Smith Daniesha
1/29/2012
Interview
Name of Interviewee: Martha Whitaker
Age or birth-Year: 64
Birthplace: Mississippi
Relation to you: Grandmother
Date interviewed: 1/29/2012
Place interviewed: Granny’s house
Interviewed: in Person
Q. Can you describe your childhood and the popular media that you and your family used?
A. We used newspapers, we didn’t have a TV.
Q. What was the earliest memory of television?
A. When Kennedy died is when we got a television, daddy bought one then.
Q. What was the telephone like when you were growing up? What was it like to have a party line?
A. We didn’t have a telephone.
Q. can you share an experience of going to the movie theatre?
A. we didn’t have a movie theatre back then, it was still slavery.
Q. How did you and your parents know who to support in political elections?
A. My parents couldn’t vote it was still slavery
Q. What forms of communication were present at school when you were a student?
A. we use to have to write letters and talk to people around you, we really couldn’t communicate because there wasn’t a way.
Q. Do you remember what advertising and commercials were like when you were growing up? What products were sold? What messages or slogans do you remember?
A. We didn’t have a TV, we couldn’t watch one and I don’t remember anything to long ago.
Q. Things have changed dramatically since your youth. What new forms of media have you adopted?
A. I have a cellphone, internet and television sets are all over the house. Still don’t know how to work some of it, but I try.
Q. How have media made your life easier or difficult?
A. It has made it more difficult than anything because everything was much easier to use back then, now everything is electronic.
Q. How have media changed the way you communicate with family?
A. It hasn’t changed much; I can call them rather than write letters, I still communicate the same way.
Q. How have media informed your understanding of politics and politicians?
A. I read the news on the internet and watch the news on TV.
Q. How has media changed the way you shop or do your banking?
A. I still do it the old fashion way, I go to the bank and shop in the stores.
Q. What forms of media do you use for entertainment?
A. I watch workout on the Wii fit (Game), listen to music and watch TV or it’s watching me.
My grandmothers’ youth was so much different from mines because she was still living in the slavery days were they couldn’t do anything, but work in the field and come home. She explained to me that everything they did was hard labor, but they had to do it. Mississippi was the state that didn’t want to let slavery go because they felt like they would lose all there consumers for agriculture. When I was young television sets were already in the home, but I barely watched it because I was outside so much. I played with friends and only watched TV on Saturdays. My mother didn’t really want us to be under the TV set so we were forced to go outside and play. I don’t read the newspaper at all I’m so use to the TV and internet giving me the information I can get out of a newspaper. That being the only form of media my great grandmother used for what was happening in the world is kind of crazy. I’m so use to having technology being everywhere even in the classrooms. When I was younger we had books and maybe went to the computer lab once a week to do online activities.
I think the world is changing and we as humans try to keep up by building something new or creating technology. There are still some teachers that use books and try not to follow the new trend. I respect them for holding on to hope but you can’t be the only one with old school ways. Media is a big part of my life because I care my cellphone everywhere. I have heard people say “my cellphone is my life”; it really is because it’s a form of communicating with others. I feel really lost without it in my hand or in my pocket. If the media didn’t make technology seem so needed I don’t think people would have it.
