For the creative remix of my research-based argument essay, I created an audio podcast using Audacity. The podcast goes further in-depth on the observations I made about affirmative action in education, as it plays a great part in income inequality between blacks and whites.
My audience for the project was the United States Department of Education, along with any Americans who are interested in the current status of race and education. This podcast is trying to influence the US government’s thoughts on affirmative action. In the last few decades, they have turned a blind eye to the whole idea. Sending a podcast to them would hopefully be a wake-up call. The goal for the remix was to introduce some critical problems that are going on with race and education. The start of the podcast gives the listener a preview of what affirmative action would help solve since these problems could easily be solved if it was established in schools. After introducing these problems, I followed up by discussing the ignorance of affirmative action and how it would help America’s education system for minorities. This gives the audience reasons to think about affirmative action. Since the topic is currently under a complete shroud when it comes to the government’s discussion, I called out their act of ignorance as I believe it does not help the situation of struggling minorities.
Throughout the podcast, there is a great number of logos established with the inclusion of statistics. Since there are many inequalities between whites and blacks when it comes to education and earnings, I felt that it was necessary to have statistics backing up these problems. The reason that I included a statistic about lower education is because the problem for affirmative action exists in all stages of education. Even though I was trying to focus on higher education, the problems with lower education act as a build up to the problems with higher education. This is because a student’s early years of education greatly affect how their future education will turn out due to the development of academic habits.
With the audio podcast, the ability to show pathos to the audience is endless. Starting from the beginning of the podcast, I added sad piano music during the parts where I discuss the unfairness of the current education system. Since music does a great job of sparking emotions, the addition of songs behind my voice adds an entire element that puts the audience in a certain mood while listening to me. This especially adds emotion during the audio clip of the girl from Nikole Hannah-Jones’ audio podcast This American Life. The girl starts to tear up and cry as she is talking about her problems with segregation in schools. Adding a sad instrumental in the background helps trigger more empathy for struggling minorities. The Department of Education will hopefully see more of a reason to establish affirmative action if they start to empathize for the people who suffer without it. Towards the end when I talk about the benefits of affirmative action, I change the instrumental to something more upbeat and exciting. The change in tone through music helps depict the image of two different views: A country without affirmative action to help minorities find equality, and a country that has established affirmative action and has found its benefits.
To revise my original argument, I started by analyzing Nathan Angelo’s article “What Happened to Educational Equality? Tracing the Demise of Presidential Rhetoric on Racial Inequality in Higher Education”. He talks about how presidents have failed to address affirmative action in their speeches for the last 40 years. I then incorporated it into its own argument of whether or not affirmative action should actually be established by researching its pros and cons. When I found out the difference in rates between whites and blacks for college enrollment, I realized that the benefits found from affirmative action would surely solve this issue. Therefore, I started with the failure of the difference to decrease since 2003. The failure for this gap to change was my way of revising my argument of income inequality into an argument of educational inequality.
Using Audacity allowed me to express many things that are simply not possible with the use of text by itself. Hearing a voice compared to reading text can give off two completely different reactions. This is due to the ability for pathos to strike emotion towards the audience by using music, certain tones of voice, and dramatic pauses during the audio podcast. The use of an audio program allows for the involvement of other voices, too. I was able to provide statistics through the voice of another person from the podcast This American Life. However, having the ability to have music and voices in my project unfortunately limits my ability of including pictures and video. Audacity does not have features other than audio. The only way I could provide visuals is to use a program such as Microsoft PowerPoint so I can sync the audio along with the visuals. Also, since the time limit for the audio podcast is three minutes, I had trouble trying to fit my entire message in the project. Compared to my original research-based argument essay, this project does a better job of expressing emotion while still acting as an argumentative yet informative project.
There were a few issues that I came across while learning how to use Audacity. Using the program to move around the timing of certain audio was initially confusing. I also had trouble recording the audio of This American Life to add into my podcast. Finding a method for this took me over an hour, as I had to resort to the use of a program besides Audacity to record Nikole Hannah-Jones’ podcast.
The comments made on my draft for the project helped me find an audience for the project. I was not aware on the Department of Education’s strict stance against affirmative action. Initially, I was going to direct the project to Donald Trump, but the department that would get involved with finding solutions to the problems that exist without affirmative action appeared to make a better audience.
In all honesty, I believe that this project is not ready to be viewed by the Department of Education. There must be an addition of more benefits that come along with affirmative action. I also believe that the audience was not well addressed to the podcast that I used as a resource since it would have caused my project to exceed the time limit. An actual podcast directed towards the Department of Education would require me to add at least two more minutes. This is so I could comment on what the benefits of affirmative action would mean for the overall population. Additional input would definitely be needed if I wanted to impress the department. The arguments and information I currently have possess many weak points that are unable to defend themselves without me explaining everything further. Although, for the length of my final project, I believe that I was able to use everything in my power to create a solid argument that would at least influence the thoughts of American citizens towards affirmative action.