In this fictional newspaper published five years after an outbreak causes worldwide hearing loss, Emma Weissman explores the consequences such an epidemic would have on social, political, and economic institutions. Emma’s project takes inspiration from reporting she did on the West African Ebola outbreak for a journalism class, from Octavia Butler’s short story “Speech Sounds,” and from personal experience after a virus caused her mother to lose hearing in one ear overnight. In her analysis of the project, Emma describes her choice of medium: “I envisioned an entire newspaper with multiple sections (news, features, op-ed, classifieds, letters to the editor, etc.) so that I could hit on the political, social, racial and economic implications of the epidemic in question and fit them into pre-determined sections of the paper. Furthermore, this medium allowed me to write in several different voices.”
For more information about the project design and its portrayal of a world without hearing, read Emma’s complete Project Analysis. To read the newspaper in larger font, download a PDF copy.
Valerie E. O'Brien 