{"id":4354,"date":"2020-10-09T10:40:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T14:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/?page_id=4354"},"modified":"2020-12-08T19:09:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T00:09:09","slug":"covid-19-pandemic-project-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/covid-19-pandemic-project-2\/","title":{"rendered":"PSAs as a Virtual Cultural Artifact During COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preliminary Research Question: <\/strong> How do public service announcements present information related to the coronavirus pandemic? What does their construction say about the context they are immersed in?<\/p>\n

Background (Maya):<\/h2>\n

At this moment in time, our world is faced with one of histories\u2019 most deadly pandemics–COVID 19. Various guidelines have been put in place by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. One particularly controversial guideline has been the mandate of mask wearing, as some have felt that the enforcement of mask wearing is an infringement on basic individual rights. We want to focus on a particular piece of media that promotes the message of mask wearing using a PSA (Public Service Announcement) format. The video we have chosen depicts finalist entries from a PSA contest that was set up by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo as part of his “Mask Up, America” Campaign. This PSA contest which ran during the month of May received about 600 submissions and had about 186,000 participants voting, but it is one part of a larger government initiative to spread the word about COVID-19 safety.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mission and Purpose (Maya):<\/h2>\n

In a general sense, our mission in this project is to trace and contextualize the reflexive impact of COVID-19 through its representation in public service announcements. Here are our steps:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Analyze representation <\/i>in our media<\/strong>: Discuss specificities of the 5 PSA finalist videos, find similarities and differences, and contextualize their production, close analysis of filmic techniques.\u00a0<\/span>\n
      \n
    1. What is being represented? What is not represented? How is it represented?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    2. Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Video<\/strong>:<\/strong> A reconstructed version of the original video which will include side-by-side comparisons of similar shots\/concepts across the 5 PSA\u2019s. This will help think about questions such as:<\/span>\n
        \n
      1. How can a close analysis of PSA\u2019s hint at and possibly provide further meaning to what we may value socially, culturally, economically, etc?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. How have pre-existing values changed during this unprecedented time?<\/span><\/li>\n
      3. What kind of counter-narrative does our edited video present?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
      4. Chart\/Visualization of identities represented in the different PSAs.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
      5. Data Visualizations<\/strong>:<\/strong> Create our own data visualizations based on data from <\/span>NYC Health<\/span><\/i>. This will give us better insight into the reality of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (who is really being affected?), which we can put into conversation with the representations depicted in the PSAs.\u00a0<\/span>\n
          \n
        1. Map #1: Death count rate of NYC by zip code<\/span>\n
            \n
          1. Demonstrates that certain communities are hit hardest\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
          2. Map #2: Distribution of Non-Whites by Zip Code\u00a0<\/span>\n
              \n
            1. Shows that the zip codes that were hit hardest by COVID in terms of death rate are predominantly minority communities\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
            2. Donut Chart: NYC’s Racial Composition<\/li>\n
            3. Bar Graph: Shows that black and Hispanic people die and are hospitalized from COVID at higher rates despite having similar infection rates. This is evidence of racial disparities and structural inequalities in health that are absent in video.\u00a0<\/span>\n
                \n
              1. COVID Infection Rate (Stratified by Race)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
              2. COVID Hospitalization Rate (Stratified by Race)<\/li>\n
              3. COVID Death Rate (Stratified by Race)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
              4. Line Graph: Inter-State Comparison\u00a0<\/span>\n
                  \n
                1. X Variable: Date\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
                2. Y Variable: Total COVID Cases<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
                3. Conclusion<\/strong>:<\/strong> Now that we have these data visualizations that can add context to the PSA\u2019s (they display the actual reality and complexity of the pandemic), we can juxtapose them against the representations in the PSA\u2019s, in order to gain better understanding of the relationship between them. Each of our constructions, that of the data visualizations and the reconstructions\/deconstructions of the PSA\u2019s, provide for us further \u201cwebs of meaning\u201d surrounding the pandemic. This conclusion allows us to finally synthesize all of these \u201cwebs\u201d in order to give us a clear and contextual picture of the COVID 19 pandemic era and, more specifically, the relationships between culture, media, and data that are so present within it.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  Media Content (Cynthia) :\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

                  Emily Bowe\u2019s article \u201cLearning from lines: Critical COVID data visualizations and the quarantine quotidian\u201d provides numerous examples about the various ways in which COVID-19 has rapidly changed our status quo and cultural landscape. These changes to and demonstrations of our new socio-cultural realities are being documented in various ways. For example, \u201cThe Victoria and Albert Museum is chronicling COVID\u2019s myriad everyday artifacts: material embodiments, like the grid, of the virus\u2019s operational logics and affects. Among the growing Pandemic Objects (2020) collection are hand-made signs\u2014for businesses to announce their temporary closure, for neighbors to express community solidarity\u2014as well as jury-rigged protective door handles, toilet paper, cardboard packaging, and flour and yeast for novice home bakers\u201d (Bowe 5). This museum\u2019s collection of objects that have been inscribed with new meaning in light of the pandemic is a physical record of the values people hold dear during these times. The PSAs that we have chosen to analyze represent a virtual record of some of those values.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

                  These finalist PSAs had been submitted by small, independent, NY-based studios. By closely analyzing the construction of these PSAs, we can come to understand what social, cultural, economic, and other values these local New Yorkers hold most dear during this time of uncertainty. What is being represented? Who is being represented? How are these things being represented? These questions guide our examination of the individual PSAs and our reconstruction of the PSAs into a newly edited video that helps to showcase our observations of the New Yorkers\u2019 prioritization of values during the pandemic. The video below is an NBC News clipped video broadcast of Governor Cuomo\u2019s coronavirus briefing from May 20, 2020, during which the governor announced the five finalists for the New York COVID-19 PSA contest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n