IML 440/444 Senior Thesis

My thesis proposal from last year's IML 346 class can be found here.

Here's some of my "1-2 page summary" that I submitted to those who gave me money for my summer research project (the data from which will seed my Senior Thesis project).


This summer I spent three weeks in Aleknagik, AK, gathering recordings, and one week in Anchorage, AK, going to Yup’ik-related art exhibits, cultural museums, speech archives, etc. After that, I returned to Los Angeles to organize, edit, and annotate the footage I had obtained. This has turned out to be a much larger task than I anticipated, as annotating the recordings with a transcript, translation, and phonetic transcription as I had hoped to do has proven to be quite the challenge for my level of experience! I am meeting with my research advisor soon and am going to be working with more highly trained phoneticians to ensure that I have strong enough data to use for my senior thesis project, which will be showcased in May 2009 at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy.



For the data collection part of my project, I stayed with my second cousins in the small village of Aleknagik, a name which means “Wrong Way Home,” in Yup’ik.[1] Aleknagik is located on Lake Aleknagik at the entrance to the Wood Tikchik State Park, the largest state park in the nation.[2] It is accessible only by boat or plane from “Outside,” as the rest of the United States is referred to from the perspective of Alaskans.[3]



From my base in Aleknagik, I had access to the nearby town of Dillingham, which is connected to Aleknagik by a 25-mile road. This was convenient, as my informants were evenly split between the two cities.



Most of my time in Aleknagik was spent making connections with people who might be willing to speak with me in Yup’ik, then meeting with them and recording them. I also spent a significant amount of time learning as much as I could about the language from the dictionary and grammar which I had purchased beforehand and sent up ahead of me. From these three weeks, I was able to record six tapes of four different native speakers of Yup’ik using my Sony DCR HC96 miniDV video camera and Audiotechnica ATR35s lavalier microphone. I asked each of my informants to sign permission forms to make sure they understood what the research project was about, and how the recordings would be used.



Here is a breakdown of the recordings I was able to get:



Tapes 1-3: The speaker knew both English and Yup'ik, but wasn't comfortable telling me entire stories in Yup'ik, most likely because she knew I wouldn’t understand her. Instead, she told me stories of her childhood in English, and told me all of the dialogue, such as what was said between her and her mother, in Yup'ik. She translated the Yup’ik into English as she went.

These tapes not only are good examples of Yup’ik conversations, but also demonstrate a great deal of the locally spoken Yup’ik-influenced English dialect, which could certainly be an area of further study.

Tape 4: For this tape, I had two native speakers of Yup'ik: a lady and her aunt. The aunt, who was born in 1924 and grew up in the nearby (and now-abandoned) village of Kalukak, spoke only Yup'ik, so her niece translated while the aunt told me stories, songs and poems in Yup'ik which she had learned as a child from elders. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the recording session (in which the aunt spoke for quite a while and then the niece translated what had been spoken), the translation is rather loose. Also, as is the unfortunate nature of translating while recording, half of the tape is in Yup'ik and the other half is the same thing over again in English.

Interestingly, though, the aunt sang one song that she had learned as a child that is in some language other than Yup’ik. I have not yet determined what language it is, but neither the niece nor the informant from the above-mentioned tapes could give me a translation. This begs for further investigation.

Tape 5: This tape is of the same lady (the aunt) from Tape 4. For this tape, the niece wasn’t able to meet with us as planned so I met alone with the aunt and listened attentively with my video camera and microphone while she told me stories and sang me several songs in Yup’ik. At least two of the songs she sang are Yup’ik translations of English religious hymns. This tape is basically a solid hour of Yup’ik only.

Later I showed this tape to the lady from Tapes 1-3, who happily gave me a translation, which I typed up with approximate time stamps. I think this tape contains by far some of the most useful data I got.

Tape 6: This tape is of a man who has heart trouble, and it was very difficult for him to speak. I could understand only about half of what he said to me in English, and it is quite possible that what he said in Yup'ik was also not very clear. I am not certain as to how much of this tape will be usable, but I went to great lengths to meet with him because I wanted to get a recording of a male speaker since all the others were of women.

[1] http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CIS.cfm?comm_boro_name=Aleknagik

[2] http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/woodtik.htm

[3] Tabbert, Russel. “Terms for 'Not Alaska' in Alaskan English” American Speech, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 256-258 Duke University Press

The Internet's a Commie!

'Communism would totally work,' people say.
'...If only...'

I agree. It's obviously brilliant, but there are tons of IFs.

Maybe, however, the Internet has come to fix it all.

This week's reading talks about the need for a new model of power.

Now that individuals can create and add to what used to be controlled solely by large corporations (think Linux vs. Microsoft/Macintosh), it's a lot harder for the big bad guys to come and squash the little people (definitely check out the link via the picture to the right). Additionally, there's the shocking revelation that people are actually willing to do things for free!

-shocked face-

WHY? Why would anyone not want to be paid?

Well, maybe it's because we're all commies at heart....and because Micro$oft is for Capitalists.

But of course that's not the case for everything. There are plenty of people out there who are still trying their darndest to make money off of the Internet. A few of them will even be enormously successful at it. But that's okay. The Internet isn't just a commie, or even just a community. It's got so many communities that there's room enough for all. Even clashing oppositions! Oh boy!

The media of the Internet can be run by lots of little guys because they don't have to appeal to everybody (or dictate what everybody gets). Instead, they appeal to whomever finds them appealing, and that's good enough, because there are lots and lots of people on the planet who have Internet access. There are even more who don't, who someday might. Ooh the potential...

Tripping over Culture

I don't know if there's really anything more articulate that I can add to the piracy story, but if nobody else minds, I'm going to use this required blogging moment to rant a little about something I've not really said much about yet.

I used P2P software when it was hot stuff, and then rumors started going around that it was illegal and I started being sneakier about it. Then the rumors turned into giant lawsuits and I got scared. I eventually completely stopped.

Now, however, we can all enjoy the luxury of paying big businesses lots of money for them to control what used to be free.

$.99 a pop! And remember, of course, that $.99 is just a tricky way of messing with people's minds to make them think it isn't actually a dollar, which it is. We all know the penny is useless.

So, for one dolla' we can buy us some music. Digital music. But wait, what did we learn about digital things? Oh...yeah....the whole concept of reproduction doesn't really apply to them. Hm. Nice that they still charge us though.

Personally, I am way too cheap and way too opposed to anybody who I think is monopolizing on this overreaction/crackdown to ever pay money for a song online, but as long as I'm a college student, I can use Ruckus to hunt down artists I've heard about to find out if I actually like their music enough to buy their CD.Via th is method, I recently discovered that I absolutely love Hoobastank's new CD, Every Man For Himself (here's a snippet from their song, Born To Lead), so I bought it. Then I discovered that the new Lostprophets CD sucks (no audio for them, because I didn't buy their CD).

It's brilliant!

I not only just supported one of my favorite artists as a reward for their good work, but I saved money by not falling for the previously good reputation that Lostprophets had built up with me. All thanks to free, online, digital music.

How does that (free music) not benefit the system? Now, instead of artists making a profit off of songs that nobody likes (woe to them), people can decide beforehand which songs are actually worth listening to, and even worth paying some money for. Additionally, people can be exposed to even MORE music they might like. Artists get recognition, and if they're good, they can profit from CD sales, concert tickets, or merchandise.

But surely that's not enough... after all, those songs that people listened to that influenced their purchasing decision should have cost money, too. I mean, the artist deserves at least that much, right?

Poor...starving...rock star. Evil digital media - so damn efficient.

It seems to me that the more we squash "free culture," the more we'll find ourselves tripping to find any culture at all.

Personally, I think we ought to form a team of real pirates. We all know that the internet is the people's domain. How many anti-free culture lawyers do you know who are also hackers? Let's keep it free and use our numbers and skills to our advantage. These arrests and lawsuits are scary, but they won't win out in the online world.

Not that I know anything about how that works...

Back to Reality

Last Friday I went to the Films Across Borders event put on by Visions and Voices.

The featured filmmaker, Alex Rivera, had made some rather interesting short films (a lot of them dealing with immigration) and he showed some of them to us, as well as giving us a little preview of his upcoming feature film, The Sleep Dealer, which deals with the fact that while we're tightening our physical borders, we're also making use of technologies such as the Internet that allow for completely open/non-existent borders. What was interesting, though, was that he touched upon one of the ideas of this chapter: a virtual "home" for diasporic people, provided by broadcasting and media forms.

In 1995, when CGI was nothing like what it is today, Alex Rivera made a short film about his Peruvian father. He recounted how at home his dad tried to completely separate himself from his Peruvian background, but every night he would sit in front of the t.v. and watch Spanish-language programming for hours at a time. He was miles and miles away from his home country, and even seemingly trying to forget about it, but each night he would, as Rivera put it, transport himself back to Peru through a virtual world... Because television can do that.

To try to make visual what Rivera imagined happened to his father each night, he made the film Papapapá (potato father), using now-ancient technology that was way cool at the time (and took three weeks to render, he told me later) to put his father in an actually virtual space (skip to the end of the 28-minute film to see that part).

It was a little hard for me to watch, because the graphics were so horrible, but it gets the point across. His dad his shot out of a Pringles can and lands in this virtual reality that's somehow Peru through his television. He finally finds a way out to get back into the real world, but we're left to wonder, what about all the people now?

We have much more addictive things than the television that can create virtual worlds even more realistic than the one created by Rivera for his father. What happens if we don't leave?

We talked a little bit in class about the question of why we prefer Second Life to the so-called 'First Life,' and of course the most obvious answer was that in Second Life, you can fly! But what about places like the ones described in Sturken and Cartwright, where poor communities purchase a television set rather than a refrigerator or a bicycle? The analogy can be carried over to us - we use the Internet to build relationships with people who live just down the hall from us, rather than bothering to get up and walk over there to actually physically hang out.

Part of what makes it so appealing is that we're able to come into contact with so many different people online that it makes it easy to have a huge number of shallow relationships, while at the same time choosing which people we get closer to. That sounds pretty good. In fact, it sounds a lot like life, but with even more of the slightly-shallower contacts. Plus, it's super convenient...and of course, there's the flying, but who knows, maybe we'll all find ourselves trapped in a world of bad CGI, begging to get out and get back to that mythical "MeetSpace" or "First Life" and live IRL for a while.

Resistance

One thing that bothers me every day is advertising. It bothers me because I don't like the idea of being manipulated, especially with the stealthy tactics that advertisers use, such as product placement in movies (not always so subtly), logos on clothing, and ads on the side of every webpage I visit.

Here's part of a video clip made by Steve Seid and Peter Conheim called Value-Added Cinema that shows product placement in various films:




Yet while I find it very annoying that I'm constantly bombarded with advertisements, I definitely appreciate the fact that they lower the price of many of the things they're on (although not all). Websites are hosted for free! I got a free hat from the seafood company I fish for that had their logo on the front, and well...honestly products do appear in our daily lives, so it's not always such a big surprise that they'll pop up in movies.

Being wary and throwing things at the screen every time I see product placement in a movie makes me feel better, but why always fight something that's so prevalent? Rather than wage war on ads, I've decided to enjoy them. I can laugh at the funny ones, analyze the sexist ones, and try to figure out the hidden placement of logos all around me. It's my decision to wear or not to wear brand-name clothing, and I choose which products I buy for what reasons, and advertisers have to make their money, too.

The sense of lack and the desire for unnecessary goods that ads create can only work if we as consumers allow it to. I'm incredibly stingy, and if I don't absolutely need something, I'm very resistant to buying it. I'd rather have high quality products than something that will break down in a couple of years, but has a brand name on it. I hang on to stuff until it is no longer useful to me and then only part with it with reluctance. This is my resistance.

The Periphery

Now I'm slightly confused. This week's chapter is the chapter I read last week, and last week's chapter is what I wrote about the week before, so now I seem to be somewhere in the twilight zone.

Oh well.

I want to tell you all that I'm in love with David Hockney's art. At least, most of it. Just look at this amazing self-portrait (-insert clip of Beyoncé singing "to the left"-).

What college student couldn't relate to that? I know I've had the following conversation with myself (yes, I talk to myself - a lot):
"Damn... I have a huge paper due tomorrow, but instead I think I'm gonna just write about how much I hate having to write this essay."
Other self: "Write your essay!"
Self: "Nah... now I think I'll draw a picture about how miserable I am writing about not wanting to have to write this essay. "
Other self: "WRITE YOUR ESSAY!"
Self: "I'm going to bed."
Other self: "@%#(&* WRITE YOur.....oh, well..okay. Bed sounds good."

And then if I'm really out of it, I'll draw a picture of me huddled in a panic on the floor beneath my looming computer and keyboard, clutching a notebook with unwonted writings and drawings on it, with schizophrenic thoughts (such as the above conversation) scrawled out across the page, leading ultimately to...... bed. Of course.

What on earth does this have to do with anything, eh?

Well, I am of the opinion that spending too much time in front of the computer will drive us all to insanity. We have to write essays on the computer, we watch lectures on the computer, we work on powerpoint presentations for class on the computer, and then for fun we check our e-mail and network socially - all from the computer. Computers are amazing! We can do almost anything with them. But um... now what?

It would seem that we're forgetting the periphery of multimedia. To hark back to this week's chapter's post from last week (that makes sense, I swear), perhaps what is driving us all into a narcotic stupor isn't the fact that we all think we're doing something by knowing something, it's that we think we're literate in multimedia when we only know how to work a computer.

So, with a few more kinks in my back and slightly squinting eyes from my bad posture and bright monitor, I vote (and I'm sure it counts for a lot) that next time we meet for class, we all bring a guitar and learn how to communicate through dance. Who's with me?

Narcotics or Knowledge?

Well, I feel duped, as well as a little bit prescient (such a good word - I saw it for the first time today, and then just discovered it again in this week's chapter). I read the wrong chapter for this week, but seem to have already blogged about the chapter that we were actually supposed to read. As such, and since I had already written the following by the time I discovered this error, I'm just going to publish it anyway. Do with it as you please.

Here's the duped and prescient me, as a visual (and unrelated) segue between my introductory comments and my actual blog.

My mom always taught me that you can find whatever you're looking for wherever you go.

While she meant drunk college parties vs. intellectual study parties, this principle holds true of the quest for the good in a world we're told is full only of the bad.

Let's speak of mass media (since that happens to be the title of the chapter I read). If you want to point out the misuses and abuses of mass media, you'll find them, easy. But there are plenty of good things about it, too. Sturken and Cartwright present the argument that it creates a narcotic effect by "convincing people that being informed about a social issue by seeing it covered in the media is the same as doing something about it" (165). This negative kind of thinking seems to be calling us all silly sheep. Silly drugged sheep, at that.

I hold a different view. The way I see it, being a sheep implies that one is gravely uninformed. However, being properly informed on relevant issues actually is an important step in doing something about them, and indirectly, is the same as doing something. Try and shatter my idealism if you want, but I'm a firm believer in the power of my well-informed vote.

By being informed, we hold within us the potential power to effect change should a complicated issue ever come to a vote. (Now when would a vote ever be complicated?)


Another bit of wisdom my mother imparted to me is typical advice from a physician: prevention is always better than a cure.

By being informed beforehand, we preclude the need to enact change by preventing a problem from ever occurring in the first place.

Certainly, part of being "informed" is also being critical of the information we are presented with. And it would be ignorant to say that simply being informed is enough. Maybe nothing is enough. But if you're going to go around looking for the negative, go and do it over there, because there are plenty of us who are successfully looking for the positive in this nearly overwhelmingly powerful, connective tool we call The Media.