Category: Weekly Response

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Miranda Pacheco // NYPL Oral History

         For the  NYPL Oral History project I got to transcribe an interview between Monica Diaz and Adam Payne.  Interviewee Adam Payne suffers from ataxia which involves loss of body control, making it difficult to communicate. What I enjoyed most about the exercise was being able to hear this man’s story unfold. He was vulnerable about his experiences with his condition and shared how he overcame many of the physical challenges that come with ataxia. His personality shone as he shared personal stories about his passion for rock climbing. While editing and transcribing this interview I felt as if Adam was speaking to me directly as opposed to his interviewer Maria Diaz.

         This task did prove itself difficult because of Adam’s pace. As he spoke he needed to take long pauses before finishing up a thought, making it difficult to determine if the sentence ended or just continued itself. I found myself pausing the audio and rewinding as I filled in the blanks of the interview. Due to his condition, he also lacked clear enunciation and I found myself missing chunks due to words merging together. I did not realize how much patience it took to tell someone else’s story properly, and I wanted to record every detail and do the interview justice.  This was a cool experience and I’ve never participated in anything like it. If I were to do something along these lines again, I would make sure to give myself time to listen to the story a few times over to make sure I catch anything I might have missed in the first place.

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Week 3 Response

The Roser article describes the different effects, impact, and causes of a global shift towards each country becoming more literate. Max Roser describes that in the last 120 years the world has seen it’s literacy rate change from 12% to 83%. However, he does describe many impoverished countries that are well below the 83% mark of literacy. Niger, for example, is boasting a 36% rate. The most interesting point that Roser discusses is about the difference in gender literacy rates. He uses the continents of Africa and Asia as examples of how gender literacy is becoming more even. It is clear by 2015 that India, China, and South Africa have nearly the same rate of literacy among their 15-24 year olds, despite gender. However gender is but one of the many factors that a country has to consider when dealing with literacy rates. Some others are, race, socioeconomic status, and age.

An interesting piece of information that Roser indulges on is how many experts collect and interpret data on literacy. He describes the use of a census in the 1940’s as being able to accurately compare the number of years of schooling to literacy rates in the U.S. The census concluded that there was nearly a 70% difference between 4 years of schooling and no years of schooling, relating to literacy rates.

Another important fact that Roser describes is the generational difference in literacy rates. He uses the Middle East and Northern Africa as examples of this. Stating that, “only less than a third of the older generation is literate – while in contrast, more than 90% of the younger generation is literate” (Roser, ourworldindata.org). The reasoning behind this is simple, most countries don’t want to stress literacy for their citizens over middle age, whereas the younger generation has been socialized with a new appreciation for literacy.

Now the most important aspect of the article is how Roser analyzes the methods of collecting literacy data. The most interesting aspect of this is that in 2010 less then 30 countries in the world took an actual test for literacy. Most of the other countries in the world used a ‘self-reported’ model, where either heads of households or individuals described if they, or their household, were literate or not. Not to say that they aren’t accurate, but it seems a literacy test, directed by the government, would be the ideal way to understanding a countries literacy rate.

Finally, although seemingly obvious, Roser concludes that individuals, despite race, gender, or economic status, who have more years of schooling are boasting higher rates of literacy.

Works Cited:

Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2018) – “Literacy”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/literacy’ [Online Resource]

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Isaac Espinoza Blog post #3

James W. Carey in “Communication as Culture” writes ” these essays aim collectively to demonstrate how media of communication are not merely instruments of will and purpose but definite forms of life: organisms, so to say that reproduce in miniature the contradictions in our thought, action, and social relations”. I found this to be quite interesting because I’ve always thought of the different forms of media of communications an essential tool in an evolving society. Being able to document every last thought that run through our heads and consequently distributing this to a mass audience has proven to be quite useful in educating, entertaining, etc. However, I never thought of the media of communication as an organism created by us until I read this line. This got me thinking, and after some time I realized what Carey is trying to say: our modes of communications after created by us, are out of our control. At that point, they are open to interpretation and thus can be quite dangerous if they have unintended consequences. They are their own entity that we can only try to control. This is because they are a reflection of our imperfect minds.

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Jailene Mangome, Week 3

The reading I chose to write about this week is Plato’s “Thamus and Theuth”. Although we already went over it in class, this part of the reading really stuck out to me most out of all the readings. In the story, Plato writes:

Soc.​ I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. (pg. 275)

The reason this stuck out to me is because this very thing happens to every one every single day, including myself. I find it very interesting- and I question this everyday- how we’re able to hear, read or take in information in any way but we aren’t able to fully understand it or able to grasp the concept of something in particular. Have you ever read an entire page in a book and then when you’re questioned on it, you just can’t? This is exactly what I believed Plato is saying here. The information is all in our head and in our memory, but when questioned, we never know what to say. Another thing is that- personally- I believe that there is never just one answer because everyone has a different take and perspective on everything. It doesn’t matter if it’s a painting, a song, a reading, a quote, a concept itself, etc., there is never really just one answer.

 

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Clary Capellan, Blog Post #4, 9/17

For this week’s blog post I chose to reflect on Marshall McLuhan’s piece, “Understanding Media”. Throughout this reading Mcluhan writes about his idea of the “medium is the message”. One quote that stood out to me was when he states “This fact merely underlines the point that the “medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale of human association and action” (McLuhan 24) In order to convey this idea he uses an example of the electric light, and how it works as  the medium for other functions to be able to exist. Therefore, there would be no message if the medium did not exist. This emphasizes Mcluhan’s idea of how the medium is the message. This quote also explains how the medium effects  society. McLuhan also uses the examples of how railroads and airplanes and how although they did not establish  movement,  transportation, wheels or the road to the human society. These mediums have shaped and improved our lives. As he states the “message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (McLuhan 24).

References:

McLuhan Marshall, “Understanding Media”, Seminal work about media, 1964

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Marisa Brincat Post for 9/17

”Models of communication are, then, not merely representations of communication: templates that guide, unavailing or not, concrete processes of human interaction, mass and interpersonal.” (Carey, 25)

I liked this quote because of the message behind it. The meaning that I took away from this quote is that to study communication, you must understand how the models of communication are constructed. When understanding communication, you need to know what goes into the process of creating these models of communication and where the concept originated in. For example, it is possible that the construction of communication came from art, science and  interactions within real life experiences such as the communication between parent to child, advertisers, welfare workers, teachers to their students, etc.  I feel like this quote really helped me understand the model of communication and it allowed me to see how communication can evolve over time.

 

Sources: James Carey, Communication as Culture, second edition, 1991

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Clary Capellan NYPL Oral History 9/16

For the NYPL Oral History assignment I chose Esther Zhang’s interview by Iris Grattan. In this interview Esther, a Chinese graduate at Columbia University, speaks on living in Harlem and how although Columbia is in Harlem, the University and many people choose to disassociate it from Harlem. She also speaks on her observations of the racial issues and oppression that are evident in the community in which she resides.  One of the challenges that i faced while editing this transcript was the fact that the audio would not play as I tried to edit it. Therefore, I had to constantly switch tabs when there would be confusion in what was said, which I later resulted in just opening two separate windows with the audio and the transcript to reduce the hassle. To me the editing process was quite time consuming and involved a lot of paying attention and focus in order to transmit what was being spoken into writing, that was probably the hardest part. The easiest part of this assignment was listening to the story, I actually found it very interesting, as it has never been brought up to my attention. This assignment captures the distinction between storytelling by speaking and writing.

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Week 3 Post 9/16

For this week’s response I chose to reflect on Marie Battiste “Decolonizing The University” which I found to be something that’s not new to me but it was interesting. Battiste writes about the times of early European takeovers had noticed that the Indigenous people were literate. “ When Europeans did encounter undeniable evidence of a literacy equivalent to their own, such as Toltec and Mayan paper books, they did their best to eradicate it as a threat to the teachings of the scriptures they brought with them” (Battiste, 111-112). After reading this it made me question to why the Indigenous language was seen as a threat? Living in a world today where communication comes in all different forms, neither of them are a “threat” to the other.  If anything, having different forms of communication can be beneficial to others because communication is what makes us not afraid of each other. The early Europeans probably had feared the Indigenous because of what they believed them to be, which was being uncivilized.

 

 

Cited Works

  • Marie Battiste. “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing the Page: Part 1.” The Future of the Page . University of Toronto Press, 2004.
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Michael Farias Blog Report 3 for September 20

The writing I chose for this blog report was Marie Battiste’s “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing the page: Part 1”. What I found interesting about Battiste’s writing was how the Indigenous people of the Americas communicate and how European settlers destroyed that way of communication. The Native Americans used to communicate using things such as symbols that were designed to have different meanings. This system of symbols was based on knowledge that was shared among the people (Battiste, 111). Then European settlers came and destroyed all of these communication methods and implemented their own methods. They also forced the Native Americans to change Religion and change their way of life. Personally, I think that it is disgusting what the European settlers did to the Native Americans and their culture. For me I think it would be an interesting experience to live in the Indigenous peoples society and use their communication methods.

 

Work Cited

 

Battiste, Marie. “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing the page: Part 1”.

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Milagros’ Weekly Reflection for 9/16

This week I wanted to reflect on the Battiste reading. I thought the whole reading was quite interesting but also at times very upsetting. Batiste writes “early Euro Christian travelers and missionaries destroyed, transformed, or simply ignored most aboriginal literacies of America or created myths to their Eurocentric biases favouring pages writing” (Battiste,111). When I read this, I was upset because the colonizers completely ignored the culture of the indigenous people that were already well established and had their own form of communication. Just because of the fact that their communication was abnormal or different then the colonizers, they had to destroy or ignore it. The reading then goes into the forms of communication they had. I think that the pictographs actually meant more than just writing on paper because every aspect of the pictograph truly has a lot of meaning, whether it was drawn on a birch bark or the way they drew. (Battiste,115). Their way of communication helped them to think cognitively whereas when the colonizers just gave them what they wanted to give and there was no room for anything else. I also think to how in our education system, we are taught at a young age one certain way and taught what we are told, but if a child doesn’t learn or do something a certain way, then they are categorized as “different” or “autistic”. But how about if their way is better or why can’t it just be the way that works for them? This reading really left me with questions and left me with a lot of information I never thought about.

Cited Works

-Marie Battiste. “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing the Page: Part 1.” The Future of the Page . University of Toronto Press, 2004.