- Makers: Carlos Rodriguez Rosa, Meg Provenzale, and Jordan Guido
- Genre: Podcast
- Level: Graduate
- Program: Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media
- Course: WRIT 5800: Editing, Layout, and Design
- Instructor: Dr. Eric Mason
- Semester Created: Winter 2020
Description:
Dating Against The Machine is a podcast aimed at deconstructing online dating profiles through a composition lens using popular and scholarly sources alike. The hosts discuss matters of multimodality, representation of self, and authenticity by connecting the discussion to their own experiences. Ultimately, this funny and insightful episode explores what it means for a person to be a multimodal project.
Reflection:
This podcast started as a joke. While talking about our dating lives one night, we acknowledged the fact that using a dating app is a discursive practice and a function of the digitizing of dating. As we understand the internet grants one the ability to be whoever one wants, we thought it’d be interesting to delve into multimodal composition and embodiment in this podcast. We explored both scholarly and popular sources to uncover what the requirements are for creating a tinder profile, paying attention to what “experts” described as best practice. In addition, we thought it was important to discuss issues of authenticity within such a space, and utilized our personal experiences to ground our discussion.
Finding the right content for the podcast was a bit difficult as our structure changed drastically throughout our brainstorming process. But once we finalized our talking points, we felt strongly enough about the content to proceed. We decided we wouldn’t script the content too much, opting to make it more of a casual conversation. Though the podcast itself was modeled after our relaxed and playful conversation style, it was a bit hard to get started. There were many instances where we had to stop to get the giggles out and calm our nerves, but ultimately it was a blast to record. Part of us feels like we strayed from the content a bit at times, as it’s hard to stay focused when having a conversation. After all, regardless of how much one plans, having a conversation is harder than writing things down and thinking about our wording and organization.
Editing the podcast was a lot of fun, though it was hard to settle on what sounds to use to match the podcast’s general vibe. We understand that music and transitions are important when creating an approachable and pleasant structure to a production. There were many versions of the opening music and transition segments, but in the end we’re confident they make the most sense for what we aimed for. The hardest part about editing was really listening to the conversation in order to cut out filler words like “um” and “so”, along with cutting down pauses in speech to keep a consistent flow. As this was our first experience with a podcast, some of the transitions were unplanned but we made the best with the content we had. Overall, we’re proud of what we’ve created.
