WEEK2 — A glance of Sanlian Lifeweek from 2003–2018
Because so much literature or any kinds of artworks are narrating reality in this way, in this process we can understand what exactly is happening.
It seems we all live inside our daily life, but we may don’t know anything about it.
— — Jia Zhangke
Is there anything that we can learn from film making?
The Reconstruction of Reality is the topic of a speech of Jia Zhangke, a film director and scriptwriter.
The way that Jia Zhangke had found to “reconstruct reality” was to structure several pieces of realities on a bigger scale that’s crossing different “dimensions” of society, which really isn’t too unfamiliar to people in the fields like Sociology or Anthropology.
What I was interested about after watching this episode is: as a film director, if Jia Zhangke approached reality from one side of the spectrum and stepped further by narrating and structuring contents on a bigger scale, we as designers or journalists working with data who approach reality from another side of the spectrum, what else can we do to present reality that’s “more real” ?
Is there anything that we can learn from film making?
Why did I choose Sanlian Lifeweek?
At least by now, my understandings of my country and the people living there are mainly coming from my own observations, films like those made by Jia Zhangke, and some great news reports. And a large portion of those reports or articles is from Sanlian Lifeweek, which is the media I chose to analyze for the Data Viz studio this semester.
When I was looking back, thinking about all the articles which contents I still keep in mind, I found they all hold the same feature — describing the events and the people within them with such a kind of earnest and patience that the texts are almost beyond videos recording in real-time.
There are almost no charts or maps in this magazine. The way that it told me things about reality is from its detailed description of individuals in the news, especially for the last several years. I can sense some changes, but not sure.
Things I can’t do with Sanlian given the time I have.
I don’t think I can go into really detailed contents in the articles to compare the differences throughout 16 years. And to analyze all the headlines of articles are also not practical due to my first try to collect data just for “2003” which took me a whole day.
Things I can do with Sanlian given the time I have.
Therefore, I decided to limit my exploration within the contents on the cover. And there are two important questions I need to answer.
What are the events refected on the covers?
Who are those showing their face on it?
My expectation
Finally, I don’t really expect to find out anything that’s so unexpected that can reflect the changing of society. But like anything else, as long as I’m honest enough, there are always new things that I can learn and present.
