JACK!!!

I am not sure what our assignment for tomorrow is in regards to blogging because it still says TBA on the course calender. So I think I will just do an open blog just in case. So, tomorrow Jack is coming to visit me! I haven't seen him since February 11th when I went to visit him in Kansas. My travel time there was 9 hours and home was 10 hours! Also, on the way there my flight from Chicago to Cincinnati was delayed by almost an hour and I was FREAKING out because I was going to miss my next flight. Somehow the plane made it there in time and i RAN to my connection with five minutes to spare. It was so scary! I got there at like 10pm on Friday and had to leave at 3:30 on Sunday and then I didn't get home until 2 in the morning. Jack is staying until Monday but he has to leave at 5am. It should be a good weekend especially since it is our 8 month anniversary on sunday! Long distance relationships stink! At this same time last year I was in another long distance relationship but that ended up not working out. I think Jack and I will be alright though....it has been going pretty good so far.

Friday night I am singing with the UW-Gospel choir at a black history month event thing. It is at seven o'clock in Mills concert hall (Humanities) so if anyone wants to go it is going to be pretty awesome. We have a spring concert later in the semester around the end of April and it is always really fun so I will keep everyone posted and you should try to make it. We have a fabulous dance team that is really talented sooooo be there or be square!!!

too....much....information....

I thought that the excerpt by Katherine Hayles from “Writing Machines” was still a difficult reading, but I thought her arguments were a bit more reasonable than McLuhan’s. One quote that I really liked was on the first page and says, “As the vibrant new field of electronic textuality flexes its muscle, it is becoming overwhelmingly clear that we can no longer afford to ignore the material basis of literary production.” That quote emphasizes the point of this excerpt, which is that the actual material form of writing is extremely important. Lexia to Perplexia was really confusing and frustrating to look at but it showed how important the medium is to the message.

When compared to McLuhan’s writing, I feel that Hayles addresses the relationship between the message and media in a more realistic way rather than saying the medium is the message. I agree with this view much more. One interesting idea I found in Hayles writing was that the medium isn’t just the book, movie, or internet itself, but it is the actual physical aspects of the medium. For example, on page 22 she describes that the binding of a book or the opaqueness of the paper all effect how the message is received. I had never really thought about these seemingly insignificant aspects of a medium. One connection I thought of in class (and then was used as an example about one minute later), was Goosebumps “choose your own adventure” books. You would have to pick what you wanted to do and then the book would tell you what page to go to. According to Hayles, this act of being link driven is called hypertext. Hypertext can also be seen in encyclopedias, movies (Momento), and obviously the internet. Some of the other words that Hayles describes in her writing are cybertext, which is more focused on images and is seen in computer games, and technotext, which has a body and has rich connections between its material properties.

In the next chapter she talks about Talan Memmott’s “Lexia to Perplexia”. I read her article before I viewed the website and I was really confused. I had no idea what she was talking about, and so I thought that looking at the website might help. After looking at the website, I realized why I was so confused. The website was a total overload. There were so many layers and it kept changing. The main point that I got out of her writing on this was that the website would not work without you, but the website also had a lot of control over what was happening. This is why it was so frustrating to look at. Hayles describes this when she states, “the subject does not exist apart from the technology.” While I was exploring the site I saw so many words and definitions I had never heard of that after about 15 seconds I just began to click furiously and did not read anything. Perhaps the author was trying to say that its meaning is unstable and that there is no way to make a full interpretation of it. Moreover, that meaning is multiple and that it evolves.

Both Hayles writing on how the media effects the message and on lexia to perplexia, made the it clear that how a subject is presented has huge effects on how you recieve the message. Lexia to Perplexia was a great example of an extreme presentation of a certain message. It made you frustrated, yet it also made you think about WHY he presented this information in such an odd way.

Here is my website. I hope this works!!

There would be no need for a medium without a message.....

The reading “The Medium is the Message” by Marshall McLuhan was very difficult to get a handle on. I could tell I was not the only one who was slightly confused by the article after reading Bob's blog, and I was glad I wasn't the only one! I felt that it was very philosophical and it made me think about how new media effects culture in a different way. I am not saying that I agree with all of his arguments, but some of his ideas were thought-provoking. I thought his basic idea that the medium through which we express our ideas is the message, was in itself pretty complicated. I also liked the second part of the text talking about hot and cold media, just because I had never heard of any of it before.

When Marshall McLuhan states that the “medium is the message”, I think he means that it is not the content that delivers the message, but the medium. This idea has a direct connection to our previous discussions about rhetoric on form vs. content. McLuhan would argue that how the content is presented is what makes the content worth listening to. The way he describes it, he feels that the medium is even more important than the message. I disagree with this because if there was no message to give, than you would not need the medium. I think that the medium enhances the message, but the message is still the most important part when presenting something. I agree that new media is important and it shapes our cultures, but ultimately the message is the reason for inventing new media in order to deliver it better. I do think McLuhan’s point that electric media will bring us back to a more oral rather than print based culture is very valid. However, although the internet may not be considered “print”, it opens up new ways to communicate to one another through writing. Then again, McLuhan was not around to see the internet. The other point in the article that I found interesting was that the content of any medium is always another medium. It is kind of a never ending circle. A few examples he gives is that the content of writing is speech, the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.

The other section of this article focused on hot vs. cold media. I did not have a clear understanding of this distinction until our class discussion on Tuesday. We were all a little confused about a few topics such as TV, but overall I think we got the idea. McLuhan says in hot media there is low participation, high definition, and more information. Cold media is just the opposite. Some examples for hot media are movies, radio, the waltz, and writing. On the other hand, cold media are things like conversation, telephone, the twist, and TV. I am still a little confused about how TV and movies can be in opposite categories. I feel that watching TV does not take any more participation than going to a movie. The only explanation I can think of is that, in McLuhan’s mind, TV was a family affair, and that, while watching TV, you were participating and talking with one another about the show. I think over time TV may have shifted more into hot media. One paragraph that I completely do not understand or agree with is on page 41 of his article where he describes that he thinks we can control the emotional climate in countries if we allow them to either listen to the radio or watch TV more. Does he really believe that that is possible? To me, that whole idea seems completely outrageous.

I see the connection!

The first word that comes to mind which is used in many of my classes, and was also mentioned in class, is "networks". The first obvious way in which this word is used in our english class is in regards to the internet and blogs. There is a huge network of people and information all at the click of a button. This got me thinking about my psychology class that I had last semester when we were learning about the nervous system and the huge network of nerves we have in our body and how we recieve information from our surroundings. In my nutritional sciences class we are talking about the digestive system which I think could just be considered a huge network of organs and processes. Another common term in my classes is "transfer". In physics and food science we learned about the three forms of heat transfer which are conduction, convection, and radiation. In this english class we talk about transfer in terms of transfer of knowledge, ideas, and opinions through different media. Another example of the use of the word transfer is in transferring food through the body (from one end of the GI tract to the other) and also transfering nutrients throughout the body. The word "law" has also appeared in many of my classes this semester. I am in a food laws and regulations class and we are learning about many different laws and regulations as they apply to food manufacturing. In physics and chemistry this word is also used when describing theories. For example, Newtons three laws of motion. Lastly, the word "media" is used to describe how something gets from one place to another. In english it means how information is transferred to people through TV, books, internet, etc. In my food science class it is the same idea, but it refers to the media that energy can move through such as liquid or air.

People wanna know things....

In the very beginning of the article “Blogging as Social Action” by Carolyn Miller and Dawn Sherpard, it is mentioned that many rhetorical issues are raised by weblogs and that the most interesting of these is “the peculiar intersection of the public and private that weblogs seem to invite.” Basically, within blogs you have no private sphere. It had been obvious to me prior to reading this article that weblogs were public posts available to anyone who wished to look at it; however, I did not understand the full history or depth of this interaction in weblogs.

Blogs originated in an era where the American culture was fascinated by making regular people into celebrities and celebrities into regular people. The examples used in the article were the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal and reality shows like the “real world”. People are basically just interested in knowing details about everyone’s life even if it doesn’t concern them. This interest is defined in the article as “mediated voyeurism”. One point I would like to make is that, in the article they make it seem like this “mediated voyeurism” can violate a persons’ privacy, but, in the case of a blog, a person creates it with the full knowledge that anyone can read it. So, in my opinion, if something goes wrong (as in some of the examples at the very beginning of the article), or if people get mad at a blogger, or a blogger feels their privacy has been violated, it is not the fault of the curious reader but of the careless writer. Humans are always going to be interested in other peoples lives, and things like blogs, reality TV shows, and cell phones make it easier to become intrigued by someone else’s life. If you put it out there in the open, you should expect it to be read and perhaps criticized. It is at the persons own risk to put themselves in the public eye. However, some people want there ideas known and heard and in this case blogs are a great thing.

Our discussion from class helped me to determine what exactly blogs are used for. Blogs, I think, are mainly a form of self-expression. You can put yourself out there and express your ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Once you have posted these, others can comment on your blogs, which is how blogs can be extremely useful in creating communities. People with the same ideas can come together and discuss topics of interest and form a group of like-minded persons. Jeff Rice also points out this connectivity of people and information in his article when he is talking about “the space on the page”. I do agree that networks are very important in this respect, but I still feel that basic writing on paper is valuable and my hope is that it is not taken over completely by new media. In my small discussion we also talked about how blogs can be used as a more permanent journal. On some blog sites you are allowed to make your blogs private, so it is basically just like a diary but it is safer than using word which could be deleted if your computer crashed. I think this is a great idea because you really can preserve memories for a lifetime with almost no chance of losing what you have written. They can also be used to stay connected to family without having to write separate letters or emails. These last couple examples are times when none or just a few people will be reading a persons blog, but in many cases, blogs are being read by tons of people even if the blogger is unaware of this fact. Although blogs can be useful in creating communities and sharing knowledge, it is a place where very private information should not be displayed for all to see. There is no separation between public and private spheres in the blogging world.

yay for new media!

In my previous writing classes at the University, all of the writing assignments have been extremely organized and polished. I took English 100-Introduction to Speech Composition. In this class we would spend about two weeks outlining, writing, and preparing our speeches. We would turn them into the TA to be reviewed and commented on and we would also have peer-review days. All the speeches we constructed had to follow a strict format. I also took Zoology 152 which is considered a comm. B class because we had to turn in a 20 page scientific research paper at the end of the semester. This was a very formal paper and was also reviewed by TAs and other students throughout the semester. It was an extremely long process to get it to its final draft. After learning the content of this class I was excited to learn some new things rather then having to write another formatted essay.

New media challenges this sort of “slow rhetoric” writing (as Lester Faigley would put it), in that, with new media you can create a piece of writing in about 20 minutes. You don’t have to brainstorm ideas for days or have anyone review and comment on your work. It is a very fast process and it is pretty informal in terms of formatting and structure. I think some people feel that brainstorming, writing, reviewing, and perfecting are the only way to make a good piece of writing. However, in this day in age when everything is moving so fast and communication is at a click of a button, I feel it is important to incorporate this sort of curriculum into academic writing.

In the coming generations, new media is going to become even more prevalent than it is today and slow forms of communication will probably become nearly extinct. For that reason, I think it is important that college students have the opportunity to become informed as to how to use this new media. Students will be much more prepared for work environments in which they will need this knowledge to succeed. If they don’t need this knowledge directly in their field of work it is still useful in everyday life and helps those educated to be one step above the rest. However, I don’t feel that new media should be the only academic writing option for students. I think slow, thought out processes of writing are also of great value and should not be overshadowed by this new wave of media. I think this overshadowing could be a major consequence since students will probably be more inclined to take a new media class rather than an old-fashioned English writing class. Moreover, some students who come from less privileged backgrounds may not have any experience with computers and new media and may feel inadequate to take these sorts of classes. I think it is important for everyone to learn these skills, but if a student cannot exceed in a class based on lack of previous knowledge I don’t think that is fair.

What is writing?

Why does everyone hate rhetoric?

One week ago I really had no idea of what rhetoric was. After reading the assigned articles and blogs from other classmates, I feel fairly confident in my grasp of the whole idea. The two readings helped to give an idea of the characteristics of rhetoric, where it is used, and how it is practical to our everyday lives. Our class discussion on Tuesday made the theory of rhetoric even clearer to me and I loved hearing everyone’s ideas. In Erin’s blog on rhetoric she explained how she had always seen rhetoric as very negative and even after the reading, some of her negative perceptions still remained. One question I had before our discussion was, why does rhetoric have such a bad reputation in the first place?

The second paragraph in Herrick’s introduction began talking about Plato and his negative attitude towards rhetoric, but I did not completely understand everything until our discussion in class. Scot talked about the long history of rhetoric and its origins in ancient Greece. He explained how Greek men wanted to learn the art of rhetoric and sophists were those who taught it. The sophists talked style. They would explain how to use language colorfully, and how to craft the message to each audience. Plato was really the first person to give rhetoric a bad name because he disliked the sophists since they were paid. Plato thought teaching should only be for the benefit of the students. So, this helped me to understand where these negative feelings began. I think that people who dislike rhetoric in our world today only focus on the ways in which rhetoric has perhaps been corrupted (politics) and completely overlook how rhetoric is used for good in our everyday lives. This can even be seen with Plato. When he made arguments against the sophists, was he not also practicing rhetoric? The last part of Herrick’s introduction was a great explanation of how rhetoric can be used for good as in building community and spreading knowledge.

The clips from the movie “thank you for smoking” were very interesting and I thought it was a great way to visually see the use of rhetoric. The first clip we saw was when he was talking to his sons classmates. In this clip he used one characteristic of rhetoric mentioned in Herrick’s introduction which is adapting your arguments to the audience. He made connections between his argument and things that were familiar to the children. However, he was basically trying to convince the children to try smoking and find out if it is really bad. So, here is a perfect example of how rhetoric can be used in a negative way. The second clip is when the father is trying to explain his job as a lobbyist to his son. They begin to argue about which ice cream flavor is better, chocolate or vanilla? Instead of his father arguing about how good vanilla was, he began talking about liberty and that people should have the right to choose their favorite ice cream flavor. He did not try to win the argument, he just tried to make the other person wrong. He kind of goes around the question and doesn’t answer it directly. This is an example of how rhetoric is planned. He knew what his intentions were when he first started his argument. This concept is also explained in detail in Herrick’s introduction. One other example of rhetoric I thought of in class was the movie "The Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. The whole movie uses rhetoric to get his point across.

Based on all of our readings and class discussion, my overall perception of the art of rhetoric is that it is a good practice. However, like all things, it can be used in negative ways. We can try to reduce the ways in which rhetoric is used wrongly, but someone will always be eager to corrupt its use. Rhetoric is an ancient practice and it is not going away anytime soon, especially since it is essential to our everyday lives.