Digital Short

The Contributor Digital Short

Storyboard

Dear Friend

I want to share some ideas with you. I am making a digital short that represents the Contributor and how it is changing lives in the homeless community.  I wanted to include them saying their name and that they sell the contributor. The main thing that I want to do is ask them to tell me one thing that they want to world to know about the Contributor. It can be anything they want to share with me. I want them the have the opportunity to share something with the community that they may not have the opportunity to do if they were not in this video. It is about their lives. That is the focus. I want it to be real and vulnerable. obviously being a contributor vendor is a hard life, I want to be able to show that in the video.

From
Monica

Concise- Analytical Section

  Approaching Pat Reeves, a Contributor vendor, standing on the street corner, looked overjoyed to be selling the paper.  Once I approached her, she was very confused as to why I wanted to ask her questions. She was frightened by me, my camera and my desire to get personal with her. Kindly enough, after feeling a little more comfortable, she allowed me to ask her a few questions. She would not allow me to record the conversation because she had never experienced anything like that before. The answers where short and to the point but focused directly toward the community that she has built.  It was the only thing that she really wanted to share with me. Pat is not homeless anymore but continues to sell the paper because of the people that she encounters daily. 

The Contributor- Community

The Contributor is changing people’s lives by bringing together a community. Not only with a vendor and customer relationship but also with all types of people that walk by, drive by or interact in some sort of way with the vendors. Selling the Contributor is not merely about making money and providing a source of income, but also includes the relationship and interactions with people.  Approaching an old lady by the name of Pat Reeves, standing on the street corner, looked overjoyed with a smile that would light up anybody’s bad day. Seeming friendly from a distance, she was not very happy and completely turned off by the idea of being interviewed.  She stood there not knowing how to react. Like a hermit crab, she crawled into her hard shell for protection. She was quite frightened by me and my camera and my desire to get personal with her. Kindly enough, after feeling a little more comfortable, she allowed me to ask her a few questions. She would not allow me to record the conversation because she had never experienced anything like that before. The answers where short and to the point but focused directly toward the community that she has built.  It was the only thing that she really wanted to share with me. Pat is not homeless anymore but continues to sell the paper because of the people that she encounters daily. With a smiling face, Pat is sure to grab a stranger’s attention. The Pat that I first encountered, the one where she was a hermit crab crawling into her shell, completely changed when a lady that must work in the building Pat was standing next to walked by. The lady yelled, “Hello Pat, How are you?”  Pat’s face lights up and she waves back to the lady. I could tell that relationships formed like that really meant something special to Pat. It is why she continues to stand there on the corner of 3^rd and Commerce in downtown Nashville everyday.  

There is so much importance about building a special and unique community when selling the Contributor. It is also just as important for the customers to those venders to be willing to develop a community with them. After reading a book called City Streets City People by Michael J. Christensen, my eyes were open to how individuals should learn to understand the homeless community. Christensen says, “To know and love the poor, we must journey with them. To journey with the poor means to go and live among them; to seek to understand their needs, hopes, and dreams; to walk a few miles in their shoes, to learn from them and suffer with them; to go what can be done” (74).  There is so much truth in these words.  From an outsider of homelessness, being a part of this culture is advertently difficult.  To have the audacity and strength to put yourself into that role is excruciatingly complicated.  There are certain lines that you cannot cross and words that you should not speak. I tend to feel like there is this huge wall separating my life from their life. Sometimes, it seems impossible to ever try to jump over. We are missing out on the community and the personalities of these individuals that could be developed if only we are brave enough to conquer this fear. Community is a strong word. It is something that is powerful in relationships. The thing that continues to keep Pat motivated is that community and the friendships brought by selling the Contributor. If this paper did not exist, the homeless community would not be the same. This simple way of helping the homeless would be gone and there would be a detachment from this community.  As a customer to this paper, I have the role and responsibility to adapt and understand their culture and invest in these individuals to form a community.

Gathering Archival Information

After doing some research,  it was difficult finding some sort of archival information regarding The Contributor. There is a Homeless Museum in New York but is not to bring awareness to homelessness but to bring about a new social change in the art world. This led me to research artist that create art to bring awareness to homeless. As an art major, this is something that really grabbed my attention. I am unsure how this would influence my paper but it is definitely something that I would like to go deeper into. Looking directly on the Contributor website, you can view article posts that date back until March 2009. The website also offers press releases that could be very useful on gathering information regarding how the community views The Contributor. It is a good source to gain positive knowledge and feedback about The Contributor. There is a website called Street News Service that is an agency for street papers internationally. I am not sure how helpful this may be but it may be interesting to search for papers that are similar to The Contributor going beyond the US.

The Contributor Terms and Definitions

Community- this is formed between the customer and vendor.
Customer- someone that is buying The Contributor newspaper from a vendor.
Diverse Perspectives on Homelessness- provides many different views and information on the condition of homelessness while highlighting the contributions of homeless and formally homeless individuals.*
Genuine Opportunities for Advancement- provides homeless and previously homeless vendors a steady source of income.*
Homeless/ Previously Homeless- the people that are allowed to sell The Contributor Newspaper.
Nashville- The city that The Contributor newspaper is sold.
Street Newspaper- newspaper that focuses on the issues surrounding homelessness and poverty and is sold by homeless and formerly homeless individuals on the street.*
The Contributor- a nonprofit organization in Nashville, Tennessee that is based on the homeless community produced twice-monthly.*
Vendor- name given to a person who is selling The Contributor newspaper and who has earned the right to sell the newspaper.


*These terms are drawn from The Contributor Website. http://thecontributor.org/

Revised

Cultural Object: The Contributor Newspaper
This Newspaper will help me better understand my research questions. It focuses on what it means to be homeless in Nashville as well as stories written by the venders of the paper. It is a direct tangible link to how The Contributor is changing lives in the Nashville homeless community.  The Contributor issues a new newspaper once a month. I hope to be able to collect a new one each month for the rest of the semester to pull ideas from them and maybe include some articles into my paper.
Revised: 
The Contributor Newspaper will help me understand the benefits the paper offers to the homeless and formally homeless vendors. The purpose of the paper is to allow the homeless to have a voice in society.  It is a direct tangible object that demonstrates the changes being made in the homeless community.  The Contributor issues a new newspaper once a month. I hope to be able to collect a new one each month for the rest of the semester to pull ideas from them and maybe include some articles into my paper.

Voice

http://365nashville.com/

I believe that voice comes from someone that is talking about something they are very knowledgeable about. The credibility can be based upon how much information they know. This could be related to how much education they have received, and if they are a professional in that certain topic. It is important  on how they say it and if they appear credible. It also has a lot to do if they voice is engaging and relatable to the reader.

The blog 365 Nashville is a website that gives a new thing to do in Nashville every day. I think that this blog is very credible.  It gives just enough true information regarding the event and then provides a link directing you to the actual event.  This would be a very helpful and reliable place for someone that is looking to explore Nashville. It is beneficial because the reader is not limited to the daily posts but can view all previously posted articles. Another thing that makes this credible is the option to comment on the posts. If another reader thinks that this is a false publication, he/she has every right to voice their option regarding the post. The man that started the blog, named Andrew Terrell, decided to start this because  he wanted to learn  more about what Nashville has to offer. I think that this could be a little hazy on the credibilty because it does not offer very much information specifically regarding Andrew.  I do think that including links to the certain events/places in which he is talking about adds credibility to the words he writes.

In-Class Interview

I interviewed Lauren Mcfadden. From a perpective of this 21 year old Belmont college student, it was obvious that she probably never experienced being homelessness. From her perspective, she states that, "homelessness comes a lot through my lens of Christianity because I believe that as Christians we take care of the poor and take care of those who don’t have enough. A lot of people who say it is their own fault that they are poor and that may be the case for some of them but I don’t believe that is the vast majority and I don’t think that is a valid reason not to take care of them or help them become sustainable. I believe that it is a moral issue as well as an economic issue." It is interesting to hear this sort of thought from someone who has never experienced homelessness.

This culture is dependent on people helping other people. It is so encouraging to hear that people including college students want to help this problem that is worldwide. The Contributor is allowing a small change in Nashville, to help the homeless and provide a sustainable life.

I asked her to give me her personal definition of the Contributor to see if she actually knew what the purpose of this paper was. Her response was "It is a newspaper that when you read it a lot of it is written by either previously homeless people, currently homeless people or people who are activists in the homeless community.  A lot of it includes insider information on what is going on." She grasped the main purpose of the paper. For this paper to be successful, I believe that every demographic needs to have a basic understanding of the paper.

Guns, Germs and Steel

An element in the book in terms of material space/objects affecting culture is geography. Especially focusing on the individuals who live in certain areas- how and where a group of people live together to produce food.  Food was a population boost. Different communities focused on how many individuals could they sustain. The more people that populated the communities, the more specially skilled people they had which eventually leads to the development of technology.  The author talks about how food production leads to the development to writing. It is something we have to invent, learn, and produced.  It allows people to document things that has previously happened. The author talks a lot about animals and how they were used and perceived to humans. He focused on a point when people from Africa move to different continents. When humans populated certain parts where animals had never seen them before, the animals didn't know what to do. The humans would kill them off. Later on in the book he also talks about animal domestication for several uses such as warfare.

Introduction

“…To leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution” 
-Stephen R. Covey

In Nashville, one of the most iconic homeless organizations is The Contributor Newspaper. Offering a sense of dignity and worth, this paper has provided the homeless community with opportunities to live a successful life. The Contributor is a monthly street newspaper to help benefit homeless people in Nashville, TN focusing on the diversity of perspectives through the eyes of homeless and formally homeless individuals.  It also brings awareness to the conditions of homelessness. While accomplishing all this, the process of selling the paper builds a unique relationship between the vendors and customers.  The main importance of The Contributor is the ability to provide a source of income for the homeless and previously homeless of the men and women and Nashville. 

It is important to understand the culture of the people who sell The Contributor, and to fully understand the affects it has on those individuals.  Studying and learning from this culture will really benefit my heart of serving and helping the people who are less fortunate. Through conversations of homeless and formally homeless individuals that sell The Contributor, I hope to grasp their lifestyle and how their lives have changed from this paper. There is something so beautiful in the purpose of this newspaper to help out those who have no other way to bring in income.  

Being an outsider to the homeless community, I am already putting myself in a different level of understanding.  To fully understand the homeless community, one must truly experience it. Being such an outsider, forming those special connections with the vendors is so important to understand their community and culture.

Cultural Objects

Cultural Object: The Contributor Newspaper

This Newspaper will help me better understand my research questions. It focuses on what it means to be homeless in Nashville as well as stories written by the venders of the paper. It is a direct tangible link to how The Contributor is changing lives in the Nashville homeless community.  The Contributor issues a new newspaper once a month. I hope to be able to collect a new one each month for the rest of the semester to pull ideas from them and maybe include some articles into my paper.

Academic "Game" and Academic Discourse

The rules of the game can really change for anyone. The first thing to ask is what are you trying to achieve in an academic game? With that question answered, the rules form from this. If  you believe the most important thing is to achieve good grades, the rules would focus on amount of time studying, making sure assignments are turned in on time, etc..  It is the ability to survive by getting the things done and keeping up with the schedule of life.

Being literate in your degree is being willing to learn the materials needed to succeed. You have to be able to learn and then apply what you learned to everyday life. If you cram the information in and then a week later, forget it all, does not mean you are literate. You must be able to apply it to your life. There is a level of importance that needs to be put on your education. What goals are you trying to achieve? How literate do you want to be?  To excel after college, it is important to understand what it means to be literate in your field.

Cultures and Subculters

African culture- I have always been interested in mission work in Africa. It would be great to learn more about their culture to better prepare myself.

Modern Graphic Designers- In the process of searching for a career, it would be very beneficial to learn more about the graphic designers in today's society to really understand where design is at right now.

Homelessness in Nashville (focusing on the Contributor)-  I have always been very intrigued  by the homeless culture and am in the process of learning a lot about it. I would love to continue that study and how it will influence my life.

Discourses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43yCiKlbCo

This video exemplifies primary discourse because the little girl names Lily is two year old and it able to show the viewer on the map where over 80 countries are. She was taught this from her parents. Her parents have influenced her by teaching her how to find countries on a map. This video demonstrates that Lily is applying what she has learned by pointing out the different countries. She is being rewarded by her parents clapping and congratulating her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7hTAp6KrGY

This video is of two little girls singing to a famous Nicki Manaj song. There are several discourses at play. The girls have definitely been influenced by society through music and dancing. The girls learned this song probably because it was something that they were interested in and so the lyrics and dance moves stuck with them. This exemplifies secondary discourse and primary discourse. In the video, you can see the mom in the mirror showing dance moves the little girl. She learned and is supported by her mother. From this video the little girls are forced into this identity as the little girls who sang “Super Bass.”

Literacy and Culture

What does Literacy mean to me? 
Literate, being able to read, write and compose your own thoughts. Literacy is the ability to read something and fully understand the meaning of the words written. It is the ability to write from what you feel to what you research and gather information.  Literacy is the ability to become knowledgeable. It is something that takes critical thinking and analysis.  Literacy is something that you learn and will continually learn through education and personal experiences. It comes easier to some people and harder to others.
What is culture?
Culture is the undermining fundamentals of a person. It is the background on which a person lives there lives, where the come from, why they are the way they are. Culture is the behavior of how you act in society, approach challenges, formulate social norms.  It is ever changing.  Culture is something developed from 1000s of years ago. Every part of the world has a different culture that is unique to their own territory. Culture is language, environment, style, education, occupation and much more. Culture defines who a person is.