many of us, adults, feel the same way and are curious about
the results of such technological evolution. Furthermore, this project will
give me (and our parents) an insight to my sister’s life and a chance to bond
with her more closely. I asked for my parents’ consent for this project and
they don’t mind. In fact, they find it exciting to have such a video memory of
their daughter for the future. Also, I asked my sister, Jessica, whether she
would like to be a part of the “secret movie” I will be making and she is
excited to participate (on a condition that I will share my iTunes password
with her to download new games – I agreed for the sake of the project).
Children are children after all. Hopefully, my project will prove it.
Project
Timeline:
It
just so happens that November has exactly 30 days, so the production phase will
begin promptly on November 1 and last until November 30th. During
this month, I will visit my sister for at least 2 weekends (fortunately for me,
tis the month of Thanksgiving), skype her at least 7-8 times, and talk to her on
the phone on other days. The remaining 2 weeks of October will be used for
research in pedagogy - to make sure that I don’t ask the wrong questions – and similar
“children and gender” studies – to make sure that I ask the right questions.
The week of December 1-7 will be hectic and spent mostly in the computer lab at
Hunter.
Preliminary
Resources:
TedTalks:
Inspiring
execution and general “look” - www.fortydaysofdating.com
Articles:
Videos:
I think its crazy how children as young as 5 are seen on the train playing games on phones and showing their parents how to check mail and other technological things. I think this Ted talk can be useful to you, it talks about texting and how some people are saying it is destroying literature, while others strongly disagree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
ReplyDeleteDarya--- I also commented on my own post in response. I would love to do like a sharing of research of sorts. Lmk what you think :-)
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