Week 3: Jarratt Taylor

This week’s sites have me considering how the act of listening is one of most powerful was of being participatory. Being a good listener empowers a storyteller to continue telling which allows them to dig deeper into the memory and ultimately reveal more history, emotion, and meaning. There is a sense that both parties are working together. One makes space for the other. Even Spreadable Media hints at the importance of listening in the current media landscape. If the media companies don’t listen to the audience they likely won’t thrive. The audience is more active and engaged today and they want to interact with the media in ways the previous broadcast model didn’t allow. The audience has the power to offer new ways of circulating media, but the industry must be willing to listen to them. This is one reason customer service, public relations and testimonials have become so important.

The power of these sites is that they do use the context in which the storytelling happens and is presented to their advantage. The Interview Project works with the classic road trip model to create a portrait of the US. It’s hard not to be compelled to see where they go and who the will meet next. I personally couldn’t wait to see people from my own state, Mississippi. In the absence of any particular narrative this carries the viewer along. The context in which the interviews happen is crucial, too. The filmmakers meet people where they are at, the side of the road, their front porch, or the bar. This method works so well in social services. As a result, the setting for the interviews lets us get to know the people even more. Something else that stands out from these is that they talk primarily to older people. And whether or not they just ended up picking people who agreed to do the interview, I do believe that older people are often overlooked in a media landscape that craves something flashier than people who enjoy sitting on their porch. The Going Places Project through Mapping Memories allowed the videos to live offline through an in person, interactive tour that took the filmmakers and participants through Montreal to get to know the parts of the city that were connected with the stories. Workshops through Mapping Memory and the CDS, as much as they feel more traditional, are still providing an altered context. Workshops can be as much about a place to just go hangout and be with people, as they are about creating a finished video. I have seen this in work I have done with homeless and at risk youth. They would regularly show up just because it was a place to go.

You do get the sense that the work on these sites is mobile and has the possibility to migrate and spread. People will share them because of their interest in certain social issues, but people will also share them because of their interest in the first person stories. They also have a regional aspect as well as a national and international aspect to them, which allows the migration from their point of origin. This is something that the writers of Spreadable Media suggest is very important for today’s content: If it doesn’t spread it’s dead. So, you must make the content important across different areas so that it continues to circulate.

One of the biggest strengths about these sites is that they create characters. Even when they are exploring social and political issues, they use first person stories instead of telling the story about the organization that the person is working with. As we keep hearing character is a key component of good storytelling. So, even if the videos are still amateur the characters are fully developed.

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3 comments to Week 3: Jarratt Taylor

  • jschaub@uoregon.edu

    Hi Jarratt – Like you, I was excited to see my hometown’s INTERVIEW PROJECT videos (Portland). I also agree that by providing a space for people to talk, they will, and listening is critical in building trust between the interviewer and interviewee. I am amazed by INTERVIEW PROJECT and the Center for Digital Storytelling’s ability to make the videos compelling.

    Question:
    If you were in charge of creating digital storytelling videos, would you select people randomly? Would you select people based on the story that they want to share, or would you select people based on stories that you want to hear?

  • lpaters5@uoregon.edu

    I too noticed that a lot of the participants in the Interview Project were older, and I’m very curious to know why. Are they less camera shy and more willing to talk about their life than younger generations? Are younger generations more willing to put their information online but not share it on camera with someone? I agree that they are overlooked in the media landscape!

    As more digital tools become available to everyone, do you guys think digital platform community projects such as these will continue to increase? Or will people start doing more on their own?

  • natalieb@uoregon.edu

    Did anyone also notice that there were more men than women? It wasn’t overwhelming. I counted the other evening, and although I can’t remember the figure, I want to say it was like 60 percent or so men. I should go back and notice race too, count up white folks, because in hindsight I recall mostly white people, too.
    What does his say about the interviewees? About the interviewers? About the process? I could guess, but we will never really know. I was frustrated to see that, though.

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