Ethnographic Visual Production Course Project

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COVID-19 Reflections: A Multimodal Oral History Project

Halfway through our spring 2020 semester, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Western Kentucky University extended spring break, transitioned classes to online and alternative platforms, moved students out of dorms, canceled all unncessary travel, brought home students from study abroad experiences, and suspended all research involving direct human contact. As the semester progressed, and in light of Governor Andy Beshear's directives, all non-life-sustaining businesses to in-person traffic were closed down, including our campus. Students, staff, and faculty were asked to complete our semester while sheltering in our homes. 

Up to that point in the semester, the students in the Ethnographic Visual Production course had designed three independent research projects, submitted and received approval from WKU's Institutional Review Board to conduct human subjects research, identified key informants and research partipants, began audio-video technical training, and crafted photo-essays for their projects. The students were expected to master audio-visual technology, shoot participant observation footage, conduct semi-structured interviews with their research participants, develop a storyboard, and ultimately craft a short visual ethnography by semester's end, similar to previous semester's outcomes.

Given our inability to continue the intended research, we developed a new plan for our class. With support from the WKU Archives and WKU historian Dr. David Lee, what you see below is the re-tooling of our course in an effort to contribute an oral history, reflecting student experiences during the pandemic. Each student crafted a new project plan for the semester, based on a set of shared COVID-19 related research questions, skill-set development goals, and individual preference. This is a curated online exhibition, with the totality of the materials available at the WKU Archives. Please explore the finished media below.

 

Table of Contents
Multimodal Reflections I
Multimodal Reflections II
Multimodal Reflections III
Multimodal Reflections IV
Multimodal Reflections V
Multimodal Reflections VI
Multimodal Reflections VII
Semi-structured Interview Protocol
COVID19 Timeline

Multimodal Reflections I

Emily is a graduating senior, with a major in Asian Religions and Cultures, with a minor in Professional Writing and Political Science. Emily has elected to contribute her oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Emily's reflections about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:
I decided to create video journals for this project because written journaling has always been an important part of how I document my life. I fill multiple journals a year with every significant (and sometimes insignificant) moments of my life. It is how I create my own personal history for myself. So I felt the best way to document my history for this class during COVID-19 would be sharing an audio/visual version of my journal. This allows me to share how I have been handling the pandemic both physically and emotionally. Each journal shows different aspects of my life during the pandemic such as work, school, health, and creating a physical presence in an increasingly digital world. Another part of my project includes hand written journal entries and photographs reflecting on a week of how I try and balance changes in my work and with school. My goal was to try and take my oral histories down to a more personal, and unedited level of exactly how I felt and functioned during certain times. The goal was to share relatable moments with people feeling the same way, show a different side to people who do not share my narrative, and to create something to remember these unfortunate circumstances with. 

Multimodal Reflections II

Samuel is a graduating Master's student in the Folk Studies program at WKU. Sam has elected to contribute the majority of his oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Samuel's reflections about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:

This has got to have been one of the oddest semesters that any one has experienced in a long time. Between the pandemic, the rapid readjustments that we had to make, and world seeming like it's gone crazy, there has been a lot to take in. This body of work focused mainly on reactions and how my family in particular has kind of withdrawn into ourselves during this time of isolation. I started with a photographic essay that was focused on the first couple of weeks of the social distancing, and specifically on how we have faired and adjusted during the time. From there I moved to my family’s mad-dash down to Bowling Green, KY and back to get my essentials so I could finish out the semester. A self-interview and an interview with my mother follow that, finishing out with a final photographic essay.

My focus during this body of work has been on how my family adjusted, and how we dealt with what we lost because of it. There have been times that are easier than others and some times that have definitely been harder. These times have forced me to grow in ways that I did nt expect. Zoom meetings have become the norm and despite how much I dislike them, I have had no choice but to adapt.

However, the world has been forced to take a breath with this crisis. It has given people a chance to slow down and be deliberate. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but this has been my perspective of the pandemic.

 

Multimodal Reflections III

Jordan is a junior, with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Biology, with concentrations in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and Cultural Resource Management. She is concurrently earning a certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Jordan has elected to contribute her oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Jordan's reflection about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:
My content was created during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic, which caused universities worldwide to switch classes to an online format for the rest of the spring 2020 semester and possibly beyond. My vlogs are meant to act as a substitution for a multimedia ethnography project for ANTH 449 for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester. For my project, I discussed topics related to my personal life, the perspective of a college student, social media, propaganda, and death and grieving during this pandemic. I conducted auto-ethnographic vlog-style interviews of myself discussing each of these topics over a 5-week period. The content in these videos are my personal thoughts and in no way reflect the opinions of others unless stated otherwise, such as social media posts. This project was obviously not what I expected to happen this semester. However, by doing this and putting myself in a position to reflect on the prior week’s events, I could look at things from a different perspective than I would have. I could look at a post on social media or an article and think of something entirely new. It also made me think back to what I did for the past week; sometimes I had some actual updates, like work was busy on a certain day or I completed some assignments or I was productive enough to clean my room or house, and sometimes I reflected on the same routine every day. I wanted my content to reflect broad themes that affected everyone’s lives. I hope that my project allows other people to feel included, and that they might make connections with my perspectives. And also, maybe they might think about what it means to them and the people around them, especially since this pandemic is a global disease.

 

Multimodal Reflections IV

Ariana is a graduating senior with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Folklore, with concentrations in Cultural Resource Management, Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and Cultural Anthropology. Ariana has elected to contribute her oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Ariana's reflections about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:
My hope in creating these vlogs and conducting these interviews, either via Zoom or sitting across from my interviewees with 6 feet of distance between us, was to get a range of opinions and experiences during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic.

I conducted two autoethnographic vlogs based on my personal experiences. For the first one, I focused on day-to-day life experiences. The second autoethnographic vlog, I addressed my perceptions of social media. I also conducted three oral history interviews: one with my mother, and the others with my sisters. My mother’s routine changed very little, apart from when she came to visit, and we could no longer go thrift shopping. However, for my sister Nichoel who works at a Bowling Green company and is used to frequent travel and even recently presented on the Home Shopping Network (HSN), her life has changed dramatically. My other sister, Erika had a baby during the pandemic, delivering her child mid-March. Her interview reflects a patient’s point of view of the hospital experience. Last, my sister Lindsay’s interview provides the perspective of a respiratory therapist during the pandemic. Through these interviews and vlogs, I feel there is a diverse range of female oriented viewpoints, I only wish I could have delved deeper. This pandemic has lasted far longer than I have anticipated, and our opinions have changed drastically over this short period of time. Everything seems to be moving so much faster now, even though it appears the world has stopped.

 

Multimodal Reflections V

Jennifer is a graduating senior with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Folklore, with a concentration in Cultural Anthropology. Jennifer has elected to contribute her oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Jennifer's reflections about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:
For this semester’s project, I decided to create a photographic essay and a series of autoethnographic interview reflections regarding COVID-19, focusing on how this pandemic has affected me personally. The photographic essay documented the current community impacts due to COVID-19. These images were mostly taken while I was out running grocery errands and include photographs of overflowing trash bins at schools and empty parking lots, playgrounds, and closed businesses. I chose to take photographs of school trash because it was thought-provoking to me to see that the public was throwing away all types of waste! It seemed to me that schools had thrown away items regardless of whether they were in good condition or not. Trash was piled inside and outside of the trash bins, and it was around for days at a time, potentially posing a health hazard.

I am a WKU student, but decided to go home to Missouri after the University closed campus. My family and I live near the boundary of two adjoining counties, and I noticed there was a large dichotomy between the two. St. Louis County closed most non-essential businesses, yet St. Charles County allowed businesses to decide for themselves if they were essential and whether to stay open. The other photographs I captured from running errands were in the community or documenting people in parks. Those images were important to me because they show the large number of vacant businesses near my home, and focused on how people were handling the governor's rule of ‘social distancing’ and the ‘shut down’ of businesses that were considered “non-essential.” There are so many small businesses near my home and many of them are shutting going out of business.

 

Multimodal Reflections VI

Sabre is a junior, with a double major in Advertising and Diversity & Community Studies, with a minor in Nonprofit Administration. She is also pursuing certification in Organizational Leadership and User Experience. Sabre has elected to contribute her oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

Sabre's reflections about the class and the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic:
My vlogs and oral histories reflect the experiences of college students during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic, with a particular focus on how these shifting circumstances have impacted our individual activist pursuits, mental health, and view of politics, as well as the international political situation itself. Activism has had a digital component since the advent of the internet, and arguably has been bolstered and proliferated like never before through social media channels that make it universally accessible at some level. However, there has never before been a time when activists have had to primarily rely on digital means to facilitate organizing. Having to facilitate and participate in activities in an intangible realm, like the internet, where we are physically distanced from our comrades, and limited as to what physical actions we can feasibly take, has reshaped how we approach campaigns, build solidarity and the movement, and motivate ourselves to keep going. Burnout is much harder to avoid in isolation, and so I sought to evaluate how our mental health has been affected, both due to our activist work, and the general situation. The knowledge that these dire circumstances are hurting everyone across the world, especially vulnerable populations, is hard to cope with on its own. The added stresses of school, work, loneliness, concerns about the health and safety of our families and friends, daily responsibilities we have as living beings, and everything else we are facing only exacerbate our strife. How do we find light amidst the dark? How do we push forward when the future seems to hold nothing but death and destruction? How do we keep hope alive in our hearts, and the hearts of our fellow humans? I believe this pandemic has shown us the importance of solidarity and togetherness. If we cannot be together in person, we find a way. Only by helping our own communities and building outside of the oppressive structures of society can we guarantee true liberation and intersectional equity for all peoples.  

 

Multimodal Reflections VII

Aaron is a graduating Master's student in the Folk Studies program at WKU. He has elected to contribute his oral history aural and visual project to the WKU Archives.

The 2020 COVID-19 Multimedia Project was a challenge for me. I was disappointed that I could not work with my friend and fellow Masters’ student, Sam on our IRB approved tattooing cultures project. I really wanted to learn how to use audio-video equipment, and how to edit, and produce a short documentary. However, that was not to be; instead we had to create a new project using our cell phone cameras. That was a challenge for me as well because in my “older” mindset, I basically view videos on cell phones as more recreational or personal use. Additionally, in all honesty, I am not really a tech guy anyway.
In my first video, I interviewed myself. I sat on my front porch and answered the class questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. I used my Google Pixel 3 smart phone to interview myself and for all of the other images and videos for this project. In using my cell phone in other contexts, I decided to continue for this project, since I think it takes good pictures and videos.

I captured images at a few local stores recording visual evidence of the COVID-19 mandates enacted by Governor Beshear. These included vacant shelves at Kroger and Walmart, restricted entry into Walmart, signs and arrows throughout the store that dealt with purchases and customer traffic flow. I asked the rhetorical question, “Is this the new norm?” At that point, I truly questioned it, and I think that I still do, as long as the is no vaccine or cure for COVID-19.
With my other videos, I decided on recording and or interviewing three of my children who graduated this spring and summer. That makes four people, including myself, in my immediate family that have graduated during this pandemic 2020. My seventeen-year-old son, Jonnie, graduated from Bowling Green High School. My eighteen-year-old daughter, Gwyneth, graduated from Gallatin High School in Gallatin, Tennessee. My twenty-one-year-old daughter, Lizzie, graduated from SKY Community College this summer. I thought that it would be interesting to compare the three graduation ceremonies and experiences. I thought that it would be unique to compare two different state high school ceremonies, and a college ceremony.

Subsequently, one video consisted of combining the video footage I shot from Jonnie and Gwyneth’s ceremonies. I chose to use Video Pad as my editing program. The finished product was my first edited video. I experimented with combining film and pictures together to create a united sequence.
Overall, I feel that the next two videos which were interviews of Gwyneth and Lizzie turned out better. By this time, I figured out how to join the videos. I will admit that I was intimidated by using any sort of effects on the video. For Gwyneth’s video, I experimented with angle, which probably looks a bit odd, but it was fun. I used Video Pad as my editing program for this as well.

This project was very much a learning curve for me. I enjoyed it overall, though I wish we could have worked on our original products. Dr. Stinnett did a great job on figuring out how we could keep our class going despite the changes. This pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to record history. I have seen many other colleges and universities trying to similar projects, but I truly think, WKU and Dr. Stinnett got the jump on everyone! I did learn new skills and enjoyed our classes that we had in person and apart.

Semi-structured interview categories and questions

Over spring break, the WKU Archives sent out a request for students, staff, and faculty to consider submitting a coronavirus diary for deposit in WKU Archives for future researchers, since historian Dr. Lee and others discovered there was little information from the university in the Archives about the 1918 Flu Pandemic. These semi-structured interview questions were collaboratively crafted by Dr. Stinnett, Dr. Lee, and the WKU archivists to address the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. Students used these questions as a framework for how to approach their projects, and were encouraged to incorporated their own experiences in their weekly reflections. 

 

 

COVID-19 TIMELINE(selected)* during the Spring 2020 Semester

Given the uncertainty of how the COVID-19 pandemic would unfold over the semester, this timeline allows for retrospective contextualization of events that took place when the Ethnographic Visual Production students were crafting their reflections, framed within our Spring 2020 semester. In selecting specific events to include in the timeline, Dr. Stinnett endeavored to include relevant information to reflect global, national, and local parameters, compiled from a number of sources* with overlapping information. The text in red reflects actions taken by the WKU administration, directly impacting students' experiences.  

* these data were compiled from the WHO Situation Report, and the WHO Newsroom, NBC News, Devex.com, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and WKU's COVID-19 site.