Thursday, October 17, 2013

Final Project Proposal: Children and the Media


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:




2 comments:

  1. 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

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  2. Darya--- 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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