Citizen Journalism and Multimedia Essays
This post was one I produced for my VIDL Series “In Pursuit of Digital Pedagogy”, which you can read here.
In Pursuit of Digital Pedagogy: A Series on Digital Tools in the Classroom
So now that you’ve seen my first ‘infographic’ on Citizen Journalism (or in case you haven’t click here, and hopefully you’re at least intrigued by this idea of Citizen Journalism in the classroom, but wondering how will this all work.
Well sit back and enjoy my second post in this series on Citizen Journalism and Digital Pedagogy. Hopefully, I can convince you of the utility of this pedagogy, while also providing some models for how to incorporate this methodology in your classroom. Have you tried something similar before? Let me know about your experiences and whether you think this method could work for you.
So returning to my meta-approach of discussing Digital Pedagogy, in this post I want to talk about what I accidentally created - a multimedia essay.
While I’m no Dr. Frankenstein, I was a bit surprised about how my efforts to create an infographic ended up with something that I had not anticipated. Part of this accidental creation was a result to the awesome functionality of Piktochart (which I review in my previous post), which allows you to embed so many great features that my project just kept growing and growing. But I think the most important reason has to do with the argument I was trying to visualize. While infographics can visualize complex arguments, in my opinion they are more suited to visualizing data and allowing that to be the thrust of your thesis. In my case, there was very little data and lots of theorizing and videos, both of which lend themselves to multimedia essays. I also think I was ultimately more comfortable creating a multimedia essay than an infographic because of my training in essay writing and my minimal knowledge of graphic design.
So what is a multimedia essay?
A multimedia essay is a type of digital narrative that uses multiple mediums to represent an argument. A lot of the online discussions of multimedia discuss the broader implications for a communications revolution, or how this method is tied to multimodal learning environments. This post is more focused on using multimedia essays in the classroom, but if you want to find out more check out the wiki page on Multimodality here.
Multimedia essays can comprise of a powerpoint presentations, remixed videos, imbedded blog posts, or really any combination of multimedia resources to make an argument. Similar to a written essay, a multimedia essay still requires an argument and supporting evidence, as well as issues of flow and relevance. The benefit of multimedia essays is to allow for a greater range of creativity for your students, and force them to think through how they are representing their argument. Many of my students often to struggle to understand how in the written form their argument can be confusing or poorly structured. In visualizing the argument in a different medium, students are forced to further think through the structure and evidence of their argument, which can assist students in seeing the holes in their argumentation.
In many ways, a multimedia essay is the most similar digital expression of a more traditional essay, but involves representing an argument in a more dynamic fashion. However, I believe this shift in visualizing and expressing an argument in new mediums does ultimately produce a new type of knowledge and critical thinking. Now the question inevitably arises about why do we need a new way to represent and communicate an argument? After all, the essay model has been working for centuries and the ability to write cogently will always be highly valued. Well, I certainly think essay writing is critical and difficult skill to develop, I think that the multimedia essay is particularly suited to courses engaging with a wide array of digital materials and that the two do not need to be exclusive.
As I mentioned in my previous post on Infographics, the best way to use digital tools is to integrate them into the iterative process of research-writing-feedback that already exists. In adding these tools, this process becomes more iterative and hopefully leads to more conscious engagement with the argument. Ultimately, the utility of a multimedia essay depends on the context, but nonetheless, this method provides an avenue for independent and creative content production.
How to integrate multimedia essays in your classroom?
Similar to infographics, multimedia essays can be integrated into already existing courses with little difficulty. Instead of assigning a number of short writing pieces, you could substitute one of the writing pieces for a multimedia essay on the same or related topic. This combination traditional written and multimedia essay pairing would challenge the students to visualize their arguments in various contexts, which would hopefully produce more concise and precise pieces.
You could also assign a stand alone multimedia essay, especially if you have a topic that is rich in media. However, I would recommend allocating some class time to go over both the expectations and functions of the tool you use for the essay. Though many students are savvy with social media, they may not have had any experience with multimedia and thus, you should caution students that this assignment poses different and timely challenges than a written essay.
What are some examples of multimedia essays or lesson plans?
As I mentioned above, the idea of multimedia essays has been around for some time and is quite popular so a quick google search will produce lots of results. Some of the resources I found useful include:
- Verena Kick’s HASTAC post Media assignments – experiments, experiences, examples?poses the questions of what are media assignments and how do you assess them. Her post has a number of useful comments from HASTAC members.
- Amanada Starling Gould’s HASTAC post Digital Pedagogy Project: Teaching the Transmedia Essay discusses her course on ‘Augmenting Realities’. Amanda had her students write ‘transmedia essays’ and create (re)mediated elements. On her HASTAC post, she provides in-depth assignment outline and assessment guidelines, detailing how the essay should involve multiple medias to visualize their projects. I would highly recommend reading the blog but my favorite part was her final section on the results which I’ve excerpted:
- “The students wrote rather complex and thoughtful essays that integrated a wide range of ‘media elements’ that they created to complement, challenge, or construct their critical arguments. They coded chat bots, programmed new digital humanities text analysis tools, created digital video games, mapped narrative structures and set EEG brain waves to music. They posted their transmedia essays in a web journal they titled Augmenting Realities: How We View and Shape Our World. Each student created a page here for his/her project. Additionally, they collaboratively authored several pages including the introduction and topical bibliography.”
- My all time favorite example is the Documenting Culture: LA Art Worlds course taught at UCLS in conjunction with the Fowler Museum. This course taught by Prof. Aparna Sharma, Emily Zeamer, Will O’Loughlen, and Meena Murugesan focused on the use of visual and digital media to document and study the artistic spaces and practices of LA. The course features a beautiful website and you can check out the syllabus here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1SMJT_M-dOpbmo3VFA4YlhQbHc/edit. Teaching field research, digital creation, and archival practices, this course zooms in on the potential of multimedia essays and uses them as the final assignment. You can see what the students produced here http://documentingculture.com/category/assignment/multimedia-essay/ and examine how the instructors embedded multiple mediums and technologies within the course.
Final Thoughts
Overall, seeing the potential of multimedia essays with some of the examples I posted above, I think you’ll quickly agree that what I created was not even close to pushing the boundaries for this type of assignment. I think that if given enough support and guidance, students would really enjoy the creativity and possibilities of a multimedia essay. However, key to any of these digital pedagogies is ensuring that we apply the same level of academic rigor and seriousness to these assignments. In my experience, students have a tendency, at least in the humanities, to view digital assignments as akin to ‘group projects’ or ‘less serious work’. I have struggled to combat this type of preconceived notion, and I think the multimedia essay is a great transition assignment for students. Ultimately, I see multimedia essays as building upon an already known quantity - the essay, but expanding the limits for how and why we present our arguments.
Have you tried using multimedia essays in your classroom? What was your experience?
Hope you enjoy!
Zoe