Blogfolio Final

I have grown significantly as a blogger over the past semester and I put more of myself into my more recent blogs then I did at the beginning of the project. I am more comfortable incorporating my views into to topics that I would have otherwise thought dull. For example, my Phaedrus blog post was challenging because my opinion was different than Plato’s and it is hard to refute a famous rhetorician. However, I now feel comfortable asserting my position in my blog and backing up that up with points of clarification.

Personally, my ethos as a writer is largely determined by the topics that I choose and my writing style. I choose topics that mean a lot to me. Even if I am given a subject in class that I am not particularly interested in, I have learned to make the post into a topic that I feel excited to write about. For example, I love to write about all social issues including women’s rights, marriage rights, political issues, etc. For me, those issues are important to be discussed and advocating for what I believe in defines my character as a blogger. Along with my chosen topics, I also define myself by my writing style. My writing style is very straight forward and not very imaginative; my creativity with writing is something that I need to work on. However, my straight forward writing is an aspect of my blogging that tells about my personality. I am a very blunt person and that shows clearly through my everyday blogging style.

Although my time with my blog has been a great learning experience, I don’t believe I will continue on with my blog in the future. Writing for me is very difficult and finding time to write a meaningful blog is hard with my schedule. If I were to still blog after this class I don’t think that my blogging would be quality enough to publish. I would possibly like to pick up with my writing once I am out of college and I have more time to dedicate to my personal growth as a blogger.

• Which posting was most helpful for your development of the final digital activism project and why?

o   My posting “Visual Analysis” was most helpful in development of my final project because I had to stretch my knowledge of digital media and visual cues in order to analyze the video “Abortion: Why Should You Be Pro-Choice.” Analyzing this YouTube video helped me with determining what elements I should and shouldn’t include in my own digital activist project.

• Which posting I stretched myself the most intellectually, technically, creatively, and/or rhetorically, and how so?

o   I stretched myself intellectually and creatively in the post “The Written Word.” I expanded on our class’s previous conversation regarding writing and the parts of writing that Plato found harmful to humanity. I pushed myself intellectually and creatively because I proposed what our generation would be like without writing and the reproductions of only oral communication.

• My best use of an image or other media to illustrate or enrich your posting, and how so?

o   In my post “Visual Analysis” I added a screen shot of the moment that I mainly analyzed. I added this picture because I wanted my readers to have a visual idea of where I am getting my conclusions.

• My favorite posting by someone else in class and why?

o   My favorite post is by “She’s A Jar With A Heavy Lid.” Her blog post named “Hot or Not?” is my favorite because it discusses two popular television series that are similar in humor, but different in deliverance. The post discusses sexist humor in The Big Bang Theory that makes it not as awesome in comparison to Parks and Recreation, which has a dry wit that makes it an awesome show without being misogynist.

The Written Word

In Phaedrus, Plato discusses the detrimental effects of writing on memory and the mind. He makes a convincing argument against the written word; however, making convincing arguments is what he did best. Personally, I disagree with Plato’s assumption that writing has a negative effect on our minds. While writing information down to relieve forgetfulness, most likely, does make memory worse, that is only a small part of writing in our world. With writing we can explore our imagination through reading poetry, books, plays, etc. We also have the opportunity to communicate with the world through media such as email or twitter. Writing, in general, is one of the best aspects of humanity.

When stories where passed down from generation to generation orally, there were many different variations of the same plot. If we still only had oral communication, we wouldn’t know what is factual and what isn’t. School would be mostly theoretical and different parts of the world would have completely different information on science, history, math, theology, etc. Countries would not be able to communicate life changing information easily and reading for knowledge and enjoyment would no longer be an activity to stimulate our minds.

Reading is proven to enhance brain activity and understanding language, especially more than one, has positive effects on the mind. As an avid reader and a visual learner, I could not imagine a world in which I couldn’t read books or notes. I understand that one of Plato’s arguments is that we cannot be face to face with the author, and therefore do not know that validity of their statements. However, that is why legitimate texts must provide citations of where their information is from. That is why sites such as Wikipedia are discredited from having reliable facts, because anyone can change the content without citing sources.

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Is Sarah Silverman Awesome? Duh!

I think that the box office proves that the Marvel production The Avengers is an awesome movie. The movie is definitely one of my favorites, and there are a few aspects that make it such a hit. First of all, Marvel does a very good job at tying all of their productions together. The Avengers movie was highly anticipated because there were many movies leading up to it such as Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. This is a branding technique that, so far, has been very effective. The Avengers movie also has special effects that are not discernable from real life and a story line that is both action-packed and comical. All of these aspects together make a production that was voted the ‘best movie of the year’ by the MTV Movie Awards.

Although superhero movies are very popular right now, some just aren’t as awesome as The Avengers. For example, The Green Lantern was a DC Comics production that did poorly in theatres. I went to see The Green Lantern and, even though I am a fan of superhero movies, was not impressed. In contrast to The Avengers, The Green Lantern had low quality graphics and a monotone story line. Also, while The Avengers had action scenes that demonstrated the group’s skill as heroes, “The Green Lantern” seemed silly with a man who could produce green weapons. While The Avengers movie had intentional humor, The Green Lantern was funny because the hero is hard to take seriously and this resulted in the movie being less than popular.
Sarah Silverman’s video “Sarah Silverman Is Visited by Jesus” is the model that my group is using for our final project. This video is effective in its message of abortion awareness because it is mostly comical, but in an endearing way. She uses clever comedy and sarcasm to pursue her political standpoint and she does this by making the pro-life view of abortion seem irrational. In contrast, the video “Abortion: Why You Should Be Pro-Choice” isn’t a good argument for our final project. The students in the video look to be about middle school age and they are not very confident in their demeanor. Most of them are reading from flash cards and there are simply facts to be absorbed. There is no aspect of the video that draws viewers in or makes an appealing argument. My project group will try to use this video as an example of what NOT to do.

 

Visual Analysis

Just based off of the visual elements in this artifact, the speaker seems to want to make a specific statement at that moment. The video is zoomed in and he is very focused on the camera and doesn’t want the audience to be distracted by any additional stimuli. Even though there is little on the screen at the moment, there is a lot to say about the rhetor’s position in the camera, the setting of the scene, and the overall appearance of the boy making this video.

 

One of the first visual elements that I notice is that the rhetor seems to be very honest in his facial expression. He is relaxed in the face and looks very confident in what he is doing. He has an open stance and wide, bright blue eyes that say “You can trust me.” His essence in this is very light and transparent. He is attractive and very young looking. He seems to be about fifteen years old and his bright looking hair and eyes have a very innocent look to them. Although he is young, he looks very sure of himself in this instant and not at conflict whatever he is about to say. His clothes and appearance suggest that he planned on making this video because he has a nice sweater on and his hair is messy, but in an ‘I tried to make it look messy because it actually looks good’ way.

The overall atmosphere of the scene is relaxed. He seems to be on a lounge chair that is placed in a back yard and it is a beautiful day outside when the video is taken. The scene doesn’t look like it was chosen randomly because is set with the light deliberately coming through the trees towards the rhetor. With his light clothing and choice of setting, the rhetor succeeds in channeling an honest and relaxing atmosphere for the audience.

Final Project

I am working in a group on the final project with Sarah and Lauren. We discussed what we would do for digital activism and we decided that we all have a common interest in abortion education for women. This is a very delicate subject for most people, but it is a topic that is very important. The access to medical clinics that offer abortions is dwindling all over the United States and women are finding it harder and harder to gain knowledge that they need to make an informed decision. We are not advocating for abortion itself, but instead trying to inform men and women of the laws going into effect that will make education on abortions more difficult to obtain. We are very passionate about making sure that women retain their right to get abortions safely and without judgment.

We plan on demonstrating the lack of knowledge that the average person has regarding abortions through a vlog. Our group has only discussed a little bit of what we plan on having in the video, but it seems that we are going to interview people on and possibly off campus. The interview will consist of questions such as “How many women do you think have abortions before the age of 45?”, not intrusive, but just getting a feel of what people know about where to go if they need help. In our class we have been learning what aspects make media popular. We decided that a vlog was the best way of getting our message across because we can make the video appealing to viewers.

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Midterm Blogfolio

I’d say one of the hardest things for me to do is look back and reflect on my own blog posts, mostly because it’s hard for me to recognize specific tendencies in my writing. However, I’ve been able to look objectively at my posts and pick out certain characteristics that have gone unnoticed to me for a while now.

First of all, I noticed that I like to pick current topics of controversy. I choose my topics this way because researching something that is controversial is usually easier than researching something that not a lot of people care about. Also, I feel like it makes blogs more interesting when the topic has more “social currency”, when the topic is current and is something people of the general public want to know about. I like to use my own personal views to pick a topic as well. I’ve done blogs over the Winter Olympics, women’s perception of themselves, and also women in the workforce. I am an advocate for women’s rights so I find it natural that I would do blogs concerning this topic; I am also a supporter of LGBT equality so the Winter Olympics interested me as a topic worth discussing.

Another tendency I have as a person is to get to the bottom line when I speak to people, because of this I chose a very plain blog design. I don’t want anyone to be distracted by my blog so much that they don’t read what’s actually on it. I like to make my messages clear and precise; so my linear blog with mute colors suits my purpose very well. However, I still chose blue as an accent color to make my page appealing to the eyes of the reader.

1. A post you revised, and why?
• I revised my first post concerning the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. At first I read over the blog and thought that I had fixed any errors in my syntax, but I found that when I read the blog that I needed to revise a few sentences that didn’t flow well with the rest of the post.

2. The posting where you stretched yourself most, intellectually, technically, and/or rhetorically, and how so?
• I feel that I stretched myself most on my post titled “Pretty Defiance”. The woman who created the poem “Pretty”, Katie Makkai, gave me a lot to think about when I was analyzing her talent as a public speaker. I stretched myself intellectually because I could look beyond her words into the meaning behind them. That post, at this moment, is the best one I have written.

3. Your best use of an image or other media to illustrate or enrich your posting, and how so?
• My best use of imagery was used for the post “Social Currency in Sochi”. I used the image of the Olympic athletes on the Olympic rings to demonstrate the bond between the participants and the visitors of Sochi. Even though there was controversy over LGBT rights while they were there, they still had fun and made the most of it.

4. Your best comment to another person’s blog, and why?
• My best comment on another person’s blog was to Metaphorical Sarcasm’s post titled “The Most Romantic Story in Congress”. I feel like by giving an explanation as to why many people where positively commenting on the blog, I gave a different perspective on what makes someone comment on a blog in the first place.

5. The best discussion-building comment posted to your own blog by someone else.
• The best discussion-building comment on my blog was written by Neku’s Corner concerning my post “Pretty Defiance”. He related the point of my spoken word video to his and I found that really interesting!

6. Your favorite posting by someone else in class (in or out of your quad), and why?
• My favorite post by far is Love and Bamboo’s “Guante- Ten Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up’”. I feel like the post opened my eyes to an issue that I wasn’t even aware of. When most people think about gender roles they think about women being subjected instead of men. Hearing the hardships that men go through was enlightening.

Pretty Defiance

In this spoken word piece “Pretty”, Katie Makkai, a seasoned spoken word veteran, challenges the definition of the work ‘pretty’ and what it should mean to girls and women today. In her performance she talks about her mother who, from a young age, told her a very narrow definition of what beauty is. Katie speaks very passionately about her mother not accepting her teeth, hair, face, nose, etc. and what great lengths she would take to correct the flaws that her own mom pointed out. At the end of her poem it is clear what her message is: Love yourself and instill in your children that beauty is not merely superficial.

I believe that her purpose in bringing this poem in front of an audience is to make everyone see the hardships that young women go through when faced with a world that defines ‘pretty’ as something you have no control over. In our world you’re either born pretty, or you’re not. Most people’s definition of ‘pretty’ has nothing to do with intelligence, personality, or creativity. ‘Pretty’ is all defined by what’s on the outside. While watching this poem I was almost taken aback by how angry she seemed at times. She was enraged by how much she had to suffer because of what her mother originally taught her about beauty. I believe that this is her message because of the sheer passion that she puts behind her words when talking about her youth and what most women have to face today because of what they are taught about the word “pretty” at a young age.
In the YouTube video, she is at a National Poetry Slam and even though that is her audience, I believe that her intended audience is women and mothers in particular. At the end of her poem she talks about what she will tell her own daughter about the word ‘pretty’. She says, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters. You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you will never be merely ‘pretty’.” It’s this assertion of how she thinks mothers should address this issue that leads me to believe that her intended audience goes beyond just a poetry slam. She wants mothers and girls alike to know the power of the word ‘pretty’ and what it can mean for self-esteem.

Picture from: familymwr

Media Mania

When I walked into the classroom on Tuesday it was surprising to find that the tables were rearranged into a typical classroom setting. Our class is so unconventional (in a good way) that seeing our room set into such a conventional form was kind of odd. Along with the table setting, I was really interested to learn that we would be working in separate groups for the duration of the class instead of our usual group discussion and conversing only through media.

The concept of conversing only through media was a really interesting idea for the purpose of our class. I found it appropriate since we were going over how to analyze comments and we would, in a sense, be commenting to each other for the period.  My group, composed of Taka, Robert, and myself, was pretty successful at determining features of interactive conversation. We did as we were told and didn’t converse physically, but only through the computer. I found it really intriguing to watch the members of my group form their ideas through media. I felt that by writing our ideas through media we could eloquently gather our thoughts versus just discussing something we possibly would be able to explain through speech.

Also I felt like talking through our live chat had us be more focused than usual. I don’t know if that’s because we were too lazy to type out social commentary or if we were not distracted by off topics. Overall, we ended up successfully creating an in depth list of features of interactive media. Some of which included the need for people to gain attention from their comments.

Even though I love our normal style of class discussion, I feel like this was a nice break from normal to explore the possibilities of conversing through media. My group got a lot accomplished and had fun along the way.

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Bias? Lets See What You Have To Comment About It

http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/the-hidden-biases-that-shape-inequality/33355

This article titled “The Hidden Biases that Shape Inequality” is attesting to the inequality that mothers face in the workforce. The author states, “…childless women were roughly twice as likely to be called back or recommended for hire by an employer.” The theory behind this discrimination is that women without children have more time to devote to work, and are therefore better employees than their maternal counterparts. I read this article on chronicle.com which, in class, we considered to be a scholarly website. We also discussed in class the type of comments that are more likely to be made on a more scholarly site, compared to a less scholarly site such as Huffington Post. The comments on this site are, for the most part, supportive of the observation being made, and formal in their grammar and syntax, and also made by authors that keep pseudonyms instead of real names. I believe that most of the authors of these comments use proper diction and syntax because of the type of site they are visiting. On a scholarly site such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, there is probably an expectation that comments be well written in order to be respected or seen as intrinsic. I have also observed that authors respond directly to the topic being discussed, build off of the idea being presented, and discuss the topic of workplace inequality in more depth. The purpose, of most of the comments that I analyzed, was to directly address the topic of the article. A few of the comments being made were to converse with each other over any remarks that needed clarification.

A particular comment that caught my eye analyzed the role of attractiveness in the workforce as it connects to motherhood. This comment reads, “I wonder if the study found some way to control for attractiveness.  It is well understood that more attractive women are paid more, especially thinner women, in professional contexts.”(mbelvadi) It then goes on to make the connection to this article by stating, “Women undergo physical changes when they bear children, and while some are able to eventually bring their bodies back to the shape they were in before pregnancy, enough do not that when dealing with statistical data, that factor alone might account for some of the difference.”(mbelvadi) I found that most of the comments engaged and built upon the original idea of this article the same way that this comment did. On a more scholarly sight I have found that comments have less informal arguments and grammatical error. I am not sure if this is because of the tone of the website itself or if this is caused by the actual people who comment on the site, but this website shows that the type of comment made on an article can be related to the website itself, as it seems that “scholarly” people would read a more scholarly site.

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Social Currency in Sochi

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-six-things-that-make-stories-go-viral-will-amaze-and-maybe-infuriate-you.html

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tonymerevick/will-the-sochi-games-be-safe-for-lgbt-visitors-and-advocates

In her article, “The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate You”, Maria KonniKova describes the attributes of a truly eye catching article. She shows that no matter what the emotion, an article needs to evoke something in the reader to make the piece “share worthy”.  The article “Will the Sochi Games Be Safe For LGBT Visitors and Advocates” by Tony Merrevick is an example of a piece that evokes emotion, provides “social currency”, and induces a “memory trigger”.

This particular article is about the upcoming gathering in Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics, and, more importantly, about the concern for the safety of LGBT visitors and even inhabitants of Sochi. For all who do not know, LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. In Sochi, Russia it is illegal for the promotion of these lifestyles and violence against these people is prominent.  Because of this, there is a risk for all LGBT visitors and advocates who are traveling to Russia for the games. Andre Banks, the co-founder of All Out, believes that under the spotlight of the rest of the world, Russia will temporarily ignore any acts that they consider “homosexual propaganda”. He says, “I think on one hand, the Russian government has been intentionally vague on how they are going to deal with any kind of political discussion related to LGBT issues. On the other hand, they have an incentive for it to go well and it’s hard to see them policing Olympians at the Olympics.”

Tony Merrevick draws on some of the characteristics that were described in Konnikova’s article for his own piece. Merrevick’s article has definite “social currency”, the Winter Olympics are a trending topic right now and by bringing some issues of the games to light the audience can feel up-to-date on current events. “Social currency” can also mean that the audience can spend their “currency” with others. This controversy over LGBT violence is a topic that many people are likely to share with one another. This issue also provokes anxious and even angry emotions within the audience. In America most of us are brought up with an understanding of equality and this violence towards homosexuality in Russia brings out a lot of emotion in U.S. citizens. Overall, there is no surprise that this article is a top pick on Buzzfeed. It evokes powerful emotion and gives the reader a sense of knowledge about the upcoming Olympic Games.

“If Harry Potter taught us anything, its that nobody deserves to live in a closet”- Justin Burlin

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