Researching Negotiation: The Interviews
Interview One: Diane
My first interview subject, Diane, who informed me that she had created five or six multimodal projects before which were mostly using IMovie, was creating two pages using Glogster that chronicled what citizens can do to help end Global Warming. Diane explained, “the first page has image of how college students can decrease global warming like using the MITS (public city bus) or walking or using fluorescent lights…and my second page is about celebrities or people that are being leaders of the world on how to stop global warming like Al Gore and Oprah.” I asked Diane where she was gathering her sources from and if she was having any trouble finding the materials she needed for her collages. She responded that she was collecting everything from Google and “no…I went to Google and found it pretty easy” (Diane). Finally I asked Diane if she had changed her project at all from her initial idea and if so why. Diane said, “it changed completely…I thought it would be more difficult using IMovie cause you would have to find clips and cut it down for plagiarism…so I think my project is easier now.”
Interview Two: Ann
Ann, the second student in the case study, was another student working with the online Glogster program. She explained, “The first chapter of the book (Field Notes From A Catastrpohe) is about permafrost in Alaska…that is what I am focusing on”(Ann). Ann told me she has worked with multimodal projects before in high school but had never discussed fair use and copyright. In response to where she was collecting her images from Ann replied, “from different websites and I actually encountered a problem with the first website because I scrolled down to the bottom and it was like you can’t use this because of copyright laws…that put me at hold for a minute so I had to do more research to find more images.” I asked Ann if she encountered any other problems finding sources and if she was running into problems with fair use. Ann stated, “I have to give credit where credit is due and the images I have are credited to someone so when I do my works cited it will be pretty easy.”
Interview Three: Mike
Mike, the third interview participant, was using Windows Movie Maker to create his multimodal project response. Mike told me that he had created about ten to fifteen multimodal projects before, five of which were with Windows Movie Maker. Mike explained that his project, “focused on pollution and increase of carbon dioxide and other gases and the causes and reasons for that.” Mike tells me that his project will consist of image and text as well as narration of his voice reading the text on the screen. I ask Mike if there is anything he wanted to include in the project but couldn’t or hadn’t for any reason due to discussions of fair use and copyright in class. He responds with the answer of music. “I am nervous about getting around certain fair use things…I don’t know my limitations…I’m going to talk to my teacher,” Mike admits. I also find out during the interview that all of the images Mike is using in the project are coming from Google images.
Interview Four: Kate
Kate, the fourth student in the case study, was also, like mike, constructing a movie using Windows Movie Maker. Kate explained, “I am combining Movie Maker and PowerPoint and I am arguing both points of global warming. I am arguing the points of people who think that it is just a natural cycle and I am arguing the point that its mans fault that it is happening. I’m going to present facts from both sides and do interviews.” Kate informed me that to build her project she would “make a slide in PowerPoint, save it as an image, and add it to Move Maker.” Kate has used Movie Maker a few times in high school and has also worked with music editing programs. When I ask where she is getting her images for the project Kate replies, “I get my pictures off Google images.” She also tells me that she will include music in her movie. “I downloaded it off Limewire,” she tells me (Kate). (Limewire is a file sharing music program.) I ask Kate if she has made any changes in her project due to fair use or copyright and she replies, “No. Maybe I should be a little more conscientious about it, but I am not going to get in trouble…I’m just going to have to cite everything.” Kate does admit that it can be hard to find where an image originally came from to cite it properly.
Interview Five: Justin
The fifth interview subject, Justin, who told me he had done two or three multimodal projects before, was another student composing a movie using Windows Movie Maker using images and video clips. “At the rate we are going by 2080 the arctic will be melted so I’m going off of that,” he explained to me (Justin). I asked Justin where he was gathering his materials from for the movie. He replied, “I’m using Google to find a broad range of images and the video I converted from Youtube and clipped it”(Justin). Justin admitted to me, in both his interviews, that he was not concerned about fair use because he was citing his sources. “As long as I do my works cited right it will be alright,” he explained (Justin).
Interview six: Michelle
The sixth interview participant, Michelle, was using Glogster to make a series of four digital collages. In her interview Michelle told me, “I am doing a multimodal project on how different countries are trying to help end global warming…I have the United States, Switzerland, and China.” Michelle explained that she had never made a multimodal project before and was using the Glogster program because she found it simple to work with. I asked Michelle where she was collecting her materials from for the project and, like many other students, she informed me she was “Googling images.” In her second interview I asked Michelle if she had to make any changes to her project due to fair use and copyright law constraints. Michelle replied, “No cause I didn’t use any music and the videos that I used were from CNN and YouTube.” Michelle explained that she had embedded two videos in her collages along with images and text.
Interview Seven: Jamie
The final case study participant, Jamie, created a movie using images and music in Windows Movie Maker that displayed the harmful effects of global warming and pollution on animals. The only multimodal projects Jamie has ever composed were PowerPoint slide shows. I asked Jamie where he was gathering his materials for the movie and he explained, “most of them I found on Yahoo images. I just type in a keyword and find an image.” In the first interview Jamie was keeping fair use in mind. “The images I found fairly easy but citing them is going to take awhile because there are a good 20-25 of them. The music was easy cause I already had the CD’s, so I used Audacity to cut down the songs to where they were short clips to avoid copyright infringement,” said Jamie. His references to fair use and copyright continued in the second interview. In response to my question of whether he had to make any changes due to fair use Jamie said, “there were a few pictures I really liked, but I couldn’t find the origin of the pictures.” Jamie explained that he needed to know the origin of the images to cite them properly. In addition he added, “I had to shorten one song a little more cause I didn’t want to use to much of the song in my project for the fear of copyright” (Jamie).
