Although this episode was our second episode, it was both easier and challenging than producing the first episode. It was easier in the sense that this was our second time producing a podcast episode so we knew what to expect and the most effective way to go about actually recording our episode. However, it was more challenging in two aspects. The first was that I was very unfamiliar with the website howstuffworks.com. I had never even heard of it before until Ruth brought up this topic for her podcast episode. After looking into it, I got the general idea of what the website was about; however, there were parts about the website I still wasn’t as familiar with. The second difficulty was that we decided to make our podcast a little more scripted this time around. For my podcast on WestWorld, we wrote down points of conversations and just talked about them freely. However, that had its pros and cons. The advantage of talking freely was that it didn’t sound scripted; however, the con was that we didn’t talk about our points as eloquently and coherently as we wanted to have. We were often organizing our thoughts as we were speaking and had to rerecord several times. To avoid the problems we faced in the first podcast, we decided to make this one scripted.

With this episode, we struggled with trying to make it sound like it was not scripted. We added pauses in our points and inflections to our tones to make it seem like we were thinking on the spot. However, after hearing it play back it still sounded like it was very scripted. I think one of the reasons why it sounded like this was because in the beginning it seemed more like an interview. I would ask Ruth questions about howstuffworks.com and she would answer them. In class, we discussed how scripted podcasts sounded scripted and conversational podcasts flowed more smoothly. However, from my experience in producing the two different types of podcasts, I think there is a fine balance between the two. In the future, I believe we should script some of our lines, but also leave it open ended so that it can generate follow-up conversations and questions. Towards the middle of the podcast, we found a good balance between the two styles. We scripted some parts, but would go off script as we brought up questions or points we hadn’t considered before when writing out our lines.

Our primary goal in this podcast was to examine who the general audience was and to analyze the idea of convergence culture and how it applies to Howstuffworks.com. In planning the podcast, we made a Google doc with main points we wanted to discuss on the episode. We divided the tasks by each researching information about the main points we wanted to bring up, and then coming together and talking about them.

This podcast was different than the ones that were produced before in the sense that we weren’t necessarily analyzing what made this website new media. Instead, we were looking at it from the perspective of who the targeted audience was, the purpose of the website, and the idea of convergence culture. In most of the other podcasts, the interactive aspect of the topic was something that made it more new media “friendly.” However, we looked at how this website was not as interactive as we thought it could potentially be. As a result, I think this episode focused more on rhetorical composition. We analyzed what audience howstuffworks.com was targeting and what the purpose of the website was. There are a variety of categories on a bunch of random topics and seeing how everything was organized was also a point we discussed.

When looking for material to address Every Frame a Painting, I went through first some of the series entries before poking around Vimeo to find every episode of the series uploaded there, before turning to Tony Zhou’s Patreon for EFAP, which offers alternate versions of the episodes for educational use (at a price), and then to Twitter and Reddit, both forums that I used quite often. Showing these different resources to my partner, we both made our own observations. As I watched Zhou interact with his followers and advise them on how to critique the works that had impacted them, I saw how viewer-audience participation worked its way into Zhou’s new media and how it allowed him to continue participating himself despite how long it had been since the series had updated.

I was not initially exceedingly familiar with Every Frame a Painting, nor was my partner Kevin. However, I was familiar with the YouTube scene and personalities like the Nerdwriter, so when we sat down to plan out the episode, we each brought our own impressions on the series and our own contexts (Kevin had previous experience with the Soul Pancake episode of The Web We Weave). Kevin pitched questions to me while I did my best to answer them, and I would then in turn bring up different topics of conversation (such as the Reddit AMA mentioned in the episode and the idea of Tony Zhou perpetuating the participatory culture with his work). Collaboration was more than integral in making this episode what it was. It was also more than reassuring to have someone who was so confident on board and had faith in my work. We worked on applying Every Frame a Painting to the terminology we had covered in class and we put it all into one Google Doc entry.

The document was interesting because it was far more fragmentary and incomplete- when writing for another mode, because it relied much more on my voice and the natural chemistry I had with the co-producer, I found that it was both challenging to not fall back and write out whole monologues or answers to questions without stifling the conversation, and recording became difficult because I found myself worrying that my co-host would feel cramped or cut off. It was difficult to not be overwhelmingly self-aware of everything. This did help my rhetorical composition in the end and I think it’s made me more adaptable than I was before.

The process also felt much faster and immediate than writing, say, this reflection or another blog post or article, which takes me a lot more time. It also felt natural to go faster than with my previous work. While structuring the argument and conversation was both very much the same, it also felt different because I had someone else to bounce off and interact with. In a way, it was like having another person alternating the argument paragraphs- similar arguments that still differed in subtle ways.

I’ve learned that I need to work on my timing- we went over by a lot and editing involved cutting out a lot of material and it was a struggle to finish the episode in time while balancing other obligations. I need to work on my self-confidence as I was exceedingly nervous during the episode, and I think that it is evident that while I eased up as time went along, I still have a long way to go.

But given the chance to work on a similar project? I’d jump at the opportunity.

In our podcast episode, we focused on Imgur. Brian is a frequent visitor on this site but it was the first time I had used it. It revealed itself to be a lot different than the blogs I have been on. Rather than posting written text accompanied with media, its main focus is on media itself. It is a collaboration of images posted by millions of users. In this way, it really utilizes an active audience, instilling participatory culture as a cornerstone of its website. With that, there are some drawbacks. Its purely democratic nature highlights certain images over the others because a group of users sift through the pile of new images and “upvote” the ones that they like. This leaves the other images lost amidst the thousands of images that are constantly being uploaded. It’s ranking of users reminded me of Black Mirror. One of its episodes was about a community revolved around up-voting and down-voting people based on their actions and dispositions. Their rating determined their rank in the social hierarchy. It is eerily similar to the environment established within Imgur and we discuss this more in our podcast.

As I stated in my last podcast reflection, our HONY podcast was rich in content but our delivery was not effective or engaging. We stuck to a script and that was transparent when listening to it. After completing that podcast, I wanted to improve the flow of our discussion in our next new media topic. Rather, I wanted it to be more of an actual discussion, not us describing why it was a good example of new media.  I decided to go about it in a new way in this podcast, which I found very effective as the assistant producer. Brian was well-versed in Imgur, and I was not. However, I used this to our advantage. When I first went on the site, I was overwhelmed by the hundreds of pictures that were thrown at me, so Brian wrote out a list of key points he wanted to discuss in the podcast. I took that list, went onto the site, and started doing some research. Along the way, I wrote down questions and certain points I wanted to discuss in response to his ideas. Afterwards, we just sat down and started recording. I found that this was a much better conversation and we were still discussing all the points related to new media while actually having a conversation. Overall, I feel that we have improved from the last podcast.

Turns out, Every Frame a Painting is a film analysis video blog series. Beginning on YouTube, Tony Zhou narrates while the screen shows the different elements and strategies that filmmakers implement to make their movies ‘good.’ I remember first watching a video about Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, mostly because it was a movie I was familiar with. From there I watched a couple more and began to feel a bit more comfortable with his content

This being the second time around, I had a better idea of what this process would entail. Daniel and I had a bit less preparation than Shemi and I did for my first episode, but we were ready to go once we started recording. In a lot of ways, I think we may have had a better balance, because this time around we had less content and we were more direct in terms of our topics of conversation and what exactly we wanted to say. With Pancakes for the Soul, we probably had a bit too much content we wanted to cover and subsequently paid the price when we had to go back and edit our audio down to the 15-minute limit. Fortunately, Daniel took the lead on editing and all that jazz, so most of my work was in preparation for and execution of our recording, and he took care of the rest.

This lack of extensive preparation also gave us a better opportunity to talk about our ideas as they popped into our heads, rather than trying to recall old epiphanies and repeat them. I think this helped with our flow in the recording and kept our conversation fresh.

Given how little knowledge of the subject I had to begin, I really learned quite a bit. The way in which Tony Zhou has upped his production quality and taken his vlog in such a specific direction mirrors a lot of what television shows try to do, and made me realize just how much an individual with a vision can accomplish if they can find an online following. Tony Zhou is on to something, and I am curious to see how television will respond as the following (and skill level) of various youtuber’s continues to grow. Check out Daniel and I’s discussion here, in what is yet another exciting installment of The Web We Weave.

The Odyssey has been a new media platform that I’ve always been pretty outspoken about. It’s been a constant Facebook newsfeed pop-up, as some of my Facebook friends are writers, and others share their friends’ articles. The first few articles I read I judged pretty harshly as the content was superficial and the writing was painfully ungrammatical. Therefore, when Emily and I decided to focus our podcast on The Odyssey Online, my nerves were further suppressed.

To prepare for recording, we did thorough research in addition to combining our own opinions, which we then formatted into a detailed outline. After we typed up the outline, we went through and discussed it in order to add some more talking points. Heavily preparing was really important going into recording, as we didn’t feel comfortable going in blind and then recording an improvised conversation. This did lead to some of the podcast sounding a little too formal, but the improvised talking points here and there did balance it out. Because we prepared so much, the editing process was surprisingly easy and quick.

In terms of assessing my work with a podcast versus my essay writing, I’d say you can’t really compare the two since they’re so drastically different. I feel as though essays are much more technical, require more time and editing, and I personally feel a lot more comfortable with writing; I have a much easier time articulating my thoughts on paper rather than verbally. It was also different because this podcast was collaborative, whereas essays are typically individualized. On the other hand, I prepared for this podcast the same way I prepare for essays, which is researching extensively on the topic and then putting my research into an outline.

A skill that was further developed in doing the podcast was thinking on my feet. I have some experience with this in journalistic interviews in high school, but it is definitely a skill that I’d like to work on more. The podcast made me progress as a learner in terms of collaboration. In past projects, I had a difficult time trusting my partner to do the work; however, I trusted Emily to do her part and I think we both complemented each other’s working styles.

Honestly, I didn’t set such high standards for myself for my first podcast because I felt that just creating one in the first place was a huge hurdle of mine. Going forward, however, I’d like to consider perhaps conducting an interview in the podcast or including an outside guest speaker. I think Emily and I did a great job of expanding The Web We Weave series as we offered a criticism of a new media platform. I’m happy that I was able to do a school project on something that I’ve been passionate about, and that my opinion will actually be heard. I’ve learned a lot about podcasts in general and about myself as a student through the creation of this episode, and I’m interested to see how I create the next episode.

I began my research of Lynda by talking with my mother. I have not spent much time personally using Lynda, but my mother has. After getting a good feel about the usage of the site from a frequent user, I spent some time of my own on the site. This process was substantially different than my experience with researching for the FiveThirtyEight podcast. Since I have a lot of experience with FiveThirtyEight and not much with Lynda I was originally relying on a third-party account of the site as opposed to my own knowledge base. Surprisingly, this was beneficial. Entering my analysis of Lynda I had no bias that would hinder making a non-opinionated evaluation of the site.

The main focus when we began recording was to avoid sounded scripted. In the FiveThirtyEight podcast we had a harsh transition from the introductory more formal segment to the discussion segment. During our in class discussion of the FiveThirtyEight podcast, we recieved negative feedback regarding this transition, and we noticed a much smoother transition in most other podcast published to this point. We tackled this problem by creating a list of talking points and then just talking. I feel that the transition is much smoother if not seamless for the Lynda Podcast.

After completing a podcast as a producer and a podcast as an assistant producer, I have a much better sense of what enables “new media” to be effective. From our in class discussion, I was able to develop a reasonably clear perception of “new media” (to the extent it can be perceived accurately), but the techniques that one can use to convey a message or argument through new media is a much more allusive idea to pinpoint. Although these techniques are not static due to the nature of “new media”, I understand what these techniques should seek to accomplish both now and in the future. This understanding is important to cultivate in order to be an effective “new media” writer and critic.

This was my first time creating a podcast.  I have recorded audio commentaries of a similar length in the past back in high school, but since I had not done it in such a long time, this almost felt like a new experience.  And I had fun doing it.

I am a huge fan of podcasts.  I listen to a couple of bi-weekly soccer podcasts as well as a daily politics one, each episode being about an hour long.  Fortunately for me, I only listen to them when I go to sleep so it does not eat into schedule at all.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where I can’t go to sleep without having a couple of middle-aged men talking in the background.

As it turned out, recording the podcast was not as challenging as I had anticipated.  Because we had a clear rundown of the episode, we did not have to cut and trim too much of the audio, though as a result, there was not much improvisation during the recording, which made us sound a bit robotic at times.  At the same time, however, having a clear structure going into the recording ensured that we gave our content as much consideration as possible; we covered everything that we wanted to express.

As the producer of this episode, I decided not to center the episode around a specific New Media product. Instead, I wanted to draw out some of the overarching themes, trends, and concerns of New Media and its consequences at a societal level.  We did reference Black Mirror a couple times because it was actually the show that gave me the initial idea to address some of the growing concerns of New Media such as encroachment of privacy, detachment from reality, etc.  However, we also used personal anecdotes and other real-life examples to really hit home the point that these concerns are legitimate problems that plague our current society and generation.

Overall, this was an enjoyable assignment and I am looking forward to recording our second podcast.

Producing this podcast was a new experience for me and a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. I expected to meet with Ruth (assistant producer), record ourselves discussing the points, and then lightly edit the podcast before sending in the finished product. However, our challenges started before we even began recording.

Westworld is one of my all time favorite tv shows and when I learned about all of the interactive websites and other resources available, I knew I wanted to analyze the new media surrounding this show. What I did not expect was to find so many outlets of new media. Not only were there two websites created by the producers of the show, there were millions of videos, Reddit threads, quizzes, Buzzfeed articles, and many more channels of new media. It was difficult sifting through the sources and choosing which ones in particular we wanted to discuss in the limited time we had for our podcast.

We decided to divide up the tasks by each researching interesting points and coming together and combining them. Ruth had never watched Westworld before so she started out by watching the first few episodes to get a general idea of what the show was about. We also created a Google doc where we put up key points and sources we wanted to go over so that we could each look over them before meeting up and recording our podcast. After hearing about the challenges and successes of the other groups, we decided to record ourselves discussing the topics instead of writing a script. We thought that this would be the easiest way to keep the conversation running smoothly; however, like some of the other groups stated, the editing took a very long time. Whenever we messed up, we kept recording and it was difficult cutting everything out, especially when we would restate whatever we were saying and some parts would sound better in the first try than the second.

The main goal of this podcast was to analyze the new media surrounding Westworld. Given that the show is a form of old media, it was interesting to explore the ways both the writers and the audience extended the viewing experience outside of the show onto these new media platforms. After cutting down the points we wanted to discuss, we decided to look at the participatory aspect of the show. The enigmatic nature of the show and the various Easter eggs on the websites designed by the writers led many fans to express their own theories and make discussion platforms. We also decided to include a sound clip from the show in the ending credits. One of the most challenging aspects of this podcast was understanding that our audience may not have seen Westworld or even heard about it before. It was easy to get caught up in the discussions and reference specific parts of the show that people who have not watched or have not finished the season may not understand. This also led to the second difficulty of timing. After cutting down our main points, we found ourselves discussing the show more in depth and recorded a 25 minute podcast that I was barely able to trim down to around 15 minutes. For the next podcast, I think that it would be better to include a few main points and analyzing them in depth instead of trying to get as many points across in the limited time we have.

For the learning outcomes, the making of this podcast falls into rhetorical composition. While recording, we had to understand that some of the audience may not have watched the show before or have not finished the season. It was important that we didn’t talk about things the audience may not have understood or given away spoilers. We tried to organize the points in a manner so that it was logical and easy to follow. The first thing we discussed was the general synopsis of the show for people who have never seen Westworld before. We hoped that by giving a brief description, the audience could follow where we were heading with our analysis of the show.

Firstly, I have never intentionally followed or listened to a podcast (series) so the concept of what was to be done was a bit blurry for me at the start. After choosing BuzzFeed, I knew that I loved the site and could talk about it for days, but I honestly had no concrete opinion on their ‘effectiveness’ as a new media platform, beyond their attractive (and might I add, addicting) media. This podcast allowed me to analyze BuzzFeed as an independent entity, without my ideas of how ‘cool’ it was coming to the forefront of my argument. And even with that outlook, I began realizing the faults and nuances of BuzzFeed, and how they handled their content, when before I was ultimately camouflaged by the ‘ mindless fluff.’ BuzzFeed is great when you want to waste time and brain space (sometimes necessary after a stressful school day), and it would have been great if that’s the only realm of my life they sought to dominate; but now we see BuzzFeed entering new sub-markets in media such as hard news, and the that idea just didn’t seem to make much sense to me.

After searching the web and seeing what other critics had to say, I started to realize that like any other company whose goal is to be profitable, BuzzFeed was just playing into all the ‘media’ markets, without a single rebranding effort or twist. They are able to do so because like Google, BuzzFeed’s presence defines their entire market; and so I thought it would have been interesting to look at why that is, and also see how they are able to use this leverage to make a name for themselves in  hard news.

Besides the content of the podcast, one of the biggest challenges for me was losing all my audio files the moment I was exporting my podcast.

I was distraught to say the least, and I had no idea how the problem could have been fixed. However, my partner and I were able to meet up again shortly after the incident, and re-record the podcast. Thankfully, I think our second time recording was 100 fold better than our first podcast, because after going through BuzzFeed’s history/style/impact in the market so many times, my brain just began buzzing with bigger, better and more concrete ideas. So what has been posted is of substantial quality, and I would hope our viewers would think the same.

This podcast pushed me from my comfort zone because 1) I have never been the person to take ‘charge’ in a group setting. So the idea of being a producer and having to ensure my assistant producer was also carrying her weight, was a bit unsettling for me. Thankfully, we were able to both do our part, and she was gracious enough not to kill me when I lost all our files.  2) I hate hearing the sound of my voice! Especially on repeat, so editing for me was a daunting task. However, when listening to myself speak, I picked up a lot of speech weaknesses that I now more aware of and can now work towards eliminating those.

I am overall proud of the work I have published and I have definitely grown from this experience!

Firstly, I have never intentionally followed or listened to a podcast (series) so the concept of what was to be done was a bit blurry for me at the start. After choosing BuzzFeed, I knew that I loved the site and could talk about it for days, but I honestly had no concrete opinion on their ‘effectiveness’ as a new media platform, beyond their attractive (and might I add, addicting) media. This podcast allowed me to analyze BuzzFeed as an independent entity, without my ideas of how ‘cool’ it was coming to the forefront of my argument. And even with that outlook, I began realizing the faults and nuances of BuzzFeed, and how they handled their content, when before I was ultimately camouflaged by the ‘ mindless fluff.’ BuzzFeed is great when you want to waste time and brain space (sometimes necessary after a stressful school day), and it would have been great if that’s the only realm of my life they sought to dominate; but now we see BuzzFeed entering new sub-markets in media such as hard news, and the that idea just didn’t seem to make much sense to me.

After searching the web and seeing what other critics had to say, I started to realize that like any other company whose goal is to be profitable, BuzzFeed was just playing into all the ‘media’ markets, without a single rebranding effort or twist. They are able to do so because like Google, BuzzFeed’s presence defines their entire market; and so I thought it would have been interesting to look at why that is, and also see how they are able to use this leverage to make a name for themselves in  hard news.

Besides the content of the podcast, one of the biggest challenges for me was losing all my audio files the moment I was exporting my podcast.

I was distraught to say the least, and I had no idea how the problem could have been fixed. However, my partner and I were able to meet up again shortly after the incident, and re-record the podcast. Thankfully, I think our second time recording was 100 fold better than our first podcast, because after going through BuzzFeed’s history/style/impact in the market so many times, my brain just began buzzing with bigger, better and more concrete ideas. So what has been posted is of substantial quality, and I would hope our viewers would think the same.

This podcast pushed me from my comfort zone because 1) I have never been the person to take ‘charge’ in a group setting. So the idea of being a producer and having to ensure my assistant producer was also carrying her weight, was a bit unsettling for me. Thankfully, we were able to both do our part, and she was gracious enough not to kill me when I lost all our files.  2) I hate hearing the sound of my voice! Especially on repeat, so editing for me was a daunting task. However, when listening to myself speak, I picked up a lot of speech weaknesses that I now more aware of and can now work towards eliminating those.

I am overall proud of the work I have published and I have definitely grown from this experience!