This post is from my journal entry on the night of April 18, 2007, two days after the tragedy at Virginia Tech:
As we drove up to the Virginia Tech campus, we could feel the heaviness and grief. Most of the students had left including Chris [my brother] who was in the building next door.
[I decided on Monday afternoon to drive to Blacksburg after my last class on Wednesday to see him. It was announced that the campus was closed for the rest of the week on Tuesday and most of the students decided to leave after the vigil that evening. That same day, I decided I wanted to document the impact this was having on the people I love.]
With the camera bag over my shoulder, I approached the memorial. There were mourners and cameras scattered around the drill field, now only illuminated by the moon. I began to take out the video camera but I stopped. Tears began streaming. I had to put down the camera. Many times since I had first spoken to Chris at 10:04 Monday morning had I thought of the horror the students there had experienced that morning. But something happened when the flickering candles illuminated the names of those killed. My heart hurt. It hurt for the people that were killed. It hurt for my brother that was in the midst of the horror. It hurt for my sister whose friends had lost friends. It hurt for their families. It hurt for the terror the whole campus experienced. Standing there in front of the thousands of candles and flowers, I felt the terror and pain. I cried and I cried hard.
It took me awhile but I finally picked up the video camera. I wanted to document for my brother and his friends something that has made an indelible mark on their lives. It is not that I want to remind them of the horror, but rather help document their reflection.
Images of the terror, death and grief at Virginia Tech will linger with Americans for a long time. Many of these images, captured with a cell phone, provided some of the earliest coverage of the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech.
Cell phones are capturing news before journalists have an opportunity to get there and people at the scene have the ability and privilege to document news as it is happening. It is changing the definition of spot news and citizen journalism.
This is how my brother and his friends at Tech were able to document the horror of that day. Their cell phones caught the sounds of gunfire, the sights of the emergency personnel running and the anguish of students. The news networks sought video and photo contributions from those with firsthand experiences.
One of the day’s most familiar images was the shaky cell phone video on CNN’s “iReport”provided by Tech student Jamal Albarghouti. The footage has been viewed more than 2 million times.
Amy Gahran, the editor of the “E-Media Tidbits” on Poynter.org, said in a column on the site that the Virginia Tech shootings are “destined to become one of those cornerstone events in citizen journalism and participatory media. When news breaks in a location where nearly everyone has a camera-equipped cell phone, and where Internet connectivity abounds, people on the spot will be supplying as much coverage as news organizations — if not more.”
This is my favorite photo from my documentary on the use of cell phones in public spaces.
I began my project questioning how has cell phone changed the character of public space and quickly realized that people regard public space as something they can now use as private as they hide behind their phone. I was so surprised not only to see the masses of people on their phone but hear the things they were willing to talk about despite they were in public. I heard people talking about the fungus the doctor found in their ear and who their roommates came home with the night before.
I decided to use my cell phone to take photos of people using their cell phone to show the uses of the cell phone and its omnipotence in our world. At first I was frustrated with the limitations of the camera, but despite the limitations of my medium, I think the final images captured some moments and interesting composition like in the image above.
The most rewarding part was coming home, sitting down with my phone and individually downloading the images and as they showed up on the screen, seeing what the camera had captured. It was extremely difficult to see what I was taking when I was taking it (most of the time). The camera phone gave the images a unique and consistent quality to them.
The telephone and communication over distance has been a vital component of the modern world and the cell phone has been the most successful communication technology. Since the first cell phone call in 1983, subscribership has exploded past two billion customers worldwide, surpassing the number of both land line telephones and televisions.
According to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Associate, there were approximately 340,000 wireless subscribers in the United States in 1985 and by 1995, that number had increased to more than 33 million. By 2003, more than 158 million people in the country had gone wireless. In fewer than 20 years, cell phones have gone from being a rare and expensive piece of equipment used by the business elite to a pervasive low-cost item.
Ten years ago, cell phones were a hot commodity for business people and the wealthy. Now a person cannot walk down the street without hearing a digitalized version of “Sweet Home Alabama.” It is not uncommon for young adults to own a cell phone instead of a land line for their residence. With cell phone usage increasing in the United States, so has the use of cell phones in public spaces.
A study from University of Michigan, published in the April issue of New Media & Society concluded that young adults around the world use cell phones for similar reasons — coordinating plans, maintaining social relations and acting as a fashion statement. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, approximately 41 percent of cell phone owners say they fill in free time when they are traveling or waiting for someone by making phone calls. The same study showed that more than a quarter of cell phone owners admit they sometimes do not drive as safely as they should while they use their mobile devices.
This project documents the ways in which cell phone use has changed the character of public spaces.
I always wondered how street photographers did it. How do they take photos of people without their subjects caring or even realizing that they have taken their photo? How do they stand their and take their picture without any care for what the subject thinks about the picture being taken? These were questions I thought I would never know the answer to until I started this project on cell phone use using my very own cell phone camera. At first I was very hesitant to take photos of people without them knowing I was taking the photo of them. I used every trick of the trade. I had people act as decoys. I pretended to talk on my phone and then lift up the phone and snap. But today, a week later, I stood in front of this girl, and snap. I am not sure if she knew what I was doing but she didn’t seem to care. I happen to see a girl on cell phone while she was shopping. I walked into the store, took three photos smiled and walked out. She didn’t budge. So I guess they become gutsy. Thats what happened to me. After shooting like this for a week, I got a little more confident. I think this is because I had a reason to take photos of random people shooting what they do rather than who they are.
The best part of losing my sense personal space with the camera is other’s observations. There was one time that a guy in the library came up to me and said, “I don’t know what you are doing, but you are totally sketchy.” Somehow it didn’t phase me. I guess because I agreed with him. Here I was walking around the library taking photos of random people using my camera phone without them even noticing.
Do we as journalists have any responsibility for our words, our photos and ultimately the discourse in this country?
I believe we do and I thank Don Imus for creating an environment for a much needed discussion about our responsibility to our words (especially as journalists).
Now don’t get me wrong, I am thankful and grateful for the freedom of speech that we have but I believe because of that freedom we have a responsibility for the quality of the content we produce. We have a responsibility to the tools that we have — to use them wisely and with integrity. Freedom of speech to me does not make us free from consequences. Our words, we hope, have consequences. At least, that is why I started in this field — I wanted to have a platform where my comments, my words, my photos made a difference in public perception.
I am not coming at this from a legal standpoint but rather from an ethical one. Legally, Imus can make these comments, he is just not guaranteed an audience. Unfortunately, I think the decision from CBN and MSNBC to fire Imus did not come from ethics but more from economics. While I think we have to acknowledge our responsibility, it is a scary time that as we anger the investors, we risk our jobs.
While I wasn’t a regular listener, I do appreciate his ability to ask blunt and pointed questions to those that normally beat around the bush. It definitely was a needed contrast to that which we see on the broadcast networks. My point here is not to ask for regulated speech; because as bad as his comments were, speech codes and censorship are worse.
But I think this is a great reminder as to the impact of our words and images on public perception.
I recently watched MediaStorm’s Bloodline. There is something about AIDS and HIV that just pulls at my heart strings. I sat there in a ballroom watching this 12 minute piece holding back the tears (well trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears).
There is something about the disease that creates a concern and compassion I have found that consumes me. I have become so interested in creating a body of work to educate people in America that this disease still exists in our country — you don’t have to cross the borders to find people dying of the horrible disease. While I was captivated by the Bloodline piece, I acknowledge the fact that there is a lot of coverage of HIV and AIDS in Africa and now India and Russia. But there is not enough coverage of HIV and AIDS in the states. I hope to change that. I hope to give a voice to those in America that are living and dying with HIV and AIDS in this country, the country that thinks it now only happens in Africa.
Question:
Has cell phone usage changed the character of public spaces?
Hypothesis:
Cell phone usage in the United States has changed the character of public spaces.
Research:
According to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Associate, there were approximately 340,000 wireless subscribers in the United States in 1985 and by 1995, that number had increased to more than 33 million. By 2003, more than 158 million people in the country had gone wireless. In fewer than 20 years, cell phones have gone from being a rare and expensive piece of equipment used by the business elite to a pervasive low-cost item. In fact, it is not uncommon for young adults to simply own a cell phone instead of a landline for their residence.
With cell phone usage increasing in the United States, so has the use of cell phones in public spaces. I would like to approach the subject of cell phone use in public spaces by asking if the usage of cell phones has changed the character of a public space.
Method:
I will use a Blackberry Pearl 8100 to capture images of people using their cell phones in public. By using the tool that I am documenting, I hope to reveal how the omnipresence of the mobile phone is changing public spaces. Because I do not want to interrupt people using their phones in public, I will not interview the cell phone users I photograph but rather ask the people that are around them how the use of cell phones changes the character of this public space. I plan on recording the audio and creating a sound slide with the images behind the answered question. The photography will reveal where the people are using their cell phones while helping the viewer see how often people are using their cell phones in public. It will also help the viewer see how it changes the public space. The audio will help to answer the question for the viewer.
Questions to ask during Interview:
Has cell phone usage changed the character of public spaces?
Final Project Format:
Audio sound slide converted into 3GP video format which is the standard cell phone video format.
Question: Do hands reveal the socioeconomic background of an individual?
Hypothesis: Hands reveal the socioeconomic background of a person including their profession, age and financial status.
Genre:
Visual Sociology – It the social structure and environment in which someone lives that I am after rather than the than nature in which they were born.
Method:
I will take nine portraits of hands using 35mm digital camera using a strobe for side lighting to emphasize texture and a black cloth to help isolate the hand. For the multimedia piece, I will have a grid of nine portraits of hands and then the viewer can scroll over the hands to see the portrait of the owner of the hands. I plan on taking a nonrandom sampling of people by trying to find people in different age and wealth categories. I will do this by driving around to ask different people to take portraits of their hands in Athens County. In order to determine whether the hands reveal and indicate their socioeconomic background, I plan to ask a random sample of nine people.
Questions Posed to the Subject:
What do you do for a living?
What is your average yearly income?
How old are you?
What do you think best describes your hands?
Questions Posed to the Interviewee:
How would you describe these hands?
What do you think this person does for a living?
What do you think this person’s yearly income is?
How old do you think this person is?
Final Project:
The final project will be designed in Flash/Dreamweaver so that the user can scroll to see the socioeconomic definition of the person and their portrait.
Posted by Jenn Ackerman
