Susanne Writing Assignments 1) 2) 3)

Writing assignment #1 / unit 1

In the two days of classes, I’ve learned what recording violence is. By seeing one of the examples of the video’s from forensic-architects platform, about a migrant boat that has a shipwreck at the threshold of Europe. In the video they research and recompose footage/information of social media, the refugees, timing, GPS, outsiders etc. I thought it was really helpful for me to see what is possible to record violence in a extreem detailled way. Also in the first video that we watched together with Rosa, was I surprised how architecture can help people to remember and make memories and even traumatic seeings visual.

In the theory class, I found it really hard sometimes to understand the meaning of the English words. In someway, the meaning of those difficult words are very abstract. So I found it really nice that we discuss the meaning of those words together. During the BLM movement in the past few weeks, the line about ‘’seeing your position as a postion’’ is very interesting. ‘If you want to know an other position, you have to lose every framework you know and let go of the system and letting go of rational thinking.’’ It’s about the individual and the belonging to a group.

Also the ‘’silencing’’ in the BLM movement is something we have to be very critical too. But I also find it interesting that silencing in war is maybe something different, than murder of racism. Do we have to look back during the murders where we now are silent about it? What if we already accepted the acts we did and never looked back?

Writing assignment #2 / unit 3

In this unit we had a very useful feedback session with Seecum and Rosa. We discussed how we start our research on our new topic, polarization. Secuum told us how language is a huge part of polarization and how violence is being used in it. We have to search within different media and how the difference between offline and online. Our first research assignment is to take a newspaper and highlight the parts in the (sub)headlines/images that are directed in a specific direction. And analyse, compare the way of language. We also have to think what our own language is, but also what our own position is towards longing to a group. And what kind of information do we spread? And how?

What I liked about the text of Sara Ahmed, is the perspective of a stranger danger and recognization. In our head we make a visualization how people look, a figure, we think is a stranger, but how about someone else his visualization (subjectivity and strangers).
And when do we know someone? Do we already know someone by knowing his/her name? Is it still a stranger then? While reading the text and our talk about the ‘’don’t talk to strangers’’ when we were young, I realized that I never thought about this line and I just forgot. But I’m wondering, how much influence has this line on our behavior now a days? This stranger danger is a part of why we are so scared of strangers, and effects our gap between humans.


Writing assignment #3

In these days we check the news every moment of the day. We scroll through different articles about important or meaningless subjects and get distracted by screaming headlines. But we never realize how media influence our opinion and how we perceive news. Political authorities and news media companies are using this ignorance to influence our opinion to push us to think in an extreme certain way.

Especially for the new generation. They are growing and learning so fast in (social) media. And the problematic thing is that the current society expect that every person stand for something. In every subject, there is no grey area. Society expect of people to take a position, after which another group of people takes the opposite position. And thereby polarization is a fact.

But in which way is this violence? In the paper of Håvard Hengre they researched how bigger the polarization is between the two groups, the more intense the conflict will be between the groups. If I take a personal example where I had an intense conversation; I believe there is no bad intentions from the government in this COVID-19 pandemic. Someone close to me, believes there are bad intentions and don’t follow the instructions that government gave. In the discussions we mention only our own references that we believe and in a second we don’t even listen to each other. The discussion is filled up with emotions and we settle for that we never going to agree with each other. But in some other context, this disagreements leads to riots and even terrific fights.

In one of the first tutorials with Seecum, she mentioned the podcast ‘’A life worthy of our breath’’ of Ocean Vuong. Before listening this podcast, language was still very shallow. What I mean with shallow, is that I didn’t saw the power of language. Ocean sees words as thing he could move and care of. ‘’The future is in our mouth’’, for me this quote refers to how we can use language in a good way, instead of pointing us in a certain way. In this podcast he also mentioned that we have to think about how we want to see our next generation. How can we achieve that the new generation listen to us?

For me, the main goal in this project is to educate people how they can perceive news without any form of influences from the writer, publisher, company etc. To learn them how to separate the three aspects: image, language and design of the news article.

I think the most important thing for us now is to focus on how we can convince the viewer the way polarization is being used in news articles. We have to go in details in our research and sifting through the important aspects to create a clear and understandable recording.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hegre, Håvard. “Polarization and Interstate Conflict.” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 45, no. 2, 2008, pp. 261–282. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27640653. Accessed 26 Nov. 2020.

Vuong, Ocean, ‘’A life worthy of our breath’’ , Podcast with Krista Tippett, April 30, 2020, On being, https://onbeing.org/programs/ocean-vuong-a-life-worthy-of-our-breath/ April 30, 2020

Hannah Writing Assignments 1) 2) 3)

Writing assignment #1 / unit 1

Recording Violence; when I first heard about the name of our assignment I was a bit hesitant. Violence is such a big word and it has quite a big negative connotation to it. But after the first class this immediately changed. There is so much more that can be said within the topic of violence. Talking about violence doesn’t have to be a negative project by itself. An example to this is the project ‘situated testimonies’, where forensic architects use their skills in a different way than they are traditionally educated in. They analyse different situations where violence appeared and try to recreate the situation while making use of 3D programs. The outcome of this not only valuable for the authorities, but also for the victims, because it can help them process certain events. Another project which really inspired me was the project about imperial courts which gave us an inside look in a neighborhood in the United States which is usually really private. The artist of the project recorded various audioclips, video’s and photographs where she portrayed the different stories of the people in the area. This inspired me, because she did it in such a way where she didn’t make any assumptions before starting the project. Her attitude towards the people gave her the chance to create a beautiful and honest recording of the neighborhood.

Both projects are related to violence, but not the traditional type of violence which is usually connected to war. This was especially interesting to me, since that type of violence is not something I am familiar with (which is super fortunate). This lead to the first ideas about the project and potential topics. Violence is not only physical, but can also be mental. Some ideas I had were more focussed on mental violence like emotional abuse within the Amish community, honor killings, domestic violence during the COVID-19 lockdown and cults/sects and its manipulative abuse. These are all topics which I think are really interesting and there are definitely stories that need to be told. The only struggle I have at the moment, if I am the right person to tell their stories, because I’m not in the position where I ever experienced such events.

The first two days within Unit 1 definitely opened my eyes relating to the variety of topics you can explore within the assignment of ‘Recording Violence’.

Writing assignment #2 / unit 3

The word stranger, a word that is described as ‘a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar’. But is the meaning really that set? Or does it have more meaning to it that one would argue at first sight? In the essay ‘Strange Encounters’ Sara Ahmed argues our traditional perception of strangers.

The first thing that pops into my own head when thinking about the phenomenon of strangers is the more shallow meaning where I simply just don’t know the person. But when you think about it for a longer period, it has so much more meaning to it. Sara writes that a stranger is recognized by us through a sense of not belonging in the particular space. When I refer to this argument in my own life, I think I mostly experience this when I am somewhere in public space. When looking around, you don’t pay attention to most people walking by or sitting down at a bench, but there is normally always someone that sticks out. It doesn’t necessarily have to be looks wise, it could also be sense of fashion, but also appearance in itself. This person could easily be called or looked at as a stranger in our heads, just simply because this so called stranger seems misplaced within our own thoughts.

Another thought I had connected to this text was connected to the term ‘stranger danger’. As young kids, a lot of them grew up with the thought “Don’t talk to strangers”. I think this line is super interesting, because it argues that strangers are dangerous, but in the world every person could be a stranger to someone else. You don’t see yourself as a stranger, while you could be one to someone else. This creates some sort of fear, which is also connected to our subject of polarization, where the gap between different groups of people becomes bigger due to fear of the other and thus the stranger.

Collective Writing 4

Writing assignment #3

In our project we focus on how media is portrayed and how this influences the way people perceive news. With the rise of the internet, the way news is being spread, but also is written changed a lot. The more information became accessible on the internet, the harder it got to actually get people’s attention. In order to do something about this, the written language used in headlines became more important. Sensation creates clicks and attention. Screaming headlines became a part of regular news. It wasn’t only something that was used in tacky magazines anymore; it became part of our own language. The rise of the internet also did something on the variety of news sources. Not only the traditional newspapers spread news, also on social media and other websites news can be found. The use of Graphic Design started to play a different role; how to get people’s attention in an endless spiderweb of information and knowledge. Flashy and vibrant colors, capital letters and bold typefaces can easily attract a reader. This not only influences the attraction to a certain article or website, but it also does something to the written content.

The main goal we have for this project is to make the viewer aware of the three methodologies news sources use to attract readers. It will hopefully make the viewer look at different types of information in a critical way. We can’t change the content which is being shared online, but we can do something about the perception of it. In our research we looked at three different methodologies which media use to influence your reading; language, image and (graphic) design. Connected to these different methodologies we found examples where media actually used the methodologies to make our point come across stronger. But also to actually show the reader real examples of real newspapers. This will hopefully let the viewer reflect on their own perception of information. We also believe it’s important to give the readers a chance to escape the big influence of the media on their perception. We do this by creating three Google Chrome extensions which are connected to the three methodologies described earlier.

I think this project is super valuable, because the influence of media is bigger than ever especially related to polarization. This is alarming, because all these filter bubbles within given information create a big division within society. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to be neutral in certain situations. It doesn’t help that the bigger media outlets want to influence you as well. By creating this project I hope we can make the reader more aware how you are influenced. I strongly believe that there are a lot of factors in life you can’t fully control, but you can be aware about those factors and try to understand how they control or influence you. This is an important step which will already make quite a big difference. I also believe that being neutral is an argument which is hard, because who decides what is neutral? Is it the average thought within society? And why would that be the standard to be the given neutral? It’s important to me that this is not the aim of the project, but it is more about being aware of the influence of authorities on your perception on a lot of different situations in life.


Bibliography (in MLA)
Raad voor Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling, Polariseren binnen onze grenzen, B.V. Uitgeverij SWP Amsterdam, 2009

Vuong, Ocean, ‘’A life worthy of our breath’’ , Podcast with Krista Tippett, April 30, 2020, On being, https://onbeing.org/programs/ocean-vuong-a-life-worthy-of-our-breath/ April 30, 2020

Morris, Errol. “Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (Part 1).” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Aug. 2012, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-people-hearken-o-earth/?utm_source=slashdot.

Link to our presentation: https://youtu.be/JbMjiB7Ek24

How to Read News
In ‘How to Read News’ we focus on how media, and specifically news is presented and how this influences the way people perceive news. Within the project we looked at three aspects which each have an impact on its reader; language, image and (graphic) design. 

The last couple of years the way news is presented completely changed. Because of the rise of the internet, the amount of news sources became almost infinite. The three aspects we described earlier became more important than the actual factual content itself. Screaming headlines, sensational images and flashy designs became the main tool to attract people’s attention in an endless spiderweb of information. By getting this attention, these authorities are forcing us to perceive news how they want us to perceive it. It’s almost impossible to read news in a neutral way, because it’s already written in a much more biased way. With this intention of most news sources, the division in different opinions in society are being formed. There isn’t a grey area anymore, where people are neutral about a certain subject. The consequence of this is called polarization. This phenomenon is often the start of mental violence. In the book Dutch book ‘Polariseren binnen onze grenzen’ (Polarization within our boundaries) the writer mentions the consequence of developing group identities which involves curtailing the freedom of others. This causes intense conversations where positions are taken so firmly that there is no room for negotiation. 

With the growth of all technological developments, online media became one of the main sources to perceive news. The main goal of our project is to make readers aware of the methodologies news sources use to mislead readers. We want to tackle this by creating three Google Chrome extensions which will help readers to circumvent the influence of the three aspects which influence the way you perceive news.


Bibliography (in MLA)
Raad voor Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling, Polariseren binnen onze grenzen, B.V. Uitgeverij SWP Amsterdam, 2009