Something to Look Forward To...

With only a month of my first year of grad school left, I'm planning for this blog's grand finale: an interactive, multimedia Web site that features information about sexual assualt at USC. After last week's Take Back the Night event held on campus, I was inspired to try and give this under-reported, and often silenced, issue a voice.

I'm hoping to include the following on my site:

(1) a photo gallery with stimulating pictures from the week's events
(2) a Q & A interview with a police detective who has dealt with sexual assault in the community
(3) a few video excerpts from interviews I had with the Director of USC's Center for Women and Men, a woman who works on the judicial side of sexual assaults on campus, and a Deputy District Attorney who spoke about prosecuting and defending sexual assault cases outside of the university's system.
(4) videos of some of the really amazing monologues that the Women's Theatre Group performed at USC's Take Back the Night event.
(5) a poll that will allow readers to anonymously tally their experiences with sexual assault at USC
(6) and an interactive Google map that will show some of the sexual assault centers on/around USC's campus

Since I have already done all of the filming and photo-taking, all that is left for me to do is put it all together in a user-friendly, thought-provoking way!

Update!

As I was perusing through the L.A. Times website today, I came across this article that follows up on my blog post from March 7. It seems like I'm not the only one who has noticed the Disney Princess conspiracy. 

Check out this funny and insightful story written by Rosa Brooks of the L.A. Times. 

Wiki What?

In honor of my new status as an "online journalist," I have taken it upon myself to edit the content of one of the Web's most user-generated websites: Wikipedia. Besides being a guide to global culture, written by anyone and everyone, Wikipedia offers users a chance to literally have a say (or write a sentence) in the Internet's history book, encyclopedia, dictionary, and gossip guide all rolled into one.

After spending a lot of time working on the study produced by the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, I thought it might be a good idea to check out Geena Davis's "wiki" to see what people have said about her foundation. Besides a brief mention of the name of the foundation and a one-sentence summary, there was nothing substantial included there about the recent study put out by USC's Annenberg School for Communication earlier this year.

Now, you know what has to be done...it's wiki time!

Under the section outlining Geena Davis's activism, I included a little extra information about the 2008 study put out by the Geena Davis Institute and USC Annenberg:

The Geena Davis Institute recently put out a study in collaboration with the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. The 2008 study, directed by Annenberg's Dr. Stacy Smith, shows that there are nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 P, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students coded.
I also added an external link that will take the viewer directly to Annenberg's home page on the USC web site.

With one click of the mouse, I am now an official Wikipedia editor--for what that's worth. Hopefully, my contribution won't get overwritten some time in the near future.

If you're interested, check out the "Geena Davis" Wikipedia page before my edit and after my edit. Just scroll down to the section titled "Activism" to see the new additions.