Author: fms

Felicia M. Sullivan is a researcher, educator and community advocate. With an MA in Media Studies, a MS in Public Policy and over 20 years of community-based practice, she works with community-based organizations towards individual, organizational and community transformation and change. She is currently a researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRLCE) housed Tufts University’s Tisch College. She is working towards her PhD in Public Policy at the John W. McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Current Research Interests: youth development and out-of-school-time programming, human development and organizational learning in community-based settings, social impacts of communication and technology policy, social movements and change theory, social networks, civic / democratic / participatory communications
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Talkr: Creating Audio Podcasts of Your Text Blog Entries

From Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth – http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/03/talkr_creating_audio.html
I’ve just started experimenting with a rather funky tool called Talkr. Essentially, Talkr is a podcast generator for text blogs, and it has enormous implications for people with visual impairments and limited literacy.

When you look at a typical blog, it’s mostly text. This may be no problem for many people, but if you’re reading skills aren’t strong or you don’t see well, text blogs can be quite a challenge. Meanwhile, thousands of Internet users create their own podcasts, which are basically blogs containing audio files. Apart from being really cool for everyone, podcasts are particularly useful for people who can’t read or see well. But they’re not exactly practical for the hard of hearing, either, who would benefit more from reading a text blog. Theoretically, it would be great if every person who wrote a text blog would record a podcast of it as well, but very few, if any bloggers bother to do this.

Enter Talkr. Talkr is a Web-based speech synthesizer that takes the texts of blogs and generates and MP3 file, with a computer voice speaking the text. For people who just want to visit their favorite text blogs and listens to them, Talkr works as blog management tool; you simply add your favorite blogs to your account, and it will create a computer-generated voice mp3 for each entry. Meanwhile, for all of you bloggers out there, Talkr lets you embed a computer-generatd mp3 into each of your blog entries, and supplies you with an RSS feed for them. This means that users can either come to your blog and click a link to listen to the mp3, or they can use iTunes or another podcast management tool to subscribe to the feed and receive each new mp3 file automatically. [continued]

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Brand Identity vs. National / Ethnic Identity

nikeThis semster I’ve been teaching a Media Literacy class at UMass Boston. Today the topic was advertising, brand identity, emotional branding, and the increasingly blurry lines between commerce and content. I was using Frontline’s “The New Pursuaders,” as a key discussion point.

At one point in the report an expert says that brands, like Apple, attempt to create a sense of community and belonging around them. That brands are filling voids left by the erosion of schools and churches.

It seems to me that in a globaizing world controlled by corporations brands are the new types of national flags. Kinda of like the world of Rollerball where the turf is the minds and dollars of cosumers. I asked my class if they felt that these newly constructed brand identies were any different than the early construction of clans, tribes, and nations.

One student indicated that national / ethnic identity was different because it is part of her and who she is. Will the next generation or the generations after being saying the same about their identification with a constellation of consumer goods that represent their “clan?”

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WAM @ MIT

WAM logoI participated in a panel yesterday that was part of the Women, Action and Media conference at MIT. The panel focussed on “Increasing Media Coverage Women’s Issues in the South. Danielle Martin and myself were asked to present community-based and new media approaches to address the issues of women in the global south.  Daniell has a nice powerpoint on her website which covered her topic of new media.

It occured to me after the presentation that the power of blogs and the Web 2.0, is not in the ability to become mass messaging systems, but rather to facilitate and ease dialogue and conversation.  The ability to bring more people into contact with one another and for ideas to flow more rapidly.

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Generations

I can picture the triptych clearly. All three panels are Bruegelian. The right panel a 60’s Woodstock scene of partying and over indulgence entitled Boomer. The colors are psychedelic and intense. The motion moving forward with debris and trash scattering the far left of the panel which trails into the right side of the center panel which is titled GenX. In the middle of this panel is populated by a smaller army of edgy individuals. They are focused on sweeping and picking up the scene. The colors are blacks and grays. The looks are serious and intend. On the far left of this 80s panel is a pristine meadow which bleeds into the final panel on the left. This panel, titled Millenial, depicts a mass of shiny happy people entering the scene with picnic baskets and blankets. They are a multicultural group looking like updated preps. Technology and creative exuberance are in abundance.

This is how I envision the relationships between my generation (GenX) to those before and after. If only I had the talent to make this artistic vision happen.

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The Day

Territories. Boundaries. Defense lines. Turf. Power. Domination. Oppression. Ego. Fatigue. Depression. Hopelessness. Routine. Duty. Hope. Sleep. Dream. Awake. Just some words that represent.

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Remodelling Chaos

Kitchen UndoThe apartment is cluttered with the debris and dust of renovation. Tools, gaping holes in walls, hanging wires, and frayed emotions populate the scene. I’m trying to maintain order and there are moments when the chaos melts into the background. Yet the incompleteness of it all is driving me nuts. I suppose this has something to do with something deeper, more profound – the outward a reflection of the inward. All I can do for now, is to make small steps at keeping order. To accept the process of renovation and hope for an improved future.

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Audience Shift

Brendan Greeley of Open Source Radio and John Barth of PRX, presented at the latest UML New Directions speakers series. I had asked them both to speak on how new software developments have aided the development of new communities and a re-visioned audience.

John Barth of PRX Brendan Greeley of Open Source Radio

Thanks to Charlotte Crockford you can hear their presentations. In particular, Brendan shared the shift Open Source Radio has made in terms of their community of bloggers. Rather than simply giving feedback, the constellation of individuals have now started to form a real-world need to connect and the show is beginning to schedule “coffees” with these devoted audience members.

While much of this is new, it is still reminisant of older online and real world communities. Interesting.

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Re-faced, re-located, re-newed

This is my new personal website. I’ve finally created my own domain, incoporated the design within a WordPress blog, and tried to create a look that is pared down. I’m hoping to take more time to write and reflect using this site as the space to do that. I’m re-juvenated.