5/17/16
PB3A
For my WP3, I really wanted to write about some aspect of music, because that is one of my biggest interests. I thought it would be interesting to investigate an article that showed a relationship between music and the brain or music and the body. I found a scholarly article called Music Attenuated a Decrease in Parasympathetic Nervous System Activity after Exercise, which contains the kind of information that I was originally looking for. This article’s main idea is ultimately that there is a surprising relationship between music and the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Using this main idea, I think it would be interesting to play off of the idea of a surprising “unity” of concepts/ideas, and turn that into two genres that concern relationships between people.
My article investigates the relationship between music and the autonomic nervous system activity after exercise. The article uses the IMRAD organizational form to talk about a study. Researches carried out a study in which 26 subjects participated in four randomly chosen sessions throughout four different days of a control session, a biking session, a music session, and a biking with music session. Researchers measured how the heart rate of each subject varied throughout different times of their sessions in order to find out the autonomic nervous system activity. The study found data that suggests music increases parasympathetic nerve activity and attenuated the exercise-induced decrease in parasympathetic activity, while the orthostatic tolerance of activity remained the same.
The translation for the younger audience could be a gossip column about two celebrities that unexpectedly started dating. I think middle schoolers and even high-schoolers are sometimes targeted by magazines and can tend to be more interested in celebrity gossip, especially if the celebrities are relevant to them (in shows that they watch, artists of music they listen to, fashion icons for their age group, etc.). Young readers are less likely to sit down and want to read a long article that has professional jargon. For this reason, the jargon I will use exciting adjectives and other language. I will use a lot of punctuation and short, impactful sentences. I will use conversational language as well in order to relate to the younger audience, and keep the blurb relatively short in comparison to a longer article. I would emphasize details that show the music and nervous system’s relationship—the moment in the experiment when they realized there is a correlation—rather than focusing on smaller details such as the methods of the study. The most important information for this translation will be the intersection of the two, not the background information about each one. I think this article will work well to transform into something that will appeal to preteens and teenagers because of the main idea, and the conventions of gossip columns that I will employ.
For the older audience, I will transform the scholarly article into a marriage announcement via a facebook post. This i s again playing off of the idea that the article describes a unity between two concepts that people did not know existed beforehand. People in their late 20s-30s create facebook engagement/marriage posts in order to let all of their friends know in an efficient, easy way, that they have decided to get married. People used to send letters or just invite people to their wedding, but with the presence of social media, everyone likes to update everyone they know about what they are doing in life. This post will be longer than your average facebook post, but nowhere near as long as an article. It will also be conversational, however, still be appropriate for all of the people who adults are friends with on facebook—friends, acquaintances, old friends, co-workers, bosses, old bosses, parents, other family members, etc. I will use happy and positive adjectives, while I highlight the story of how these two came together. In this post, the most important information will be these people’s journey to get to the point of engagement (in the article, this would be the background info and methods), rather than the conclusion of discussion (this would just be the idea that they got engaged). The relationship of music and the parasympathetic nervous system will make a good engagement facebook post for young/middle-aged adults because I will combine the conventions of that type of post with the information from the scholarly article.
One question I have is, are my genre transformations too similar? I think the conventions for each are very different, but the idea of being centered around a relationship are the same.
Korsh,
ReplyDeleteA fellow music buff, ehhhhhhh? Your article sounds neat, and I (as a reader who is unfamiliar with the piece) appreciate the crystal-clear overview of what “went down” in this piece.
Now, I’ve gotta admit, you lost me a little bit with how the gossip column relates back to the original article. Is the celebrity couple supposed to represent the… different experimental conditions? Different types of music? What’s the connection, and why are you making it in this way? (Could there be other ways?) What, within the scholarly piece, do you hope that teens will “get” from this gossip piece? Listen, just to be clear, I’m ALL for this kind of outside-the-box thinking, but if it the symbolic connection isn’t instinctively obvious and it can’t “stand alone”—i.e., if you need to actually explain it—then I think it’s too much of a stretch. (Know how sometimes someone tells a joke, nobody laughs, and then the joke-teller explains how/why it’s funny… well, I don’t think that sorta scenario is a good approach to this WP3.)
Alright, and as I’m reading the FB marriage announcement, I’m left with two thoughts: (1) again, I’m not seeing the connection, and as importantly (2) it sounds too similar to the first transformation, and I’d prefer that you tried to capture its “essence” in two different ways.
All told, as they CURRENTLY (i.e., it can be modified!) stand, I don't love either idea. Here’s what I’d like you to consider: ask yourself: (1) what am I really trying to capture here, and (2) who is my specific audience and why?
Also, please don’t feel (too) frustrated by my feedback; I’m just trying to guide your project in a productive way so that you can clearly apply the genre knowledge that you’ve accumulated over the course, which I know is quite substantial.
Z
I liked your detailed summary of the article, and the way you explained it I thought that the topic sounded really interesting. I like that your ideas on how to transform it are really creative, and in answer to your question, I do think they might be a bit too similar even though I understand what you're saying about the fact that the conventions of each are very different. Maybe you can think of another genre that might appeal to adults? You could consider if there is a specific group of adults that might be interested in this information and maybe you can come up with another genre from there? I liked that you were able to identify the focus of your transformations as the relationship between music and the nervous system and think that the gossip magazine can be a good way to get this information across to teenagers. Maybe just think about how to make this correlation a bit clearer to your audience?
ReplyDeleteHey Kailah! As a lacrosse player and someone who's played guitar for 11 years this is so cool!! I never knew that music and exercise had this kind of relationship. I think I understand the premise of the "relationship" - is it that one part of the couple is music and the other part of the couple is the parasympathetic nervous system? That's what I'm getting from it. I think if you made that a little more clear, one of your ideas could really work! I think that your two ideas are really great but they are pretty similar for me as far as the core idea. I personally think that the gossip column could be a better fit since you can go into a bit more random detail with it.
ReplyDeleteIs there anything in the relationship that isn't so harmonious? (pun not intended!) If so- that could be interesting to explore in the gossip column as a potential fight!
I'm also interested in exactly what the relationship is. What does music do to activate the PNS and what visible (or not visible like inside the body) effects does it have?
Good start and good luck :)
Hi! I think that the article you picked is really interesting! I never knew about the correlation of the two, and I'm excited to read your paper to learn more about it. I am a little confused about what the relationship between the two celebrities is related to the original piece. I do understand why you would use celebrities, because as you explained teenagers are usually more enticed to read about them.
ReplyDeleteDo you think there's a way you can clear up a bit what the relationship symbolizes? I ask the same question about the facebook post, how are these ideas connected? I think if you clear up why you chose the mode that you did it will help the reader connect the ideas together. I have noticed that people announce their engagements on facebook, so I totally understand that observation you made.
Since this is just the beginning I understand that you are still working on your ideas, and I'm excited to read what your final products are going to be, especially because of how interesting the original article is.