Understanding Censorship

For the LEAP 2 project in my COM 250 course I had the opportunity to create a short video about a topic from the course with a classmate. As a novice media content creator I am glad that I got to collaborate with a classmate, it definitely improved my work. Though working with others is not always easy, I know I often take control of group projects and end up doing the work myself. I’m glad that this project was different!

I contacted my classmate Ariel, through email, and we exchanged numbers soon after this project was assigned. For this assignment we are able to talk about almost any topic from the course, so to come up with ideas for a topic for this project I glanced through the later chapters from our textbook Media Literacy in Action. The section on censorship jumped out to me, it had many interesting terms and was very informative, so I suggested it to my partner. Ariel agreed! She thought that censorship was going to be a good topic with plenty of relevant information for us to create a video about.

Once our topic was decided I began taking notes on our textbook in a shared Google Doc. I tried to define all relevant terms and provide examples. From there Ariel wrote our script and came up with the idea to analyze censorship in China. Once the script was finished I began collecting images and clips to use in our video, and uploaded them to our Adobe Spark project. We then discussed how we should do the voiceover, and I agreed that we should split it. Ariel voiced the first half of the video, and I voiced the second half.

Using Adobe Spark and Google Docs allowed us to work together on this project even in a pandemic. We were able to text each other and discuss ideas, as well as flesh them out for each other on a Google Doc. I found it very helpful to work with a partner because Ariel came up with ideas I never would have considered. I knew that I did not want to use the same examples provided in our textbook but I was having trouble with coming up with any others. When Ariel suggested analyzing censorship in China I thought it was a great idea. We were able to use examples of Chinese censorship to help explain several terms in regards to the topic of state censorship.

Working with a partner greatly benefited me and the overall project. Without Ariel the project would not have been as interesting, and would be without focus. But working with partners is not always easy, I find that I usually have issues trusting my partner to complete the work on time. When I work in groups I tend to feel very responsible, that the success of the whole project rests on me, but with Ariel we were able to text back and forth and discuss what we had worked on, which made me feel more positive about this project. Contact with my partner over the past few weeks as well as working on a shared Google Doc and Adobe Spark project gave me confidence that we would be able to complete our project on time.

I have to say I enjoyed working with Ariel and had a better time completing this project than I thought I would. Working together with a partner allowed more ideas to be incorporated which helped our project reach a new level. I hope you enjoy our LEAP 2 project: Understanding Censorship.