FA333 Project 6

Try to be as honest as you can. Look at yourself from various perspectives. Need to contain at least 5 pages and music. (ex, opening page of photo album. each photo has different yourself) Interview what you are and not, like and don't like, do and don't, etc. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Blog #9

1) McCloud's argument about the future of digital technologies and comics are really interesting. He mentioned that audiences read the comics through hypertexts. It's not about only pictures (resembles or icons) which are stable and unchangeable once they're printed. There’re standard ways to understand the printed comics depend on the pictures or the orders of the frames. Comparing the printed comics, the digital comics are more likely flexible to be perceived depend on the audiences' situations and hypertexts.

2) To me, one of the most interesting articles from this class was Mishira's one. His main point is that illustrations bring misunderstandings or misconceptions to the audiences because they don't resemble enough. And, this point very makes sense to me. This is basic concept when we draw pictures. Although the pictures of the structures are technically correct, the reality is often different. For instance, the drawing of human heart and how it works are totally different from the real human heart. This will help me to be more careful and pay attention to differences between pictures and the reality. Also, Goffman's theory was also very interesting. In the article, he introduces several kinds of advertisements such as the family or feminine hand. Before I read this article, I had never thought about how the advertisements approach the audiences. But now, I more likely notice those standard ways, which Goffman introduced in his article, to approach us when I see the advertisements. When I look at the advertisements, I can find his theory in many of them. Also, I think some of his theories reflect the society. For instance, man should be bigger than women when men are more powerful and higher status than women according to relative size. But, I think this has been changing these days. Probably, this theory is still effective, but it’s not as common as before. I think this is because the gender role of men and women has been changing in the society. Men and women are getting more equal these days. I believe the advertisements reflect the society very quickly. Because of it, I think paying more attention and analyze the advertisements help me to develop my critical thinking. Finally, I learned a lot from the visual argument according to Birdsell and Groarke. They pointed three important contexts such as immediate visual contest, immediate verbal contest, and visual culture.

McCloud, Scott. "REINVENTING COMICS." 199-221.

Goffman, Erving. "GENDER ADVERTISEMENT." 28-80.

Mishra, Punyashiloke. "The Role of Abstraction in Scientific Illustration: Implication for Pedagogy." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 177-194.

Blair, Anthony J. "The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 344-362.

Blog #8

1) After I read the article, I still think his dream house came from "political realities, from the class, race, and gender differences...”(VR 396)Because his imagination never can be drawn away from his identity which was created by his and his family’s those physical materials. I studied communication in a college. According to my precious classes, our thinking never can be separated from identities. Although it was not on purpose, his dream house still invisibly represented his identity based on his background and culture. But, it's natural because all we want come from how we are. And, how we are come from our identities, culture, and background.

2) According to Hooks, "expansive and more inclusive understanding of architecture, the vernacular is as relevant as any other form of architectural practice." (VR 399) architecture is unique depend on cultures and traditions in different areas. Also, history has a significant meaning when we look at architecture. In other term, we can say architecture makes a cultural practice. Those two interact with each other. Also, he mentioned “the major challenge of a new architectural historiography is… “past” and “present” be attuned to the complex role of differences.” (VR 399) It contains all differences such as skin color, gender, traditions, and so on.

3) According to van Dijk, the new racism is totally different from the old racism. First of all, it doesn't consider itself as “racism." The new racism is more democratic and respectable than old one. Moreover, minorities, such as drug abuse or lacking achievement values, used to be looked down by the old racism; however, the new racism takes those minorities as just different. Those minorities don't need to be looked down by the new racism. Especially in U.S. and Europe, the new racism is more like psychological and science studied rather than discriminations which come from emotions or prejudices.

Hooks, Bell. "Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World 395-400.

van Dijk, Teun A. "NEW (S) RACISM: A DISCOURSE ANALYTICAL APPROACH." Ethnic Minorities and the Media

Concealment and reveal

According to Burbules, links work for both concealment and reveal. Burbules mentioned, "in our ordinary encounters with links, they are already made.... with materials created by unknown persons whose reasons, biases, motivations, and credibility..." (Burbles 104-105) Moreover, I think there’re also many links are made by companies or governments for particular reasons.
For instance, we can see differences when we search "news" on Yahoo and MSN. They have different arrangements of orders for the links. I think this is because they earn money from sponsors who pay for advertisements. Yahoo and MSN have different order of priorities for the links based on their sponsors which own the link pages. When they're on business, concealment and reveal occur not because of their personal preferences, but because of financial profits.
Also, censorship systems can cause concealment and reveal. According to VOA, "Eric Schmidt, the head of the U.S. Internet giant Google, has reaffirmed his company's willingness to abide by the Chinese Communist government's censorship rules." (Google Defends Decision to Work with Chinese Censors) Chinese government conceals some information which may be harmful for them. The problem is Chinese Internet users don't know their searched information is censored. For instance, I've found out that I and my Chinese friends know different information about Beijing Olympics. I think this is because our information is controlled. It actually makes me scared. This is one kind of brainwashing. On the other hand, some Internet users against the government and reveal some national secrets or conspiracies. Those who usually anonymously reveal the information can be any nationalities. I think the biggest problem is that Internet users are unaware of the fact that all links are already made on purpose.

Burbules, Nicholas C.. "Rhetoric of the Web: Hyperreading and Critical Literacy." 20 Oct, 2001. 7 Jul 2008 http://www.wsu.edu/~pmuhlhauser/pdf.

Ramirez, Luis. "Google Defends Decision to Work with Chinese Censors." Voice of America 12 April 2006 7 Jul 2008 http://voanews.com/english/archive/2006-04/2006-04-12-voa12.cfm?CFID=10071618&CFTOKEN=31000607.

Symbols (Arnheim)

Everyone knows, the first picture is the emblem of the Olympics. These five rings represent five inhabited continents. Actually, these rings don't look the continents, according to Arnheim, the description of the symbol is “the extent to which it portrays things which are at a high level of abstractness than is the symbol itself." (VD 139) If someone who doesn’t know the Olympic sees this symbol, probably he/she won't be able to interpret the representation. As we can see, the level of abstraction is very high. After the users interpret the rings as the continents, they still have to refer the continents to the Olympics. Actually, there’s no connection between the continents and the Olympic games. But, this symbol still works as the Olympic logo. We interpret this symbol not because of referring the image to the Olympic, but sharing culture of the term and the logo. Understanding backgrounds of symbols is something essential to interpret the correct meaning. As he mentioned, "any specimen … can serve as a symbol, if somebody chooses to use it that way. But in such cases, the image leaves the effort of abstracting entirely to the user." (VD139) Although the five rings don’t remind the users of the continents or the Olympics, it still works; it still works as the official the Olympic symbol as long as somebody chose. This symbol is one of good examples of extension of referring. Other pictures contain the city of name where the Olympics will be held and the years. “the verbal name or slogan presented in commercial design, is identified by consumers more readily than the blandmark.” (VR 144) This theory is applicable for the Olympics symbol too. The combination of the city name, the year, and the five rings make us easily perceive that that it’s the Olympic symbol.

Arnheim, Rudolph. "Pictures, Symbols, and Signs." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 137-151

International Olympic Organization. 1 Jul 2008 .

Punctuation and Gender advertisement

Punctuation has been a significant function in sentences. Without punctuation, readers have hard time to go through the sentences. The purpose of using punctuation is organizing the whole sentences. Punctuation not only distinguishes between the sentences, but also clarifies or emphasizes the contents. It unifies the sentences according to their relevancies. Capital letters have almost the same functions too. Also, capital letters are able to clarify a beginning of sentence and emphasize a significant word. Those capital letters easily get readers' attention, and readers can understand key points in the sentences based on capital letters.

Period mark is definitely one of the most useful punctuation. It must exist in order to unify the each sentence. Without period mark, all the sentences are connected to each other, they don't make any sense. Also, quotation and question marks are useful to show who the sentences head for, and avoid some misunderstanding in the sentences.

Solomon, Martin. "The Power of Punctuation." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 282-289.
















This is an advertisement for Tiffany &Co. According to Goffman, men are usually taller than women in advertisements. He mentioned one of reasons is that bigger sizes symbolize their strengths and superiority of status. However, I can see both man and woman are about the height in this picture. Also, I've seen many of advertisements which men are not much taller than women. If I analyze this conversion according to Goffman's theory, this is because status of women has improved these days. Because men are not longer take over all the status, they don't have to be symbolized as strength anymore.

On the other hand, I see another Goffman's theory, "the feminine touch" in this advertisement. (Gender advertisements 29) The woman in the picture put her hand on the breast. Women usually look more elegant with this gesture. I think the feminine touch is still common in advertisements.

Goffman, Erving. "GENDER ADVERTISEMENT. " 28-80.

Verbal and visual arguments

From my understanding, according to Blair, the main point is that we see arguments both in visual and verbal ways. "Visual arguments are not distinct in essence from verbal arguments. The argument is always a propositional entity, merely expressed differently in the two cases." (VR 362) He also mentions that visual arguments can be as strong as verbal arguments. Let me introduce one Japanese proverb, "Seeing is believing." This basically means "seeing once is as persuasive as hearing a hundred times." This sounds kind of extreme, but I mostly agree with both Blair's theory and the proverb. Visuals are sometimes very powerful; especially, when we see something we have never seen before.

For instance, when we see the pictures of disasters; although we read articles about huge earthquakes, without a visual we can't really realize how serious they are. In this case, descriptions of damages or numbers of deaths in a newspaper article (verbal elements) aren't really persuasive. Probably, not because of poor contexts, but because readers' lack of imagination. In some situations, we'll never understand something unless we experience on our own. Understanding verbal arguments sometimes requires us to have prior knowledge or experiences.

On the other hand, I also agree with Blair's point, "The sender of the message lacks the power to have his or her intentions well understood, since the receiver is free to interpret in various ways." (VR 361) There is always no guarantee that receivers interpret as senders mean. The diverse backgrounds and various kinds of common sense mean that misconceptions are basically unavoidable unless a message is particularly created for a common audience.

Blair, Anthony J. "The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 344-362.

Watch your step going home!

Probably, we all have experienced at least once that some stores or trees suddenly disappear from local streets. On the other hand also we sometimes see new unfamiliar objects suddenly appear on the streets. We can recognize those alterations when outside is light. However, what if it is at night? What if outside is completely dark? Can we notice that something changed? I discovered the answer walking home one night.

This story goes back to the days when I was in Auburn where I went to a community college. One quiet night, I was going back to my apartment from a night class. Usually, my friend took me back to the apartment; however, that night I was taking a walk going back to the apartment myself. There were two apartments next to each other, and mine was the second one. If I take the normal route, it usually takes fifteen minutes from the campus to the apartment. However, there was a shorter way which I called the super short cut. The way was actually a parking lot for the first apartment; if I cut across the parking lot, I saved about five minutes. So, I took the short cut every time I walked back from the campus.

Everything seemed as usual until my whole body suddenly got covered in mud. I did not understand what happened to me for a moment. Then, I took a look around; I could see nothing but mud. As I looked up, the sky was way up higher than normal. Finally, I realized that I fell into a huge hole in the parking lot that I had never seen there before. Because it was at night, outside was completely dark and I couldn't see the hole. Moreover, the hole was extremely huge; it was deeper than my height. I couldn't even reach the top of the hole with my arms outstretched. I tried to get out of the hole, but that hole was all covered with slippy and thick mud; I was completely stuck. After a long effort, I realized that it was impossible to get out on my own. Unfortunately, I couldn't use my cell phone because the phone was in my bag which was completely covered in mud. The only thing I could do was waiting until someone would pass by and help me out.

First, I called for help pretty loud, "Help me! I'm in the hole!" but nobody came to help me. So, I started waiting until someone would come. Probably, I had been waiting for twenty minutes in the hole. Finally, I heard some people came talking and walking near the hole. As soon as I heard a voice, I screamed very loud "Help me! I'm stuck in the hole!" Two guys heard my scream, and came to me. I will never forget their facial expression when they found me in the deep and muddy hole. They were so shocked that I was stuck in the huge hole on that cold night. They rescued me from that big muddy hole. After I got back to my room, I looked at myself in a mirror. The reflection showed me all covered with mud and some small bruises.

The next day I went back to the parking lot, but the hole was already gone. Instead of the hole, I saw one brand-new street lamp. The night I fell into the hole, the parking lot was under construction for the lamp. Knowing this, I really wished they would have finished the construction one day earlier so that I wouldn't have fallen into the hole.

And, this why you don't walk across the parking lot at night!

What's rhetoric?

Rhetoric has a long history since the fifth century B.C. This is one part of Arts which is about understanding of using symbols in our lives.

Humans are the only animals who create substantial symbols and use those in the real life. Our reality is through the symbols, and we share meanings of the term. Although other animals are able to cognize symbols, they will not be able to use those in their real lives. Using substantial symbols for ordinary communication distinguishes between human and other animals.

We use various kinds of symbols which represent something else. For instance, we use a term "lemon" refer to "sour fruit." This representation comes from unchangeable fact that lemon is sour. In this case, lemon will be always referred as sour unless scientists modify lemon to sweet or spicy in the future. However, there is a symbol which could have been referring to different meaning. For example, we use a term "Cougars" refer to "Washington State University." This is because cougars have known as WSU's school mascot for long time, and not only WSU students, but also other local residents know this fact. What if "Alligators" has been WSU's school mascot? If so, "Cougar" has not represented WSU, but "Alligators." This is not unchangeable fact; someone invented what the symbol stands for.

To me, rhetoric is more like common sense among those who share some experiences, thoughts, cultures, and so on. Those who understand what symbols stand for which could be different depend on one's background.

a. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.

The free dictionary. 17 Jun 2008 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the study of misunderstandings and their remedies.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/courses/sites/lunsford/pages/defs.htm