Saturday, April 18, 2009

Sliding into home...

The multimedia project is coming along nicely!! I can't wait to reveal it to the rest of the class. Recently, the other girls and I met with our two actors for the commercial we were planning to shoot. It went SOOOO smoothly!! We were all very proud and amazed at how easy it was thought of, produced, and shot. We used former Miss Clemson, Brooke Eaves, and a guy from the "baseball team", Corey Cox as our two "celebrity" endorsements. They were great, the commercial, billboard, and print ad fell into place perfectly, and our group couldn't be more ecstatic. 

Billboard (above)
Commercial (below)


Saturday, April 11, 2009

Let's Get Together and It'll be Alright!

I love my group! Megan, Elizabeth and Kati are all wonderful and we work well together. We got into the group today, no one but Elizabeth and I really knowing each other, but we got the majority of our work done. We were only given about 45 min - 1 hour to brainstorm and come up with ideas for our group project that will have to be presented in a few short weeks. Our group came up with the new brand, "HottStuff Sunscreen". I think we're all pretty excited about it! We've already split up the work evenly and everyone is happy about the part that they've been assigned to complete. I know I can't wait to finish up this project and tell the rest of the class about our new, wonderful product.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

"Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Today we analyzed the lyrics from U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" rhetorically looking for the rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos. I LOVED this assignment because it's something that definitely relates to me. I love music and therefore, when putting lyrics and music to things I should be learning, I will pick up the meaning more clearly and faster. When Deanna pulled out the lyrics for us to analyze my mind went racing back to my 10th grade english class when we used to analyze music, poems, and all sorts of things rhetorically. The main thing that i loved about that class though was one week deemed "Coffee Shop" where each student had to bring in a different song each day, and then describe how they had analyzed it. This way of teaching - using these types of exercises - definitely helps to keep things in my mind. 
(lyrics from Sunday Bloody Sunday) -->
Yes

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
'Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end streets
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
'Cause tonight we can be as one
Tonight, tonight

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your blood shot eyes

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

And it's true we are immune when fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die
The real battle just begun to claim the victory Jesus won on

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday

Friday, March 27, 2009

Under Construction

Today I met with Deanna to revise my research paper. We were supposed to take the revisions the class had done online, and then come up with three problem areas that Deanna and we could go over together, individually.  I had one paragraph about statistics that she really helped me clean up and make more decipherable, and then she found places where I had cited work incorrectly.  The whole process, for me at least, only took about 10 minutes with Deanna and those 10 minutes made a world of difference! Before I met with her, there were a lot of confusing places in my paper (because I worked with numbers so many times), but following the revision meeting, when I had people proofread my papers, no one seemed to be stumbling.
Thanks, Deanna. 

Sunday, March 15, 2009

SPRING BREAK!!!

-- no post necessary this week... yayyy

It's beach time, baby!! =)

Monday, March 9, 2009

Mash-Up Music

I've been listening to "Numb-Encore" by Lincoln Park and Jay-Z since it first came out when I was in high school and until today i never knew that it was actually a "music mash-up" combining two songs together to make one.  When Deanna showed us the other examples she had found on youtube I was amazed. I love, love, LOVE music and I think that more artists should get together and combine their music to make musical greatness. This would definitely help sell a few more albums, and these songs just seem to be a little more entertaining than the rest. 

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Violence in Video Games - Interesting viewpoint

This is a big controversy in our society today!! When I opened my textbook I was planning on reading about how horrible violent video games are for kids and the influence on their lives. Yet when I started reading the chapter, the very first article was about the positive influence violence in cartoons/video games helped some kids conquer their fears. The author of the first article in the chapter wrote about how he used to relate himself to the Hulk so that he could feel stronger, more included in the real world. In fact, being the Hulk and living vicariously through his character, the author of the article did in fact gain friends and confidence.
So... some video games may be harmful to kids (Columbine shooting) but as far as this guy's self esteem goes, these bad characters definitely helped him out and changed his life.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Proposition 8

Yesterday, we got to work in class on our research papers. I had picked out teenage pregnancies in the beginning because I thought it would be a very informative paper, and it was something I didn't know much about but wanted to learn.  Before going into class yesterday, though, I had tried to find research on this including statistics from the U.S. on the number of pregnant girls and surprisingly, it was very hard to find. So... after talking to Deanna, I decided to switch my research topic to the new Proposition 8 bill that was recently passed in California - which bans gays from being married and also nulls the marriages licenses given out previous years. This is a HUGE controversy right now, and would be great to learn more about!!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Beautiful Bodies

Chapter ten is all about body rhetoric and what our bodies do not only to our self image but also to what others think about us from first glance.  The chapter ranges from things such as tattoos to how we portray "beauty" from advertisements.  Throughout chapter ten there are ranges of article and stories all about these topics and how we are affected by what image we think we should convey with our bodies.  
One of the first articles is titled "Fat Is an Advertising Issue" by Susie Orbach and I find it to be a very informative and influential article.  Basically, the author is describing how Dove takes a "'real' woman's image" approach in their advertisements so that women aren't compelled to think that they have to look like skinny, beautiful, supermodels in order to use the product.  This is a great tactic! I, personally, find myself looking at ads wondering how I could make myself look like the skinny, perfectly tone women in each ad that I come across. I feel like I could never use the product (for instance if it's clothes - I could never wear the clothes and look as good in them) like they do, so I'm turned off from buying it.  
Taking Dove's approach, if I were to see a girl who had my amount of body fat and weight in an ad, I'd most likely connect with her more and therefore be impelled to buy whatever she was advertising.  I commend Dove for their idea and Ms. Orbach for supporting the whole thing. 
Beauty, as cliche as it sounds, is on the inside; anyone can look the same on the outside. 

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Lovely research

To be honest, I am not a big fan of research. I learn a lot when I actually complete my research, but the process isn't something I'd choose to do on a Friday night, or any other night given.  The research I completed for teen pregnancy was actually interesting.  It's quite a surprise to see how many teens in the world are pregnant, and also how common it is among some cultures!
I found it easy to find books about teen pregnancy and what should be done if that happens, but I never found a book that actually gave me statistics about how common it used to be compared to today's society. Websites were easier to mull through for that information.  Magazine articles, I found, are pretty much impossible to find about this topic.
Bibliography's (works cited pages) are easy enough to get the hang of; they don't trouble me very much.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Teenage Pregnancy

The first on my list of possible research topics is teenage pregnancies.  I feel that as I've grown up, this has become a bigger and surprisingly less of a "no-no" topic than it used to be, especially in America.  In high school at my graduation, I counted eight - yes EIGHT! - girls in a class of 230 students that were pregnant and walking across stage. This isn't counting the two that I knew of that were out due to their pregnancies.  That's way too much!  I guess the shock has worn off among some of society as seeing this in teenagers but for me, I am still not sure exactly how I feel about the thought of someone my age being a mother.  Is it wrong and hindering or is it something that I should accept and cope with on my own time?
When an adult, married woman is with child, everyone can't seem to coo and congratulate her enough on her expected child, but when my friend got pregnant in high school, she didn't get the same congratulations, well at least not by everyone. Even though some of our society is changing the way they look at teenagers that are pregnant, there are others who still would disown you if you were their own family.  My friend that was pregnant was among those who wouldn't be looked at again if they were unveiled as being unclean or unpure, so she, without telling many others than myself, went to an abortion agency and had things "dealt with". 
She wasn't the only one of my friends to get pregnant in high school... another was pregnant our senior year.  This paper isn't about abortions though, so I'm not going into the controversy about that, it just goes to show that the pressures of the world are sometimes at east, but depending what values and morals your family has been brought up on, being pregnant will have its different pressures.  
There are many countries in our world where being a pregnant teenager is normal to them.  When the women don't have college to go to after high school, it isn't out of the ordinary to see pregnant girls walking among the rest of society in the masses.
Going back to my first paragraph, wondering how acceptable this situation is really becoming, and thought just popped into my head and I wonder, is America actually more lenient about this topic than I let on?  I just remembered that a new popular TV series that just came onto the family safe channel of HBO is called The Secret Life of an American Teenager where the main character is pregnant.  If this can be openly shown to families across America with children that watch and learn most of what they base life off of on the TV, then there's obviously some acceptance for the situation.  Are people finally coming out and saying, "It's okay"?
Is it really okay?  What should our views be on the topic of teenage pregnancies?  I want to compare America and its moral values along with the opportunities girls are allotted here on the free land with the rest of the world and figure out what's different and what's changing.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Learn How to Edit

I loved the new ways of editing that Deanna told us to use in class today. Honestly, whenever I edit a paper, all I do is read and re-read looking for the same kinds of mistakes over and over. When we sat with our partners I got more editing in than I could ever have done on my own. Elizabeth helped me so much by telling me what didn't make sense and what sentences I should change or fix.  We spent about thirty minutes on each other's papers but in the end, our papers argued the points we were trying to argue much more effectively.
I didn't get around to trying the two other editing techniques, but I will before Tuesday.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Thank You for Smoking

This was my first time watching this movie and I have to admit, I wasn't that fond of it. It just didn't appeal to me in any way.  I did find a few appeals to pathos and other visual rhetoric examples in the movie, though.
When the "opposed to cigarette" guys were talking on the TV show at the beginning of the movie, the character representing their company definitely went the appeal to pathos route by using a teenaged victim of cigarette usage.  He was a younger guy who already had cancer, and was obviously being treated for the cancer by the lack of hair on his body.  The representative for the company finished his argument by saying, "He no longer thinks cigarettes are cool."  By saying this, people who are watching the guy on TV and then hear this can visually relate what cigarettes are capable of and will hopefully end up disliking them.
"If your parents told you chocolate was dangerous, would you not try it? Then maybe you should try cigarettes for yourself too." - Nick Nader.  This question made me chuckle a little to myself because in some ways he's right; kids do the opposite of what their parents try to make them do. If my mom told me that I wasn't allowed to have chocolate, I'd probably still eat it. The fact is, though, the kids just need to be smart enough not to try cigarettes without being told. Education. That's all that is needed. 

The whole thing about arguments made me think for a while also.  "If you argue correctly then you're never wrong." "It wasn't a negotiation; it was an argument."  I have always thought that arguments were just heated negotiations, but I've never really thought about it before.  If you're going to argue a topic, I guess you'd need to know what you're talking about, making the first  quote true; you wouldn't be wrong, at least in your own opinion. That leads into the second quote proving that he wasn't negotiating with his mom about going to California; Joey was arguing, pretty much just telling her that he was going with Nick on the business trip.

All-in-all it was a good, informative example of visual rhetoric but not a film that I would choose to watch at home.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Visual Rhetoric Image

This image that I have chosen definitely is trying to persuade the audience of something.  The author of this particular image is trying to persuade smokers to quit while they still have time.  The author of this image uses a great appeal of pathos with the shocking yet humorous view of the guy's mouth on the fume pipe.  It's a shocking wakening that the mouth of a smoker is as disgusting and unhealthy as the fume pipe on a bus.  The author is someone obviously that deals with health related topics, especially focusing on diseases caused by smoking.  The audience is obviously focused at being the people in the society who are smokers and even more, heavy smokers.  To me, this image is rather effective because it gives a visual image as to what smoking really does to those who do it.  It doesn't give off a visual as being something healthy and good for a person to do, so I believe that this ad would help reduce the number of smokers in society.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Advertisements on the net

We see advertisements of all sorts on the internet with each page that we access.  I've been watching them throughout the week and the majority that I come across are Apple/ Mac related. When I checked out the Envision website that was suggested in the textbook, I noticed that many apple ads are on that webpage for us students to check out.  I clicked one of the links that took me to an apple computer ad and could read the meaning inside and out. 
Apple, with the particular ad that I was seeing, was obviously trying to audience business men of all shapes and sizes with their different shaped and sized macbooks.  It uses logos because it tells about how the computers are made and gives statistics on the sizes of the memory and the length of the screen, the physical abilities of the computer. Some of the obvious rhetorical strategies were definitely compare and contrast, analogy, and examples.  In these three strategies, it also contributed with a slight sense of humor in that the larger macbook was sitting on the midget's lap, and the over-sized man had the smaller computer.
Another ad that I came across was the very popular, "Got Milk?" ad that is on posters, websites, TV channels, and much more. The publishers of this advertisement are trying to entice their audience of parents, nutritionists, and even the kids!  They use logos when presenting their statistics about calcium and "building strong bones".  Pathos is incorporated with the cute, humorous milky mustaches that the actors have after drinking the milk. This is especially thrown out to the kids because I remember when I was younger wondering how that worked and drinking glass after glass of milk trying to get the same white line above my upper lip. 
Advertisement publishers know what they're doing when they write the ads that are published everyday for various audiences.  They are definitely deeply researched and have more meaning than the regular audience can see without analyzing. These rhetorical strategies are what make the audience interested in the product. 

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Rhetoric

All throughout my schooling teachers would express finding rhetorical questions in the texts that were assigned in their classes.  I never knew that rhetoric was actually outside of basic literature and questions used in novels. I read chapter one in Envision in Depth and I really did learn something!! I learned that yes, rhetoric was in MANY more places than just literature and novels.  On my way back to Clemson from Myrtle Beach today, I passed hundreds of billboards and came across a crazy number of advertisements for other things such as restaurants that advertise their food as being "the best southern food anyone has every tasted" and other statements like that.

It's not just advertisements, though.  In my preacher's sermon today, he was making statements about how we, as Christians, could be controversial with other people of the world, but still portray a Christ-like attitude.  He'd make suggestions and ask questions that we knew we weren't supposed to answer, but think about.  That's rhetoric!!

I found out that rhetoric is not just in novels and other writings, it's all around me. I even use rhetoric!! I found myself remembering how I had advised someone to go with a Nikon camera instead of a Cannon based merely off of my opinions and thoughts.  I'm being rhetorical!!!