Library Week

     During the classes of the last week we have worked in the library of University of Idaho. The Librarians conducted two classes teaching about how find sources on the library, as well as, find sources on good websites through the library webpage. Moreover, they focus on how find reliable references on the Internet. Those classes were really usable for me, because I’m not familiar with the library website and I don’t know too many good American websites to find articles, as well. With the help of Librarian I have found an article and two books related with my research question (Does social media change people's behaviors when voting?) until now.
     Even after I have found some sources for my research, the topic still is a little bit extensive for me. For example, until now most of the sources talk about the social media x politics in U.S., but I also found a source talking about this influence in Zimbabwe elections. The impact of the social media is even more different in my country, because in Brazil people are required to vote, so the social media doesn’t changes the participation, but can strongly changes the opinion of people. I believe that a comparison of different countries will be complicated, and at the same time, I will need search a lot of about American politics to write just about U.S. Anyway, I’m still deciding how I will work with all my sources in order to write a good essay.

     The image below shows how I’m feeling with the English 102 course until now. I believe it have been a good opportunity to searching, learning, and thinking more about different topics. As I’m a senior major of Civil Engineering, for a long time I don’t researching and writing more cautiously on other matters. Therefore, the English 102 course has been more enjoyable than I was expecting.
   

                                                                   Image source: http://www.kellerink.com/blog/importance-learning-learn

Rhetorical Analysis

     The rhetorical analysis can be understood as a critical investigation of a text, video, or image. Such analysis involves the interaction between the text itself, the author, and the audience, as well as, the information that the reader (or who is analyzing) needs to get from the text. I believe that the Rhetoric Analysis is an indispensable tool for my future writing projects, since it’s strengthens my critical thinking. In the analysis we must always try to understand what is written between the lines, in the other words, what is the intention of the author, or if there is some external factor influencing the author’s opinion. Several answers found by rhetorical analysis can help me to be more persuasive with my own audience, as well as, looking for a more critical thinking when I read any article or any piece of ideas.
     In order to analyze an article about my future research (Do social networking sites change people's behavior towards politics?), I have rhetorically analyzed the article “The Impact of Social Networking Sites on Politics” by Megan Baker, 2009. I couldn’t find information about the author on the Internet, this indicates to me that maybe it is an isolated publication about the issue, and maybe the author isn’t specialist in that, so the credibility still is unknown. Moreover, the article has a lot of data from others sources, which the author used to build her conclusion. While I was reading the article it seems that Baker was trying to be neutral about the topic by bring in some controversial ideas from the sources. However, after read the conclusion, it seems that in the entire article Baker used the sources in order to state her own disagreements about the impact of social webpages on politics, because she basically agreed with all the authors by saying “I do not think that social networking sites will create a "new era of democracy" but I do think that it has helped the candidates reach out to supporters, mostly people who supported them already, but also some who were uncertain in their choice”. She basically summarize the controversial sources that she have used in the text, saying that Internet is not revolutionary while just facilitate the political engagement, but doesn’t confirm that the political discussion will do people really act. Anyway, it is not possible know how the author uses all her sources, if it has reliability or not (since I honestly didn’t read all those sources), but in some way it is possible see that her opinion is completely based on the sources’ opinion.
     The terms I have learned from Allyn & Bacon Guide are useful for me to direct my vision for the rhetoric of the author, trying to ignore my opinions on the topic and trying to understand what the author want to respond. I believe the article that I selected is rather simple, and the author information is limited, so I can’t make an analysis of her angle of view. Either way, it is very important to follow techniques of rhetorical analysis, creating a sort of outline for this ranalysis, and ensuring that all aspects are evaluated.

Genres: Photo Essay, Cartoon, and Advertising Campaign

     The genres analyzed will be: Photo Essay, Cartoon, and Advertising Campaign.      

     A Photo Essay is a set of photos placed in a planned order with the goal of communicates events, feelings/emotions or concepts. The photo essay tells the same story of a normal essay through visual photographs. The photo essay has the constrain of the lap of communication, the author must well apply the technics in order to achieve success in the communication, because sometimes images can’t directly show what the author want to say. The photo essay can be applied with a text in a magazine for example, it will helps the audience to understand the topic and will communicate the content in a summarized form for who doesn’t want to read the entire text. In the Drew Bird Photography Blog is possible see the use of the Photo Essay to shows the progress of the urban farming in New Orleans. The post shows several photos of the great production of organic and local vegetables and through the set of photographs is possible to see the how the population is producing farms into the city, giving a perspective of health, sustainability and entrepreneurship.
        Cartoon is a humoristic draw with or without subtitle, and of extremely critical character, picturing with humor and satire daily events of a society. Different of the Photo Essay, the Cartoon can use some legend which sometimes is essential for the success of the communication. Cartoon is usually published in newspapers and magazines, and can be generally published in social webpages as Facebook. In the cartoon the author quips job interviews, emphasizing how the labor market forces people to be more creative and ingenious.
        Advertising Campaign is several advertisement of a product with the same theme and idea with the purpose of sell a product, service, or idea through the marketing. The advertising campaign appears in different medias as TV, social webpages, radio, outdoors. The audience is everyone interested in the product, and the constrains will depend of the media used to advertise the product. The website shows a campaign to reduce the speed and the car accidents in the road, the advertisement uses the correlation between physical violence and speed. In this case, the communication is similar with the cartoon, it has images and subtitle to complete the message.
        As seen in each genre the authors used different technics to well communicates. The three examples of genres use images to express their ideas, but it's still possible to see the difference in each of them, and especially how each is used for different purposes. The Photo Essay can be a complement of a new or can be an artistic representation with the use of photography. Cartoons are more funny communication, to criticize some issue in an intelligent perspective. While the advertising campaign is a more appealing way to convince the audience about some idea. In the first example of Photo Essay the author used the technic in a complement of a text in order to tell a story, and probably the author won’t has the same success to tell this story using just a Cartoon. The same effect is for the use of a Photo Essay in the same place of a Cartoon in a newspaper. Probably it will be harder to ironize a notice or fact with a Photo Essay, which is compose of real photography, than with a Cartoon that can be composed of unrealistic pieces to create the message. Probably both Photo Essay and Cartoon would be used for a Advertising Campaign, which is more open for any technic application, since it convince the audience and sell the product.

Blog Assignment #2

In the essay The Rhetorical Situation, Lloyd F. Bitzer presents some arguments to explain the theory of situation, which is the theory that the rhetorical discourse is a response to a situation. For Bitzer, a situation is rhetoric only when that needs discourse in order to modify that situation. Thus, the rhetorical situation involves exigency, audience and constrains. The exigency might be rhetorical, in the other words, might be positive modifiable only by means and arguments, while the audience are the mediators of change by the influence of the rhetoric. The constrains are part of the rhetoric situation, such as beliefs, facts, and traditions.
The points about rhetoric presented by Bitzer are deeper than I had ever considered before. First of all, I believe that the analysis of the situation can bring more arguments for a rhetorical response. It can help me to analyze the topics of my futures rhetoric essays, and not just superficially thinking about my audience. I can organize my ideas initiating from the exigency of my situation, as well as, the constrains of this situation. After that, I can think about how my speech can change the mind of a group of people, and how those people can change a situation where my exigency is inserted.
Bitzer brings some issues about situations that aren’t rhetoric and can’t be treated as rhetoric, it is interesting in order to define when I will use tools such ethos, logos, and pathos. An example is for scientific works, which doesn’t require the use of the rhetoric since the audience is a group of people who want to learn, and not a group of people who I want to change a situation by my speech. This fact brings me the knowledge that I never have to use ethos in any scientific paper or formal presentation about my major of civil engineering, since it requires only technical issues.


Reference
Bitzer, Lloyd F. - The Rhetorical Situation