Presentation Development

Here are a few resources for presenting in the digital age. :)

1) find a ted talk or two-watch them and see how they do what they do

2) Use the speech outline to help you construct your presentation notes (in Canvas)

And most important-
...keep it simple-remember you are communicating with an audience about your research
...get rest and a little bit of exercise before your presentation
...breathe
...adapt if things do not go as planned
...you are human and the audience members who understand that are your target audience :)

In relation to the Harold piece on pranks and parody, and marketing and advertising, I came across this site..and these videos too.

See what you you think!

First there's this, I also shared it on my facebook....

A company making fun of advertising...to advertise. 



rigggghhht. Don't get me wrong, the poking fun at cliches is clever and does a great job making a point, just wish it wasn't advertising low fat yogurt.


Next up...The Illusionists, a short documentary "about the body as the “finest consumer object” and the pursuit of ideal beauty around the world. Or: how corporations are getting richer by making us feeling insecure about the way we look." (taken from the website.) 

THE ILLUSIONISTS documentary – teaser from Illusionists Documentary on Vimeo.

Why not Hate the Player?

Okay, after reading this...there are several things that (if I have read and understood them correctly) have blown.my.mind.

1) That these "Gold farmers" that are paid to "play online all day, every day, gathering artificial gold coins and other virtual loot that, 'as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash." really exist!! (133) IS THIS FOR REALZ?! ....mind blown.

this first one, which leads into my next case of mind being blown is making my insides cringe and shudder...and my ethic and moral little person on my shoulder want to scream and shout and jump up and down and sit down and have a talk with every player in WoW that has anything to do with the machinima ---->(which, "allows users to extend its [the games] representational or narrative space.." (135))....back to my mini rant...I want to sit down with any players that support or created that "Ni Hao" video! Mind if I continue my rant on this one a little? Well..I'm going to, forgive me for getting sidetracked, BUT. I feel like the players in WoW that feel the need to discriminate, torment, kill-off or whatever else they may do to these "farmers" or Chinese players are only doing this out of fear...fear of the Chinese players who are playing as leisure players, that I hope to goodness are kicking some ignorant naive WoW players butt. The players that head hunt the farmers only go for the farmers because they are an easy target, they know (okay, maybe they don't, I'm honestly not that familiar with the game, but from a non-gamers point of view..)they cant spot out a Chinese player, and even if they could, they know better than to mess with them..if they are playing within the same server. Well...okay that was basically the 2) that I was going to get to..but I kind of got a little worked up as I was typing..So to make it clear:

2) That there are players in this virtual world that want to (and somehow manage to) bring an aspect of our reality that our society has been trying to be rid of for decades. Why I ask?! WHY?

Okay, sorry for my rant..and I apologize if some of the things I said were incorrect concerning the game..just my understanding from the reading, and my opinions. The Asian culture is beautiful, serene and DESIRABLE, to think that so long as these "'farmers are figured as unwanted guest workers within the culture of MMOs," that this beautiful culture is seen as a threat to the beauty and desirability of the virtual space is absurd. What's threatening is that racism is being dragged into virtual spaces.

Cyber-Warfare..Oh boy

Okay, I'm going to be brutally honest..and I hope no one takes offense to this, but this was one of THE driest (most boring) pieces we have yet read. I'm sorry, this just killed me, like yes it's pretty important and has quite an impact on the field we are in..and the world in general, but I just couldn't do it..I mean I read it (okay, more honesty-about 83% of it..ok 73%!!)

Now, from what I read there are several big terms (that I hope we go over in class/not really) but it discussed terms such as belligerent humanitarianism, warhawk hysteria, traumatized nationalism and realpolitik...now can't say I went and looked these terms up, but the gist of all of this is that the US and China have both been relying on forms of rhetoric to influence how their citizens and our global society perceives them. Also, the main point of this article was this whole concept of China either cyber-spying on US and Google, or cyber-intrusions, whatever they finally decided to term it...they claim it was happening, happening so that China could begin forming their own Silicon Valley by stealing Google's algorithms...another concept I picked up on was that (and I may be confused) but that there was argumentation over whether this whole situation was Google pulling away from China..or China pulling away from the world (aka Google). And an overall concept being international rights and free speech- but as I said, I gotta continue to be honest..I was not into this reading at all...

one quote I did like, when it was talking about Hilary Clinton's speech concerning belligerent humanitarianism, was how she began, "the spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet." and that the US "stand[s] for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas." (417) Oh! and another one from the same page, "the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the Internet. Instead of division, it stands for connection." (which was after she made a reference to the Berlin Wall.

Anyways..on to the next readings...sorry for the delay, Charlie Kang has been stealing all of my attention.

Harold

This essay gives many instances of "pranks" that have occurred in the media world as a form of activism. Commercial "pranksters" rhetorically challenge brands and corporations, in hopes of making them better and not turning into a monopoly. These pranksters, however, are taking the idea too far, and becoming more comedians than social activists.

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of pranking because the pranksters are not only attacking a certain product that they might not agree with, but the brand as a whole. I suppose it becomes a question of whether they are doing that intentionally or not, but I think that maybe sometimes they ruin the reputation of a brand a lot faster than they do a product.

Do parodies have a lot to do with the same idea of pranking? I thought about the Harlem Shake right now, and how it is a form of a parody and how people seem to think it is funny. This takes away from the original Harlem Shake, as many pranks that were mentioned in this article take away from the original brand. Imagine if those pranks on brands went so far that we forgot what logos like the Nike Swoosh are.

Nakamura

Racism in a video game... This isn't that much of a surprise to me, to be completely honest. This is just the first time I've heard of anyone calling attention to it. Actually, come to think of it, almost every video game that I have seen is racist in some way or another. Just think of games like Grand Theft Auto - one of the most popular and best-selling video games there has been on the market; extremely racist against African Americans. It is even more odd to me that this appears in World of Warcraft against Asians, when the majority of MMO games originating in Asia.

I thought it was interesting how Nakamura thinks that it is good for the video game industry if cheating occurs. Cheating keeps users from getting "stuck" in a certain part of the game and bored with it. I can remember a lot of games that I had played when I was younger and got really bored with because there was no way to get passed a certain point (also, I was way too stubborn to ask my older brother for help).

There is no way in the game to know if a player is Asian or not, so how is it bad that the farmers in the game are a racist remark? Asians who play World of Warcraft can choose to be any other player of the game can't they? Not only are the farmers in the game made to look and sound exactly like those of Asian heritage,  they are made to be one of the most hated players in the game, making users who play the game who may not be very familiar with the ethnicity biased.

My real blog posts are coming up soon...

This article just totally distracted me....check it out ladies. Gotta getchya' rep up!

Your Reputation Will Be The Currency Of The Future

Hartnett (Stephen, not Josh)

When I read the author of this at first, I really hoped it was by Josh Hartnett....

This article takes a very bold step in expressing something that I think a lot of Americans share the same thoughts on: the idea that American politicians are very quick to accuse others in a much more dramatic way than other countries' leaders. This case is illustrated very well when they mentioned the "cyber-war" against China. Google is not a politician, but naming China as the source of the attacks very early on set our country into a seat of attack. Accusing their whole country (as apposed to a group of people in their country) was not a very thought-out act and the rhetoric of Google was sacrificed when they told China that they would redirect all web searches coming from their country to an un-filtered server.

The Google issue was something that makes us realize that, rhetorically, a global website can challenge foreign relations and investing. We, as Americans, have been thinking of Google the same way that we do many of the politics in our country. We see black and white - right and wrong, we do not see the grey area in between, and China see's us as a place that does not question our corporate leaders. Google is no exception. The scandal that broke out between Google and China was not questioned. American leaders, such as Hilary Clinton, were quick to defend Google and accuse others of being guilty without fulling knowing the extreme circumstances at hand.

I find it very interesting that America has always seen itself as a world leader in every aspect. Rhetorically, this is not a very good choice because we are constantly questioning other countries' digital sphere, but not our own.

A little cheat sheet...

As I was reading the Carnegie article, I noticed a few terms came up that we have used in this class a lot, and I thought that they did a grew job of defining them. So, I'm going to list them here!

Interface: a place of interaction, whether the interactions are between the user and the computer, user and software, computer and software, user and content, software and content, user and culture, and the user and other users.

New Media: provides users the means to generate, seek, and share content selectively, and to interact with other individuals and groups, on a scale that was impractical with traditional mass media. A combanation of the artifacts or devices that enable and extend our abilities to communicate; the communcation activities or practices we engage in to develop and use these devices; and the social arrangements or organizationas that form around the devices and practices.

Multi-directionality: a mode of interactivity associated with with systems that have been networked and nodal  points of contact and interaction.

Hypertextuality: a means for linking the objects.

Intertextuality: a method by which objects can draw upon and refer to other objects for contextualization and to build meaning.

Interactivity: the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages.

Review: consists of asking users to fill out a form in which the user rates and comments on a product or service.

Digitization: gives rise to the mode of manipubility.

Presence: a move of interactivity that materializes as a result of the convergence of media with computer technology that has formed a new media.

Spacial presence - a user's sense of being present in a "place" or a meditated environment distinct from the place in which the user physically exists.

Schemas: cognitive frameworks that map the experience and outline the scripts and actions required for given situations.

Flow: a condition in which an individual loses a sense of self and time and become sintensely focused on the task at hand.


The article was about how new media functions rhetorically today and how we as users of new media can correctly view these new means of interactivity in a way that develops our understanding of multi-directionality. This means that not only we as users of technology interact with a computer, or a website, or any other platform, but it also interacts with us and others. This creates a web of users interacting who do not even realize they are - a blind network on the world wide web.

Pranking Rhetoric - Harold

This article introduced a lot of new ideas to me. The idea of undermining the rhetoric marketing companies introduce intrigues me, because I studied marketing last semester and I know how much effort goes into putting on a marketing campaign. Harold then talked about the ad campaigns put on by The Gap and Camel cigarettes and how they were parodied. I like the idea of taking these messages and challenging them rhetorically, especially Camel cigarettes, because I've never been an advocate of smoking. I do like how Harold classifies pranksters as being more playful and provocative than negative and harmful, because I do think that when people prank, they (usually) mean it in a good way or to advance some aspect of culture.

The difference that's given between parodists and comedians is also a lot of food for thought. I never really considered the difference between the two, but I knew they were different somehow. To say that parodists try to change things and comedians only try to bring situations to light is a good way of putting it, I think. Most comedians I've heard at least just seem to poke fun, without too much rhetoric. Parodists, on the other hand (especially political ones), are meant to inspire a change in point of view.

The Mattel prank was quite outstanding. I grew up with Barbies, but from what I remember, I was never pressured into thinking they were the norm, nor was I convinced I had to become a Barbie. (That was largely due to how athletic I was and positive reinforcement from my mother). I do think that some young girls don't have positive role models to look up to, and can rely on Barbie as their ideal woman figure, which isn't the best message to begin with. The idea that the talking Barbies said things like, "I love shopping", or "Will we ever have enough clothes" really irritates me. I'm sure the creators of Barbie or the people that run Barbie aren't as vapid and vain as they made Barbie out to be. I don't understand why they couldn't put more positive sentiments into their dolls.

I think by switching out the G.I. Joe voice chips with the Barbie ones is a good way to show just how inappropriate a message that is for young girls (or boys for that matter - believing they need to be tough and violent in order to be a "real man"). This is because when you see a thin doll with blonde hair and breasts, the phrases may not seem so strange, but when you take them out of their plastic limbs and put them into a G.I. Joe, they seem ridiculous, which they were to begin with. Enough about that rant though, and back to the article.

The idea of pieing the affluent business people is a bit strange. Yes, I think it would jar them and take away their credibility for a bit, but I don't think it's a particularly damaging thing to someone's reputation - especially if they handle it lightly and laugh it off in the face of cameras. I remember a high school fundraiser was to pie a teacher (or administrator) in the face, and they volunteered for it! I think the rhetorical message it can send can be a strong one, however.It just amazes me how creative some people are. The idea of the Truth campaign I also really like. I've never seen the allure to smoking other than it can seem "rebellious", as is mentioned in the article. The Truth campaign, I think, is rhetorically genius because it turns the situation around to the people who are smoking are following the norm, and those who chose not to smoke are breaking the mold and being rebellious. I think that's a good way to look at it, and I think that's why it's been a strategy that's gotten recognition.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game - Nakamura

This article was interesting to read, for sure. As I'm sure I've said before, I don't play video games like World of Warcraft, nor do I particularly find it interesting, so much of this article went over my head. One of the things I liked, however, was the abstract at the beginning of the article. It helped to give me a deeper idea of what I should do with my abstract, once I weave my paper together. It was very clear and concise as to the main points, and I hope I'll be able to do that with my own abstract.

I knew people cheated in video games (as my brothers have always been video gamers) and sought out cheat codes. What I didn't know was that people were making money from selling aspects of the game. I found this really interesting. Nakamura called it real-money trading. First off, I fail to see how anyone could be so addicted to a virtual game that they would be willing to spend money to level themselves up or further themselves in the game. To me, that just seems like a waste of money and like it would take some of the fun away from actually playing the game. I wouldn't want to be seen as a "good" or "high" player without having earned it.

This article largely talked about race, however. It talked a lot about gold-farmers and Chinese. One quote I liked particularly well was "calling someone 'Chinese' is a general insult that seems aimed more at one's style of play than one's real-world ethnicity". This sounded like (excuse me for the reference) Tech students driving behind someone and saying, 'they're a bad driver, they must be Asian'. Similar to the video game world, you have no way of knowing who is in the car unless you physically pass them. In the video game world, you can't ever actually see the person. It seems as though people are putting race into a situation that can't really be categorized by race.

The article also mentioned people that other players assumed to be gold farmers and noted that the other players try to kill or harm that person, for no cause other than they MIGHT be a gold farmer. This is really interesting to me because (and maybe I would know more of the patterns if I were a player) how would anyone be able to make that judgement and assume that a player is Chinese? The International Gaming Exchange is mentioned as being American in this article and as being "one of the largest re-sellers of gold, avatar level-ups, and other virtual property", yet the Chinese are still taking all the blame. It's mind boggling to me.

The article also mentioned that the avatar of a female dwarf has been associated with Chinese gold farmers, and now is "unplayable" as a character because of the way other players view them.This is interesting to me for several reasons. If I were to join WOW and decide I like the female dwarf the best, how would I know that puts a target on my back as being a Chinese gold farmer? I wouldn't. I would then be playing and other players may be extra wary or violent to me for that reason. Also, the fact that enough gold farmers assumed this avatar to make it "unplayable" is incredible to me. I'm not sure how many avatars there are, but I would think there would be enough for the gold farmers to spread out and choose other avatars as well.

Google and the "Twisted Cyber Spy" Affair - Hartnett

This reading didn't hold as much allure for me as the previous article, since I'm not into politics at all. I did get some useful hints about the structure of an analysis, however. Plus, some of the content held interesting ideas about history. First, Hartnett set this article up by giving plenty of context, so people like me, who don't follow politics or even a lot of history, for that matter, can understand where the article is headed and what it will talk about. Since I'm assuming my audience to not be Pinterest users, I will follow this strategy.

Hartnett also uses phrases such as: "my analysis also demonstrates", "as I will address in the epilogue to this essay", and "I proceed with the understanding that". These sort of phrases are waht I was told never to use during elementary, middle, and high school because they were too "personal" and detracted from the academic content of the article. Now, however, as I have grown through this class, I feel much more confident in using such phrases, and also recognize that saying these sort of phrases also helps to provide some sense of a disclaimer for the reader. What I mean is if I say this is my idea, then readers will know it's my analysis, and take it for what it's worth. So I thought that was cool.

He also described how he would do the analysis, saying it "unfolds in three steps". I like this as well because it gives a clear idea of direction to the user. Throughout the article, Hartnett also gives more context information, as well as historical context as it relates to the current topic at hand. I like that. He also talks about the good and the bad of the situation, which helps to remove bias and strengthen the overall argument by rhetorically challenging the user to see what he sees.

Like the previous article, this one also uses headings. I think I'll keep mine in my paper so the reader will have manageable chunks of information, as well as direction as to what the next chunk is and how it relates. I've noticed that as a reader, I like the headings. I also found his vocabulary to be inspiring, as he uses words such as "dovetails" on page 425 near the bottom of the first paragraph. I think that adding words such as these, the article as a whole gains another dimension, because no matter how small such a thing as vocabulary seems, it gives a different feel to the text, and I like that.

He also addresses the reader in his analysis, saying "readers should recall". This stood out to me because he's bringing us in with the information and making it personal to us. I thought that was a good strategy. The last thing I want to mention is his epilogue. He takes all the ideas and rants throughout the paper and ties it all together, bringing it back to the main point of the article. I think this is the part I may struggle with most with my analysis, so I enjoyed reading his and seeing how he did it.

Interface and Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interactivity - Carnegie

I liked how this article started with an abstract. It gave me an idea of what an abstract is, since I have never written one before - it's always just been an introduction. I also liked that all the headings were numbered. I felt that the structure of the paper was very clear and easy to follow. That being said, there was a lot of information in this piece that I really liked and feel I will be able to use for my analysis.

I like when the author says, "the interface functions rhetorically by asking how it makes the audience/user "well disposed, attentive, and receptive" (Cicero, 1960)". I think this idea, shared by Cicero and Carnegie, is fantastic, since it's about transforming the user simply by interface. I can make a similar argument about the interface of Pinterest. This article also distinguishes between physical human-computer interface (known as HCI) and user operation. I'm in a Usability course right now, so this is all very familiar with me as well (and I've actually quoted some articles from that class in some of my digital rhetorics papers). I think the distinction between the two terms is good, because the user centered operation is defined as more the screen with it's images, not so much the mouse or keyboard, which both affect the screen.

I also agree with the idea that the good interfaces are the ones that are not noticed by the users. This made me think twice about Pinterest, however. When I began using Pinterest, the first thing I noticed was the interface  but I noticed it because it was very different than anything I had seen before, and it worked well. This led me to think deeper about Pinteret's interface. This article also spoke about "the rhetorical implications that interfaces may have", and I like this thought because Pinterest's interface can very well influence it's users to a certain action, though the action may be different depending on the needs of the user.

As I'm looking through this article and my notes, I see so much that that I really like, and to talk about it all in detail would take way too long, so I'm just going to post the ideas I found interesting and that I feel could apply to my analysis. The interface as a place of interaction, what new media provides users with (in terms of being able to share content), and the engagement of the user in the interface. Also, the three modes of interactivity: multi-directionality, maipulability, and presence. Carnegie also spoke about the interface as being an exordium, which I liked because I'd never heard of the word before. This article also asked several questions in it's conclusion, and all of which were great to create more thought, which, I think, was the point.

LIFE IS MESSY.

Okay,

So first off, loved our class meeting today, and I apologize for the tangents that did not allow us to discuss the articles fully. However, I feel that when we post about them on here, it may even be a better medium to "discuss" the articles in (just think, no interruptions, and tangents are less likely) Anyways...

The Grabill and Rigg article was an analysis done on a scientific/museum blog. The researches were studying and analyzing (and discussing) a couple key things:

The challenges we face methodologically when trying to study engagement in open digital spaces.
      -and to do this they articulated the museum blog Science Buzz      -specifically, they were looking at identity leverage w/in the space and how it is a rhetorical agency
      -they argue that "int he context of open forums like Science Buzz these identity performances are crucial as rhetorical agencies, creating space as they function to move discussion."

(*yes, I got this information from the abstract, but trust me, I READ THE ARTICLE--the abstract just makes the summary of the article so concise it's hard not to reference it.)

What I found in the article was how in-depth the went into their study. They looked as specific instances ("threads") within the blog, while keeping in mind that they are only just barely scratching the surface of everything held w/in it, they express that in order to gain an understanding for their study they must break through this constraint and, in simple words, work with what they got. And what they got, as I was saying were specific "threads" of conversation, where they analyzed who contributed to the conversation, what that users background was (for ethos recognition), and attempted to analyze how their contributions to the thread "move the conversation." (109)

I could go on about this detailed articulation they made, but find it more helpful to mention several of their key terms and concepts they discuss, which I will only be listing for now...

-Argument
-Questioning
-Identity (performance, community, connections...)
-Information

And they intertwine and relate all of these terms within their analysis, which shows that for our next paper, we will have to similarly define terms and use them in support of our research question. I've also learned from reading this article that there will be many instances where new information and questions will be uncovered and that in order to remain focused on my question I may have to save certain new questions and concepts for later research.

Anways..I have a website to code from scratch because DreamWeaver did not get me through the night. (NOTE: GARY WRIGHT reference)

Messy Rhetoric: Grabill & Pigg

This article was also very interesting, and parts of it, I feel, are also applicable to my paper. The first thing they said that I really liked was "identity is performed and leveraged in small, momentary  and fleeting acts". I like this because first, it makes sense, and second, within Pinterest, everything you do could be considered a small, irrelevant act. I also liked the quote a sentence beneath the previous one, reading, "those who do not hold traditional forms of expertise participate by performing identity in ways that extend beyond establishing individual credibility". I like this one as well because, again, with Pinterest someone who isn't an expert at crafts may feel the need to step up more and re-pin things as opposed to producing original pins.

The authors also talked about learning, which I enjoyed. They said that "people are motivated to learn new things when they need to learn them". This could apply to many things in life, so I'm going to apply it to my project. Until yesterday I never cared or needed to know how to get spray paint off concrete, but when the problem arose, I was motivated to learn how to remove it. I believe the same applies to crafts and DIY's. People get bored or want to do something crafty, so they're motivated to find something. The authors also noted that motivations are different, meaning the users are "quite diverse and not at all coherent as a group". I like this quote, however, I have to disagree in general terms. I believe that for maps, this is very true. People will want to take different ways. However, for other things, such as social media, it is relatively easy to get a large group of people moving in one direction. With Pinterest it's the same way. The board is DIY & Crafts, so all who use it are motivated to find or share DIY's and craft ideas.

I also found the section where the authors discuss identity in academic papers, saying that all too often other authors fail to discuss it, resulting in the "lack [of] descriptive validity and coherence". This made me smile, since my whole paper is going to be about identity and I'm going to try to tie everything back to identity. They also termed or used, identity-in-use. This was interesting for me to read about, since I've never thought about how an identity is constructed before this project. The authors said, "identity is understood as an "emergent product rather than the pre-existing source of...semiotic practices"". This is another perfect quote for me, as I'm going to be arguing that users bring their own identity to Pinterest, but leave with a different identity that is shaped by the medium, a new identity that has emerged.

Two more quotes I want to briefly state are: "participants often do not build fully formed or coherent portraits of who they are as people, but rather draw on parts of their identity", so they don't bring their entire personality, rather it comes in pieces, such as with different re-pins, likes, or comments. Another was, "online "spaces" and dynamics enabled multiple identities", this is my whole argument, but dealing specifically, so I like this quote. A quote found further in the paper says, "identity performance act not only as ways to convince an audience of one's credibility or status but also as catalysts for more conversation". I like this, since within Pinterest, all pins are essentially starting a new conversation, and each time it is re-pinned, the conversation is pushed forward.

Urban Mappings and Messy Rhetoric

There is a challenge in studying rhetoric in open digital spaces. In "Messy Rhetoric: Identity Performance as Rhetorical Agency in Online Public Forums" they discuss the issues and benefits in engaging in public discussions online. From a rhetorical standpoint, forums allow public issues to be questioned and a discussion keeps going and this discussion turns from talking about a certain group, to that certain group responding. Unlike traditional text, online forums can be a discussion between the author and the audience can respond.

The specific example that they used was about a forum called Science Buzz and a specific forum posting by someone wanting to know about the HPV vaccination because they could not find a reliable source to learn the side effects of the drugs. While people can use forums as a way to get their questions answered, there is no guarantee that the people responding are a reputable source. Sometimes, like in the case of the HPV article, there will be people who like to "troll" posts as well, and make remarks that do not pertain to the actual discussion.

In "Urban Mappings", Rice talks about the challenges in evaluating the rhetoric of mapping software. While the software represents something that is concrete, it can easily be ignored and manipulated. For instance, he uses the example of taking a different route in Detroit because he knows that route better and likes that this route is slower and safer for him. Although the software was telling him to take a way that less than half of the time of the way that he likes, he knows this route better and can associate it with personal meaning. Mapping software is different rhetorically than any other digital space because it corresponds to something that is concrete, but it can be changed to another thing that is also concrete. So, whether it is "right" or "wrong" is never quite possible to determine; it puts more responsibility in the hands of the user.

Urban Mappings: Jeff Rice

This reading was really interesting to read, because it's about a city that I grew up near to and grew up hearing about. It was also interesting to read about things such as Google Maps and other mapping software, since I've never really thought about them before. I like a lot of the points Rice makes in this analysis, as well as the way that it's set up. Several of the points relating to identity I believe I will be able to use in my own analysis, which is helpful. He says things such as, "it's not enough to have a supply of things to say, but it is also necessary to say it in the right way", and the user is "cutting and pasting, combining, and appropriating. Through such acts, Dickinson write, the rhetor creates "a stylized invention of the self"". I love that second quote, because while not related, it fits so perfectly into my paper!

He also talks about personal interactions and associations with not only places, but also mapping software, saying that while Google Maps tells him to go through Path A because it's quicker and the traffic is smoother, he prefers to take Path B not because of the speed limit or number of stop lights, but because of the images he associated with the path, the music and people he hears and sees, and the feelings he get. I found this very interesting, because I do the same thing, but have never thought about it before. It made me think of when I'm driving with a GPS device and take a "wrong turn", it'll try to reroute me to a new street, when in reality I'm taking a "back way".

Additionally, he talks about invention and the originality of ideas a lot, which for my analysis will be helpful, since the particular aspect of Pinterest that I am looking at not only inspires, but expects creativity and innovation from its users. He also says, "ideas must be appropriate not only to the situation but also to the proper place within the discourse". I love this quote and think it'll work well in my analysis. Regarding invention, Rice says, "one must be able to imagine ways to connect information that previous set-ups have not yet allowed for". I also like this quote because I believe that Pinterest (at least the DIY and Crafts board) is all about the birth of new ideas.

Structure is another thing that he discusses, and it related to my project in that the structure of Pinterest is very loose and all over the place, but at the same time it is a very carefully calculated layout and is always the same. It's fascinating to me how both those statements can be true, but when I analyze it, they are. One thing he says is that the "structuring of the page affected the structuring of ideas". This I like as well, since (I'm relating it back to Pinterest again, bear with me) the layout seems like its very free flowing and unorganized, users may feel more inspired, feeling like they don't need to conform to a regular or stiff layout, when in reality, the layout is very structured. Rice also says, "invention situated within a database structure affects a specific kind of identity", and I believe this to be true, and related to my project.

While Researching...

I found this fun little info-graphic.

http://www.welivesecurity.com/wp-content/media_files/Google-Privacy-Infographic-780p.jpg

Please excuse my brief digital rhetoric tangent.

So,

 as I am reviewing the different research and study methods  (and of course checking emails constantly)....Not only am I realizing the crazy amount of procedural and invitational rhetoric of practically everything that we use on the internet. Every thing from the bright blue links our eyes are drawn to click on, to the little red (Facebook), orange (Instagram), (I don't know what color  Pinterest notifications are...yet,) but all of these tools and mechanics are constantly inviting us to use them, and then the whole format and structure of the internet is a procedure we go through...)--Now I just need to apply this to my paper.

Also, how inviting is it for us to just use our Google Calendar or our phones to remind us of everything from assignments due to coffee meetings, are we too lazy? busy?  ...overwhelmed maybe?

IDK!

Anways, back to work! Sending good vibes for everyone's paper!


Sam

Equal Signs and Facebook Photos

So I'm guessing everyone has heard on some level, but two important cases will are in front of the Supreme Court that have to do with gay marriage and marriage equality. You've probably heard of this because of the viral movement that has happened on Facebook and Twitter (and maybe other sites but I know of those two for sure) and that's changing your profile picture to the equal sign.

I wanted to post on here about it not only because I find it an interesting piece of digital rhetoric but also because I feel that this post will stop me from screaming at people on Facebook who are commenting on it and have no idea what they are talking about.

When I first saw the equal signs instead of my friends profile pictures I wasn't sure what it was about. A quick Google search quickly filled me in. I had heard about DOMA and the other case before, but I had forgotten because i had been paying attention when it was first said that they would go before the Supreme Court; and while I don't know much about that branch of our government I am aware at how freaking long it takes them to actually look at a case, so it had slid to the back of mind during that time. However, this movement reminded me and I quickly changed my profile picture and started keeping an eye on the news.

Many of my friends changed their pictures as well before and after me. I even had one friend message me and ask what it was about. I've also noticed some interesting variations; among which are parodies I like and don't agree with (but that's a different post).

There have also been those who appose this. Most recently I saw a status by a Facebook friend that said she found it annoying she now had to read people's name's because they all had the same profile picture of two rectangles (she's a math major and she feels that an equals sign does not work the way people think it works). What made really got to me was a comment on their status where someone said something along the lines of 'vote how you want but changing your profile picture won't change things'.

I don't agree with this; hence why I'm in this class, really. I don't agree with the idea that changing your Facebook picture won't change things because of what I did the first time I saw those pictures; I Googled what they were about. I highly doubt I was the only one. Other people on my feed had been sharing articles and talking about it as well. The fact this profile movement has worked so well has caused a lot of the articles that people are sharing to be written. It has caused a friend to ask me about it and get informed about something he knew nothing about. It's a response that has caused responses - the parodies. It's caused status posts that I have agreed and not agreed with, and caused discussion that is specific to this part of the LGBTQ+ movement and ones that have to do with other parts of the movement.

Will people's profile pictures decide the these two cases? No. The changing of the profile picture is just one of the many actions I am taking in response to the discourse surrounding the situation.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on this. What do you guys think?

Methods of Analysis

I was really looking forward to getting a lesson on Confucianism while reading this article, but turns out, that's not what I would be reading. Ding more than anything discusses the different methodologies of analysis' of rhetoric, what comparative rhetoric is and while explaining and describing in detail the methods she used to to research Analects, she helped me undersand what our next paper really is all about.

So rather than searching for the information and discourse buried within her amazing research methodology descriptions concerning Analects,  I attempted to conceptualize the structure of the paper itself. First, his introduction of comparative rhetoric and its methods and the criticisms of it (while sneaking in his major argument) by first proposing his idea of how she will do his research, then explaining why she proposes this form and topic, and lastly giving reason for why (his purpose). Following this, just as our papers do, she gives a brief historical background of certain aspects of the topic itself. THEN (and here's the biggie because it's exactly what we're working on) she goes into the different types of methodologies and procedures she will be using. This is the section I pulled from the most, seeing that I found some of his methods and procedures very interesting, the corpus linguistic technique of concordance and lexical analysis and rhetorical analysis (146).  I liked it because it reminds me of articulation, in a sense. By taking a part the text little by little (chunking it, pretty much), analyzing those chunks separately   and then going back through the information bottom up- I feel his approach/method allows us to really break down the information..although, very time consuming.

sHe then gets more into his topic of research...which I'm not going to lie, was, um..kind of skimmed and read through quickly- as I said above, I really was just looking at the structure and order of his paper rather than really analyzing the research she did herself. Anyways, as I was saying she got into his work of yan and ren, and did his linquistic corpus technique with it, then after, pulled it all together to get to she most interesting part...the "Three Types of Rhetors and Their Respective Ways to Achieve Persuasion"- which is where she ties in all of the articulation and chunking she had done in his method of research and comes to his conclusion.

Huiling Ding

To be honest I couldn’t follow the topic in the essay. I know nothing about Chinese dialect or the text that the person was analyzing and so I found it hard to find a place to start when it came to understanding it. However, I found it very informational when it came to analyzing an artifact. While I think the situation will be slightly different – it seemed like Ding was talking about his method of analyzing while talking about what he had found using his methods. But I still think some things I noticed could be applied

While the artifact Ding was studying was text the reading showed there is more then one method of analyzing it then simply reading it. For instance the idea of understanding the history of the linguistics had never occurred to me. I ‘ve never really thought about the history of a word, and my linguistics class I’m taking this semester has just started to show me the concept of understanding how we speak and what it means.

Another thing I noticed that while their many different methods Ding of analyzing the text it always went back to her main goal, or thesis. This is probably a good thing to keep in mind in any paper, but especially when analyzing in several different ways. It could be easy to get distracted or start to ramble.  

Virtue-Centered Rhetoric

So, this was a bit heavy for reading at 9am on a Monday, but nevertheless, I understand the point of this reading. Ding's style in this piece was (or what my understanding is) what our next paper is supposed to have the tone of. It is about the different methods of comparative rhetoric as Confucius defined it as the cross-cultural study of rhetorical traditions as they exist or have existed in different societies around the world.

The overall layout of the piece began by giving a historical context for virtue-centered rhetoric, and how Ding plans to achieve the goals set by Liu and Mao by examining non-Western rhetorical text and within that text's historical, political, and cultural context. Ding's first methods include conducing a piece-by-piece analyses of each important text and author and then put them together into a larger picture.

The pieces that he seemed to focus on the most was the Analects from Confucius, which was a span of writing collected and recorded over 230 years after his death. 20 of these years encompasses all but the last 20 years of during the first political unity of China by Emperor Qing. His analyses were both by computer and hand-tagged keyword extraction, analyzing a handful of words and how often they occurred, their distribution, and the word meaning to isolate the word from its surrounding context and to analyze it in that context. Overall, Ding found that Confucius's main ideology was that only through virtue can a rule ensure the effectiveness of his orders and that his nation will follow suit.

Confucius’s Virtue-Centered Rhetoric – Huiling Ding

This reading was really interesting to me. I’ve always heard about Confucius, but I never really knew who he was or why he’s so well known. This reading cleared all that up for me. I also found this helpful in terms of layout, since I paid more attention to how this analysis was structured. I got a tip from Samantha about not only paying attention to the content of the articles we’re reading, but also analyzing the structure, and it really does help (thanks Sam)!

Ding starts by talking about comparative rhetoric; defining it and giving a bit of background information on it. Several paragraphs later he begins discussing Confucius. Before going into Confucius’s theories, he gives a bit of background on Confucius’s life and how he developed the ideas he had. After we have the background information and contextual information about his life, Ding moves into how he is going to analyze the work, the Analects. This seemed a bit familiar to me, since this is our next paper – the methods section. After saying how he’s going to analyze the work, Ding analyzes it. He breaks up the work into specific sections, in this case specific words to help narrow down the scope. This helps, since with my topic, Pinterest is a very large social platform, and I need to narrow it down somehow. From here, Ding moves into the conclusion.

Someone once told me when you write a paper, give a speech, or present something, the structure is simple. “Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them.” This seemed familiar to me in Ding’s paper, and it makes much more sense now that I’m older and actually moving into writing academic works that require repetition to convey denser ideas. Going back to Ding’s analysis, there were several strategies and quotes that I really liked, and think I might use for my own analysis of Pinterest, when the time comes.

First, I like how he mentions that he had to read the text several times through holistic reading. Since Pinterest isn’t a text so much as a platform, I’m going to spend a lot of time on the site, immersing myself to its ways and really perusing through the boards and what’s pinned to them to get a good working understanding of the culture within Pinterest. Second, an approach I really found fascinating was when Ding mentioned that he went through the text to count the words, but he also used a software to take the first ten to fifteen words before and after the use of the phrase and put them together. This, I think, is a very interesting approach. Third, he uses the words as a major foundation for his analysis. He takes a few words, like “ren”, and really does an in-depth analysis of the word itself, and then relates it back to the Analects and Confucius through its meaning. That, I think, is really cool.

Throughout the paper, Ding mentions things like, “After defining…ren, I returned to…”, and “My analysis…” This helps to reorient the reader and guide them through the paper, and I like that. It’s almost as though his audience is people (or scholars) new to the concepts. Additionally, Ding gave a lot of contextual information to increase understanding. This is especially important to my paper, since Pinterest is growing, it still doesn’t have everyone on it, and many people still don’t know what it is or understand it. He also ties all claims to research, which I know you should do, but I haven’t seen it done quite as well as it was done here. It gives me something to look up to when I write my paper, though it’s a completely different topic.

Ding also does a lot of summarizing at the end of the paper, which is good, because there are a lot of ideas and concepts presented in this paper that could easily be forgotten due to over-information, had Ding not carefully thrown in summaries. Overall this reading really helped increase my understanding of both a methodology section and an in-depth analysis.

paper 3: basis/foundation for the paper/RC

How we accomplish a rhetorical criticism?

 What goes into an argument about a Rhetorical Approach/Method?

-purpose: justification of how you plan to study the artifact you are studying/justifying a form of interpretation

 Research Question Audience-
 Context of what you are studying: -broad to narrow -define: historical/temporal/background of discussion -program locale -perspective of critic (to identifies the audience, link content/metaphor to audience)

In-depth Definition of different method/approach


How text and context are tied Text: how do we define it as an artifact -author/creator: -history -platform -interface -parameters-specifically what you are studying -justification of text as significant 
Studies prior have led us to need to study the text in this way

 Reference/Work Cited -approaches to studying a similar locale -

A plan of action for yourself; how you plan to collect information when you are doing your analysis

An education, because studying your artifact may be very different from the ways you normally study

Pool Links

Some before:
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=718265#
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=632761#


Some after:
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=718264#

Zemmels

This reading was basically the history of rhetoric. While I still don’t think of the internet as old (because it is getting up there and years and that means I’m growing up and lalalala…I shouldn’t write these blog posts so late at night). But everything has a history to look through, and so I think this reading is important.

I think Zemmels had a good point when he said that the internet is fragmented and dispersed. And I had never really thought about it before, but I do feel that it has a large effect on its rhetoric; from the discourse, the audience, to the authors.

Once again I’m reading about how rhetoric has had to change for the technological age so it can better address the discourse that comes from an online space. But I wonder if this is such a big surprise? I mean I have a feeling that this is not the first time rhetoric has had to evolve for a new type of artifact. What about the first time they came out with magazines? Or when movies and then tv was first established? I have a feeling that rhetoric had to change for all of this so I’m not sure why the authors I have read seem almost surprised that this has happened. It’s going to happen again, I’m sure.

I like the sound of this rhizome model. “A system of relationships without a center” sounds like a pretty cool way of describing the internet. This also gets at the idea that the internet can be fragmented; these relationships come together on some level, but on other levels they are

Zemmels

I think this piece is a 21 page paper on exactly what this class is about. I was honestly a bit confused about the whole depiction of rhetorical criticism and how it relates to the digital sphere, but this paper made me step back and look at the big picture of what this class is about. It is very important for us to be able to rhetorically analyze the digital world that we use so that we can accurately depict what can or can not be trusted in the ways that it interacts with audiences.

Unfortunately, the audience does not usually feel the same way about this. To the untrained user, according to Zemmels, they typically do not care. The indeterminacy of authorship is a challenge to rhetorical analysis, but the audience sometimes believes that in an internet environment, it is not needed and sometimes poses a challenge. When an author of something remains anonymous, they are more likely to express their true feelings on a subject instead of worrying about their appearance in the public eye. Also, in the world of the internet, it is so easy for users to cut and paste any text that they see, so the authors credibility gets lost in the process anyway.

I couldn't agree more with the section on media in the digital sphere. Douglas Kellner believed that the nation is so corrupted with conservative ideologies, that the internet is a way for people to be exposed to different viewpoints and they would then be able to make more informed decisions about government and society. With traditional print media, sometimes people live in areas where every public viewpoint is conservative. I notice this a lot with my hometown. Because it is a farming community, the newspaper is a weekly-run depiction of republican viewpoints from the 1920s. The number of articles about football and hunting has probably tripled any other normal newspaper. But with the internet, my community can [hope to be] more democratic in their thinking.

An Archaeology of Rhetorical Criticism and Internet Communication – Zemmels

This reading was interesting to read after Barbara Warnick’s piece because it referenced many things she said in her article. I find that very cool because I have the background information prior to reading this article. This one started off by introducing the umbrella term “Internet studies” (1). I like this distinction, because it acknowledges that there are so many areas of study on the internet today. The article also mentions Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) right away. This was also cool to read, because from my studies in the past and what I am interested in for the future, I am interested in the subject of HCI and usability. So I like that that was mentioned.

This article said, “New Media is more narrowly defined here as aural and visual media production, distribution, and consumption” (2). This was a good distinction to me, though it still seems a bit broad. I understand this to mean any sort of imagery online, including its distribution and consumption. This ties in very well with my research topic (Pinterest) because it’s based on imagery and how it gets distributed, so I may have to remember this source for a future paper!

Another thing that stood out to me was that “scholarly research in this area is still relatively new and no universally accepted terms, definitions, theories or methodologies have emerged” (4). This is really cool to read because I personally love that my university offers courses that enable us as students to really get in the field and do our own research and findings, as opposed to just reading about what others have done and leaving it at that. I also find it interesting because it means (to me at least) that I chose the right area of study because this stuff is crazy interesting!

This article, like many before it, also talks about the identity of the user. I find this area of study really interesting, and the fact that it’s mentioned in nearly every academic article we read really highlights its importance. This article says that users “often switch genders”, which lead them to “become the authors not only of the text, but of themselves, constructing new selves through social interaction” (9). This helps to create an ethos (or distract from it) when a user is reading text online. Following Warnick’s article, this leads me again to question the importance of credibility and traditional notions of authorship.