Blogging, baking and an 80,000 word-sized hill to climb

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”

My conceptual understanding of the world is changing; sometimes I feel I’m breaking down walled boundaries brick by brick and sometimes I feel the embrace of a new understanding coursing through me in a moment. This must be fairly normal for a PhD student, especially one without an undergraduate background in philosophy.

I’m writing this blog in a beautiful, aged library, surrounded by books and scholars quietly interacting with their thoughts through words. The carved, wooden beams remind me of the church where I was married, and the sense of occupying a church-like space does not only come from the hundreds of books devoted to theology all around; it is a space designed to praise the written word.

This library is situated in a residential place of study, and I feel so fortunate to be spending some time here. Three of us from our original writing group of four have come for five days to share writing practice and discuss our research. We each plan to write our theses this year, and are all facing ascent of a very large hill. Of course, when we talk, it is clear that we know so much of what we now need to articulate. But place an 80,000 word requirement in anyone’s hands and so many distractions and excuses suddenly fill the foreground. My baking skills are really improving, for example.

Today is Ash Wednesday. I am wearing the remains of a cross of ash on my forehead from the service in the chapel this morning. I have been starting my day with a service every morning, and, for me, it is the most gentle way to prepare myself for a full day of thinking, questioning and positioning. It has been so rewarding to spend 20 minutes reflecting on my place in the world, remembering those who are less fortunate and making an inward promise to live within ethical and moral boundaries. As today marks the beginning of lent, it has been all the more important to allocate that time.

The visiting resident vicar here, Caroline, bought ashes from her home parish in Gippsland, Victoria, an area that my husband and I remember fondly from our travels in Australia. The ashes, rather poignantly, were taken from some burnt ruins from the horrendous bush fires last year.

Looking south from Wilson's Prom, Gippsland. I think the most reflection-inspiring view I have ever gazed out over.

We accept the ashes on our person as a sign of repentance, and a reminder of the temporal nature of our human presence on the earth. And as we enter lent, remember that to celebrate life and all that we have, we can first reflect by stripping away indulgence to give a clearer picture of what is important. You do not have to consider yourself a Christian to appreciate this act; whilst the language of lent is caught up in the Christian construct, such thoughts and actions can benefit anyone who is a member of the human race.

So whilst I have now successfully deflected an hour of thesis writing this morning, I feel I have in a small way articulated the significance of viewing life through a post-structuralist lens.

Walking to School

Here are 6 good reasons for walking to school taken from walktoschool.org.uk
It’s healthy and it’s green:

1. Walking to school is a great way for children to increase their levels of exercise. According to the NHS 9/10 children could grow up with life threatening diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease partly because they aren’t getting enough exercise.
2. Up to 72% of children aren’t meeting the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per day; walking to school is a great way to help get those minutes up!
3. Walking to school creates an opportunity to socialise and enjoy the local environment and 9 out of 10 teachers think that a walk to school makes children brighter, more alert and ready for the first class of the day.

On our way to school

4. By taking part in the Walk to School campaign, your school will be actively decreasing its carbon imprint. The school run is estimated to be responsible for over 2 million tonnes of CO2 emitted each year which is more than the annual CO2 emissions of the Bahamas.
5. Increased rates of walking to school decrease the likelihood of accidents as well as reducing levels of pollution round the school gate.
6. 1 in 5 cars in the morning rush hour is on the school run. If we encourage walking that journey, we will make a huge impact on congestion in our towns and cities.

We live 1.9 miles away from school, and so far have managed to walk most days, and sometimes home again, since we started this new year. So on some days, I’m walking nearly 8 miles. It’s a really great feeling, although it does eat into my working time. But I’m determined to carry on, as not only is it helping the boys with their concentration levels, it’s helping me too!

Influence and persuasion in storytelling through music

The method of digital storytelling that has shaped my PhD more than any other, is that of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS). As you will see for yourself if you click on the link, personal digital stories created at CDS workshops include some form of music as part of the soundtrack. The form the music takes and the prominence in the movie is very individual to each story, but it usually always serves to heighten the emotional essence of the journey that the storyteller is taking us on. I often find I get completely lost in these stories, and have reflected on how much it is the music that’s been responsible for captivating me so deeply.

In the fourth part of the recent BBC documentary “The British Family“, I was very aware of an emotional mood to social arguments being reinforced by changing music. Now I am a big fan of the BBC and implicitly trust any documentary with their badge to convey well-balanced arguments. I also realise that it is bad practice to trust without question. And as Kirsty Young was taking us through a shift in paradigm regarding the place of children in the family in wider British society, I was very aware of a dark, melancholic and slightly discordant soundtrack giving way to something altogether more feel-good; Coldplay if memory serves correctly. As a viewer, I became caught up in the emotional sense that the place of children is so much “better” and “happier” these days*. It also became immediately apparent how the use of music in this case helped me to gloss over issues I might have with this notion and simply accept it.

As a researcher/ interested citizen of the world, of course, I can choose to read more widely about such issues, but what about the proportion of the population who don’t or can’t get onto Google after watching documentaries, or have limited access to verifiable literature? It’s just made me think about how music can heighten influence and persuasion in mass messages, as well as through campaign material that includes digital stories.

I’m not remotely suggesting that information delivered in The British Family documentary is at all misleading, instead I happened to watch it after I had been thinking about the role of music in Digital Storytelling methods. But in cases where we receive information that induces cognitive dissonance, i.e. where two or more pieces of information do not fit together, how do humans resolve this dissonance in decision-making? Festinger developed Cognitive Dissonance Theory in 1957, a well-studied theory in Social Psychology (Hogg & Vaughan, 1998). Hogg & Vaughan describe that “people will try to reduce dissonance by changing one or more of the inconsistent cognitions, by looking for additional evidence to bolster one side or the other” (p180). I wonder if the emotion associated with a musical soundtrack might act as such evidence in a decision-making process.

For several reasons, I have omitted adding a musical accompaniment to the audio tracks in my PhD case studies (primarily time and access to suitable copyright-free tracks). Actually, I think arguments from the participants have been well developed through scripting and reviewing, and fellow participants have shown to change opinions based on new perspectives in some cases, all without additional mood-enhancing music. I wonder now how much stronger an impact these stories might have had as they begin to travel further and reach more people had they incorporated music. I guess that would be another PhD….

Notes:
*I largely agree with the notion that society should be happier and will profit from children taking a far more central role in our family lives. However, placing their needs above my own is discordant with my desire to continue building a career in academia, and as a mother I struggle with this, as previous posts have discussed.

The British Family series is available on iPlayer until the 9th of March 2010. I really enjoyed watching all four episodes.

Reference:
Hogg, M. and Vaughan G. M., 1998 Social Psychology 2nd edition. Hemel Hemstead: Prentice Hall Europe