final blog

I first came across the anti-bullying world when I was working on my research paper. I came to the realization that bullying is much more prevalent in our school systems than I was aware, and was shocked to learn the impact it had on both successfully graduating and suicide rates. Because of this I choose to address bullying as much exigence, particularly bullying within the schooling systems. I have found many people, like I previously was, are ignorant of the magnitude of which this is taking place.

 Ultimately I had two intended goals through my video, to create a call for action and to change the perceptions of reality. By creating a call for action, I would be creating an army so to speak willing to fight against bullying. This is important because without people willing to fight to stop bullying it will never end. My other intended goal was to change perceptions of reality. Often people feel bullying is not such a big deal, apart of growing up they may feel, but through my video I hope to change this view. I hope my video shows the viewer that bullying can lead to violence, and maybe worse, death.

The three main tactics I used were story telling, polarization, and slogan. My video follows a girl who gets bullied and debates ending her life. Through this “story” I intended for the audience to grasp the significance of bullying and thus contribute to the changing of perception. My next two tactics were used collectively; my slogan was “ARE YOU READY”.  You are either ready to end bullying or you are not, thus making two distinct groups. Those willing to fight for the cause and those who are not, and by doing so establishing those called to action. Another quote from the video is “its up to us”; this quote creates an “us” identity, and therefore creates a “them” as well thus uses polarization.

For my genre I choose to create a PSA video that would be published on the YouTube website. YouTube I felt would be the best way to get the message out to the most amounts of people. People of all ages go on YouTube just browsing random videos. What is also great about YouTube is that you can link it on other social media websites. The link can be put on Facebook twitter and ever tumblr, thus having the potential to reach a lot of individuals.

As a public service announcement I knew I would have to reach the public to alert and inform them of a matter of importance. PSAs are presented through the media for free, so I knew whatever outlet I choose to put it on would I have to be costless for my viewers, thus YouTube seemed like the best location. Location is free for its viewers, and reaches a large audience. PSA videos are also typically pretty short, so like the free of charge convention I choose to stick with the short convention and make my video just less than two minutes.

blog post 10

      I am trying to address the situation that is and has been going on for over 50 years in Tibet. So many people don’t know where Tibet is, let alone their history with China, so through my artifact I am trying to make them aware of it while also giving them the tools to try and help Tibetans in their fight for freedom. As far as the international community is concerned, China claims that Tibet is an autonomous region, but my goal is to inform people that this is not the case. Due to the fact that most of the world is under the impression that Tibet is in fact autonomous, the past and current events in Tibet rarely make the news, so not many people know about it. Hopefully, through the circulation of this artifact people will realize what is really going on and will have the tools to help.

        The persuasive functions that I am choosing to use are transforming perceptions of social reality, and prescribing courses of action. By informing people of what is actually occurring in Tibet, I am transforming their social reality regarding the situation. This is the most important function of my artifact; because if you don’t know that there is a problem, there is no way that you are going to know how to go about fixing it. I also chose prescribing courses of action because often times when people know about an issue or something going on around the world they don’t know what to do about it. By listing different ways you can get involved no matter where you live, I am giving people the tools they need to be able to try and join/aid the Tibetans in their struggle for freedom from China.

       The strategies and tactics that I chose to use are slogans, and identification. The slogan that I am using is “Free Tibet”. By making the slogan short and to the point people are going to know what the movements goal is even if they don’t read all of the information on the artifact. I put it at the top of the page, in large yellow letters to make it stand out, and made it appear on every page of the website so no matter what you are reading about you look up and see “Free Tibet.” I use identification on my ‘get involved’ and ‘helpful links’ pages in a small paragraph at the top of the page. On the ‘get involved’ page I say things like “without people like you, this movement would not be possible” and that “together we can free Tibet from Chinese oppression”. By making the reader feel like they are a part of the movement they will want to get more involved and join the movement. Also, on another page I use words like “human rights” and “freedom” to pull on universal values that people cross-culturally believe in. By doing this people will feel more similar to the Tibetan people and may have more sympathy to help them.

      The genre that I chose to use is a website. I thought that this would be the best genre for my specific purpose because it can be easily circulated (Facebook, twitter, etc.) and can also be accessed by people all over the world. This allows people from different areas of the world to become informed of what is going on in Tibet, and also gives them information on how they can get involved no matter where they are. By doing this I am showing people that you don’t have to live close to China or Tibet for you to be able to help, you can do it from home on the computer.

       The conventions of a website that I had to work with were the templates that wix.com offers, and what you normally expect when you go on a website (title at top, home page, easy to navigate, menu bar at the top showing the names of the pages, etc.). I used the expectation of having a title to place my slogan there so that no matter what page on the website you are on, you can still see the slogan. I know that most websites have a home page, so I put a slideshow of images on the homepage to catch people’s attention. The first half of the images show Tibetan monasteries, Tibetan people, and other pictures from various places in Tibet, I follow these images with pictures of Chinese soldiers in Tibet, violence against protestors by officials, a destroyed Tibetan monastery, as well as an extreme case of a monk setting himself on fire in protest of Chinas occupation in Tibet. These images will make people interested in the website and leave them wanting to know more. I also made to website fairly simple with a menu bar showing titles of each pages, and east to navigate. This can keep people from being intimidated by a extremely complex website, and make it easy for them to access the information provided on the website.  

Final Blog 10

The exigence I am addressing is Operation Beautiful and bringing it to Florida State University. I focused primarily on eating disorders and depression in the college atmosphere and how to spread operation beautiful message across FSU.

The persuasive function’s I aimed at bringing out were altering perceptions of the present and prescribing the What, Who, and How.  In my Prezi, I first prescribe the what by introducing the organization and its mission. This clears out nay questions about what Operation Beautiful is. Then, my stating many facts about eating disorders and depression, directly focusing on statistics having to do with college students, I am altering the perceptions of the presents because I am introducing facts that most people do not know and I am addressing the who. The fact that my goal is to bring operation beautiful to FSU clearly shows that they who are Florida State students. The how is very easily prescribed when I present the steps needed to participate in this movement.

The strategies and tactics I used from Chapter 6 were identification and symbolic acts. Although the project itself is all about identification, my addition to it makes it even more indentifying. By bringing the organization to Florida State, I was able to help it identify with the students at FSU. I added pictures of campus when talking about how to get the organization spread on campus. This helps those watching the presentation understand how they could apply operation beautiful to their everyday student lives on campus. The facts about students and young adults dealing with eating disorders and depression also help viewers indentify with the subject manner. This presentation will most likely be shown to college students so the facts being presented will apply to either them or those they know. Even if they don’t know anyone suffering from an eating disorder or depression, it makes them aware that many people are suffering and shows a way to inspire and help those in such a simple way, like little post-it notes. The symbolic act would be the notes posted around campus used to show strength and give support to those who need it. Although the notes may only be a few words and very generic, they are symbolic acts of community and support. They unite those who write the notes to those who read them and vise versa.

            The genre I chose was a Prezi PowerPoint. I chose this because I think it is effective, simple, and can be easily shared. Since it is online, anyone with the URL can access it. That makes it easy when the presentation wants to be sent and shared with multiple people. Also, through Prezi, I was able to create and edit the PowerPoint the way I wanted to. I was easily able to add videos and pictures to my PowerPoint, as well as other website links.

            I decided to make my PowerPoint short and simple. I stated what the project was, facts about what it fights for, and how to make it local. Prezi made it easy to present my information and I was not limited to the things I could do to it.

FINAL BLOG POST!!

When I started my final project, I was not sure exactly what I was going to do it on. All I really knew was that it was going to be on something related to the topic to my previous paper, The Black Panther Party. I also wanted to focus on a topic that still affects black and brown people today. During a very extensive Google search, I came across The School-To-Prison Pipeline.  The School-To-Prison Pipeline is basically the systematically forced removal of black and Latino students from classrooms along with the correlating events that lead majority of those children to prisons later on down the “line”.  The most upsetting factor within the Pipeline is that most victims targeted are physically/mentally disabled students as well as student that identify LGBT.

            The main persuasive function I was trying to carry out within my website for this final project was to Transform Perceptions of the Present. The website tries to Transform social reality by shining a light on an epidemic that is going on right in our backyards. It magnifies many things that are happening in all schools(kids being suspended and expelled) and shows exactly what is going on and why that matters in the long run. Another function I tried to achieve in this website is Legitimizing the movement. By officially taking this problem to “movement” status, this implies and stamps it with a much more important consequence then what it has before had. Also, giving the movement a website shows that it is worthy of some sort of larger following. In hopes to legitimize this movement. 

The main language strategies I used within this final project were identification and also framing.  Identification was used as a way to prescribe ownership to this issue, no matter what side of it you are on.  Most of the awareness of this issue came from victims of the school to prison pipeline. o mainly first hand experiences through stories from parents, teachers and even government officials.

The main tactic I use was New Technology Communications. Although not necessarily very new, I made sure that I had at least 2 Youtube videos within my website. Not only do they supply a lot of information in a short amount of time, but they are ways that allow visitors of the site to “Share” the videos and send to friends, in essence passing the messages along to a wider audience.

          The genre I used for this project was a website. I chose to create a website mostly to just get one out there. During my research, not only was it hard to find basic facts or articles about the School-To-Prison Pipeline, it was even harder to find websites solely dedicated to the education and activism of this very pressing issue. I also chose to use a website because social media is the most effective way to get an exigence out to a wide variety of people.  

The main conventions of a website Is a home page that is inviting, and minimal yet informative. I used this convention. Another convention is that most website s have an “About” page. In my website, I used the “About “ page to pretty much introduce the exigence of my project and targeted audience as well as the tactics I would use to tackle that problem. This genre helped me around these conventions because using a website allowed me to follow some conventions while also letting me creatively diverge from other conventions like “Contact” pages while keeping my site original. 

Final Blog Post

The exigence my movement is trying to address is to be confident in one's self and the images the media publishes are not what real women look like. The images published in print and that are on television are edited to the point of no flaw. When young girls see these completely unrealistic women on display everywhere they turn, they quickly begin to doubt their self- image and become self- conscious. This leads to self-shaming, depression, eating disorders, and can even result in suicides.

The persuasive function I was using was altering self-perceptions. The perception of being a victim is easily portrayed because so many of the viewers are victims to the media. They see images on billboards, commercials, virtual ads, and in magazines and assume if those women look that way, she should too. Perceptions of self- worth and self- esteem are very important in the counter- movement. It is so important to affirm natural beauty, because what they see in these ads is not what the majority of real women look like. They do not all have a perfect body with perfectly shaped breasts and no pores on their face. The reality is all women do face issues with their image, even the women in these ads. The job ads do of altering self- perceptions must be reversed, changed back to how women should view themselves. Be proud of yourself, you do not have the ability to be anyone else.

The language strategy of my movement is framing and the tactic is labeling. The counter-movement frames ads and models as wrong and other women as real women. Large companies, such as Dove and American Eagle, have launched campaigns to fight the growing issue of teen self- perception. Dove has launched a self- esteem project to show young women you are naturally beautiful. You do not need makeup or fad diets to fit in or be pretty. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. American Eagle Outfitters has a lingerie store, Aerie. Aerie has launched a campaign where all published images are left un- photoshopped. Tattoos are not removed, tummies are not cut out, and flaws are not blurred. What you see in these images is what you get. Dove and Aerie have gained many supporters for their decisions and have proved to be a great strategy. Previous ads had labeled what they were publishing as “right”, or “pretty”. These companies, and many celebrities are working to combat these labels, saying the only label you should care about is you. You are beautiful no matter your clothing size or things you own.

I chose to do a Prezi because I felt I could use multiple media outlets to get my point across. I could use a variety of text, media clips, and images, and portray them in a unique way. I did not try to improve my Prezi with fancy borders because I did not want to take away from the issue at hand. Plus, it’s the bare beauty movement, so they go hand in hand.

Final Blog Post

 For my exigence, I am attempting to inform the rest of the world about the current anti-government social movement in Venezuela, lead by the opposition against the corrupt government lead current president Nicolas Maduro, that is oppressing its citizens. My goal is to open their eyes to the events taking place (i.e. peaceful protests turned violent due to government intervention) and reveal how a change must happen in Venezuela in order to ensure a better life for the Venezuelan people. Since of these events are not being covered by international media outlets, it is very important to inform the rest of the world.

One of the persuasive functions that I used within my blog in order to achieve this exigence was changing perceptions of social realities of the present. This function consists of changing the ways that people see the place and/or events where the social movement is taking place. Within this context, it is important for people to see what is really going on in Venezuela and to displace any prior notions that are most likely incorrect. In order to do this, I had to open their eyes to the crime, poverty, and violence that are common place in Venezuela stemming from the corrupt government, as well as the current protests turned violent, resulting in many injuries and deaths of innocent people, due to government intervention. I also attempt to legitimize the movement by showing that the Venezuelan people are being oppressed, and that their attempts at changing the way that the government is run are valid. I do this by providing evidence that the government has committed violent acts towards their citizens by showing pictures of peaceful protesters being hurt by government officials on the streets of Venezuela.

In order to change perceptions of social reality and legitimize the movement, I used the tactics of identification and framing while also using a slogan. Identification consists of finding a common ground between the audience that you are reaching and the social movement. I did this by mentioning many times that the Venezuelan people are simply fighting for a democratic form of government, something which many countries around the world (including the US) already have. I also words such as "we" on the page where people can get involved, saying that "we" can help the Venezuelan people achieve their goals of a democratic government by providing links for people to get involved in different ways. This would then form a link for other people to relate to, helping them understand what the Venezuelan people really want. Framing includes making sense of the events taking place within the movement. I did this my providing a section within the blog detailing a short history of the events that have lead to the current protests and how Venezuela is being negatively affected. This will then provide the audience with a reference to the facts that are important in order to understand the movement and the motives behind what is occurring. I have also provided a recent timeline of events, detailing how the movement has progressed within the last few months. Slogans are also used as tactics within social movements. I decided to implement the hash tag #SOSVenezuela. This hash tag has been shown to be used by both protesters and those that want to become involved in the movement. Since many people who are not Venezuelan citizens cannot actually mobilize and fight against the corrupt government, a hash tag is used in order to unify people and spread the word. I decided to implement this hash tag since my platform is Tumblr, a blogging website where hash tags are used in order to label and find images, helping to spread the word about certain issues.

The genre that I decided to use was a blog. I did this because blogs are very popular all around the world, helping to reach more people and inform them about this social movement. Blogs are also easily circulated. If someone wanted to show their friend a blog about a social movement in order to inform them of it, they would simply send them a link or give them the URL for the blog. Blogs are also known for using things such as hash tags in order to categorize certain posts and images for those who want to search and learn more about them.

The conventions of blogs include different pages within them in order to provide different kinds of information. I used this convention by providing links for the history of the movement, the timeline of current events within the movement, and ways to get involved. Another convention is reblogging things from different people. For this, I searched the hash tag #SOSVenezuela, and found poignant images and posts about Venezuela and reblogged them so that anyone who found my blog could see them as well. Blogs on Tumblr are also known for having "ask boxes" where people can ask the owner of the blog questions. I used this feature in order to encourage anyone to ask any kinds of questions they might have about the social movement in order to become more informed. I also provided a brief description of what my blog is about as well as a clear, easily seen title, both of which are also common conventions of a blog.

Final Project Blog Post

A website is a good genre because it is readily available to many people and allows for a large audience from all around the country.  I choose a website because it is more interactive than a video so the audience can scroll through the different tabs and see the different topics. Also with the issue of wealth inequality affecting so many the website can reach out to more people than a video. Also there is no time constraint with a website so you can look through the website at your own pace so it fits into peoples schedule more flexibly. The audience of this website is the general public and people who wouldn’t be considered to be extremely wealthy. The conventions of a website are usually that they are informative and give a pretty detailed overview of the situation. I used those conventions to help show all the different aspects of wealth inequality by showing the cause, affects, and solutions. The conventions of a website helped me explain all aspects of my issue in a concise manner. The exigency of this website is to get people to do something about the wealth inequality that exists in America. The website aims to do this by changing perceptions of reality and uses polarization and identification as its main tactics.

The purpose of this website is to change perceptions of reality and to energize the discontented. This website tries to change perceptions of reality by showing the issue of wealth inequality that exists in modern society. On the front page of the website there are two pictures of data of wealth inequality and the pictures are trying to identify with the general audience. One picture shows a graph of the wealth distribution in America and who holds how much of the money. By looking at the graph most people will fall in the middle of the graph and will be able to identify with the issue because it affects them. There are also statistics under the pictures on the front page, which also try to create a polarization effect.  The statistics show the huge gap between the pay a CEO receives compared to the employees who work for him. The gap in those two salaries is staggering which helps create the polarization effect. It creates the divide between the hard working employees versus the CEO who makes an infinite amount more than the hard working employees. It makes people question does the CEO really work that much harder to earn that much more money. This is trying to alter the perception of self worth. As most people will not think that the CEO is doing that much more work than them or worth that much more as the pay inequality shows.

On the next page of the website it talks about the causes of the wealth inequality and how it derives from the government helping out the rich and letting them continue to build their wealth. This helps them legitimize the movement as it allows the audience to have someone to put the blame on. By having someone to blame it adds to the polarization as it gives a bigger us against them mentality.

The next page is about how the wealth inequality affects everyone. By doing this they are able to identify with everyone. All the ways listed on this page will affect a majority of people allowing for a larger audience to identify with the movement.

The next page describes the possible solutions that could help end wealth inequality. This is an example of prescribing a course of action. This page shows what needs to be done and how it can be done. So once the website has gotten people to identify with the issue and gained enough support through polarization and legitimatization then it shows how the audience can take action to fight the issue of wealth inequality. By having a page dedicated to links on how to contact your government officials and links to organizations that are fighting wealth inequality it gives the audience the resources they need to fight the issue.

This websites changes perceptions of reality by showing the staggering numbers that show the wealth inequality that is present in America. It motivates people to take action against this injustice by creating a polarization affect against the corporate world and the government. It also provides a course of action that is necessary to end this issue and how it can be accomplished. These are the rhetorical strategies and tactics this websites uses.