Wikipedia Project Analytic Reflection

    While working on the Wikipedia page, I realized a few things. Firstly, editing and creating a Wikipedia page requires more attention to detail and caution than I had originally envisioned. Secondly, working in a ‘sandbox’ space that is constantly updated and changed presented new challenge. For instance, at one point, I went to insert a link to author Ridolfo at the beginning of the Public Sphere Writing and Audience section, only to find that it had been removed. It was very interesting for me to see Rhetorical Velocity in action, particularly, I noticed when I was reading through some of the other sections as we were instructed to do in class that several sentences and sections had to be changed once read through the lens of another student, as they were interpreted differently by the proto-audience (us). It was also challenging, in a larger context, to keep in mind the future audience of this page.

 While us students, who are (or should be by now!) experts at this particular subject and all the sub-theories contained within, can look at this page and not need further explanation on the concept of, say, exigence, an ordinary person who is working their way through Wikipedia for any reason won’t immediately understand the concepts. Like, Ridolfo and Rife state, I had to think about my potential audience and the ways that the information we have presented can be interpreted.

  Also, I was struck by just how many things needed references, or even links to other pages. My individual task was to go through the article and make sure that the internal and external links were formatted correctly, and that things that should be linked (like names of theorists, central ideas, and entities such as Facebook and National Geographic) were linked properly. I thought of Weibe’s essay on plagiarism, and how even the misattribution of a quote or idea can be considered a violation of ethics. With that in mind, I think the whole class was striving to make sure that we did not violate Wikipedia’s Community Guidelines. The most difficult part of this task was learning to do my edits section by section, as I tend to focus too much on the work as a whole. More than once, my edits were stymied by an ‘edit conflict’, meaning I had to go back and try and merge the edits, which can be pretty grueling.

Short Assignment # 5

Part One:

Marshall McLuhan vs. Michelle Citron

Structure of article:

Both articles are outlined in a similar fashion: there is a short introduction followed by an examination of the early life and career of both subjects, followed by the listing and description of major works created by McLuhan and Citron. The difference that is most visible here is the level of detail afforded to certain subjects.

In the McLuhan article, his early life is painted in detail, including tidbits about McLuhan’s religious journey. Citron’s sections are less detailed- her date of birth is not mentioned, nor any snippets of her personal life outside of her academic and professional career.

Kinds of Information contained:

In the McLuhan article, his theories and key concepts that he coined are discussed at length. There is even information included about dissenting opinions. In addition, there is a wealth of ‘trivia’ information woven throughout the McLuhan article, such as his appearance in the film Annie Hall.

In contrast, the Citron article is more factual, with a basic summation of her filmography and multimedia works.

Kinds of information linked to:

The Citron article links to other Wikipedia pages about locations and universities. The McLuhan article does this as well, but also adds links to information about other theorists, terms, and pages for the works of McLuhan.

References:

The references for the Citron article are academic in nature and focused on film studies, specifically feminist film studies.

Tone of Article:

This is where I found the most stark differences between the two articles: the McLuhan article was written with a sense of care and reverence, and includes a level of detail that goes beyond basic information. In contrast, the Citron article is more straightforward and less colorfully detailed.

Part Two:

Featured Article: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

This featured article, on an 18^th century painting titled: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, finds it’s strength in the comprehensiveness of information presented. The author was very detailed and thorough when it came to information surrounding this painting and it’s creation. However, on the other side, the author suffers from going off topic and a confusing ordering of information. It would have been better to have a section about the artist, who’s information is spread out throughout the article in haphazard order, followed by information about the painting itself, with subsections for style and technique, and a separate section for the topic of the painting and air pumps in the 18^th century, which the Wikipedia article author clearly found fascinating.

Short Assignment # 5 Analytic Reflection

When composing a Wikipedia article, I've noticed that while the most important factor is relevant information, a secondary and maybe equally important factor is the organization of that information. While I was examining the McLuhan and Citron biographies, I noticed that while there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of information about Marshall McLuhan, it was well organized and easy to navigate, making the McLuhan article seem like the ‘better’ article in comparison to Michelle Citron’s succinct biography. Citron’s biography was a good summary of her overall works, but it did not afford many opportunities for further research, unlike the McLuhan article, which included links to his works, discussion of his theories, and a neat outline of his more prominent key terms. I realize that the difference between these two articles arises from the difference in position the two subjects hold in the public eye. Marshall McLuhan is a well known theorist and academic figure, anybody who studies media theory or anything related to that will have heard of him. He has even appeared in a Woody Allen film. In contrast, I have never heard of Michelle Citron or her work, which contributes to the reason her biography is sparser than McLuhan’s. Information about Citron is undoubtedly harder to find, as she has not yet been the subject of biographies, nor has she had foundations formed after her, and she is not considered the ‘father’ of a school of theory like McLuhan is. I feel like this assignment is particularly relevant towards my group’s assigned section, which is major theories of public sphere writing. It will be difficult, but not impossible, for us to separate neutral facts from the battleground of separate schools of thought and the reverence paid to certain theorists.

Discussion Post 11/6/14

In Wiebe's essay 'Plagiarism and Promiscuity', he discusses the various types (or degrees) of plagiarism that have arisen in the digital age. Due to the rise of the internet, instances of student plagiarism have become more and more abundant. But what constitutes plagiarism? According to Wiebe, while many people still subscribe to the notion that plagiarism is the act of using someone else's words as your own without accreditation, other kinds of plagiarism, like patchwriting, collaborative writing, and idea-borrowing, are also worthy of scrutiny.
In Ridolfo's case study of rhetorical velocity, the concept of ownership is also brought up.
In our multimodal world, it has become the norm to assume that any content you create can and will be picked up and interpreted or even reused in ways that you did not imagine. This concept of rhetorical velocity calls for a consciousness of the 21st centuries attitude towards copyright law and 'fair use'. The real question has developed, not as to whether plagiarism is right or wrong, but as to what constitutes plagiarism in this decade?
Debates about what makes up the 'creative commons' and where the line from referencing a work becomes outright stealing are blurred by different voices and different notions about what constitutes 'stealing'. As technology progresses, notions about plagiarism and 'idea-stealing' will surely morph and change, just as they have done in the last two decades alone.

Short Assignment 4: Wikipedia Fact Check

Wikipedia Fact Check: The Walt Disney Company

Did you know that on this day in 1923, Roy and Walt Disney founded The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, which would eventually become the Walt Disney Company?

·                What kinds of sources do the article you are assessing use? 

   The types of sources include news articles by TIME, The New York Times, and other respected news organizations, Disney’s own financial records, industry related reports, and the archived web pages of several organizations, including the Catholic League.

·                Are any of those sources unreliable or not well-respected? Why do you think so? Are there any you are unsure of? Why? 

I am unsure of some of the news articles, because news can be biased, especially entertainment news, and in addition, the Walt Disney Corporation has become ‘Hollywood Legend’, which could lead to some exaggeration.

·                Check five individual facts in the article against the sources. Are the facts reported correctly in Wikipedia? If not, what is incorrectly reported? 

The facts are reported correctly.

·                Do you think the information in this article is generally reliable based on your analysis of the sources? Why or why not? 

I think it is generally reliable, since the sources are reliable and the article is styled like a timeline, and doesn’t contain anything sensational, apart from the amount of money that Disney earns annually (!).

·                Do you think the information is reliable based on the level of detail? Why or why not? 

Yes, because the level of detail includes over 80 sources, and information for further reading.

Analysis

In Lazere’s ‘Reading And Writing for Civic Literacy’, he states: “The word bias is an ambiguous one; it is usually, but not necessarily, used with a negative connotation. Bias can simply mean a particular subjective viewpoint….”

It was through this lens that I examined the sources of my selected Wikipedia article, especially in light of the standing that Walt Disney holds in the American Public’s hearts and minds. I wanted to make sure that the chronology of the growth of The Walt Disney Company was not misrepresented by an overzealous fan.

Fortunately, since the company has been in the public eye since the early 20^th century, there is a wealth of factual public records that can be used to verifiy the reliability of this article.

Class on Blog 10/14

According to Corbett and Eberly, Spectator Culture affects our ability to argue well in the public sphere because citizens are no longer active participants, but viewers or receivers of public discourse. When arguments are mediated through blogs, however, it gives citizens the ability to participate in public discourse. There are downsides to this, like the oversimplification of complex issues and the growth of ‘social media activism’, which has been praised for raising awareness, but criticized for failing to take action or create visible change. (Remember the Stop Kony’ fiasco?)

In an example of citizen criticism gone wrong, Bouie’s “Criminal Justice Racism”

demonstrates how the way a conversation is framed can effect how it is interpreted.

In this particular case, well meaning change-seekers attempted to use statistics to illustrate the disproportionate rate of minorities incarcerated, as part of the argument for reform. What went wrong can be boiled down to internalized racism and a misguided use of statistics.

Discussion Post

In Carolyn Handa's excerpts from Multimediated Rhetoric, she draws attention to the way the digital landscape of the modern age is used as a rhetorical tool. Handa argues that it is not only the content that can be found online that should be analyzed, but also the stylistic details of how information is presented online.
Any layperson can tell the difference between, say, Facebook, with it's color and personalization, and a more stark website like Wikipedia.
Handa also discusses how certain websites use rhetorical theories like Kairos and ethos, pathos, and logos in all aspects of their design, creating something tangible.
 In a similar fashion, Killingsworth discusses in 'place' how a website functions as a physical place, that can be visited and revisited. In a way, a digital 'place' can become a utopia, as it can be rendered to a point of virtual rhetorical perfection that is impossible for a physical place to obtain.
While we were working on our Sci/Tech blogs, we discussed how the layout and design might need to be changed in order to appeal to our audience. In a larger sense, how might other online platforms need to be changed to appeal to specific rhetorical needs?

Short Assignment # 3

   The overarching problems with Mark Leibovitch's essay for The New York Times Magazine "Let Us All Bear Witness To The Conversation!" are a lack of focus that leads to meandering into topics that don't appear relevant, word choice that gives the essay a biting and almost too-mean tone, and a lack of clarification on important facts, like names of places and the chronology of events.
In Killingworth and Palmer's essay "Transformations", news is defined as the presentation of something that the audience doesn't already know. What Leibovitch seems to be struggling with and in fact reacting to is discussion or conversation about a news event being presented as news.
   However, in his eagerness to condemn his fellow journalists, Leibovitch makes several mistakes.
He begins his essay with a topical event: the shooting of Michael Brown. Unfortunately, he fails to include the fact that Brown was shot fatally, and does not include the name of the officer, who was the shooter. By doing this, he fails to give his audience a full picture, which is why I edited the first paragraph to include this information. He also adds prefixes like "so-called", "ostensibly" and "unsurprisingly" to several of his claims, which not only muddies the water for readers, but also creates an argument in Kaufer's fourth level of policy argument. It is clear from his tone that Leibovitch applies different local values to certain aspects of public discourse. But Caitlin! This is an opinion piece! He's allowed to do that!
    That's true, but when Leibovitch uses these prefixes, it's not in reference to his main topic,the news reporting on Ferguson, but in reference to his fellow journalists and public discourse as a whole, like the sentence that begins "In their lofty self-assessments..." In his essay, Leibovitch also includes a smattering of negative adjectives, like insipid, cheap, debacle, and even at one point compares Ferguson to a 'roiling cauldron'. I felt that these had to be removed or toned down in order to give the essay a firmer sense of authority, rather than a sensationalist piece, as it initially appeared to me.
   His other problem was meandering into irrelevance, as he does in his last three paragraphs, where he talks at length about the 2008 presidential primaries and subsequent elections. He even mentions Bill Clinton's presidency, 'Brangelina', and, for some reason, Johnny 'Football' Manziel, who he refers to as only Johnny Football, which is his nickname. I removed the paragraphs about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, following the "Cohesion and Coherence" section in the Style handbook.
I tried to give the essay a sharper focus on the over-all topic of the reactionary trend in popular news media, or what Leibovitch calls 'bearing witness', and to give more depth to the facts as Leibovitch presented them, in the paragraphs about the Brown shooting and the Foley beheading.

Discussion Post #1

  In Jeanne Fahnestock's essay 'Accommodating Science', she discusses how popular science outlets take creative liberties with scientific studies published in academic journals in order to present the findings to a less scientifically literate public audience while simultaneously creating interesting journalistic pieces. Fahnestock highlights several examples of how simply changing the language or hedging uncertainties can lead to hypotheses being presented as fact.
  Interestingly, this essay was published in July of 1986, long before the explosion of the internet, social media outlets, and the rapid dissemination of information.
  The phenomenon described by Fahnestock in 1986 has grown in ways she couldn't have possibly envisioned. With the proliferation of websites like Wired, as well as popular science magazines, television shows like 'Mythbusters', and an endless parade of sci/ tech blogs, science has become part of public consciousness, perhaps more than ever before.
  In today's world, a scientific article can be published, cherry picked for sensational findings, rocketed through social platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, and then discussed on Good Morning America as fact before  any chance of repudiation.
  As we discussed in class, it is clear that reporting on scientific discoveries need to be more carefully done, with less rampant sensationalization. But how does society combat the social media aspect?
How can 'citizen journalists' be held responsible for generating sensational headlines that multiply and spread across social media platforms, and are then taken as fact by a lay audience?

Short Assignment # 1

In Richard Harris’ article, “’Uncertain’ Science: Judith Curry’s Take on Climate Change”

Intertextuality is exemplified by fusing together what one could think of as commonly known public discourse, scientific fact, and individual opinion.

The exigency, of the Grant-Davies variety, is the climate change debate. This debate is on going and often vitriolic, with anxious scientists and environmentalists on one side of the aisle, and a mixture of capitalists, conservatives, and advocates of personal and corporate freedom on the other.

Many people think that climate change is a critical matter. ‘Climate Change’, as an individual issue, is often a matter of debate between candidates and sometimes a platform for political parties.

In Richard Harris’ article, scientist Judith Curry expresses her uncertainty that action needs to be taken, as she believes that without knowing what possible natural factors might occur in the next few centuries, it is impossible to take lasting action against climate change.

I believe that Curry is utilizing D’Angelo’s intertextual technique of adaption, as she agrees with the findings of other scientists findings regarding the impact of humans on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, but draws a different conclusion from these findings and uses that conclusion to further her point