This section of Gallery 347 hosts the 4 group projects. Each group should claim and develop their work its pertinent page under the Projects menu.
Read this page closely for details you may have missed.
- Navigate to your project page using the site menu before you start your project; do not post project material on this page. Choose Edit Page at the very top of the site to work on your page.
- Your project can contain any number and combination of short video clips, screen recordings, screen grabs, data visualizations and maps (live and static).
- Remember that photo sizes can be enlarged or reduced in the editor so that details are visible.
- Remember the workflow for embedding iframe codes for live data visualizations. As you start or revise your work must switch to the Text tab on the top right of the editing interface before you paste the iframe code into the page. You may want to Preview the page to confirm the live connection before going further. Once you’ve done that, you can switch back to editing under the Visual tab; your full live visualization should also appear in the page body once you return to it from the editing page.
- If you are uploading video clips or screen recordings, use an export format for YouTube or social media such as MP4.
- You may change the title of your project page, at the top, but do keep your name in the title in some form. E.g. A Great Project (by name).
- Indicate individual student authors names on the different components of the project page. (Can use “footnotes”, or names with content subtitles or as captions.) Of course, multiple names may be used if they are constructed or written collaboratively.
- Citations from author’s and discussions can be written in-text with a list of references at the end.
- As you build your project, you may save your work as drafts before publishing or do your work privately. Change the “Status” or “Visibility” settings, respectively, near the top right of the browser window. Only you will see the content on your page. When you are ready to share your project, remember to return these settings to Published and Public.
- I am available to answer questions and troubleshoot.
Finally, just as you might flesh out your project mission statement, I encourage you to include your reflections on the project on the project page itself: What you sought to do with your project, what it achieved, and limitations you faced. Of course, cite and discuss any connections to our readings and discussions that informed your work.
Substantive Criteria.
Makes rhetoric + project visuals readable
- clearly organized on the website in a very comprehendible and user friendly manner -Anna
- simple, intelligible, accessible, but makes you think about things differently – Ailee
- Clear content and material- Jerome
Contextualizes the topic + the project itself (ethnographic value)
- employs a strategy of thick description -Matthew
- places our work within the data that is available during the time of the project as well as in a retrospective manner. -Anna
- Engages with the material at a variety of scales, from individual data points to comprehensive patterns and ideas -Joe
- integrates data and filmography cohesively -rei
- Interrogates/considers context – Rei
- Clearly articulates why context matters in the project – Emily
- Addresses the data that are and are not available -Lauren
- Reflects on the achievements and limitations of the project -jh.
Produces a compelling, subversive or alternative critical analysis in visual + narrative forms
- Challenges or supports existing media narratives – Grace
- Demonstrates grasp of visualization tools and concepts (I.e. did they critically think about the best way to dissect and present the data?) – Zack
- creative and engaging visualizations! – Ailee
- deconstructs and reconstructs media in a way that demonstrates something new -Cynthia
- Brings in new visualization that exposes a new angle/interpretation -Jerome
- creation of one’s own data visualizations – Emily
- able to critically analyze existing forms of data – Emily
- Applies techniques of media deconstruction and data visualization/counter visualization -Lauren
- Makes clear what is at stake in the project. What is its mission in the social world? -jh.
Identifies perspectives within the original media + data as well as the position of the project (ethnographic value)
- addresses positionality of sources and observers – Matthew
- Exposes narratives/biases/influences that are not readily apparent -Joe
- In analysis, is aware of/considers the context and multiple perspectives through which the media can be viewed and analyzed — Maya
Uses theory + examples from class
- Demonstrates deep engagement with course material – Zack
- Exposes the Geertsian web of culture / the Foucauldian structures of knowledge and power limiting our previous understanding – Zack
- Adequately explores the delineation between representation and reality – Zack
- Considers relevant aspects of “culture, media and data” and how they are at play with each other -Lauren
- Accurately cites specific readings, concepts, examples + discussions from class -jh.
- Defines key terms and identifies, where appropriate, which reading or usage your definition relies upon – jh.
- Evidence of drawing on the critical tools + concepts developed this semester – see below! -jh.
Critical Tools + Concepts.
- Pathways of ethnographic contextualization using exemplified in the ethnographic chapters in Media Worlds, and the visualizations made from them in presentations. They were applied to media, of course. How well do they apply to data?
- For ethnographic value, consider again the criteria for assessing the validity of an ethnography in Geertz’s “Thick Description” essay and the idea of “culture” in Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin in their “Introduction” to Media Worlds
- Models for understanding the world historical contexts of representations of media and data as forms of knowledge (of the real) and power, or as Mitchell phrases it, “methods of truth and order,” for example commodity capitalism, and later, digital surveillance capitalism
- Reconsider Shannon’s linear, realist model of communication with an anthropological eye for non-linearity and social and material variability
- Cultural models for understanding the performative (or active) capacity of representations to produce what they represent (e.g. a number of the Media Worlds chapters demonstrate this, but see especially the Kayapo example.)
- Consider the oppositions that emerge in various contexts: How are they encompassed by a larger social order of truth and power? E.g. our Miro board on digital capitalism.
- Video editing tools for deconstructing and analyzing media
- Principles for understanding digital data as outlined in Miller and Horst’s “Digital Anthropology and the Human” essay.
- The MP3 as a model for the material, embodied and agencies of digital media (i.e. Stern)
- “Critical Questions for Big Data,” by boyd + Crawford. Based on this piece, we identified the six major areas for interrogating data and collected them in Miro. See them here.
- Identify locations and accessibility of data trails and data uses based on personal data journals, social media and health data (see Ruckenstein and Schull); consider the partial and distributed presence of personhood in digital culture (e.g. the pixelated person)
- Critical assessments or representations of diversity and difference, including the historical and social forces from with classifications and categories are established and change (see the article on “Visualizing Diversity” by Whibey et al.)
- Filters, sorting and aggregation techniques available to critically explore data – and missing data – evident in spreadsheets
- Consider the “Ways of Knowing with Data Visualizations” identified by Jill Walker Rettberg. In our discussions, we identified about 7.
- De-aggregation, rich contextualization and embodiment in the examples presented in the “Learning By Lines” essay by Bowe et al.
Presentation Criteria.
Video Editing Basics:
- Clip structures are identifiable and consistent. There is a sense of motivation, purpose, argument or a statement.
- The edit shows use of media-specific capacities for montage and/or narrative storytelling, to reveal hidden relationships and/or gain a subject’s insights
- Makes use of for simultaneity, parallel editing, and for using Audio and Video tracks to coherently layer multiple audio and visual sources
- Coherence: use b-roll, cutaways and audio to smooth out edits to create coherence.
- Dialogue and words are complete and not cut off
- Audio tracks are mixed so that key content is comprehensible above other sources of sound
Data and Map Visualizations:
- Addresses a central question, problem, or revolves around a single clear argument
- Conveys a storyline or illustrate analysis and reasoning
- Stimulates exploration without adding confusion or distractions
- Encourages further inquiry
- Makes complexity intelligible, but not simple
- Relationships and dynamics are indicated – uses labels for axes and legends to guide legibility: use verbs and prepositions to define relationships indicated by lines
- Appearance is consistent; spelling and grammar are correct
- Use of color and graphic schemes follow the data
- Creativity (colors, shapes, etc.)