DR. ED RICE
Select interviews from Journalism students
"My oral history project is a class assignment. Students were interviewing elders about their media experiences and discussing how it has shaped and changed their lives. COVID-19 has impacted my project because many seniors are not great with technology or have limited access so distance interviews with people have been an issue. As a result, I've had to relax some of the requirements to include individuals that students have access to and those who have access to technology since in person interviews are out of the question....
"Modeling has been a huge help to getting the desired results as well. Also ongoing assessment and allowing students time to reflect and revise their work has been key."
Dr. Ed Rice is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Moreno Valley College.
Interviewee: Raquel Angel
Interviewer: Angel Hernandez
From Angel's reflection: Beginning this project, I couldn't wait for it to be over. The idea of interviewing someone frightened me, so I chose someone I know and love.... The biggest takeaway... was that the concept of oversaturation of media is an actual thing, and that those of us who grew upon it don't realize....We come from different eras and I think it was important as a sociology student to see that the difference these two eras is really drastic.
Interviewee: David's dad
Interviewer: David Ramos
From David's reflection: In my interview with my father, I learned quite a bit about the history of media and television from his perspective as someone who grew up in a different era of media....[H]e finds that today's music is less meaningful with less care put into the music....[He] says that people had to pull over on the road to write down song names if you wanted to know.
Interviewee: Hany Gergis
Interviewer: Sara Gergis
From Sara's reflection: I had the pleasure of interviewing my 56-year old father....I have always wondered how my dad grew up and what life was like for him. Not only is he 34 years older than me, but he is from a completely different country. My dad grew up in Egypt with Arabic as his first language, I grew up here in the United States with English as my first language....As he mentioned in the interview, he was enrolled in an Egyptian conservatory. While he was there, he was only supposed to listen to classical music, so that his ears did not get accustomed to Middle Eastern music.... This interview showed me how far media and technology has come. [Today] it feels like we have everything and more at our fingertips. But in my dad's world growing up, he only had so much.
Interviewee: Maria Miranda
Interviewer: Fernando Miranda
From Fernando's reflection:The first question I asked her was, “Was there any kind of music do you were supposed to listen to?” Her answer kind of surprised me, she replied “no, I was able to listen to it all.” I was surprised because I knew my grandparents and they were old-school Mexican, so the fact that they let my mom listen to anything, even explicit music, is hard for me to believe. Now I understand why my mom also did not really care what kind of music my siblings and I listened to growing up. I used to have friends who were not even allowed to listen to rap music because their parents thought it was too inappropriate, however for us that was not the case. In another question I learned how similar yet different it was to discover new artists.
Interviewee: Teresa Muniz Zaragosa
Interviewer: Sophia Morales
From Sophia's reflection: Getting to interview my Grandma and her experiences with different media was really special. When she was just a young girl radio and television were not as accessible as they are now. She would have to listen to her shows on the radio because she didn't have a tv. Nowadays people hardly even use the radio for podcasts or even music. The first time she owned a record player she was already married and had growing kids. I got a record player for christmas when I was fifteen because it was cool and trendy to buy records again, not because it was necessary for listening to music. At the same age that my grandma was using a radio to listen to music and her shows I was using one of the first touch screen Ipods to do the same thing. When my grandma was fourteen years old she had some of her very first experiences with the television. Her family didn't own one, but she would go to the house at the end of the street and pay her neighbors between ten and twenty cents to watch theirs with them. Now my grandma has her very own smart tv and radio in her room.