Unit 3 Text 2

 Carlee Bears

Writing 105

Assignment 3 Text 2

 

Every week new people come into the gym I grew up in with the intention of becoming a better athlete. Their goal is to strive for perfection within their sport and improve athletically. If these new athletes stay in the gym for enough time they may realize the community, family, and life altering experience they may find within it. When I was younger, I aimlessly joined a competitive cheer gym following in my sister's footsteps. I did not grasp how dramatically this simple decision would change my life. This community altered the course of my life and provided for me so many experiences and traits that are crucial to who I am today. It has shaped my life and provided me with qualities, relationships, and experiences I may have never had. Being a part of a cheerleading community requires individuals to adapt to a specific set of values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, and ways of being. These discourses can vary, collide, or overlap, shaping a unique and dynamic culture within the cheerleading community. The literacy journey in cheerleading involves acquiring specialized skills and knowledge that go beyond traditional literacy, contributing to the overall growth and development of individuals within the community.

I chose this medium because it offers the best ability for me to discuss with other individuals the importance of taking chances, putting yourself out there, having a positive attitude, trying new things, and stepping out of your comfort zone although it might scare you. It is the most direct depiction that I am able to present that will allow others to gain insight into the cheerleading community and everything that lies under the surface of competing. I am able to show people my experience with taking a chance and all of the lifelong positive benefits that it has had on me. I am able to recant these experiences I have had and then discuss how to optimize success and effort within these experiences. Through showing my mindset, attitudes, values, and beliefs within my sport I may be able to improve another athlete’s outlook and encourage them to improve for both themselves and their team. The inspirational videos that I studied before completing Text 1 were inspirational speeches. They had pictures and videos of cheerleading and different athletes in the background, but the focus of the video was the voice of the author. The passion behind their voice allowed the listeners to feel the sincerity of their words. Therefore, I chose to do a podcast as my medium because it shows the truth and passion in my voice. It not only allowed me to explain my point of view, but it allows the listener to digest my advice and picture it in the context of their life. This is why I chose not to do a video. In my opinion and experience, an individual watching a video of another person’s life and experience prevents them from being able to incorporate it to their life and picture their experiences as an athlete and how my story and advice may pertain to them.

I chose to include the explanation of our captain’s box in the medium because it is no longer a tradition at our gym. Therefore, it shows the legacy of the team to younger athletes and the values and attitudes the team has always stood behind. I think that this is crucial to teambuilding and carrying on the values to those who are new to the gym or navigating a higher-level team. In my experience, in eighth grade I was placed on a senior worlds level six team. I was the youngest athlete on this team at the time. Everyone was older than I was and had been on the team for multiple years. They were therefore able to guide me through the values and helped me understand what it meant to be apart of that micro community. By this I mean the dedication, hard work, responsibility, time commitment and more that was expected from every athlete on the team. They were able to teach me these skills and help me navigate this challenge. This team now consists of many younger athletes. Therefore, there are very few if any athletes on the team who are able to recant and guide others through the expectations and legacy of this team. So, my goal by showing and explaining this captain’s box along with my experiences and beliefs was to help those new to the gym or team navigate their new community. As well as explain the values that have been depicted within that team for over fifteen years. By creating a podcast my goal is to allow athletes to imagine themselves fulfilling the aspects I discussed within the podcast. It allows visualization and personalization, hopefully leading to a more successful incorporation of these discussion topics to their own lives and experiences.

I interpret podcasts as a more sentimental and personal media than videos or writings. Listeners are able to visualize a conversation we may be having. This creates a sense of individuality and will likely evoke greater remembrance of the discussion. "Intimacy: Audio podcasts create a sense of intimacy between the host and the listener. Listeners feel like they are having a one-on-one conversation with the host, which can lead to a more personal and emotional connection.” (The Podcasting, 8). This author suggests that a podcast could lead to greater connection and understanding between the author and the listener. With this the listener is able to visualize me communicating these messages with them and will create a greater connection for them. If they are able to visualize this direct communication and connection while they are listening it will likely allow them to better resonate with what I said.

It has been proven that individuals remember audio more successfully than they remember videos or images. This represents another reason that I chose this form of media. I wanted the listener to remember the messages to the best of their ability. Therefore, I chose to do a podcast as it is more successful when encoding memory than it is if I were to have a video with distracting images in the background. This would take away from not only what I am saying but also from the sincerity and raw emotion that is present within a podcast. “According to science, both forgetting a movie and remembering songs can be explained by the fact that audio encodes memories better than a video…Podcasting really capitalizes on the memory encoding power of audio. Despite the lack of visuals, there’s a magical quality in audio that gives it the power to impact both our thoughts and our feelings.” (Brandis, 22, 31). This article gives a surplus of research and statements that provide reliability and superiority that podcasts hold when portraying information. They state that audio is much more successful for individuals to recant and remember. It also defends the idea that the distractions are limited when listening to a podcast because the listener is not distracted by flashy pictures that trail them away from the message of the audio. Therefore, the research we did on archive of artifacts helped me to see all of these crucial points that led me to choose a podcast.

Finally, the last aspect that influenced me to do a podcast was the experiences I have had with podcasts in class. We have listened to a few podcasts/TED talks in class that have resonated with me. For one of these TED talks we evaluated the language and speech used by the speaker. We evaluated how these aspects contributed to their writing and how they encourage interest and focus to what they were talking about. We analyzed these aspects and their ability to conform to their audience and incorporate personality into their speech. While I was taking notes on the two podcasts we listened to I was able to take notes based on what interested me and what pertained to my experiences the most. My goal by creating a podcast is to allow individuals to do what I did. Perceive messages as they please and focus on the prominent messages I was aiming at getting across. In class I did not understand or connect with everything the speaker said. I only wrote the messages that seemed important to me. This is what I want my listeners to be able to do as well. I am hoping that if I was able to resonate and take self-pertaining notes on a topic that I did not choose nor that interests me then listeners of my podcast who care about cheerleading and becoming a better athlete/teammate will find great inspiration within it.

In conclusion, through having a podcast with a visual media that they can view after, I hope that consumers will be able to personalize my message and remember the contents of the podcast better than they would with another form of media. My research and experience depicts that a podcast is best suited to portray a message to the audience that will spark an emotional connection and develop into a long-term memory that they can keep with them throughout their athletic career and beyond. Through the visual my goal is to allow them to further visualize the contents of the podcast and better understand some of the topics I discuss within it. Therefore, I believe that a podcast is the best form of media to allow the listeners to personalize and remember the discussion within. The pictures presented after the podcast will allow viewers to visualize my point of view hopefully to help it further resonate within their memory.

Citations:

Brandis, James. “Audio vs Video - 5 Reasons Audio Is Better than Video.” WRITTEN & RECORDED, 14 Apr. 2023, writtenandrecorded.com/podcasting/5-reasons-audio-better-than-video/#:~:text=Podcasts%20are%20not%20only%20less,see%20the%20extraordinary%20visual%20cues.

Podcasting, The. “Audio Podcast vs. Video Podcast: Which One Is Right for You?” LinkedIn, 1 May 2023, www.linkedin.com/pulse/audio-podcast-vs-video-which-one-right-you-the-podcasting.