224 Mid-term Review

Some things to think about

Here are some things to think about…

• Bear in mind this isn’t an exhaustive guide to what might be on the exam, but I promise reading over all of this will help you.

• You should re-read all of the posts your classmates made about specific rhetors, too

• And skim over the readings again.• Pro tip for any exam, but particularly for mine: pay

attention to the things *I* stressed, since I’m writing the questions. I’m likely to ask about texts I liked.

The exam itself

• Will be on Niihka, starting Monday, due by Friday.

• It’s timed. You get 2 hours and 30 minutes.• It’s 16 questions, several of which are short

answer.• It is meant to be relatively painless unless you

haven’t been paying attention/doing the readings. In which case it might sting.

Remix is Like…

Remix is the act of taking one or more cultural artifacts-- visual, video, audio, and/or alphabetic texts- and deliberately mixing elements together to create something new that often specifically mimics one or more of the sources. Many remixes are meant to be satirical or overtly political, though satire is not essential.

The problem rises….

If you look at my definition, you see the problem really, really early on: “you take one or more cultural artifacts”– stress on the “take.” On the next few slides are some remix images I’ve made myself recently, just for kicks.

Yeah, I’m a big ol’ remix for fun nerd.

Key issue: IP law

The question here becomes “whose intellectual property are these things?”

Are those mine? I “made” them, but I didn’t make them from a blank slate. Am I allowed to just borrow that stuff?

Let’s ask a lawyer!

Lessig on IP law

• Lessig declares that he has the following positions:–He is anti-piracy–He is anti-war (meaning law vs. creators

here)–He is anti-lawyer and anti-lobbyist (he

includes himself here, so he’s anti-Lessig, too)

Lessig is like,

• “We need to hear less from lawyers and lobbyists and more from artists [about who owns culture].”

• " This is a relationship between technology and ownership, which is translated to digital technology and copyright.”

Pirate Technologies

player piano – “pirated” sheet music radio– “pirated” records cable TV– “pirated” network TV betamax– “pirated” TV and movies

But as these were regulated, the law always waited to see “the potential of the technology.”

We Didn’t Start the Fire…

• “...this is not the first time radical new technologies have appeared and changed the way that culture gets made and distributed. This is a constant theme...”

• But… The law favored the pirate in those old cases. It is now "fit the technology to the law" and not "fit the law to the technology."

Remix: from The Daily Show

+ =

Remix: from Marvel Comics

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Remix: from random net site

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Gunther Kress

Kress tells us:

“The approach from Social Semiotics not only draws attention to the many kinds of meanings which are at issue in design, but the “social” in “Social Semiotics” draws attention to the fact that meanings always relate to specific societies and their cultures, and to the meanings of the members of those cultures.”

Like…

These images have meaning…

…because we know them.They emerge from our culture and are reinforced by our culture.

Recognize this?

That isn’t this, is it? = SOr is it?

Walter Benjamin

Benjamin, who I promise is not the bad guy from Apt Pupil even if he looks like him, reminds us:

“In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain.”

What is the Aura of This?

What is the Aura of This?

Anne Wysocki

Wysocki reminds us:

“Because we have all grown up in densely visually constructed environments, usually with little overt instruction or awareness of how the construction takes place, it is easy to think of the visual elements of texts as simply happening or appearing…as though… television sitcoms were the result of a camera crew following a typical family through their day.”

Single, nerdy college professor on TV

IRL

This remind you of your friends sitting around?

And these are just normal people enjoying normal products

What Wysocki would ask us to do is…

..ask why. Think about why those images are chosen.

And maybe more importantly… why don’t people think about it/why isn’t it sort of a big deal to most Americans?

Starting with Aristotle

Aristotle, famed Greek thinker, is considered the “Father” of rhetoric. His theories are many, but the key foundation he formed for rhetorical theory can all be mapped elegantly to a simple triangle.

Anyone remember that rhetorical triangle?

Cicero

Moving to Cicero, we get the five canons of rhetoric. They are: InventionArrangementMemoryStyleDelivery

Invention

Is akin to brainstorming. It’s about finding WHAT to say. While the invention process might be peppered with other things, it is primarily a moment of logic.

What do you want to say?

Arrangement

Arrangement is concerned with how the things you want to say are put together. This can be as simple as knowing what order you want to present things in, but in technical communication it has a great impact on things like headings and figures as well as sequence and visual arrangement on the screen.

Style

Style is about ethos to a degree, and logos to a degree, but it’s more than anything the home of pathos in Cicero’s canons. HOW are you going to say what you’re going to say? What’s your voice? How’s this going to look?

Delivery

Delivery is really the key to this whole system. How are you going to GET what you want to say TO the audience? Today, this is all about formats and media, but it’s also about things like tone, about choices like what type of paper to use, email vs. fax, etc.

Memory

In Cicero’s time, you had to memorize anything you delivered, lest you look silly trying to read from the almost non-existent forms of paper you might find in Rome.

But the canon of memory isn’t as much about remembering– it’s about knowing your material cold so that you can switch-it-up if you need to. In the business world the difference between being good and being great is how you handle heat, and memory here is a measure of that.

Names and ideas to be familiar with

1)All those rhetors from week 2. 2) Anyone in a video I had you watch for class3) Kim Dotcom4) DJ Dangermouse5) Richard Dawkins6) CM Punk/Kairos7) Anything we read