Anth 397 Media Persons Publics
Blog Commentaries (Spring 2023)

Due: 1) You will write 3 informal blog commentaries on the readings and films (all scheduled once a month on the syllabus). All should be posted to your personal Moodle blog forum: you are sharing your commentaries with the whole class.

  • Friday Feb 3, 8 pm, Media Use Reflection
  • Friday Mar 3, 8 pm, Jackson Lecture
  • Friday April 7, 8 pm, Algorithmic Sociality
2) Comments on your blog partner's posts are due the following Sundays, 8 pm, posted as a 'reply' in your partner's Moodle Blog forums.
 
3) Blog partners should also find ways to bring their own and their partners' blog work into class discussion and Moodle discussion forums at least on weeks commentaries are due. 

Length and Format: ~280-400 words, or if it were a Word doc, it would be 1-2 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, 1 inch margins. Your commentary can include images and/or video but it should incorporate at least 280-400 words of text. If you include media from other sources (eg., Youtube, a news source), please carefully caption them, citing the creator/producer and date created or uploaded if possible (NOT just the URL). Be attentive to the Ethical Use of Images.

The writing is less structured than a formal academic analysis (no need for formal essay structure, thesis statement, conclusion, etc), but tone should still be informative, humble, and not overly colloquial/slangy or flippant/sarcastic, claims should be evidence-based.

You will be writing for your fellow class members (as practice for writing for larger audiences), so write for relevance, interest, and readability, relate your discussion to issues or key terms raised in our readings and films, explain terms clearly and briefly, rather than assume your readers know, and be careful to portray events and people respectfully. Please avoid using images or video for shock value and provide any content notes necessary.

Discussion of reading(s) should be more than just a quick allusion; you should engage with the reading(s) in at least several lines or a paragraph, defining a key term or two, considering a particular argument, contrasting a claim with that of another theorist, and finally, discussing how that term or claim could or could not help illuminate something in the popular article. All references to the readings should be cited with in-text, parenthetical citation (ie., Lopez 1998: 10). No reference list is needed unless you cite sources outside the syllabus. Please include the link for any outside popular media articles used.

Class members will be able to see and comment on your posts. Please be respectful and relevant in your comments on others' posts. Comments can be in many forms. This is not copy-editing. Ask follow-up questions, comment on or compliment someone's writing/media use, discuss how their post made you feel, respond to the writer's use of a theorist or key term, bring in a comparison or contrast with your own commentary, bring in another author or film from the course (most important) and then from other courses.

A note on commenting on films in Moodle forums or in class:

This is not a "film review," (eg., just what you liked or not about the film), but the idea is to critically comment on course films with reference to ideas and debates from the relevant week's readings. In this, pay attention NOT just to the "content" of the film (what it seems to be about, the story it tells), but think multi-modally: HOW is it filmed and framed for you by the director? and WHY? with what goals or effects?

Editing is where the art and politics of films happen. Consider in this:

  • Scene composition
  • camera angle: whose 'eyes' does the camera represent? how does the film address its viewers?
  • music soundtrack
  • the sound environments created
  • use of slow motion or other filmic techniques
  • the juxtposition or 'cuts' between scenes
  • how voices are handled aurally,
  • who/what figures or subjects are centered or marginalized.

Evaluation: Even though these are informal commentaries, this is still a writing assignment. I will evaluate based on (in order of priority):

1) Extent to which you respond to the prompts and refer to course readings, and demonstrate clear understanding of basic terms presented in the course;
2) The creativity and originality of your ideas;
3) The clarity of your organization and writing;
4) The creativity of your use of non-text media and its integration with your writing.

Writing for Moodle Forums

ALWAYS write outside of the forums, and then cut and paste into them. Unlike Google Docs, Moodle forums do NOT automatically save what you’ve written. Students can lose lots of work this way!

Using the Atto text editor in Moodle

One option to easily include audio and video in Moodle forums is to change your Moodle text editor. Please note that this change applies to you as a user, and therefore you’ll see the same text editor across all your Moodle course pages. 

To change your text editor, access the user menu in your course Moodle by clicking on the arrow near your user name in the upper right of the screen, and select preferences.

Select editor preferences from the user account block, and choose Atto HTML editor. Click Save changes.

The Atto editor will now appear anywhere you see the text editor in Moodle. Use the microphone button to make an audio recording or the video button to make a video. Note that each option is limited to two minutes.

Tips

  • You will need a wifi or data connection to make recordings in Moodle.
  • Forum replies use a simple text box by default. Click on “advanced” to get the full text editor.
  • Audio and video recordings made using Atto are not designed to be edited. If you would like to create edited content, choose another method of recording on your phone.
  • Using the Atto text editor, you can also drag and drop images into your forum post. Images automatically appear in Moodle in their original size; click on the picture icon to change the dimensions.
  • As always, make sure to caption all media that is not your own creation: cite the creator/producer and date created (best) or uploaded if possible (NOT just the URL).
  • Be attentive to the Ethical Use of Images.
  • All video or audio clips posted on Moodle should be 5 min or less.