Modern Modes of Expression and Conveyance

I've been thinking a little bit about accessible ways of conveying meaningful ideas, and I've come up with a few different techniques focused on digital media.

On the more technical side of things, we have things like MOOCs, or Massive Online Open Courses, and instructional sites like Codecademy. Admittedly, the “ideas” are meaningful in a more practical sense, but MOOCs and other similar resources nonetheless represent an important mode of digital conveyance.

The Codecademy Interface. Codecademy and other
educational sites allow users

MOOCs provide a way for educators and innovators to share information with broad audiences. They are pretty much like a regular course: there are schedules and assignments and a teacher or small group of instructors, but it's completely free, lower-stress, and catered to your interests. There are MOOCs for just about any topic you could think of. This list, for example, shows various MOOCs on fiction writing.

Instructional/educational sites like Codecademy and Khan Academy are similar to MOOCs, but rather than working on a set schedule, the student sets his own pace and works toward completing objectives based on specific micro-tasks (i.e. learn “if” statements in Javascript).

Then we get to the more expressive/emotive and philosophical side of modern media. The list of intriguing ideas and how to share them goes on and on, but there are a few that stick out in my mind based on my own experiences.

Spoken word poetry is something that I really only discovered about a year ago, but I've spent many an evening watching various videos that through a traditional form—poetry—presented in a non-traditional way—aloud, with gestures, and in this case, within a Youtube video—to convey some of the most profound and animating ideas. One of my favorite spoken word poems is Mike Rosen's "When God Happens," which talks about the attacks on September 11th. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's implied by the poem, but it's beautiful in any case.

The vlog. Yes, the vlog. A lot of times, vlogs are pretty obnoxious, and when they're not, they are either depressing or cynical. But somewhere, intermixed in all of that, is some little spark of awe, and I guess that's what makes them work. This vlogger, for example, usesYoutube videos to as a form of commentary on modern society and mainstream culture.

Animated shorts are one of my favorite ways of conveying ideas. I think that's what I'd call them at least. They provide a really compelling way of presenting ideas in a format that is media-rich and, in many cases, almost an art form in itself. TED-Ed, for example, makes a number of animated short clips to teach about various topics. I really like this video on the development of the idea of the hero/anti-hero. This Book of Mormon short is pretty neat as well, and I'm inexplicably a big fan of the message behind the video.  :)

I guess the last thing that I want to share is kind of different in terms in of its scope. It's a video of a song from a play, and I guess the reason I'm hesitant to share it is it's not anything really new. The thing is, I think the purpose of art in general is to convey messages and emotions in a way that is relatable and inspiring, and I think every great work of art has to in some way inspire awe within the viewer/audience. That's maybe a little bit more general that I'd like to be, but the reason why we create works of art is not simply to create beautiful things but to make the viewer/audience think about beautiful things--to animate that art within the consciousness--so traditional forms like the play or music or poetry, presented in modern formats, still in my mind constitute some of the most apt vehicles for expression of profound feelings and ideas. Anyway, that's all for now.