Hi everyone,
For our closing discussions this coming week, we turn to the aesthetic and social possibilities of digital culture in the form of the animated gif. For Tuesday, we’ll be reading Kate M. Miltner and Tim Highfield’s article “Never Gonna GIF You Up: Analyzing the Cultural Significance of the Animated GIF,” and Amanda Hess’ “The Silent Film Returns — On Social Media” (in the packet as well as complete with gifs online) This blog post asks you to do some producing as well as some analyzing as a way of engaging with the meaning of the gif.
Once you’ve read these two pieces, you should create a gif that illustrates some of the characteristics they discuss as central to the meaning of the gif as a genre. To do this, I recommend using the gif-making tool on Giphy or on Imgflip. Both of these sites will ask you to register — I know, I know — but you’re also welcome to use whatever other tools or sites you like to make and post your gif. You can browse around on these sites or on Youtube to find some video material that you think would be good source material, and then enter the URL for that material on the tool page, which will then take you to a page where you can add a caption, filters, etc. — be creative with these possibilities, but you should at least add a caption that helps you to focus and convey the effect and meaning you want your gif to have.
In addition to being funny, your gif should say something — try to use this format and genre to make a larger cultural point of some sort, whether that be about media, culture, social issues, the current global moment, or something else (if you like, think of this as a warmup to one approach to this week’s thread on Discord). In your post, you should include a link to your gif, and analyze it through the framework of a specific piece or pieces of writing from Miltner and Highfield and/or Hess — show how your gif illustrates the ideas and issues they’re discussing.
Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post — click the “Leave a Comment” link at the top of the post. It should be at least 250 words, and is due by 9:00am on Tuesday, April 21st. If you have any questions, let me know via email.