Be Afraid
Sunday, November 14, 2010
BLog Group #6
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Blog Group 5
AtlasShrugs
AtlasShrugs belongs to Pamela Geller, a deeply opinionated conservative blogger. For the past seven years, Geller has been using her personal blog to, in her words, bring "you the news you will not hear from the mainstream media, providing original reportage, covering little-reported events of great import, and giving an unblinkingly honest examination of global affairs". Her blog has landed her appearances on many of the major news stations, including NBC and CNN. Geller and her blog have also been the topic of a recently published NY Times article and interview.
One can easily note that her opinion, although her written hope is 'honest exmination', is rather biased to her personal conservative views. Her attacks on the Democratic party are ever present. Her views on politics are very clear through her blog. Receiving around 200,000 unique visitors per month, her blog is ever increasing in popularity, but is it directly the same with her impact? Thoughts?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Blog Group 4
Monday, October 18, 2010
Group #3
For our blog of choice, we decided on “It’s Getting Hot in Here,” a blog known to be “the voice of a growing movement.” As you can infer from the title, the blog is an effort to stop global warming around the world. The posts are written by the youth leaders of the global movement for saving the environment and consist of articles/their opinions on the steps we need to take to save our Earth. Though originally created by a small group of leaders, “It’s Getting Hot in Here” has grown into a global online community, including 300 writers from all over the world. Since the blog is a worldwide movement, can we assume that the posts are more legitimate and unbiased? Or do we still see people using fear of what may happen to the world in the future to promote their own wishes and personal stance on a topic?
Monday, October 11, 2010
Group #2: Fear in the Political Arena
Michelle Malkin paints herself to be the normal every day woman. In the ‘about’ section of her blog, she says she is a mother and a wife before anything else, and then adds little fun facts about herself to endear and ingratiate herself with the reader in order to gain their trust. Her blog does a good job of using fear tactics by outlining an event, using biting, humourous commentary and in turn, making the reader feel that politics is corrupt and we need to be weary of it all. It questions issues and everyday events with sly, witty comments to make us question our trust in the government. While at first glance, it looks like she is encouraging the audience to think for themselves, we feel that her underlying message is to get us to trust her because she’s pointing it all out to us by establishing her authority in the matter and voicing concerns. She is really just trying to sway us to her side by undermining the side she is criticizing. What do you think?
Monday, October 4, 2010
Blog Project Group #1
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Fear and the Environment
(Now, for the respondents--here are the prompts you can choose to comment on after you visit the blog and read some entries, etc.)
1. Analyze the interface of the featured blog. Focusing on visual elements on the home page, make an argument in your comment on the class blog about what the interface implicitly suggests about the blog's central theme(s), values, or identity (see Writing Analytically on how to make the implicit explicit). Make an inference that could be a topic for class discussion and debate.
2. Look for an argument or disagreement occurring in the comments on a particular post on the featured blog. In your comment on the class blog, analyze the key issues and points of contention in the comments. Based on your observations, develop a theory about what blog’s readers value as a community. Use the following questions to get you started:
• What issues or ideas do people seem to agree upon despite the larger disagreement?
• Do people on the blog think some comments are rude or inappropriate, and if so why do you think this is?
• What rhetorical strategies do commenters use to construct their arguments?
• How do commenters reference other comments, and what does that suggest about the nature of interaction within the community?
3. Look for an argument or disagreement occurring in the comments on a particular post on the featured blog. Respond to that argument with a comment of your own on the featured blog. Explain your comment on our class blog and ask our class how they might respond. If you receive a response to your comment on the blog we're analyzing, post an update about how readers responded to your presence or ideas.
4. Look through several posts for any claims about a writer's or several writers' ethos on the featured blog. In your comment, develop an analytical theory about how ethos is working on the blog. Here are some questions to get you started:
• How do writer(s) invoke their education, status, experiences, beliefs, or identity? Do these methods ever backfire (do readers ever respond negatively to a writer's identity, education, etc.?)
• If there are multiple writers contributing to the blog, do you see any similarities or differences in appeals to ethos across posts? What assumptions can you make about the community based on what appeals to ethos bloggers seem to rely upon most? (For example, is education seen as particularly important? Political beliefs? Gender? Anything else?)
5. Look through several posts for any direct references or appeals to the audience on the featured blog (you might look for the use of the pronoun "you"/"we" or for more subtle techniques, such as posing a question to the audience or inviting the audience to respond). Write a comment on our class blog that states your theory about what those appeals to the audience suggest about who the writer believes the audience is, what they believe the audience values, or what the relationship between the writer/audience seems to be (for example, does the writer ask for the audience's opinion or position herself as an authority, or something else entirely?).
6. Look for one instance or several instances in which an author of a post makes a claim or introduces a new idea on the featured blog. In your comment on the class blog, write an interesting analysis of the rhetorical techniques the author uses to make this argument. You might consider the following questions:
• Are any of the ideas particularly controversial, and if so, how does the author attempt to persuade the audience or account for the controversy in advance?
• Look for whether readers generally agree or disagree. Formulate a theory about what the trends you notice suggest about the nature of the community, their values, the purpose of the blog, etc.
• Does the author cite any evidence or an authority on the subject, and if so, who or what is considered persuasive? Do the readers agree? What kind of knowledge does the community seem to value or disagree upon?
• Does the author introduce a new idea by referencing or attempting to improve upon someone else's idea? What might we learn as writer's about how arguments can be built off of or proceed from other arguments? (What's effective and what's not effective?)
7. Read through several posts and comments and formulate a claim about whether or not you think the featured blog actually does anything. In other words, does the blog seem to have any effect on people's knowledge, values, ideas, etc? Provide evidence for your claim in your comment on the class blog.