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.