OOPS, I LEARNED MORE ABOUT MYSELF THAN THE CLASS’s CONTENT
Last fall, when I would tell my communications major friends at Furman that I was taking Digital Storytelling with Mary Sturgill for the spring semester, they warned me that it was by far the most demanding class they’ve ever taken in terms of work outside of class. Heck, even Sturgill herself told me to “buckle up” for lack of a better world. While it did take a great deal of effort and stepping out of my comfort zone, I lived to tell the story, unlike a few of my classmates who dropped. I think the only reason why I was able to keep up was because the content of the class was interesting, and it’s something I want to pursue in the future.
In addition to the months dedicated to content creation, I became a thoughtful media consumer along the way. We read through an article from Howard Rheingold, a revered media critic, about the 5 media literacies: Attention, Participation, Collaboration, Network Awareness, and Critical Consumption. These literacies boil down to a few key questions:
Are we giving this media our full undivided attention?
How can we be an active citizen and not a passive consumer of media?
How can we use new technologies and techniques of attention to convey our message as a community?
How can we better understand both the human networks and technological networks of communication?
How do we ensure the credibility of what we consume?
I applied these in my own work, particularly when writing a blog curating the best automotive media for car enthusiasts. I sought to find reputable brands with audience engagement, who continue to push the envelope on what car content can be. Some brands are better at keeping audience’s attention for their content, for example, The Grand Tour “drip feeds” about an hour and a half of content to its viewers every year nowadays, and when it releases, I drop everything to watch it – with no distractions. The same cannot be said for other programs.
Given my own internal struggle with the content I make, I don’t quite feel like I have found my voice as a storytelling. Actually, I maybe have, but just haven’t gotten to show what I make to the right audience. I know what I have created is good and interesting to car enthusiasts like myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is lost on my 70% female class (who probably couldn’t tell me what a tachometer is if their life depended on it, if you want to know what it is, look left). If I can learn to successfully promote my stories to people WHO WANT TO HEAR THEM, I think I will have more confidence in my ability as a storyteller.
This course, despite the long hours outside the classroom, taught me a lot of soft skills that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I did a self-directed course in high school as the Editor in Chief of our Yearbook and Newspaper, and I severely struggled with communication and stepping out of my comfort zone. In a way, they go hand in hand. During Digital Storytelling, I was forced to communicate with people to be a part of my projects, and step out of my comfort zone when it was with people I was not super familiar with. Another skill I picked up was organization. Usually, I just put everything I make in either the Downloads folder or on my Desktop, strewn about, but the sheer number of files I interacted with in this class had me going three clicks deep in my File Explorer just to save my blogs. It’s a strategy I hope to maintain, both digital and physical organization when I enter the professional realm. I’m excited to take everything I’ve learned to my marketing internship this summer in Scottsdale, Arizona at Set Jet, where hopefully I can put my hard skills (content creation) and my soft skills (organization, time management, communication, etc.) to work to be as successful as possible. Also, it’s a nice bonus that Scottsdale is overflowing with money and bad taste, which means there’s a great car scene (see right).
