This week I played around with making TikToks. I have learned how to add cover pages (this is important to help organize videos on our homepage and standard for popular accounts), how to add captions (important for accessibility, though unavailable for pre-recorded sounds), music syncing, and basic editing features. Next I will try to record our actual content.
I also wrote a script for the first video “intro to our channel + what is sociology” and for “what is the sociological imagination”. I attempted to record the first drafts of each of these videos. They are bad and I have concluded we will need to think more about the aesthetics of video making. Many videos I have seen look “unpolished”, but achieving this effect takes a lot of work (editing, lighting, background, and multiple takes for smooth flow)! I also learned that a 1-minute video should include no more than about 150 words (assuming you’re talking pretty much straight through). Condensing information has been more challenging than anticipated. The next steps will include making another script and thinking about visuals we might want for these videos.
Intro to our channel + What is sociology?
Hey friends!
I’m Katie,
I’m Kyle and we’re making this channel to help break down some sociology for you. Sociology theory is dense and not exactly always the most fun to read. We’re both a few weeks away from finishing sociology degrees and we still struggle with it sometimes. So we’re attempting to make it short and easy to understand.
So let’s talk sociology!
Hey Katie? What is sociology?
Basically, sociology is the study of social behavior. And since pretty much everything people do is social behavior (even things you do alone), there’s a LOT that falls in the realm of sociology. It includes answers to things as small as why do you stop at a red traffic light or as big as why do nations crumble?
Sociologists study everything from families to states, from petty crime to systems of education.
But at the end of the day, sociologists are answering one basic question: Why humans be doing that?
The Sociological Imagination ~~~potential issue~~~ this already has enough words for 1 min, so need to work in examples better.
Have you ever thought about how your life fits into the bigger picture? Congrats you’re using the sociological imagination.
In 1959 C. Wright Mills wrote, “the sociological imagination” which is still considered a foundational text for the field of sociology.
Mills makes the distinction between “personal troubles” and “public issues”. Mills talks about troubles and issues generally as negative things, but they don’t necessarily need to be bad.
Personal troubles are what’s happening in your life specifically. Could also include the people around you, but it’s basically the things that are directly affecting you. Public issues on the other hand are the wider society level trends. We’re talking about public opinion, systemic oppression, the national debt. These bigger picture things that aren’t really about any one person specifically but affect everybody. Mills says that you can’t understand society without understanding individuals and you can’t understand individuals without understanding the context of their society.