Converting my thoughts from essay into multimedia format involved consideration of voice and visuals, and of audience. If the format of my argument was going to change, so was my following. This gave me great creative freedom. As an essay is very academic, I felt now I was given the chance to speak to a wider span of people. What would I do with this freedom, then? Who did I feel could also benefit from the information relayed in my writing that would not be as likely to search for and read it in its current form?
As of recently I have become engrossed in the world of Podcasts. Now too accustomed to having earbuds connected to my iPhone at all times for constant musical entertainment, it got to a point where I felt I could use some of my commute time throughout the day to learn more than just the lyrics of a song. That’s where these broadcasted forms of open discussion became a new part of my routine. Similarly to music, a podcast can be played as simple background noise where you can tune in and out and still appreciate the sound of it, it can be used purely for enjoyment, or it can be heard with intent to learn the meaning behind it. Arguably much more than a song, though, a podcast has a huge time range in which they can run. Podcasts may involve one or more speakers, and incorporate one or multiple personal or hard-based factual accounts of a topic. Generally speaking, podcasts can be as formal or informal as the host decides and with all of that said I decided this form of expression would be a great way to give me the leeway to go more into depth about the things less covered in my essay.
A 2015 survey conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital revealed the statistics of who actually listens to podcasts and I am not surprised by the results. Fairly equally distributed, the numbers showed that 15% of users were between the ages of 12-17 and 18-24, while that percentage increased to 20% between the ages of 25-34, 17% for those 35-44, and back down to 15% from 45-54. While my essay may only be viewed by those looking for the information most likely for academic use in high school or in university, I found the statistics of podcast consumers much more appealing if I wanted to get my word out.
Some of the major aspects lost when my essay was turned into a podcast included the greater level of trust for the facts given in an essay with cited sources, and some of the more extensive arguments that I was able to verbalize through writing and without the time limitation I was given on this project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SKUyg6Dujw
Elements of your project that stood out to me were the background sound in the beginning and just the plain overall dark theme of the presentation. I feel this made the piece more effective because the audience could focus more on what was being said.The argument of the piece seemed to be that the mental health system in colleges are failing us and need to be improved.I would not say this was the most creative piece but I feel it did not need to be. You were going the informative route clearly by doing a podcast.Message was straightforward and clear.
Emily, this was quite powerful. I like the approach you had on the topic and on making it a podcast. It’s a sad and strong topic so i feel like making it a podcast was ideal. What stood out to me the most was the amount of people that want to be in school but aren’t able to because of their mental illness. 64% is a very large number. It saddens me to realize that instead of helping these individuals the school system is cutting their wings. I think your project was very appropriate for the topic. Very informative.
I think that you have a very strong argument and you deliver it in a powerful way. I love that you decided to use a podcast because it emphasizes the importance of your topic; a video might have distracted the viewer with pictures or made the message seem less serious. The only thing that I would work on is making your recording flow more and have a clearer sound. Because this is such a serious topic, you might want to use a stronger tone. I think the pictures you chose for the cover add to the overall appeal of the podcast. Good job!