COURSE INFO:
Colleen Jankovic
Words and Images
Undergraduate
Fall 2012
ASSIGNMENT:
For this assignment you will compose a Storify page using at least 2 different social media tools (from the toolbar on the right), incorporating text and images to explore concepts in the readings for next week.
Readings:
Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave” (the first two paragraphs and 558-562 are required, the rest is recommended); and Thomas Keenan, “Publicity and Indifference: Media, Surveillance, and Humanitarian Intervention” (the entire document).
Instructions:
1.) Log in to Storify.com using our class account details (do not log in using your personal account).
2.) Save and Publish: Make sure you give your story a headline immediately, and click “Save Now” often (at the top of the page). You can always return to your draft later by clicking on the “wordsimages2012” tab on the top right of the screen and clicking on “Profile,” and then “Drafts.” From there you can return to your page by clicking “Edit,” or you can also remove your page clicking on “Delete.” Make sure you edit only your own document, since everyone’s pages will be stored in the same place. I won’t look at any of your pages in the Drafts until you finish and “Publish” them.
3.) Compose Your Page: Choose a very short excerpt from each of the readings (one or two sentences from each). These sentences must be included (typed exactly as they appear in the reading, with page number and author name) somewhere in your Storify page. Next, use a combination of your own words and images and pieces of text from the social media toolbar (tweets, facebook posts, instagram images, links to articles, etc—you can even make your own images/text that you can pull in from the toolbar) to explore the excerpts from the reading in relation to a topic/issue/phenomenon of your choice (we discussed examples of Kony2012 and political memes in class). As you compile your text and images, make sure you think about your reader—will they be able to follow your Storify exploration of Sontag and Keenan’s concepts? Did you incorporate enough of your own words (re-phrasing, guiding, explaining, exploring, asking questions, etc) to help the reader make connections between the excerpts and the outside materials you brought in? Note you can always add or remove text above, between and below the items you drag in, and you can easily drag the items around to re-organize and edit your page.
Formal requirements:
Headline—your story must have a headline
Subheadings—provide your story with two or more subheadings to organize your ideas for your reader
Words and images—your story must incorporate textual and visual elements
Multiple sources (minimum of 7)—your story must pull from multiple social media sites and other online sources using the Storify toolbar (including Twitter, Facebook, Google Search, Instagram, etc).
Not sure how to begin?
First, read and annotate the Sontag and Keenan readings—what ideas, phrases, and sentences seem significant, interesting, and even puzzling? What connections can you make to contemporary or past examples to help you further explore their ideas about the role of images, in humanitarian intervention and political/ethical response? Feel free to explore any of the examples mentioned by Sontag or Keenan directly. If you are still stumped on making a connection, try browsing topical news stories on the sites I mentioned, since they both already focus on role of the media, and especially social media, in current world events:
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/
http://stream.aljazeera.com/
STUDENT EXAMPLES:
http://storify.com/wordsimages2012#stories