I had a conversation with fellow students Jill, Chris, and Christine about Terms of Service, a comic about privacy, and The Oral History of March on Washington, an article about the people who participated during the event. Here is the conversation:
Jill: My initial thoughts on Terms of Service by Michael Keller and Josh Neufeld were it’s not the best way to go about explaining a topic. The comic format tries to implement other portions of media, like where the woman is seen talking on the ipad about the start of gmail, but it is not done well. It leaves me confused as to who I should be focusing on and I find myself trying to discern the surroundings of the characters more than focusing on the information itself. After further reading the comic I’ve found that the messages it’s conveying are very important. I think it’s more of a matter of getting use to the formatting of the article which at first makes it hard to understand. What I felt worked and was important was the everyday life illustrations which show people using the items mentioned and how much they could potentially affect someone’s life. Specifically on page 32 I felt the picture of the man in his room while all of his electronics were monitored helped show this.
Me: I agree that the Terms of Service comic about privacy can be an overwhelming way to display a topic of information, especially with the enormous amount of speech bubbles displayed on Page 39. However, I also would like to note that there are some positives to this piece. The comic is a very funny and intriguing way to inform the public on a complex issue. If this was an article, it would not hook the reader in as much. The comic’s embellished pictures, like the anti-Facebook man who says he will not “embrace [his] tech overlords” today, keep the reader entertained all the way until the end on a topic that would not immediately make them interested. The comic’s use of pictures, text, graphs, and references to technological items create a nice balance for the reader to navigate, if they can get used to the format over time.
Christine: I agree with Jill about the format of Terms of Service. I might not have minded reading on the subject of privacy in a regular article format. As it is, I don’t like reading comics. It’s hard for me to find them funny or retain too much information from them because I have to focus on which speech bubble belongs to which character, and try not to skip a square. The integration of other forms of technology such as the “facetime” scene and the letter to/from google was extremely confusing. The way that the artwork was done made it hard to make out what was a screen, piece of paper, or one on one conversation. The purpose of the style of the piece to, quite literally, “paint a picture of events but I feel like that could have been done in a more text or audio/video oriented format.This might have worked better for someone that is used to reading comic book format.
Chris: I think that Terms of Service by Michael Keller and Josh Neufeld is not a best idea. They have to change the way to explaining the topic. I usually like the comic. However, in this case, it should be change a lot. The comic was fun to read and they are talking about the social and public issue. If it is a long article, I don’t think I will read everything. This is because it is going to be really boring. G-mail carries a lot of informations. Therefore, not every informations would be true. Some of them need to be change. Nowadays, we have a social media like a facebook or twitter. These social media makes a problems. This because those social medias expose the privacy. That’s why something has to be change by some reason.
Christine: The Oral History of the March on Washington piece broke up information in an interview style format. Each interviewee had one or more sections in which they provided their account of events of the march. Between every few paragraphs was a video clip of an interview with figures that were in attendance on that day. Usually, I find reading lengthy text tiresome. Even just a short break in a page with visual is enough to keep my attention, but using video really well with this piece. It also gave the story a sense of liveliness to it. It’s one thing to read about history, but to have the personal account of living history gave this piece an extra point of view.
Me: An Oral History of the March on Washington, which delivered intriguing insight into the time period and the people who participated, has a far more easier format than the comic. I especially liked that the article was split up into the different people who were talking about their experience, with their names being the headers followed by their quotes. By doing this, the article gives the reader many voices to the march, allowing for diversity towards the event. The article also succeeds with videos, both during the time as well as modern interviews. The article becomes more interactive through a visual/auditory perspective. We hear their voices and feel like we are with them in some way, shape, or form. I like when an article or form of media gives us a personal look through a person’s life or journey, and we saw their journey through these videos and interviews. There is always room for improvement, and the article could have been more interactive with its audience in order to grab their attention, but it’s simplicity and personal depth allow the article to shine in its own right.
Jill: I agree with both of you, not only was An Oral History of the March on Washington easier to read than the comic but the way in which they split the interviews and provided multiple voices really helped to provide a bigger picture on the March. Like Kyle said it could have used more to really grab the audience’s attention but the piece itself was very insightful. I enjoyed reading the thoughts of many during the event, rather than just the article be centered on one person’s view point, and then watching the video portions to get a bigger picture of what was going on. I think as a whole the article did succeed in conveying its message but there is always room for improvement.
Chris: The Oral History of the March on Washington, which brought the broken pieces of information to the style format for the interview. Since, I am the visual person, Terms of Service was more easier to read. They were providing the multiple people’s’ voices which was pretty helpful. They are helping out for variety of the events. By doing this, which makes the reader or listeners to easier to understand. There is going to be a lot of ways to shape a form. Media helps a lot for people to understand the article. It makes people to get an attention. This whole article is successfully conveying people to understand the message.
We all had a great time talking about the topics and the different media usage in each piece.
kyleokane 