Questions for Mrs. DiPrince

1. How can I express ethos (creditability) about the president if I do not know background information of the candidate?
2. How would you cite the video?
3.How many peer reviews do I need?

Visual Analysis on Newsweek's "Muslim Rage"

            This picture can be interpreted in many different ways.  On the cover, the first visual element was the facial expressions of the crowd.  The man that stood out the most was the one in the back screaming.  He portrayed extreme passion and attracted the reader in the article.  I was contemplating whether he was stabbed in the back or he was screaming out his beliefs.  Another visual element was the different hand positions.  Some individuals were in a fist form and other people were holding a flag.  Another man was gripping the shoulder of the person next to him.

Although this photo demonstrated strong emotions, I was unaware of the event.  The text read, “Muslim Rage,” which I possessed no knowledge of.  The article portrayed a biased nature.  The picture expressed a great amount of negative energy and encouraged hatred towards the Muslim religion.  This picture only showed a few men and not all Muslim followers participate and believe in the outrage.  This article was written by someone who gained first- hand experience.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a creditable author and Newsweek is a well-known source, which represented the ethos of this article.  The sub text “How I survived it; How we can end it” provided both ethos and pathos.  This text showed that the author experienced the outrage and developed a solution as well as created a significant emotional appeal.  The audience either put themselves in the Muslims shoes or built hatred on the entire race.  The twitter comments also played a significant role in the responses to the magazine cover.  Several people critiqued the situation and critiqued the Muslim culture.  Some people wrote their deep thoughts of the situation.  The overall opinion was that most Americans and Muslim Americans were humorous but very disrespectful to the Muslim culture.         

Visual Analysis on Obama's Presidential Campaign Video

Presidential Campaign videos need to be both productive in their argument and visually appealing to the audience.  Barack Obama presented these qualities in a variety of his videos, the most engaging and well-organized presentation was the video called “The Top 5 Reasons Mitt Romney won’t release more tax returns.”  The various types of video clips from the campaign video were the first visual element that captured my attention.  The video was short and concise, but they were full of color, which appealed to the human interest.  The text was full of simplicity, which gave the reader a focal point and valid arguments to consider.

It provided five reasons of its claim that Mitt Romney will not release more tax reasons.  The first reason was that Romney pays a lower tax than the middle class.  It showed a clip from the ABC News, a woman elaborated on the issue.  She said “a lot more middle class have to pay a lot more incoming tax then him.”  Romney responded, “ I have to pay 15%.”  The second reason was that Romney has millions of dollars in offshore accounts.  This information was presented by another clip from the ABC News.  They claimed that Romney held a secret company in Bermuda.  He had twelve offshore tax haven funds in the Cayman Islands.  The third reason was that Romney used loopholes to pay less in taxes.  A reporter from the ABC News said, “If Romney will try to avoid a 15% tax, what else will he try to avoid, that is a pretty low tax rate for him.”  The fourth reason was that under Paul Ryan, Romney would pay only 1% in taxes.  There would be a 4.3 trillion dollar cut for the wealthy.  The final reason stated was that Romney thinks coming clean will hurt him in the election.  The video presented coverage of a CNN interview with Mitt Romney.  The interviewer asked Romney why the people of North Carolina could not see last year’s tax return.  Romney responded, “cause I want to make sure I beat president Obama.” 

These reasons reflect ethos, pathos, and logos.  These accusations of Romney are from creditable sources: ABC News and CNN.  These 5 reasons provided a significant amount of emotional appeal to the people and enough evidence to validate the argument against Mitt Romney.  At the end of the video, it stated, “What else is he hiding, only Mitt Romney knows.”  Although the video was short, the graphic designs and the pictures of the video provided significant powerful meanings, which made the audience critically re-consider whether Romney is truthful in his endeavors.  Most importantly will he be trustworthy if he became the President of the United States.    

Choices 2.0 Chapter 6 Rhetorical Précis

In the educational book “Choices 2.0: Situations for College Writing” (2010), Joe Marshall Hardin asserts that the media has a significant influence on the global cultures of today’s society.  Hardin supports his claim by discussing the various types of media, television, newspaper, and advertisements. He explained on the persuasion aspect that advertisements possess a customer to buy not necessarily what they need the product for but how will the product make the customer’s life easier.  His purpose is to inform his audience on the media’s persuasion in order to present a media critique, which is about making product choices.  The media critique is not only the negative critique, but also to discover the aspect of how the media or the product works.  He has a modernistic tone, he provides numerous examples of media as well as provides steps in writing a productive media critique.      

Rhetorical Precis on Plagiarism

In the newspaper article “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” (2010), Trip Gabriel asserts that technology has evolved immensely that plagiarism is easily performed.  Gabriel provides several case examples of plagiarism in various prestigious colleges; they all shared the same interest that originality is not of importance to college students and that students have no interest in the creativity and unique quality of writing.  His purpose is to show that plagiarism should be taken seriously in order to give the credit to the original person because Sarah Wilensky, a senior at Indiana University, stated that there are plenty of people who still admire and want credit to their original work.  The tone of this article was very informative; he had various statements and the audience can picture their faces and voices that were spoken.      

Visual Analysis on Occupy Art image

This picture was uploaded ont he facebook page, Occupy Art: The People's Movement in Visual.  This picture grabbed my attention because of the very powerful message and it provided a valid argument.  There is also an outline of a person with the message, "insert photo here."  A terrorist can be anyone and this photo can paranoia among the world's population.  The text above "What could a terrorist look like?" made a significant impact.  This image is blank, which provides a constant question.  There are no certain genetics or physical characteristics, even gender to determine the looks of a terrorist.  Another reason this picture caught my attention was becuse of the colors the artist used.  The artist put "terrorist" in red with the other text in black.  This made an impression because everyone is concerned about their safet, once they see 'terrorist," they automatically think of 9-11 and their safety.  This image makes the viewer critical think.  Anyone can be a terrorist, it can be as little as a shooting in a small town or 9-11.  Anyone can have the face of a terrorist.  The message is important because we as a population can not segregate a culture based on suspensions or past events.   

Visual Rhetoric

            The videos between Obama and Romney had different approaches and visual rhetoric.  Romney started his video with him making a speech while his wife stood by his side.  He opened with a statement as, “ I believe this is the land of opportunity, I believe that if we restore the principle of opportunity and hope, it will give everyone a fair chance.” Then following his statement, there were several pictures of the Olympics to portray the potential for mankind to achieve.  Most of Romney’s video was consumed about his family background.  They discussed his relationship with Ann, his five sons, and his accomplished father.  They discussed Ann’s Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis and their teamwork throughout the journey.  They portrayed his life as an All- American tradition.  Romney also followed in his father’s footstep in politics.  Because his father would mentor him at such a young age, it showed Romney’s passion for politics.  Romney appealed to the women for this part of the video.  His family background also provided the evidence that he had strong moral values and Romney would lead the nation upon these values.  Women were his audience to a healthy family lifestyle.  The other part of the video was his first job at Staples.  Several people, including his family, said that he worked hard and always cared for the customers well being.  They also stated several times “he was very cheap.”  This statement appealed to the elderly white male conservatives.  This statement meant that he will use the nation’s money for specific, quality reason; but this statement can be reworded as he will not spend the money for any change and change will not happen. 

Obama began his video with the past events and a voice saying, “We have been through a lot together.” This showed Obama’s experience in office.  The past events pictured different lifestyles, which also represented his upbringing of a poor life while Romney grew up wealthy.  Obama’s speech had a different view.  Obama stared off with his actions.  The video reviewed most of his choices while he was in office.  They were several people, including him and Michelle that stated that he would make decisions even if it were not popular to the population.  He briefly discussed his family background, but it was enough to understand his moral standings.  He discussed how his grandparents did not have work, which motivated him to create more jobs in the automobile industry.  This appealed to the lower class of the population.  He showed that he wants everyone to succeed and build a solid foundation.   Michelle was very poise and professional and discussed his hard work over the course of four years.  She briefly discussed their family lifestyle.  Michelle said that their daughters are the world to them and that Obama still finds time to spend quality family time.  Another big moment in his video was the assignation of Bin Laden.  The video showed Obama at the spot of the twin towers.  This was powerful and appealed to the entire US population because he gave his respects.  This showed that Obama’s words turn into actions and that he is reliable. 

Overall, both videos got the message across that both men are hard workers and that they will stop at nothing to improve this economy.