Pinterest & Pathos Final

Pinterest & Pathos Enjoy!

The Pathos of Pinterest

The Pathos of Pinterest Here is my "teacher" version of my Critical Photo Essay. Enjoy!

The art of collaboration

Our generation is one of collaboration. More and more it is stressed to us that having team work skills is vital. We see it in the work place as people are placed on teams to get projects done. We see it in sports as the most popular ones are those involving teams. We see it in the school systems where group projects and workshop groups are widely used as teaching techniques. As Kohl et al points out in his article, we can see it in Wikipedia where "everybody is able to be part of the authorship" (166). Additionally, he highlights how, in a world where anonymous writing free of deadlines and editors, authorship has become much more impulsive. The question, clearly, is whether or not this collaborative spirit is improving writing or not. I would argue, wholeheartedly, that it is adding an element that cannot exist without collaboration. Kohl argues that "Collaborative processes of writing dissolve the central intention of the author" (174). I definitely disagree with this statement. Sure, if the group of authors all have greatly differing intention in their writing, this statement reins true. However, I find that the intention of authors rarely differ to a point that they become dissolved when collaboration happens. In the case of Wikipedia, the intention of the authors can surely be assumed to be to spread knowledge freely, and without capitalistic values attached. When we all share a respect for such a community, the intentions of contributing authors will undoubtedly run parallel to one another. When an author whose intentions don't match that of the community, they are quickly edited.

When I finish a project, I usually think that I'm proud of it, that is, until I get to a workshop group. When my peers edit and comment on one of my pieces, I almost always find that I like it more when the edits are applied. Along the way, the intention of my project doesn't change, because my peers respect and don't attempt to change or break down my intentions.

When I was dancing competitively, there were always multiple sections of competitions. There were the duo/trio groups consisting of 2 to 3 dancers, solo dancers which were, as you could guess, individual dancers, and there were group dances which ranged from 4-80 dancers. My interest in a piece increased with the number of dancers. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy watching the solo routines... but only for about 5 numbers. The combination of all of the dancers and their differing styles and body types and body movements are fantastically beautiful when they are all preforming a similar routine. The author, or choreographer in this case, has an intention behind their work, and the dancers are made aware of that. But the differing interpretation of the same intention is what makes the piece as a whole stunning.

Take a look at this TED talk where a large group of vocalists come together to create a phenomenal song and then try to argue that collaboration isn't a beautiful thing.

Info Graphic

I just realized that this was only ever saved as a draft, and not posted. Sorry Doug!!

Critical Photo-Essay proposal

My generation has seen a rise in popularity of quotes and small bits of knowledge conveyed in a multimodal setting. Sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumbler foster a setting for such images as they allow one to post a single photo to be displayed without needing to click on a link. Instead, the image is displayed in full as part of the site's design. However, some (but not all) of these quotes or lines of insight are not displayed in full, or with enough context to glean meaning. Yet, these images remain popular. How do elements such as design, font, and style of a text convey and affect the message and interpretation of said text?

I frequently see these multimodal images containing quotes posted by friends or by popular web personalities, but it is frequently apparent that the meaning of the quote is not fully understood by the poster. Personally, I love browsing the web for well-designed quote-based images. However, before I post such an image, I research the quote to see where it comes from, if the context in which it was originally published alters the meaning of the quote, the integrity of the cited author of a quote, etc. I've always been fascinated by how design affects attached meanings. I find my research question to be a modern and relevant study of design and text.

I intend to research this topic by compiling a sample of such texts from a range of genres and surveying the public to determine how, and if, design affects textual meaning. I will probably use a survey-hosting site such as Survey Monkey or something similar. The multimodal images will be presented with a range of emotional response options. Similarly, exclusively the text will be presented with the same range of emotional response options. The two types of questions should be presented in random order to provide an answer sampling that includes both image-before-text orderings and text-before-image orderings of the questions. The data will then be analyzed and compiled into the final research piece.

Helvetica & Ampersands

This week's readings really reminded me of the movie Helvetica. Especially Wysoki's "The Multimedia of Text." Both talk about the use of serifs, or the small "tails" many typefaces have. Helvetica discusses the emotional impact these tails have, while others argue that serifs make texts easier to read. Wysoki points out the introduction of sans serif typefaces: "type designers, in tune to the industrialization or Europe and the United States in the latter half of the 19th and into the early 20th century, wanted typefaces that functioned relationally, like machines. They streamlined the typefaces with which they had grown up, removing everything they saw as extraneous, such as serifs" (129). What is interesting to me is the lack of attempted integration of these sans serif typefaces into everyday texts. You can see them as signage or in titles of articles, but rarely do you see a sans serif text face as the body of a text.

Pretty much all of the articles we read this week made me dork out because I love how different symbols and typefaces function in text. Is there a major for that? Solomon's text on "The Power of Punctuation" made me super nerd-happy. She begins the text by defining punctuation as "The use of standard marks and signs in writing and printing to separate works into sentences, clauses, and phrases in order to clarify meaning" (282). In other words, punctuation makes sense of the chaos of words. When you read a regular text, punctuation is there, but are we consciously paying attention to the way it functions in the text? Other than indicating where to pause or the end of a sentence, I wouldn't say that when I read a text I'm consciously thinking, "oh here's a clause" or, "look at that! This period is square. I MUST be writing in Futura!" Instead, we move across the words and take for granted what punctuation is doing for our reading. I think I'm going to take up the worship of punctuation. ALL HAIL THE AMPERSAND!

No, but in all reality I have a weird obsession with the ampersand because of this:

I can't find anything to confirm this, but it is a beautiful notion.

LOLOL "manly speaker"

Kathleen Jamieson's article, "Eloquence in an Electric Age" talks about a topic that I have always found incredibly interesting: Gendered writing. She states, "Because it was presumably driven by emotion, womanly speech was thought to be. personal, excessive, disorganized, and unduly ornamental. Because it was presumably driven by reason, the manly style was thought to be factual, analytic, organized, and impersonal" (801). This creates an interesting dynamic between how ethos, pathos, and logos relate differently to each men and women. If men are factual and impersonal, then it must be hard to cover pathos. On the other hand, if women are too personal, then they may have a difficult time covering logos. I also found it hilarious that she  quoted Max Atkinson as saying "High pitched vocalizations tend to be strongly associated with emotional or irrational outbursts, a deeply rooted cultural assumption that no doubt derives from, and is sustained by, the screams of each new generation of infants"(803). Therefore, naturally, women are much less credible because we just sound like crying babies. Yeah. Ok. I mean, I get where these horribly sexist ideas would come from as for women, in history, have always been treated as a child whom needs protection. But the ideas are still ridiculous.