Task A
1.
Outline the information about theCramm and the reasons why it was founded.
(Comprehension) (12 Punkte)
2.
Analyse how the author conveys her attitude towards Olivia Seltzer and theCramm.
Focus on communicative strategies and use of language.
Focus on communicative strategies and use of language.
(Analysis) (16 Punkte)
3.
Choose one of the following tasks:
3.1
Assess to what extent digitalisation and the use of social media can be called one of the greatest challenges for humanity in the 21st century. Refer to the text as well as to work done in class on the impact of globalisation on culture and communication.
(Evaluation: comment) (14 Punkte)
3.2
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to many changes in the way people work and communicate. As a participant of the youth forum The Workplace of the Future, write the script for a debate statement on the topic of the forum concentrating on your visions for a healthy and enriching working environment. Refer to your own experiences as well as work done in class on the challenges of studying and working in a globalised world.
(Evaluation: re-creation of text) (14 Punkte)
Rainesford Stauffer Why Teens Are Creating Their Own News Outlets
1
In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, Olivia Seltzer, now 15, noticed a shift at
2
school. “Basically overnight, all we could talk about was politics and what was going on in
3
the world,” she tells Teen Vogue. Many of her peers in Santa Barbara, California, had parents
4
who were undocumented immigrants, so the issues in the news hit close to home. Suddenly
5
the personal felt very much political. “This massive interest in the news and politics came
6
with an equally massive gap in the media,” Seltzer continues. “Traditional news sources are
7
primarily written by and geared toward an older demographic, and unfortunately, they don’t
8
always connect to my generation.” […]
9
In February 2017, she launched theCramm, which offers a daily look at major stories from
10
around the world, distilled into a newsletter that lands in email and text inboxes each weekday.
11
Every day, she rises at 5 AM to read the news before school, poring over outlets, including
12
the BBC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, Politico, and Reuters, among others, to ensure
13
readers are receiving an “unbiased point of view with the news.” Seltzer works with an
14
editorial team that helps research stories and finds inspiring individuals to interview for the
15
newsletter, an advisory board comprised of “trusted adults,” and “theCramm Fam,”
16
ambassadors from around the world who promote theCramm. After reading, she compiles
17
about 30 headlines into the Notes app, then divvies up articles of the day into sections
18
before writing her coverage, which works to make the news “engaging, informative, and
19
easily digestible.”
20
Despite the perennial tsk-tsking from older generations who fret that today’s young people
21
are obsessively scrolling social media on their phones, a recent survey by Common Sense
22
Media found that 78% of American teens ages 13 to 17 say it’s important to them to follow
23
current events. Young adults are more likely to consume news through social media sites
24
than they are [to consume news through] traditional news organizations, online or in print,
25
but that isn’t necessarily a negative when it comes to news. Teens who use social media are
26
more likely to be civically engaged, and smartphone users who engage with social media
27
report they’re more regularly exposed to people who have different backgrounds, and feel
28
like they have more diverse networks.
29
Claiming young adults are zoning out on current events instead of zooming in ignores the
30
fact that they’re digital natives, who grew up navigating an increasingly tech-reliant culture.
31
Instead of staring at cable news, they’re pioneering new ways to engage with the stories
32
that meet them where they are.
33
This isn’t just a matter of style, like how theCramm breaks down big stories into witty,
34
need-to-know facts; it’s medium too. Seltzer explains that she noticed a lot of her friends
35
[…] didn’t check their inboxes regularly, so she decided to create an option for people to
36
receive theCramm via text. “I don’t think other news sources or a lot of people are aware
37
that young people don’t really use email addresses,” she says. […]
38
There’s a news-literacy element to young people launching their own media outlets too, which
39
is particularly important in an era where disinformation and misinformation seep into our
40
online worlds. Seltzer points out that textbooks exist for math, science, English, and history –
41
areas of study and focus from kindergarten onward. Media literacy doesn’t receive the same
42
kind of attention in school. “We don’t have any source to learn about politics and what’s going
43
on in the world,” she says. “We’re just expected, when we turn 18, to all of a sudden be able
44
to vote and know who we’re going to vote for. It takes time to actually cultivate a political
45
knowledge and standing.”
46
That’s what Seltzer plans for theCramm: She’s in the process of creating a quiz that can
47
point individuals in the direction of the political party they might align with, a question she
48
said readers ask her all the time. But as technology evolves, which stories are being told
49
(and how we’re telling them) becomes a kitchen-table issue, and Seltzer wants to create
50
even more space for young people to be news leaders. “I envision a 24-hour live-news site,
51
video features, and a team of journalists and correspondents, with everything curated by
52
teens and young adults and written in the signature style of theCramm,” she says of her
53
ambitions. “My ultimate goal with theCramm is to create a media source the likes of BBC,
54
Annotations
Language mistakes in the original text have been corrected.
NBC, and CNN, but for young people.”
Aus: Rainesford Stauffer, “Why Teens Are Creating Their Own News Outlets”, in: Teen Vogue, 29 August 2019 https://www.teenvogue.com/story/teens-creating-own-news-outlets-instagram-textmessage (Zugriff: 24.03.2020)
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Note:
Our solutions are listed in bullet points. In the examination, full marks can only be achieved by writing a continuous text.
my vision
Our solutions are listed in bullet points. In the examination, full marks can only be achieved by writing a continuous text.
1.
The article "Why Teens are Creating Their Own News Outlets" by Rainesford Stauffer published in Teen Vogue in 2019 is about the young Olivia Steltzer who started the news service "theCramm" for young people.
Introduction
- launched February 2017 by Olivia Steltzer
- offers daily information and news around the world
- team and supporters consist of an editorial team and an advisory board of "trusted adults" and ambassadors around the world
- theCramm is distributed via text messages
Main Body
theCramm
theCramm
- theCramm was founded because Olivia Seltzer saw a gap in news distribution that catered to the "social media generation"
- to offer the younger generation a news source that is adapted to the digital age and written by peers to connect to the generation
- the ultimate goal of thecramm is to create a media source that can be compared to the well-known ones like BBC, NBC and CNN
Reasons for foundation
2.
- the author of the article Rainesford Stauffer and the linguistic means she uses, to express her attitude towards the subject matter have a great influence on how the reader views the topic
Introduction and thesis
- the author relies on quotes from Olivia Seltzer throughout the article to support her credibility assertions, thus creating authority e.g. cf. l. 5 - 8
- Rainesford completes started sentences with quotes, thus the author conveys the message it is less about his own statements and implies, his doubts about the idea's reliability cf. l. 18/19 "which works to make the news "engaging, informative, and easily digestible""
- furthermore, the judgmental tone gives readers an image of untrustworthiness in the information provided
unreliability leads to doubt, uncertainty, and lack of seriousness
- the choice of words which has a rather doubtful tone, that it is e.g. not "necessarily" negative (cf. l. 25) for young people to consume news via social media and networks, again implies the rather sceptical attitude of the author towards these behaviors
- the casual use of colloquial language "tsk-tsking" (l. 20), "kitchen-table-issues" (l.49) gives the article a personal touch and makes it seem less serious
- with the statement in line 38 - 40 and the accompanying indirect appeal that the young generation must be careful when publishing news in order to disseminate no misinformation, the author therefore warns against the reliability of this published news repeatedly
- by describing that TheCramm supposedly breaks down "big stories into witty, need-to-know facts" (l. 33/34), the author illustrates and warns against the reliability, objectivity, and validity of the information disseminated, and once again expresses his skepticism
- however, it must be noted that the author concedes that the younger generation are digital natives and "are exploring new ways to engage with stories.... " (line 31) and thus acknowledges the fact that they are able to explore stories and news in a way that is denied to the older generation
Main Body
Use of language
Use of language
- one can conclude that the author conveys a rather skeptical and biased attitude toward the subject and sees several challenges
- even if he admits that the younger generation as digital natives has the ability to process facts, it is evident that he sees a problem in the trustworthiness of the information passed on
Conclusion
3.1
- digitalization is a megatrend that has profoundly changed and revolutionized our lives in the 21st century
- it has profoundly changed our lives, for example in the way news is disseminated, as Rainesford Stauffer explains in his articl
- to what extent however digitalizatio and the use of social media can be considered one of the biggest challenges for humankind will be discussed in the following elaboration
Introduction
Reference to task and article
Reference to task and article
- we now live in a world of fast-paced, continuous change, driven by digitalization
- the way we communicate, learn, interact and perceive the world has been fundamentally changed by digitalization and the use of social media
- however, do we have to face big challenges adapting to the new situation those changes
Main Body
Life in the 21st century
Life in the 21st century
- digitazition can be understood as a driver of globalization
- at the push of a button in Tokyo, New York or, Sydney
- The interconnections of globalization have not only revolutionized professional life, import and export business, but have also brought about the mixing of a wide variety of cultures.
- Proponents argue that the world has become a more open and accepting place, that languages are easier to learn, and that cultural exchange is possible without borders.
- it has created a space in which there are no borders
- the easy access to information as well as facts or researches enables individuals to educate themselves. The challenge is, though, to evaluate high quality facts, news and reliable information
- Stauffer - the article's author - also emphasized in his article that social media and online platforms also allow young people to participate more in the political process and learn through their peers
Advantages of digitalization
- polemicists, on the other hand, speak of the traditional being lost through cultural blending
- however, with the ability to be anywhere in the world at the touch of a button
- the responsibility to disseminate trustworthy and unbiased information was also emphasized by Stauffer in his article, who cautioned young people in particular to critically question what is published online as well as to maintain professional news literacy if distributing information
Challenges of digitalization
- in summary, digitalization and the use of social media are major challenges for our century.
- however, these challenges do not have to be exclusively negative in nature, but can also be seen as an opportunity to learn from each other, to develop further and to strengthen intercultural exchange
Conclusion
3.2
- the pandemic has profoundly changed the way we study and work
- even if, in our digital age, pure office work is a thing of the past and the new work is characterized by concepts
- such as remote and work-life balance, the question arises as to what exactly can be understood by a healthy and enriching working environment
- How is it characterized? Is our future fallow open-plan offices and free working spaces? What constitutes it?
Introduction
- as globalization has progressed, the pace of our lives has also increased immensely
- the world and also society have become more and more interconnected
- the pandemic has caused globalization, and digitalization, to make immense strides with it
- the previously obligatory office work came to an ad-hoc end and open-plan offices became deserted spaces
- social distancing, isolation, and online communication were the order of the day
- in our everyday language, terms such as remote work, online teaching, and google meeting are increasingly used
- while the pandemic has provided thought-provoking impulse on the so-called "revolutionisation of learning and work", it is important to remember that a healthy and enriching working environment requires a number of precautions to be taken
Main Body
changes due to the pandemic
changes due to the pandemic
- the pandemic has shown how important social interaction is also for work, so it makes sense to offer a hybrid of remote and on-site working
- a working environment in which people feel comfortable and can concentrate on their work should be offered
- experience has shown that the flexibility to arrange working hours according to one's own energy management can lead to a more concentrated, productivity and focused execution of the work to be done
- the pressure on our society to perform has undoubtedly increased as a result of globalization, affecting the expectations of both students and workers
- the latter should have the opportunity to be encouraged, supported but not overburdened in their field
- futhermore should people have the opportunity to be themselves and part of the team, to make decisions and feel that they have a purpose in the business
my vision
- people should have the opportunity to be themselves and part of the team, to make decisions, and feel that they have a purpose in the business
- all in all, it can be summarized that every individual, whether in the role of a student or as an employer, should feel valued in his or her working environment, be encouraged, but be as he or she truly is
- because this is the only way to live in a healthy and enriching environment
Conclusion