Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Listening Journal 1: Too Poor to Marry


The feature I listened to on World Vision Report was entitled “Too Poor to Marry” and it was by Daniel Estrin. This feature was talking about how people in Egypt were finding themselves too poor to get married, and how this causes not only frustration in their lives but also it makes them lost motivation and let go of their goals. This piece was very interesting through its presentation, its content, and the reporter’s voice and choice of language.

The feature was close to 5 minutes which could have made it boring but in fact all of the elements in it combined to make it very interesting. The topic itself would not have been as appealing had the reporter simply just spoke about it. But through all the elements used the story came to life for the listener.

This story was very interesting to listen to for many reasons. The first is the use of nat sound. While the reporter is talking we can hear a lot of the background noise to show us the reporter was on location. Both the sound of his voice and the background noise was just right, neither of which was overbearing the other. In fact, the nat sound added a lot to the story because you could hear the sounds of the café where the men sit and it made the story come to life more in the mind of the reader. Also, there was a nice use of the people’s voices because the listener could actually hear the frustration in their tone when they were talking which added a lot to the piece. I think however, he should have let some of the people who were talking in English speak more, because then we could have heard their own story in their voice which would have made a bigger impact on the listener.

The quality of the sound was very clear and pure, as was the voice of the reporter. There was no shaking or sound interference even though he was clearly in the field. He had a tone which matched the story because it was neither too enthusiastic nor too quiet and boring. It was mellow and relaxed which given this story and the content of it, it seemed to be the best tone to talk with. He put emphasis on the important parts of the story and sometimes he just let the nat sound or the background noise really come through even when he was talking and through this he created the atmosphere and set the tone of the story for the listener.

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