Landscape/Environmental Scans

[RJP43]

DH 501 Assignment

What’s at stake in building your project? As you begin designing and building your research project, examine some existing DH projects that are new to you in order to think through that project’s background, mission, and context. You should locate a project - chose: Note to Self podcast - that is either topically related to yours, or one that uses a tool or platform that you’ll be working in.

As you look through this project, write out brief answers to these questions:

1. How would you categorize this project? (A tool, a repository, a database, an archive?) How do you know?

A podcast -- which interestingly enough inherently encompasses a repository, an archive, a digital community, a tool, and a form of entertainment.

2. Who was involved in the building of this project (including PIs, librarians, graduate students, technical leads)?

This is an interesting question because it is not obvious who all is involved in every aspect of the podcast's production; however, the primary website does list the podcast's "team" here - https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/notetoself/the-team.

3. What is the background and timeline of the building of this project?

According to the Note to Self Wikipedia page - since the information was not available on the podcast's primary site - "Note to Self debuted on September 10, 2012 under the name New Tech City. On May 27, 2015 New Tech City changed its name to Note to Self, in response to listener suggestions. The name was inspired by the audience communicating to Manoush Zomorodi that they listen to the show because they are interested in the 'purposeful use of technology.' Zomorodi supposedly left the show in April 2018 to launch a new cryptocurrency supported podcast that was not affiliated with WNYC", but she still is the host of the latest episode I heard. There isn't much more information available detailing how long the design and concept took to be developed. What is clear from going thru numerous search results on the podcast's current and previous name is that there are a few broken links and outdated information that make it slightly confusing to clearly determine to who is involved in the current production of the podcast.

4. What is the project’s mission and does it succeed? How so? (Or what might be in development?)

There are a couple of places where the podcast provides its mission. On each streaming service, on the primary website of the podcast, and several episodes start with some variation of this sentiment - "exploring the human side of technology." I think the podcast does indeed succeed in their mission mainly by staying on topic of addressing people and their use of technology as well as technologies effect on peoples' lives.

5. Discuss the level of transparency of the project: is there a narrative that tells you how it was built/by whom, or other obstacles or challenges the project faced?

While the podcast's primary website is not very transparent the multiple platform engagement lends itself well to being transparent. The presence of the host on social media and the podcast's engagement with multiple streaming services offers some sense of the challenges and concerns the project comes up against. One clear example of this is how the podcast's renaming came about. Another example of this is the community engagement with the podcast's "Projects" = A week of interactive mini-episodes, with challenges to turn our devices from taskmasters to tools, and make positive change together."

6. Does the project seem “finished”? In what ways is it either finished or still developing?

No and yes. Yes, because the website development seems in place and complete. Also, the overall theme of the podcast seems settled on. No, because the very nature of a podcast is recursive and constantly developing as it reacts to new social trends/culture.

7. Discuss the chosen platform of the project, and the technology it uses (as best you can).

It is nearly impossible to determine if the podcast's website is built with a CMS or some kind of framework. There is no documentation indicating such information either. The site seems to use its own media player instead of embedding one of its streaming services' media players. As with all podcasts, there is an RSS feed, but I could not find site-hosted transcriptions of the episodes. There is a list of all the other platforms the podcast is available on that states "Subscribe now to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Google Play Music, or wherever you get your audio."

8. Who appears to be the user community?

Podcast listeners, technology enthusiasts, technology novices, tech-curious people. There is an interesting bit in the studio's term of service documentation that states "The digital platforms are intended for users over the age of 13.".

9. Can you find scholarship that cites this project? How does it do so?

The only places I was able to find references to the podcast were Wikipedia, NPR, and in a few Medium articles written by show-affiliated people. Generally, the project is cited with very promotional language seemingly with the intention to gain more listeners.

10. What arguments—implicit or explicit—does the project as a whole seem to be making or advancing?

That more people need to better understand the technologies they are interacting with daily.

11. How does the project promote itself?

In addition to being available on nearly every podcast streaming service the website boasts the following info. as well: "Our Wednesday morning newsletter has alerts on fresh episodes, the team’s must-reads, and all the news you need to get just a little geeky. Never spammy, always thoughtful. You should sign up. Chat with us @notetoself and @manoushz on Twitter, @NotetoSelfRadio on Facebook, @manoushz on Instagram and at [email protected]. We love to hear from you. Responses from real humans, not bots. Promise."

12. What’s the user experience like as you click through the site? Are there multiple pathways? Is it logical? Is it easy to read? Comment on the design as it relates to usability.

The primary website of the podcast's hosting studio is not very usable. I have yet to be able to find the episode transcripts, the images lack alt text, and the overal design of the site doesn't jive well with the creative vibe you get from the podcast host and the podcast's presense as seen on streaming applications.

13. What’s at stake in building this project? What intervention does it make in its field? What kinds of knowledge is it contributing? What work remains to be done? Where is it most successful?

Unlike most podcasts which seem to just funnel information to people as listening entertainment, Note to Self successfully engages with its audience through its multiple social media accounts and by offering special mini-episode project challenges that encourage listeners to take action in order to become better technology users.

[RJP43]

Note to Self with Manoush Zomorodi

Produced by WNYC Studios

Image sourced from: Note to Self on www.wnycstudios.org Illustration created by: John Hersey

Why this Podcast?

Swept up in the production of the plain.txt podcast's website, other graduate school responsibilities, a general self-loathing with regards to my writing abilities, and a slight embarrassment of how I came to choose this podcast -- I've delayed this scan for months. To understand why I am writing a scan on Note to Self I think it's important to understand how all of these reasons for delay have led me to write on this particular podcast today (ooo a rhyme 😉). You see I work as a digital editor on an XML-based digital edition. What that means in regards to this podcast is I am consumed daily with angle brackets and the inner workings of what is behind-the-display that the public will interact with online. The one thing I knew 💯 going into this project was that I wanted to host the podcast website out of GitHub. So there were a few things I knew coming into this semester and when this assignment was given: I had a bit of information onboarding that would be necessary for creating the website on GitHub (since I had never worked with Jekyll or GitHub pages before) and I am far more confident in my abilities to learn more git-related info-bits and web development (considering my "day job") than writing.

Soooooo I ventured into my comfort zone, and with the incredible assistance of a dear friend, Griffin Moe, developed a design and implemented a basic Jekyll-framework for the website. In building this out I quickly realized that having a functioning, accessible podcast website was only one tiny part of the production of a podcast. Being a consumer of only one podcast (the Jenna Julien podcast on Youtube, if your curious) prior to my deep-dive into the podcast world my perception of a podcast's production was quite skewed. What I began to realize was I needed to find a media player to embed on the website one that lends itself well to people listening on a variety of devices; therefore, I needed some kind of embeddable streaming service. So that meant I needed to consider how I would generate an audience and what streaming service would best suit that audience, and I would also need to figure out all the components necessary for an RSS feed that would get fed into the streaming service. Oh yea, and of course there are the audio files and determining better recording devices not to mention the worries around finding inspiration for what I would say in the podcast and on and on and on until I had 5-10 podcasts I was looking into and masses of research around podcast building more generally to go through at which point this assignment to narrow in and write on one podcast seemed like taking a step backward. I spent my time while working on the details of website production (in my "happy place") subscribing to various podcasts on my favorite streaming applications, delving into those podcasts' social media presences, and consuming the aspects of podcast production as an engaged listener. However, in order to choose a podcast to write this scan and that would best help me carve out not only what the plain.txt podcast could be similar to but also how it would be different and needed (see Needs Assessment) I had to find a podcast I enjoyed listening to, that was on Digital Humanities or a related field, and that within its production methods engaged with accessibility and knowledge-building (two components at the forefront of the plain.txt podcast's production.)

This brings me to the somewhat embarrassing story of how I came to find the Note to Self podcast. Being a person much more into the appeals of consuming visual entertainment I had never really taken to the idea of listening to podcasts. My only experiences of watching/listening to a regular production were Youtube, TV shows, and my fond memories of listening to NPR during the one-hour each-way drive I took back and forth from my dad's house and my undergraduate institution. So when it came to picking podcast's to look into and applications to stream those podcasts on I defaulted into my comfort zone for streaming music and landed in the podcast section of Spotify. There I searched: "Digital Humanities." Yes, I know... how original... but remember I did say I am slightly embarrassed with my methods here. In the suggestions, the only podcast that caught my eye was The Digital Human by BBC Radio 4. Reading the description of the podcast and jumping over to its companion website on the BBC I was comforted by the similarities of this podcast and the NPR segments I was somewhat used to listening to. Having already started the process of recording and editing the pilot plain.txt podcast episode I realized listening to The Digital Human that the 30-minute episode style mixing interviews with narration was relatively easy to listen to, but unsustainable if I planned on using the countless interviews I had already conducted. You see the interviews I had were very long and the delivery of the main messages of the content required episodes that by final production would be closer to an hour. Also, like NPR the BBC has amazing production quality with numerous musical transitions when the host moves between interview and narration and an overall seemingly expensive process considering the overall quality. I was intimidated and while I continued listening for some weeks I quickly knew that all I could take from this particular podcast was the inspiration for narration style and content topics. I also realized from this podcast and where I was at in recording/editing the pilot that I needed the plain.txt podcast episodes to be 30 minutes or less.

Since my "Digital Humanities" search in Spotify failed to turn up multiple podcasts I also searched through the Technology genre of Spotify podcasts. It was here I found several more podcasts including Note to Self. I subscribed and listened to quite a few different podcasts and a few episodes from each, but I found I was only inclined to follow the mentioned people of the Note to Self podcast on social media, in particular the host. There was something about Manoush and her delivery that while it certainly retained the NPR-vibe (considering it is an NPR affiliated podcast) there was also an engagement with her creativity and personal reflections. After listening to quite a few tech-related podcasts I ventured into searching for alternative-style podcasts having come to the realization that I needed to redirect the plain.txt podcast production away from using the long interviews (at least in any traditional means) due to the time commitment of the editing and the length of the pilot episode's final product. From here I primarily sought out podcasts centered around a single topic, with one consistent host, and that incorporated poetry.

This is when I came across the She Speaks: Spoken Word Poetry podcast. In this podcast, the host, Nahri recites her spoken word poetry addressing a range of topics about society and culture with a particular feminine twist. This podcast appeals to my preferred way of writing (spoken-word) and was useful in me developing my personal delivery style. At this time I also came to find out that the host of Note to Self co-hosts another podcast called ZigZag with Jen Poyant. ZigZag similarly addresses topics of society, but with a particular push towards helping people create a better society. Listening to these three podcasts in tandem with these three strong female voices I developed the new/current structuring of the plain.txt podcast episodes (see Design Briefs.) Now I returned to Note to Self, in particular, to write this scan because I realized that the podcast succeeded (with me anyway) to pull me into its audience so much so that I was led to other projects of the host (enter ZigZag). Part of my desire to make the plain.txt podcast more accessible is by engaging audiences to move across the podcasts various online presences pending on their preference of engagement and in someway Note to Self succeeded in doing this for me. I finally settled on a podcast where there was a clear, creative voice presenting on tech-related topics with the intention to expand peoples' knowledge.

[RJP43]

Here is a slightly sad realization I had when creating the above environment scan that I want to take a moment to explore since it helps highlight how I plan on making the plain.txt podcast different than what seems to be the case for many other online resources. When adding the above image of the Note to Self logo I was a little stumped when it came to the task of writing the image alt text. So I went to the podcast's main site to see what information the podcast website developer(s) included. Here is what I found:

Frustrated, I searched for other places where the podcast is hosted on a website. Landing on the NPR page, I inspected the page's underlying HTML and found this:

Ultimately here is the alt text I wrote for the podcast's beautiful logo:

!['note to self' written to the left of an illustration. The illustration is of a jet-black colored human-like cartoon figure with colorful explosions of vibrant patterns coming from the top of their head in place of hair. A ribbon-like explosive pattern reaches from the figures head across the span of the logo above the text. The figure's eyes are open wide with small black pupils and colorful horizontal stripes in place of the typical white sclera. The figure has a bright yellow smile.](https://media.wnyc.org/i/1400/1400/l/80/1/NoteToSelf_1400X1400_TIt7xNg.png "Note to Self's logo by artist John Hersey")

I imagine Manoush and the logo's illustrator, John Hersey, never intended for the "217 million [people that] have moderate to severe vision impairment [or] 36 million people [that] are blind" who might come across the Note to Self logo on either of these sites with a screen reader would be given only a filename or the text "Note to Self". This is particularly jarring considering how inspiring and appealing I find the logo. In this observation I realize that as the developer of all aspects of the plain.txt podcast's production I will inherently know more with regards to where my knowledge sharing and accessibility falls short; whereas, it is likely the technical development of the Note to Self podcast's website(s) do not consult the creators of the podcast's content (i.e. the host, illustrator, or social media coordinators) with such coding decisions as adding alt text or ARIA tags. Also, I am grateful for the accessibility affordances made by GitHub considering the platform's support of markdown styling - a language that inherently allows users more control over the text's style and accessibility (see Platform Assessment).