A Week of Sad Visual Rhetoric

          This week has been terrible as far as Americans are concerned. Countless times this week we have been faced with images of sheer sadness, whether it was about the Boston Marathon bombing or the fertilizer explosion in West Texas. However, the visual rhetoric in these news article images is quite amazing. Looking at a display of images on the homepage of USA Today pictured below, you see several different images that lead to articles and or video footage regarding the particular news story. Starting with the image of the Boston streets looking deserted, the picture gives the appeal that something strange is happening. It looks strange because everything is in place for a major metropolitan city except the people are missing. This image and title is much bigger and bolder on the page suggesting with visual rhetoric that it is a more important story to the audience then maybe some of the other articles. Next, The picture of the police officer on the top right gives the appeal of honor because the officer’s facial expressions look proud, but serious. The position of this picture in the top right quickly shows the audience that it is of greater importance than the picture below it. However, there is the most visual rhetoric in this bottom image. First, you see an image of a red cross universally symbolizing medical aid. Then, you see government officials moving an injured person to the ambulance to seek medical aid. The audience is unable to clearly see any faces of the people in this image which gives off the feeling of remorse to the audience.

          Altogether the visual rhetoric of these images suggests that they must be related in some way because they all share the same rectangle on the very front space of the USA Today’s website. Visual rhetoric continues to evolve with the availability of software to the public. An art form like visual rhetoric must evolve with experimentation. By making graphic software more available to the general public, more experimentation is able to be conducted thus creating new innovative ways to use visual rhetoric in expressing the ideas of the creator to the audience. In what ways have you experimented with software to evolve visual rhetoric? What software did you use? Do you think you were successful in portraying your point to your audience?

Evolution of the Research Process

          I remember when I was back in about 1^st grade and learned about how the library is organized in order to find the books you need quickly. I believe my grade school and middle school library used a system called the Dewey Decimal System. The way it worked was there was a shelving unit in the library called the card catalog. The shelving unit had probably about 50 or so different draws that pulled out of the unit containing index cards for all the books in the library. Some were classified alphabetically by author’s last name or a subject heading. This made it a difficult task for me, at least when I was in the first grade, to find what I was looking for because you really had to know how to alphabetize well in order to find what you were looking for. It wasn’t until I was in the fifth grade that my school’s library went electronic. In fact, I was one of the first students to get to search using the computer card catalog system.

          This week I have been finding sources for my research project that is coming up. Quite contrary to my early years of doing research, I was able to do it from the comfort of my own bedroom while sitting at my desk with my computer on the internet. It was amazing to find all the information I could learn over my topic by just a few keyword searches. It was neat that after reading one article I got a better idea for a search term to find even more articles related to my topic all in the matter of a few minutes. I remember when I did research projects back in grade school, before the computerized system in the library, it would have taken me days to find the quality of sources that I was able to find in several minutes. The internet has truly revolutionized the way students and professors do research toady. However, you do have to know what a credible source looks and reads like. A great way in helping find credible sources is to use an online database that will search for only credible sources –however, you still have to be careful. It is amazing how the internet has shaped our culture in so many different ways including in the research field. I am interested in what your experience has been how the research process has changed. Has it changed for the better? Please comment below!

Should Public Sector Unions be Gotten Rid of?

          Following up from last week’s post about labor unions and how they are decreasing, I want to focus on some of the negative effects that public sector labor unions have on the U.S. Economy. In an article published in the Washington Post by Amy Gardner, she tries to take on multiple perspectives of what people think when they hear public sector labor unions. She talks about the retirement age of ER nurses and firefighters and their retirement packages in order to personify her opinion that private sector workers believe public sector workers retire early and make private sector workers support them with the taxes they pay.

          She later goes on to talk about how Ohio’s Governor John Kasich believes that the taxpayers are underrepresented and that in the long run in order to keep the government running they must reduce money spent to public sector salaries and retirement packages. She has several counter arguments of public sector workers saying that they are not rich and that their work benefits are based off of the longevity. In order to keep their long term work benefits, the public sector workers rely on their unions and their collective bargaining. However, Kasich supports the Right to Work legislation, which will limit the union’s ability to collective bargain for public sector wages. What do you think about this? Do you agree that retirement pensions of public sector workers should be cut in order to keep local governments running?
 http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-18/politics/35231264_1_union-workers-embrees-public-workers

Work Changes Much like Culture

          Today many people have a motivation to attend school and later college to become educated and eventually be able to get a job that they will be able to support themselves and possibly their families with. However, this has not always been the case. Work prior to the Industrial Revolution for most meant labor intensive jobs working in the fields and growing their own food. The only training given was on the job training. Not many people went to college and few graduated from high school. Once the Industrial Revolution took root, people started to shift towards moving to the city and working in factories that would mass produce various important goods, like cars. Although these were still labor intensive jobs, they were a step up for most because of their increased wages. Eventually this type of “factory work” changed and evolved with the creation of labor unions.

          Labor unions back then held meetings to discuss working conditions with the company the employees worked for as well as wages. At first, many companies made labor unions illegal. In fact, Henry Ford himself is to have believed to have a goon squad that would go around trying to break labor unions up within his company. However, membership in labor unions today is sometimes required in order to be employed with certain companies. But, recently the state where many of these labor unions were founded, Michigan, is slowly fading away. With the creation of new legislature called the Right to Work laws, it is now illegal to require financial support of a union as a condition of employment in Michigan as well as twenty-three others. Indiana, a neighboring state to Michigan, has seen vast improvements in their job market by passing the Right to Work laws. However, several labor unions like the AFL-CIO disputes the claims of Indiana’s increased job market by saying it was bound to happen for other reasons. What do you think about the decline of labor unions? Do you think that they are important in how our culture has been shaped? Do you think they are a necessary component and should be mandatory that all workers be a part of?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/28/right-to-work-impact-uncertain/2026755/

Culture and Its Impact on Literacy

          Literacy to most people is learning how to read or write. However, there are many more perspectives of literacy then the simple definition of knowing how to read and write a language. Did you know that the early alphabet was used for accounting purposes? Back then, there were no written stories the only records were of business transactions so that people could be taxed. The only people who understood this system were the elite and tax collectors. The first tax collectors were not believed to be honest men because they always had an edge on everyone else since they were literate on how the alphabet and record system worked. In this example, knowing the tax system is considered being literate without writing or reading any prose or poetry. Because the tax collectors had an edge on most people by being literate, they were able to take advantage of people and no one would know it because they were illiterate.

          This same idea of using literacy to have an edge on people still takes place today in other countries like in China. Min-Zhan Lu is an English teacher at the University of Louisville who writes a lot about the importance of literacy. In her article, “From Silence to Words: Writing as a Struggle” Lu talks about her struggles between being forced by the government to only write in standard Chinese in school and forced by her parents to speak and write in English at home. She found this a challenge because she was more fluent in English then she was in Chinese. This made writing her essays much more time consuming because she would know the word to say in English but not know the word in Chinese. Although this article focuses on a less imperative oppression, it still shows that not all people can be literate because of the countries they live in. In other places, they just flat out lack the resources to become literate, but they are able to be literate in the jobs they do for their culture.

          Culture is important when considering literacy because in different cultures literacy takes a higher precedence then in other cultures. In the cultures most people consider literacy to take a lower precedence, these cultures maybe more literate in survival skills since they are constantly fighting for their life in the wild every day. In the end, more civilized cultures are thought of as being more literate, but a day may come where the tides will change and the civilized cultures may become the illiterate culture.

http://www.junkyardwisdom.com/2009/06/08/literacy-as-oppression/

Memory Cloud

           A new fascinating art form was finally revealed and put into operation last Friday at the newly remodeled Memorial Student Center. The Memory Cloud is described as "an ethereal constellation of light points in a sculptural cloud form." The cloud is made up of LED nodes flickering on and off to create a 3D effect since they hang from the ceiling. The hanging of the LED nodes gives the art form the look of a cloud because the projected pictures on the LED nodes look like they are floating in midair, much like a cloud floats in midair. To see a live animation of the Memory Cloud, watch this video.

           The images that are shown on the cloud are “archived footage of time-honored traditions such as the Corp of Cadets, the Aggie Band, Kyle Field traditions, and past Aggie graduations.” In addition to past memories, the cloud has the ability to show a “real-time feed of everyday student life” from a closely mounted camera by the flag room in the MSC. By incorporating this real-time video feed, the Memory Cloud is able to involve the students into the art form and bridge the gap between the culture of the University’s past with its absolute present culture.

           This is interesting in regards to culture because this art form itself encapsulates the culture not only of today’s tech savvy technology era, but it shows how Texas A&M’s culture continues to change and evolve, much like in my last post I explored how music seems to evolve. When some people mention Texas A&M University, they think about the Corps as the Memory Cloud mentions. When my Grandfather went to Texas A&M the only students allowed were males and they were all in the Corps. The Corps, itself is a very traditional aspect of A&M, but much has changed since he went there. Today, A&M is a co-ed university that not only has a Corps of Cadets, but also non-corps students. Besides allowing a co-ed non-military student base, A&M has become one of the top research institutions in the United States and offers education in a vast amount of disciplines. However, with all of these changes the core values of Texas A&M are the same and so are its traditions! With this Memory Cloud, the University is not only trying to express its enthusiasm for our culture past and present, but also for the advances in science and technology.

http://tamutimes.tamu.edu/2013/02/18/traditions-depicted-in-art-when-memory-cloud-opens/

The Smartest Rapper?

          This semester in walking to my different classes at Texas A&M University, I have noticed several abnormal gatherings of people on campus advertising various people, events, and religions. All of these make up our culture, but they do so in different ways. The things on campus that catch my eye are the abnormal and curious things for example, Reginald Stuckey wrapping to his different wraps while standing on benches mostly around the academic plaza area.

          Little did I know that this courageous and exceptionally gifted man can do much more than just wrap extremely well – he has a doctorate in sociology! When Dr. May is not teaching or grading exams, he spends his time writing and recording rap music. Today there is a push in society to be able to create in lots of different ways. One way is creating music. That’s right, rap is music.

          If you ask my parents, or say even my grandparents, they may tell you that rap is not music. Funny enough, it really is because I can prove it. When my parents were my age my grandparents (their parents) thought that the only music was classical. Obviously today both my parents and I believe Bruce Springsteen as being a famous music artist. The same thing is happening with rappers like Reginald Stuckey.

          As culture evolves, it looks like other music genres like techno are on the rise. If you notice, the Black Eyed Peas use lots of techno in all of their new songs. Who knows what the next popular music genre will be, but I am sure that rappers, like Stuckey, will always be remembered just like Bruce Springsteen was in my parents’ generation.

Ole'Miss, Really?

          Last Wednesday was national signing day for all high school seniors wanting to compete in their sport at the next level. The University of Mississippi received one of the most coveted recruits in the entire recruiting class this year, Robert Nkemdiche. Not to mention several other highly sought after recruits. None the less, there are people, like myself, who wonder how in the world does a program who had no big record get such great recruits.  Tommy Tomlinson on sportsearth.com and Ryan Rudnansky on bleacherreport.com both use logos and ethos to show both sides of the story and how Ole’Miss was able to be so successful so far in the recruiting season.

          Tomlinson uses logos when he talks about how Nkemdiche decided to go to Ole’ Miss basically because his brother goes there and his mom really wants him to go there as well. He also uses logos in explaining how coach Freeze got the coaching job at Ole’Miss starting with the whole Michael Oher story. Because Tomlinson did some research into connections of players, like Nkemdiche, and into the leader behind the team, coach Freezer, he is using logos to persuade readers to understand the truth behind Ole’Miss’s top recruiting class.  Rudnansky uses logos by quoting ESPN interviews with Nkemdiche’s mother stating how most other schools looked at her son like a machine and not a human being, which was not what Ole’Miss did to her son. Because Rudnansky researched exactly how Nkemdiche’s mother felt at Ole’Miss he is using Lagos to persuade his readers that Ole’Miss has no scandal involved in their top notch recruiting class.

            Rudnansky uses ethos towards the end of his article not only by being a writer for one of the biggest sports recruiting websites in the nation, but with his personal anecdote of liking a restaurant because of its good service. Tomilson uses ethos in talking about his views on how college football recruiting works. He says that “recruiting is asking for a date. It's about acceptance and rejection. It's about mystery and pride. It leads to a 17-year-old sitting at a table with a row of hats in front of him, like some strange three-card-monte dealer, before he picks up a hat and makes some fans happy and others sad.”  With his diction in this quote he shows credibility because he understands the process. The college recruiting process is just one part of the overwhelming aspect of college football, which is definitely at the heart of our American culture.

Making Culture Have a Better Purpose

          In my post last week when I said “although not all of their cultures succeeded in their purpose,” I mean that one society may have come up with an invention that we have made better today. The invention could be made better because it is more readily accessible and usable to more people around the world.

           The Ancient Greeks came up with tons of inventions that we use better today. For one, they created the Olympic Games, but they were only played on the plains of Olympia. Today, the Olympics are played all over the world in a different country every four years. Don’t you think this is a great way to explore another society’s culture, or even an entire world’s culture? If you have ever been to an Olympic event please comment below to share your cultural experience.

          Another invention of the Greeks was the thermometer. Actually, Galileo really made the thermometer more of what we use it for today, a scientific measuring device. However, there are not many conventional thermometers around today because of the toxicity of mercury. Most thermometers are digital. Do you think they are as accurate as the mercury thermometers? I know I don’t think they are as accurate.

          Finally, the last Greek invention I am going to talk about is the concept of money. Did you know that money is considered to be one of the greatest discoveries of mankind? Back then the Greeks used metal pieces, or coins, for their money. Now, today there are still coins, but we have dollars, which are cheaper to produce, and plastic! I personally rarely carry any cash on me because I would rather just carry one plastic piece of card which contains all of my cash on it.  Plus it has built in security so that if someone else tries to use it I can deny them access. But, back in the times of Ancient Greece if someone took your money you were out of luck. Do you think our society moving to a more intangible concept of money is good thing? Do you ever wonder what will happen if your bank one day closes and takes all of your money with it? If you have any experiences with this issue please comment.

          Culture during the time of Ancient Greece may have achieved its purpose, but today we have made the purpose of Ancient Greek culture more efficient and some may argue more simplistic to use and understand on a more global scope.

Above information on Greek inventions was taken from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/greek-inventions.html.

My Definition of Culture

          Culture is the way society chooses to act, dress, and think. I believe that culture is rapidly changing, mostly because of the development of new technology that betters society. Additionally, I think it is important to know other societies cultures’ because we can learn a lot on how they faced the same challenges that we continue to face today. Although not all of their cultures succeeded in their purpose, we can still learn from their experience and work to develop our culture in a way that may let it succeed.

          Different authors actually have the same definition of culture. For instance, Mathew Arnold talks about how culture is science and how we as a society strive for perfection. Obviously, science is a way that people think. My definition of culture talks not only about how culture includes what people think, but how to turn their thoughts into ideas that better society. Raymond Williams, founder of cultural studies, even believed in the idea of culture evolving into something different then it was before. Actually, he believed that culture tested itself out. If societies did not grasp the new culture, it would change until the society chose to act, dress, or think using that type of culture. Finally, Arnold is an informative writer who agrees with culture also being a history lesson that society should appreciate. My definition of culture states that society should learn from cultures because those cultures may give better insight into what our current one should be like.

          Culture is complex word to define because it takes on many different meanings. The most important meaning is that it is used to describe a wide range of people that all have something in common. Because culture must be common among a group of people it must evolve so that more people will want to adopt it. History should help shape culture since mistakes should not be made more than once, or what is the importance of history.