Jessica Markiewicz's Blog

Reactions to Osama bin Laden’s death ranged from joyful to fearful, according to Meadville residents yesterday.  Local citizens of all walks of life were asked about their opinions regarding his death and how the news has impacted them personally.  Many expressed satisfaction and happiness at the news, while some were more reserved, questioning the global impact and influence on our country’s safety and current state in war.  Watch the animation below to get a feel for some of Meadville’s thoughts surrounding the situation.

For Blog 10, I decided to use animation as a means of telling my story.  This was not my intent, nor was the story told my initial goal- unfortunately, a combination of travel, illness and ensuing scheduling conflicts interfered with my original plans, and I was left with little time to come up with a new story, speak with sources and compile it in some sort of multimedia presentation.  Sunday night, the news of Osama bin Laden’s death swept through the nation, leaving in its wake emotions ranging from fear to euphoria.  As we all know, global events like this also hit close to home, and Meadville residents are impacted by the news just as everyone else is.  Monday, I went out and spoke to as many residents as I could, and asked them about their thoughts and concerns on the matter.  I heard a very wide range of responses, and wanted to explore ways of effectively communicating these thoughts on my blog.

Ultimately, because I did not have good visuals to use and the audio, due to excess ambient noise, was mediocre at best, I decided to try animation.  This was an interesting medium to use, and I tried to tailor my content to fit the animation without sacrificing too much accuracy or context.  As we discussed in class, animations can make assumptions or portray content that might not actually be there, and the method of animation (xtranormal in particular) can be limiting.  Using xtranormal was difficult because it only allows the use of two characters in a conversation, so I tried to tailor my content to fit this context.  This did involve taking some liberties with what had been said (mostly in terms of representing the speaker and attributions) and elimination of some content that couldn’t fit, and made me realize the importance of using animation as a representation of concepts and ideas, but not as a substitute for hard news facts.  I am interested to hear my classmates’ feedback and thoughts on using animation in local news, as it applies to this class.

Data provided by the United States Census Bureau serves to provide comparative statistics between locations in the United States, among other functions.  Recent Census data for Crawford County provides an interesting look into several key differences, including higher unemployment rates and lower rates of higher education than the rest of the state.

Perhaps the most glaring piece of Crawford County data is the lack of racial diversity.  Recent studies have shown racial diversity to be an important factor in many aspects of community life, including education, political involvement, social change.  It has been suggested that the presence of greater racial diversity encourages political discourse and public involvement in issues regarding race and culture, and can contribute to positive educational outcomes through greater experience and diversity programming.  However, limited research has also shown that increased racial diversity can be harmful to perceptions of community, and spur a decrease in general civic involvement, including participation in public office and voting. 

Below, compare the statistics on racial diversity between Crawford County, neighboring Erie and Mercer Counties, and Pennsylvania on the whole.  Perhaps greater comparison is warranted to examine the social and political impact of varying diversity rates on local counties, and to examine the reasons for such glaring inconsistencies.

As budget cuts loom on the horizon and city spending remains tight, public construction is a hot topic for debate.  Citizens have a reason to be concerned: construction and renovation projects are expensive, and with budget cuts predicted within institutions such as the public school system, proposed projects are met with hesitation.  A recent article in the Meadville Tribune outlined proposed plans to renovate the Crawford County Courthouse and the former Talon Inc. Plant (purchased by the city in February), with a combined cost estimate of $25 million to $55 million.  This is in the midst of other construction happenings, including the present construction on North Main Street.

Dissent is also heard from citizens who are sick of road construction hindering their transportation.  One resident, who operates a bus for the Meadville School Districts, expressed concern at the potential renovation of the Spring Street Bridge, which could disrupt bus routes and scheduling.  The bridge renovation on North Main has also garnered concerns, both from businesses and inconvenienced residents.  ”My commute time is much longer now,” said resident Suzanne Johnson, speaking of the increased traffic on Park Street and other roads to compensate for the closed portions.  Ms. Johnson expressed frustration at the difficulty in getting to work and keeping up with her childrens’ schedules with longer travel times.  She also feels that the city is not addressing key needs.  When asked about the renovations to the Courthouse and former Talon plant, she stated, “I’d rather see the streets patched.  The streets are a mess and driving is dangerous because cars swerve around potholes.  I want to see that fixed.”

See the map below, which represents about a half a mile radius, representing current and proposed imminent construction and renovation projects.  

For CMRT260- I struggled with the map a bit because I wanted to use a bigger area and more sites, but when I used a bigger map the points got lost and couldn’t be identified.  Any ideas on how to pinpoint small sites on a large map, but still convey data appropriately?

Anyone who resides in Meadville is familiar with the recent cold, rainy weather.  Unlike most Springs, when late April sees tapering rains, warmer temperatures and peeking sun, the harsh weather of recent weeks has refused to budge.  Besides being being a sore spot for those who ache for Spring, the unseasonable weather has several significant impacts on the local community.  Check out the presentation below to see some Meadville residents’ top concerns this Spring, and to learn about their impacts on local life.  

Local impacts of harsh weather on Prezi

As the weather starts to warm up and Spring is peeking out from behind a corner, many local farms are already in full swing.  As crops begin to grow and vegetables come into season, several local farms are starting off their farming season with CSAs.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and is a program in which local subscribers pay for shares of produce, which they receive on a weekly basis as crops are harvested.  Typically, members help with delivery of the crops throughout the season and are able to develop relationships with the farmers and other subscribers, learning about local food growth and seeing how crops are produced.  Subscribers enter into a contract with a farm for an entire season, thus ensuring income for the farmers and food such as vegetables, fruits and dairy for the customers.


Many Meadville residents prefer to patronize local farmers as opposed to large supermarket chains to obtain their produce.  Subscribing to a local CSA offers an opportunity for people to promote community success and shop in an eco-friendly manner, by avoiding the need for commercial packaging and shipping of crops.  ”I want to see the local farmers being successful,” one local subscriber stated.  ”Joining the CSA has opened me up to a new community, and my vegetables are always fresh.”

This particular subscriber, who did not wish to be identified, was interviewed while buying produce at a local supermarket.  She says that she will still buy some of her produce at the supermarket, due to the inconsistent nature of the CSA deliveries.  Because crops are distributed as they are harvested, the types of food offered change each week and amounts vary.  For some residents, these limitations that accompany CSA subscription discourage membership.  

One local resident, Martha Stevens, enjoys using local produce but dislikes the structure and lack of accommodation associated with these programs.  ”I travel for work, so I can’t always be here to pick up deliveries or use the food before it spoils.  I also like the freedom to plan my own menu,” she stated in an email interview.  Several area CSAs provide recipes each week to encourage subscribers to make use of the unfamiliar crops they may receive.

Ms. Stevens said that she tries to buy produce from farmers markets, but they frequently operate at times that are difficult to coordinate with her schedule.  ”Buying local just isn’t convenient.”  With an ever-increasing push to “go green” and buy local food, it remains to be seen how Meadville area farms will accommodate the growing demand and increasing constraints from consumers.

In exploring the audio project for this week’s blog, I encountered several new issues.  The biggest thing I struggled with in creating this blog post was the presence of ambient sound during my clips.  While I did my best to record the interviews in places that were out of the wind and as quiet as possible, I often found myself in places where this wasn’t possible, and I ended up having to discard several audio clips due to distracting background noise.  I am interested to hear how my classmates worked with this- short of inviting people into my car for the interview, which I felt was creepy and borderline unsafe, I couldn’t figure out how to avoid ambient sound completely.  Any tips on recording sound in public locations?

I also found the process of composing my clip to be difficult.  Often, I found, subjects would make statements that made sense to me as the interviewer, but became less clear as my questions and the background information was edited out.  I struggled a bit in maintaining a complete storyline and logical flow of information while avoiding extraneous details and irrelevant information, and found myself wishing I had time to go back out and collect more audio once I had started the editing process.  I especially learned the importance of asking pointed questions; some of the subjects took liberties with subject matter that made their statements unusable, though still interesting.

Overall, I liked exploring the use of audio and I have identified some areas that could use improvement next time.  I have enjoyed looking at some of my classmates’ clips and the different ways they chose to structure their projects, and I am interested to see the rest, as well as their reactions to my work.  I am particularly interested to hear how they dealt with the issues of ambient sound and focusing their material to create a cohesive project.