EXPERIMENT 2 | gabriel

TWO

The Detroit health hustle: a documentary

PROPOSAL

I will be conducting a five-episode documentary/podcast––each covering a certain aspect of the current public health problems in the Metro Detroit Area. I am not sure of the actual order; however, I am sure of what I will discuss. In comparison to my previous experiment, I believe this would potentially be a bit better in achieving a larger audience. I believe this is true as my first experiment could only be achieved by people (mostly young and tech-savvy people) who maybe found a choose-your-own-pathway game online, whereas anyone can listen to a podcast / documentary whether it is on the radio, online, or even on television (I made the script to be interchangeable between a podcast and a documentary). I believe for that reason, as well as my ability to go deep into a certain aspect each episode, will allow me to convey my message and do it a pace for people to recognize the actual health problems within the Metro-Detroit community.

GENRE ANALYSIS

My inspiration to conduct this type of experiment arose from the meeting I had last week. After I left the meeting, I did consider a few other options like an article; however, articles are boring, and, from personal experience, I found active listening to be more effective than active reading. There are many forms of podcasts that dig deep into big health topics like nutrition, fitness, and even mental health. There are some popular public health podcasts such as “Public Health: On the Inside” by Johns Hopkins University; however, these popular podcasts don’t necessarily bring all podcasts together. In other words, we wouldn’t be able to connect the messages from all podcasts and put it into one message. I personally want for each episode to, in a way, build off the previous episode, demonstrate the particular problems in the community, and how they are linked to the other aspects. I believe excellence is hard to measure as you would need a good amount of research to understand how people really feel about it. My personal goal is change, so I think that if we were to ask people who listened to it to share the feelings and they were to be more aware of the topic, then I would think I have achieved my goal. Earlier in the year, I was able to able to attend a talk where I listened to a Michigan representative about some of the issues of being a politician. One of the biggest issues was awareness. They are there to make the right decisions; however, they base those right decisions on the facts, problems, and solutions. If no one ever tells them any of the facts, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. In summary, I want people to be aware of the health divide/problems in the Metro Detroit community and an increased awareness on the matter could potentially change attitudes of people on specific topics relating to health.

SKETCH DRAFT

Episode One: In this episode I want to uncover some of the major health complications/issues relevant in the Metro-Detroit Community. This will kind of be the introduction. In it I will discuss a few of the big ones that stem from either poor governmental regulation (laws) or environmental regulation (laws from the Government and Businesses). The main ones I will be discussing include heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Basically, this episode will talk about the stem of these medical concerns, how they arose, and some things that are correlated with the data (race, gender, etc.).

Episode Two: In this episode, I will go into the government’s responsibility/approach to some of the problems. I.E. what has the government done to combat some of these problems and concerns that have come up in the last decade. I will look at it from three perspectives: 1) local government, 2) state government, 3) federal government. I will try to find whoever is more responsible for these issues, as well as why they are more responsible.

Episode Three: The role of business/pharmaceutical/medical companies on the pricing of medication which has led to the health divide in certain areas. I will also uncover whether they acknowledge that they are the cause of some of the problems, and how have they tried to fix these problems. I would look at companies that are related to some of the medical issues mentioned in episode one.

Episode Four: Detroit is home to a large refinery that has an average crude oil throughput of 140,000 barrels per day. The refinery has led to a booming economy and, unfortunately, environmental concerns which has led to medical issues. I will stem off of some of the information I discussed in episode one and two and analyze everything as a whole. Also, I will talk about the environmental effects of having a refinery and the biology that leads to some of these diseases.

Episode Five/Six: Conclusion part one and two. In this episode, I will be putting everything together and analyzing the previous information I discussed in the previous episodes and the overall message I want to give off. I am splitting it off into two episodes as I feel like if I want everything to be consistent (time-wise).

SAMPLE EXCERPT

Introduction:

Aretha Franklin “A rose is still a rose” plays. (25 seconds first episode only)

"Detroit may be known as the Motor city, but I see it as the city that influenced everything about my life. My father and his family immigrated to Detroit in 1983 in hopes to build a great life. For many decades, Detroit was seen as a rose that attracted so many immigrants from everywhere in the world: Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Albania, and even Mexico. The presence of work and a potential future for their offspring to not only live and survive, but thrive, is what led many to come to Detroit. In the last few decades, this has changed. In the last two decades, Detroit has not only seen a decrease in population, but it has also seen a decrease in economic prosperity, jobs, and, something we will talk about in this series: an understanding of health. As Detroit Icon/artist, Aretha Franklin, says, 'a rose is still a rose,' and Detroit is just a rose that become slightly withered but can rise again.

My name is Gabe and this is the first episode of a six part series called the Hustling towards Health. In this episode, I will introduce the current health problems in Detroit and how are they related to the certain demographic divides, as well as the presence of governmental, pharmaceutical, and fossil-fuel institutions." (2 minutes and 2 seconds)

Health starts where we live, learn, work and play. I want to first talk about some of the health problems Detroit is currently facing more than in Michigan and in the United States. Did you know that in Detroit, 30 out of 10,000 people die of diabetes per year? (Pause) Or that 220 out of 10,000 people who died, died from cancer every year??? (Pause) Or that over 300 out 10,000 deaths were from heart disease? (Pause)

Aside from the diabetes rate (which is still higher than the state and national average), the heart disease and cancer death rate in Detroit is almost double the national respective rates. It is shocking to see this occur in Detroit. Like other correlations, when there is a problem that is significantly bigger in a certain environment than other environments, it is subject to scrutiny. (1 minute and 7 seconds)

REFLECTION

What did you like best about working in this genre or mode? What did you find most limiting or challenging?

I actually liked this mode. I felt like a director who had full creative control. I feel like it allows me to go more in depth with certain topics and concepts. Something I found most challenging was the fact that I always left something about and wouldn’t realize it until I came across a certain obstacle. I had to go back and fix the planning of the podcast series

What were the most radical ways in which your ideas about your subject changed as a result of this experiment?

Nothing really changed in comparison to what I experienced in the last experiment; I still was a bit shocked to see some of the data from the Detroit Health department; however, I think there is still more to uncover.

How did working this experiment alter your understanding of audience and/or genre?

When I was thinking of how to make the intro, I wrote something down and realized that I wouldn’t even listen to this. With this said, I figured I should use something to attract the audience. I figured the best way in doing that was through music. I used Aretha Franklin because she is one of the most famous Detroit natives. I picked that song because it is one of my favorite songs by Franklin, I also think it matches the overall vision I see for Detroit: a great city that fell but can still get up. I wanted to integrate my vision into the intro to create a good vibe for the audience, as well as to keep it interesting. While I was writing it, I actually timed myself to see how long it would take for me to say the intro and have some part of the song play. As I had started speaking out loud, it made me realize that some parts of my actual script seemed kind of unnatural to say in a regular conversation, which is something I wanted to avoid. It allowed me to recognize that in order to achieve an audience that is active listening, my voice and script needed to sound passionate.

If you were to continue working from this experiment, what would be your next steps? Would you simply finish/polish your sketch draft, or go in a different direction?

My next step would be to obviously go more into depth with the project as I haven’t discussed some of the big topics yet or the impact of certain institutions on those topics. I felt that for this experiment, it was very important for me to find a way to get my audience to listen and understand, so I would probably find new ways to do this. I do intend on discussing some biological component in this podcast, so with my current understanding of the audience, as well as my previous experience with post-docs, doctors, and researchers breaking down complicated biological concepts into basic English, I should be able to talk about stuff I find interesting and make it interesting for others.