Upon making project 3, I took many steps to gather information. The essay that project 3 was based on had been the longest and most detailed piece of writing that I have worked on. In the process of creating project 2, Professor Perry had our class create Wikipedia accounts, which was very new to me because I had never used Wikipedia during school. While getting familiar with Wikipedia, I used it to gather information about gender bias and see it occur with my own eyes. I wanted to see the gender bias myself, and I got what I was searching for. I eventually did research on Feminist Theory and the Patriarchy. I wrote my essay that consisted of 10 pages, using all the information I collected. Professor Perry then talked to the class about the creative mix project. I was intrigued by the assignment due to the fact that I had not done something like it before. The goal of the project was to recreate one of the papers that we wrote and turn it into some sort of multimedia piece. The instructions called for digital remediation, which is “re-mediating” or adapting a message from its current page-based medium to some other medium using digital technology. There were many different ways to do this, such as creating an audio essay or podcast, making a short video, making a visual essay, or creating a mashup/remix of information using pictures and audio to create something unique. I decided to go with a podcast.
Podcasts are audio programmes that one can listen to at any time and provide a person or people talking. They tend to be focused on a topic or theme. A popular podcast I like to listen to is The Joe Rogan Experience. In this podcast, the host Joe Rogan talks about a range of topics and has had guests such as Elon Musk, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and many more. I enjoy listening to his podcasts because they make me think about things in ways that I haven’t thought before. Because of his podcasts and my enjoyment of them, I wanted to create my own for the creative remix project, and it would be centered around gender bias specifically on Wikipedia. When I first learned about gender bias on Wikipedia, I was surprised because it was something that I had not known before. I always knew gender bias existed in this world, but on Wikipedia ? It came as a shock to me. After exploring more about the topic I realized that it is a very big thing, and it is important to spread awareness of it. For the podcast, I asked my girlfriend to be part of it so the viewers and I could hear her opinion of it, and she happily said yes. I told her what the podcast was about and she was glad to be part of it. I told her the topic, but I did not go into much detail about it, as I wanted the podcast to be genuine and not faked. I believe that emotion that is portrayed in the podcast can be translated to the viewers, which can in turn help spread awareness for the problem, and I believe that genuinity can achieve that. If one were to read about the problem, the effect would be there but not as strong as seeing and feeling the emotions that are present. That is also why I wanted to have a guest on the podcast, to show emotions that aren’t coming just from me but also from another person.
In the podcast, my girlfriend and I talked about an example of gender bias in Wikipedia. We took two celebrities, Beyonce and Ryan Gosling and compared their Wikipedia articles. I asked her to take 2 minutes to examine their articles and to spot any differences. Once done, she said that the only difference between the two was that Beyonce’s article had more information than Ryan Gosling’s article. This could’ve actually defeated the argument of gender bias in that example. But then, we took a look at the pictures that were posted for the articles between the two and gender bias was right there in front of our eyes. Beyonce’s pictures had close ups of her cleavage and most of the shots were of her in revealing clothing. Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, had simple headshots of him in suits. After this examination, that was when the emotion was portrayed. The viewers were able to hear the examination of the articles, and were able to hear the emotions afterwards. This, in turn, would help the audience resonate with the topic of the podcast, as they would hear, feel, and be a part of the conversation. An even better way of helping the podcast resonate with the audience is having a camera set up. Since a podcast is just talking, I believe that setting up a camera for the audience to see and hear the people talking could help as they are now able to see the emotions, not just feel them. Sadly, I was not able to do this due to unfavorable circumstances.
The problem with making the podcast was having to squeeze it into just a couple of minutes. A podcast regarding a topic like this requires a deep dive and analysis of the problem. Because I had to make the podcast short, I decided to take a simple route and simply state what the problem is, explain it, show an example, and talk about ways to combat it. That way, the viewers could get a gist of and attain somewhat of an understanding of the problem and know that it exists and that efforts must be made to stop it. If I were to show this podcast to the rest of the world and broadcast it for the public to view, I would make the podcast longer and talk more about the problem, using the important aspects of relevant information and emotion. That way, the public would hear about the problem and awareness would be spread greater, ultimately helping the problem end in the long run.
