May 3-7, 2005
Thesis Presentations
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| The UNICEF Sound Post | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s): | Jeffrey Galusha | |
| Instructor: | Hechinger, Nancy | |
| Class: | Final Project Seminar (Wed.) | |
| URL: | http://www4.adhost.com/teachunicef/tsunami/global/audio_blog.htm | |
| Keywords: | audio blogs, audio blog, podcast, UNICEF, Tsunami, Tsunami relief effort, interviews, students, teachers, UNICEF workers, TeachUNICEF.org, humanitarian, education, resource, Sri Lanka, fundraising, community, compassion, missionary, recording, | |
| An audio blog that represents the greater UNICEF team, it combines the voices of school fundraisers who raised money for the Tsunami Relief Effort with the voices of UNICEF workers on the new TeachUNICEF.org website. | ||
| Immediately after the Tsunamis distroyed much of the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean, millions searched the internet to learn more about the affected regions. There was an outpouring of donations, prayers, and support for the victims of the disaster. Students, teachers and schools working together raised 3.1 million dollars for the survivors of the disaster. Our leaders of tomorrow became the leaders of compassion in our communities. As our attention has shifted back to our lives the rebuilding process continues in the affected regions. Is it possible to keep people connected to the rebuilding they help facilitated? The goal of this thesis is to develop a forum for informing and connecting American students to the greater humanitarian community. UNICEF Sound Post is a audio blog section of the new TeachUNICEF.org website designed to reach out to American teachers. This thesis will try to prove that reflective audio recordings from students, teachers, administrators, and UNICEF workers can create a community of humanitarian students. | ||
| Personal Statement: | When I was teaching, my old boss told me, \"Jeff, in life there are missionaries and mercenaries and you are a missionary.\"
It\'s true, I am a compassionate individual who is dedicated to creating educational tools for teachers. I want to be part of the development of a new educational curriculum for the United States. The UNICEF Sound Post my response to the havoc wrecked by the Tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. I wanted to capture the compassion of all the students who sought raise funds for the Tsunami victoms and record those efforts so that they would not be \"a flash in the pan,\" rather they could be used as a springboard to create a community of global citizens. The project has been greatly influenced by my Thesis Instructor, Nancy Hechinger. She brought me aboard a team to design a teachers resource for the UNICEF USA website. | |
| Context: | In this global neighborhood, destruction of any kind is akin to a fire in our local community. We feel compassion to assist those affected and help to get back on their feet, but when they drop out of the public eye, they are largely forgotten.
There is an urgent need for this thesis project to provide an avenue for assistance for NGOs doing much needed work and to connect American students learn more about themselves as global citizens. Ultimately, audio and video blogs can play a vital role in connecting American citizens to the outside world. On the 26th of December, the world paused as it learned of the destruction caused by tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. As the death toll steadily rose millions of independent supports sent millions of dollars over the Internet to help the affected regions. An overwhelming percentage of these supporters received an extensive amount of information about this disaster through the Internet, they downloaded photos and videos showing the effects the disastrous waves and subsequent flood. It was similar to the way in which the exposure for World Trade Center initially generated a spike of international interest which led viewers to pray, donate money, and get involved. However, over time this interest slowly disintegrated. What is the relationship between the degree of public interest and the passage of time. How can we connect Americans to the problems of the world? I believe that the public loses interest because the news falls off the headlines and we lack an outlet that maintains a connection that is vibrant and compelling. The goal of my thesis is to develop an audio blog that is alive with content, images, and short stories each with a humanitarian streak. Audio that can connect you to a large community of compassionate Americans. I have been working with video to help subsistence farmers and non-profit organizations since I was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1994. My first video motivated concerned individuals in the United States to raise $3,500 to help rebuild a dilapidated school in Aiquile Bolivia. My most recent video, created in 2004 for TechnoServe El Salvador, was shown at the World Economic Formum. In the last 10 years, I have developed a visual aesthetic that I believe is effective and appropriate for NGOs. The text should be straightforward and include engaging stories, the photo should be first rate but not glossies, and the audio and video should resemble a budget that urgently needs assistance. An over produced professional (read expensive) video paints the wrong picture. These factors are why I believe audio recordings created by the UNICEF staff from the disaster areas and the students that supported the rebuilding process would echo the appropriate aesthetic and keep Americans involved or inspired. | |
| Audience: | I want to captivate the interest of concerned American teachers, students, and donors. The site will be inspirational for students from the ages of 7 to 26 and teachers and donors of all ages. The audio recordings are created through phone interviews with the leaders of fundraising campaigns and UNICEF workers. If you listen, you hear the intimate reflections on a labor of love. The experience is made for the individual, alone on a computer or they can be downloaded as a podcast and shared with a larger group. | |
| User Scenario: | A teacher will log on to TeachUNICEF.org, a new website for UNICEF-USA and find the UNICEF Sound Post among the other resources for teachers.
The audio can be listened to on the site or downloaded as MP3s. The site is a blog/website hybrid. The user can use RSS to download the audio recordings or use tags to find the information important to them. | |
| Methodology: | The website contains over 12 audio interview edited from phone conversations with UNICEF workers, students, teachers, and administrators.
The recordings were done over the phone through a three way call between my cell phone, a landline connected to the interview subject and a landline connected to a Macintosh computer through a Ovolab Phlink USB device. The original recordings are high quality .aiff files. They sound similar to radio phone recordings. | |
| Sources: | I would argue that the most effective grassroots medium for spreading information and raising money is through the Internet. Blogs, MoveOn.org and Howard Dean are testaments to this statement. People are hungry for information and in this modern era they learn more through clicks of the mouse then through the crinkle of papers. Even the movie industry has moved its trailers to the Internet to generate interest. In the United States, over 50% of Internet connections are through broadband or cable connections, a virtual superhighway of information connects communities and organizations together regardless of distance. There is a desire for new information and people want that information to reach them in forms which they are familiar; particularly text, photos and video. Non-profit Organizations have a great wealth of information to share, yet they are behind the mass media networks in providing innovative ways of sharing that information, but with the advent of broadband connection we can use the tools of our era to inform Americans of the troubles that exist both domestically and internationally. If established Non-Profit Organizations give cameras to their people in the field under the premise that they can record their work an efforts, it makes it possible for them to publish important content on the web for the world to see. It is my experience that when one looks into the personal lives of strangers, a curiosity is piqued which initializes a sincere concern for well being. Thereby created a community of people motivated to make a difference. My thesis is to publish short raw bits of video, recorded by UNICEF workers, to keep Americans connected to the rebuilding process in the Tsunami affected regions in Asia.
Background Inspiration for my visual aesthetic for created content comes from Terry Peel\'s America\'s Partnership with UNICEF. When I first began professionally working with Non-Profit Organizations, Mr. Peel gave me a copy of the booklet that he produced. He told me it was very popular and we explored the pages to see why. We liked the simple design, the exploration into the life of the individual to make an overarching point, and the respect the booklet gave the person photographed and described. It is important to create material that is honest, that you could share with the case study individual to avoid exploitation. In 2002, I met Loy Van Crowder a director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations program in Nicaragua. He was the former director of the communications initiate of the FAO in Rome. The work of the Communications initiative has always been an inspiration to me because the do such interesting work in collaboration with the FAO workers and the beneficiaries. The approach of the FAO is first rate because they take time to learn about a community before they begin evaluating the community and problem solving for solutions to basic communications problems. From Loy I learned about the program in Peru in the 70\'s that put cameras in the hands of the rural Peruvians so they could document their lives and then later review how they lived together at community screenings. From Loy I learned a great deal about working for the communities you are trying to help. Peter Beinart\'s article The Right\'s Small World, coins a phrase that is important to my thesis, it is intellectual generosity, which he describes as \"a genuine curiosity about the rest of the world, even when our safety is not directly threatened, even when the dramas aren\'t primarily about us.\" (The Rights Small World, The New Republic) The article speaks to the importance of the region to America and how many in Washington do not care about the effects of the Tsunami in the region because it does not directly affect the United States. The UNICEF website is a source of reference and discovery. The UNICEF website has 15 videos on the home page. If you have Real Player, it is quite easy to use, but if you don\'t it can be a headache. In fact, they have so much video content you can get lost for hours if you are a real web video enthusiast. One thing stands out; the video is of broadcast standard. In fact, UNICEF offers these video pieces to TV stations through News Market, www.thenewsmarket.com. This content is well edited, scripted, and produced. It works for an older generation, but it lacks the reality that younger audiences enjoy. There is content intended for students and hip audiences but it is always packaged in a polished way that gives it a distant feel. *Note: The search for the ideal video server is difficult. Many websites offer a variety of platforms to watch video but that seems to bog the process down. Real is preferred by massive media conglomerates because it is easier to charge for content. I believe they are most accessible and easy to use format is QuickTime. The UNICEF USA website has very little video, if any at all. It looks great but I think it lacks an edge students would really be turned on to. The UNICEF World Heroes game looks cool but it is for a young audience and it runs poorly. They have some interesting slideshows on the website. One thing that bugs me, there is a pink DONATE NOW button is everywhere. I wonder how that would make a student feel. It might be smart for UNICEF USA to outsource some of their videos. The video content that they do have is for sale and apparently not viewable online. The Communication Initiative is a resource for Non-Profit Organizations to talk and network about communication. The website would be a place to publish and begin talking with organizations about making such a blog a reality. The communication Initiative is more of a development foundation, less focused on fundraising. HYPERLINK \"http://tv.oneworld.net\" http://tv.oneworld.net is an interesting site that has made a made a commitment to video and news of the Non-Profit world. They have been doing a lot of building over the last 4 years and it looks like they are beginning to make their mission statement a reality. The movement on the website is impressive. From their website, “OneWorld has a vision of equitable and sustainable distribution of wealth amongst the world\'s population, underpinned by global attainment and protection of human rights and by governance structures which permit local communities control over their own affairs. Our mission OneWorld is dedicated to harnessing the democratic potential of the Internet to promote human rights and sustainable development.? The site can be really slow but their video interfaces are really intuitive, and some of the programs are really well put together similar to an excellent lesson plan. The video can be added by outside members but it is reviewed before it is posted online. It is a really great forum but the servers of the material must be on the other side of the planet. HYPERLINK \"http://www.maniatv.com/\" http://www.maniatv.com/ is a 24-hour broadcast that is gaining popularity with young people. It is just like MTV in the 80’s, music videos, hip attitude, and short movies. They use Windows Media Player and the instructions for streaming the video are really simple, “Click Here.? There is also a 1 page debugging website that plainly states that you must have Broadband to be able to watch the show. Here is how they describe themselves. What happens when you take the medium of traditional Television Broadcasting and combine it with the much less traditional medium of the Internet? Well, you\'ll probably end up with a television set for the new millennium, you\'ll definitely end up with something new and edgy, and you\'re going to end up here at ManiaTV! We\'ve taken Windows Media Video, a host of talented Internet producers, all of the top new music videos, our own ManiaTV! Original Programming, and we\'re streaming it all out to you broadband wookies for free! VH1, the music video website is configured to use Windows Media but it is not configured to play for Macs. The videos they provide on HYPERLINK \"http://www.vh1.com\" http://www.vh1.com are of a surprisingly poor quality considering they are in the business of videos. Vimeo.com is a site for organizing and sharing video clips. Vimeo video blog that is developing SMIL files that allow a user to search and create their own visual experience. Vimeo is in creation by Jakob Lodwik, because he is trying to support the videoblogging community. Jakob is looking to create an easy to use blog tool like flickr has done for the photo community. Jakob is also one of the founders of Collegehumor.com a successful website that specializes photos, video, audio, and T-shirts. The website is important for my project because they uses video effectively for my focus audience. The video is embedded on the webpage and it loops so that the person can watch some stupid college prank over and over. I would probably never show College Humor in mixed company but it is important to my thesis because of the way they package their presentation together. Finally the Vlogger Conference held at ITP was a great source of information. (http://vloggercon.blogspot.com/2005/02/vloggercon-05-conference-sessions.html) One interesting application is “ANT.? ( HYPERLINK \"http://www.ANTisNotTv.org\" http://www.ANTisNotTv.org) Ant is a program that helps you download and watch video published on the Internet. From their website, * ANT allows you to organize and manage video play lists * ANT is a video aggregator that allows you to subscribe to RSS 2.0 feeds with video enclosures * ANT seeks to build open-source software tools to enable an emergent, grassroots, bottom-up, video distribution network based on existing technology such as weblogs and RSS. ANT is about FREE VIDEO -- not free as in price, but free as in freedom. In addition to Ant and Vimeo, one point of interest for my thesis came from Marc Canter the founder of ourmedia.org. Ourmedia.org is an online community of grassroots media project that gives free storage space to video enthusiasts. I would like my thesis to be hosted at ourmedia.org and at the ITP streaming QuickTime server. | |
| Conclusions: | Americans are amazing people. This audio blog is a celebration of the altruistic nature of American students, teachers, and adminstrators. UNICEF is an excellent resource for the classroom. It takes work to create that connection but once it is made it can make a profound impact on our leaders of the future. | |