*First, I was unable to open the "Credit Unions" webtext, every time I tried it gave me an error from BlueHost that the page could not be found*
Both of the webtexts that were provided here are interesting in their own merits, and I think both deliveries are unique. The Dove text is a bit more of a traditional affair, moving along similar to a website, albeit a very simplified one. I do like the picture links to different pages of the text and how the menu bar on the bottom changed so that the pages wrapped in the menu, so the next choice was always the next page in the text, I thought that was a very helpful and cool choice. The delivery on that text was rather minimalistic, and while it worked fine, as the commercials it was looking at were also on the minimalistic side, I feel that there probably could've been at least a little more detail put in somewhere.
The webcomic webtext is a bit of a different affair. I really love the concept here, since webcomics are something that I really enjoy, but I feel like they really squandered all the possibilities of a comic analysis. Instead of any kind of interesting interaction with the elements provided or anything of that sort, every panel just had the same character in near the exact same pose using all-to-big of a talk bubble the whole time. In my opinion, if your talk bubble takes up more than half of the panel, it's WAY too big, and this is the case the whole time in this text. The information is fine, I just can't help but feel they really wasted all the potential for the webtext they tried to use.
As for my plans for this project, I'll be opting for something sort of similar to the Dove text, though a bit more interesting, I daresay. I plan to make something of an infographic on my analysis, with a single webpage that will be kind of like a poster depicting the more bare-bones essentials of my analysis. On the page there will be parts you can click on, which will either bring the user to a new page, or, time and experience willing, will bring up a popup window that fades in, probably using javascript or some other web magics. It'll be in a slightly cartoony, hand-drawn style, so it should be for sure visually appealing and definitely should be an interesting text to go through.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Post #4: Project 2 Pitch
For my project, I wanted to keep things simple. I didn't want to try
to scrounge up some unknown issue that nobody's ever heard of any likely
doesn't even care about, I wanted to make my text something relevant
and useful to people. As such, I chose to look at the biggest issue
going on right now in America; the presidential election. I know it's
not the most original or unique topic, but I feel it's the most relevant
to not only me but to everyone else in our country right now.
Specifically, I decided to take a look at Mitt Romney's campaign through the lens of websites. I'm going to be looking into how these sites seek to cast Romney in a positive light, both on his own merit as well as in comparison to other candidates, namely Obama. To do so, I've assembled five different websites that preach support for Mitt Romney, each at a different level of professionalism. In this way I want to compare and contrast the sites, looking at the amount of content, what manner of content, layout, visual style, language, all the different parts of rhetorical analysis, and see what difference professionalism makes in convincing us as an audience to vote for Mitt Romney. These sites range from Romney's own professional site, www.mittromney.com, to what might be considered a simple blog by an avid fan (http://committedtoromney.com/). I chose to use these websites because I feel that a website is the best way to convey information of this sort, as it allows for a great variety of visual stimulation, while also being able to offer just as much linguistic and textual information.
For the analysis, I will be creating something of an interactive infographic, with a main graphic that portrays the "meat" of my analysis, and interactive links that allow for further reflection on specific topics.
I hope you're equally as excited for this project as I am, and I look forward to seeing it come to fruition!
Here is a complete listing of my five websites:
http://www.mittromney.com/
http://mittromneycentral.com/
http://www.americansformitt.com/index.html
http://committedtoromney.com/
http://www.aboutmittromney.com/
Specifically, I decided to take a look at Mitt Romney's campaign through the lens of websites. I'm going to be looking into how these sites seek to cast Romney in a positive light, both on his own merit as well as in comparison to other candidates, namely Obama. To do so, I've assembled five different websites that preach support for Mitt Romney, each at a different level of professionalism. In this way I want to compare and contrast the sites, looking at the amount of content, what manner of content, layout, visual style, language, all the different parts of rhetorical analysis, and see what difference professionalism makes in convincing us as an audience to vote for Mitt Romney. These sites range from Romney's own professional site, www.mittromney.com, to what might be considered a simple blog by an avid fan (http://committedtoromney.com/). I chose to use these websites because I feel that a website is the best way to convey information of this sort, as it allows for a great variety of visual stimulation, while also being able to offer just as much linguistic and textual information.
For the analysis, I will be creating something of an interactive infographic, with a main graphic that portrays the "meat" of my analysis, and interactive links that allow for further reflection on specific topics.
I hope you're equally as excited for this project as I am, and I look forward to seeing it come to fruition!
Here is a complete listing of my five websites:
http://www.mittromney.com/
http://mittromneycentral.com/
http://www.americansformitt.com/index.html
http://committedtoromney.com/
http://www.aboutmittromney.com/
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Blog Post #3! Super ix Response Blog!
Emphasis
1. The first thing my eyes are drawn to is the woman scribbling furiously on her sketchpad, since the action starts almost immediately, but as the video progresses, all the clutter in the background starts to take my attention. I think it does an ok job as a title because your eye is at least sort of drawn to the words being written, but less clutter in the background and a little more emphasis on the writing would have been a bit better for a title in my opinion.
2. When the motion suddenly stops and the woman disappears, it can be seen as emphasis because it's disrupting what we've come to expect in the short time we've been watching the video, very jarring and the sudden change grabs our attention, and kind of focuses the viewer back on the paper, since the video stopped the contents must be important.
3. I don't really feel like the soundtrack places any particular emphasis on any part of the clip, because the soundtrack sounds very same-y throughout. As for emotional emphasis, I feel like the clip feels a bit dark and foreboding because of the soundtrack, and the feeling is kind of emphasized by the nature of the video and the title.
Contrast
1. Quite frankly I feel like everything here contrasts. The voice, while ix describes it as "futuristic" sounds like a bad computer text-to-speech program which contrasts with the idea of any kind of professionalism in the video, the modern text font completely contrasts with the video in the background, and the background video frankly doesn't have ANYTHING to do with what's being said in the text. I feel like the whole thing would mesh a lot better and look FAR more professional if the elements didn't contrast.
2. With the cartoon gone, the contrast between the text and the video is gone, and the contrast between the text and the voice is lessened, but there is a lot of contrast between the text and the black background, which is to be expected if the text is going to be seen well. With the cartoon gone, the text is even more emphasized, and since the words are being echoed by the voice, the meaning is definitely the focus of the section. It's obvious that the author wanted this section to really reach the audience and be paid attention to.
3. If I were to design a flier for this advertisement, I would try to design it in an old-fashioned style, but have all the text be as modern as possible to keep the feel of the ad, with the huge contrast between old-style setting and modern text and speech.
Organization
1. My image order was Car Time Clock Thing > Weird Train Thing > Milk Cartons > Waste Site > "Modern" On Wall. I picked this order to symbolize kind of the evolution and downward spiral of our evolution as a society, all leading up to "Modern" times, the last slide being something of an ironic attack on what our modern society has become.
2. By simply rearranging the third and fourth photos, I could have taken a lighter, more positive tone, indicating that in our modern society we're taking the waste and turning it into good, showing our society in a good light.
3. I think a soundtrack would really benefit the point of this message. In particular, a positive, ascendant tune as the first 3 slides roll past, but as the fourth comes the music becomes dark and sorrowful, slowly dying out as the last slide rolls in, showing how much hope there was, and how it was all squelched by the waste in our society.
Alignment
1. The text "murmuring" is definitely in a left alignment on the text, while "insects" is centered. That alone indicates that the word "insects" is meant to be a bit more emphasized, although "murmuring" is on the page longer. The reflection and fade of the words adds to the meaning to me, the way they drop into their respective place on the page and then fade away is very reminiscent of a "murmur."
2. Now all the text is aligned in the lower-center, save the word "insects" which is now lower-right. The closeness of the aligned objects indicates no emphasis on any particular word or phrase, but at the end, the sudden appearance and different position of the word "insects" once again implies the importance of the word. Were all the elements scattered around the page and lost their sense of alignment, I feel that it would be very difficult to tell what the keyword is in the text, all the elements would be questionably the most or least important.
3. I think that the alignments are different between "Earth" and "Air" because the setting is different. The text in the "Air" text is on a higher vertical plane than the rest of the videos, which fits since it is "Air." As for the audio track, in contrast to the "Earth" text, the "Air" text's audio is much clearer and less jumbled, which fits the air feel, as there are less people and less commotion in the air than on the earth, leading to a better clarity in sound.
Proximity
1. In designing the cover, I placed the title and sub-header close together at the top of the page, because that's what you would see first, and the author's name at the bottom of the page with a small picture of a seagull.
2. I find the title to be most important, and as such it is the largest element on the page, and also placed at the top. The sub-header is also important, and is placed directly below the title, although in much smaller font so as not to distract the reader from the title. To keep the cover interesting there is a picture of a seagull at the bottom, which is arguably the second most important piece of information, and is also about the second largest. The author is my least important part, and is placed in very small font underneath the seagull.
3. Being forced to only drag and drop certain elements onto the page, there's a huge limit on how one can organize the elements. There's no freedom to rotate the text or pictures, no ability to use perhaps a different, more fitting image, lots of missed opportunities. If we were to have full reign on the design the page would be much easier to design in a variety of different ways, rather than the relatively few we have to design it as is.
1. The first thing my eyes are drawn to is the woman scribbling furiously on her sketchpad, since the action starts almost immediately, but as the video progresses, all the clutter in the background starts to take my attention. I think it does an ok job as a title because your eye is at least sort of drawn to the words being written, but less clutter in the background and a little more emphasis on the writing would have been a bit better for a title in my opinion.
2. When the motion suddenly stops and the woman disappears, it can be seen as emphasis because it's disrupting what we've come to expect in the short time we've been watching the video, very jarring and the sudden change grabs our attention, and kind of focuses the viewer back on the paper, since the video stopped the contents must be important.
3. I don't really feel like the soundtrack places any particular emphasis on any part of the clip, because the soundtrack sounds very same-y throughout. As for emotional emphasis, I feel like the clip feels a bit dark and foreboding because of the soundtrack, and the feeling is kind of emphasized by the nature of the video and the title.
Contrast
1. Quite frankly I feel like everything here contrasts. The voice, while ix describes it as "futuristic" sounds like a bad computer text-to-speech program which contrasts with the idea of any kind of professionalism in the video, the modern text font completely contrasts with the video in the background, and the background video frankly doesn't have ANYTHING to do with what's being said in the text. I feel like the whole thing would mesh a lot better and look FAR more professional if the elements didn't contrast.
2. With the cartoon gone, the contrast between the text and the video is gone, and the contrast between the text and the voice is lessened, but there is a lot of contrast between the text and the black background, which is to be expected if the text is going to be seen well. With the cartoon gone, the text is even more emphasized, and since the words are being echoed by the voice, the meaning is definitely the focus of the section. It's obvious that the author wanted this section to really reach the audience and be paid attention to.
3. If I were to design a flier for this advertisement, I would try to design it in an old-fashioned style, but have all the text be as modern as possible to keep the feel of the ad, with the huge contrast between old-style setting and modern text and speech.
Organization
1. My image order was Car Time Clock Thing > Weird Train Thing > Milk Cartons > Waste Site > "Modern" On Wall. I picked this order to symbolize kind of the evolution and downward spiral of our evolution as a society, all leading up to "Modern" times, the last slide being something of an ironic attack on what our modern society has become.
2. By simply rearranging the third and fourth photos, I could have taken a lighter, more positive tone, indicating that in our modern society we're taking the waste and turning it into good, showing our society in a good light.
3. I think a soundtrack would really benefit the point of this message. In particular, a positive, ascendant tune as the first 3 slides roll past, but as the fourth comes the music becomes dark and sorrowful, slowly dying out as the last slide rolls in, showing how much hope there was, and how it was all squelched by the waste in our society.
Alignment
1. The text "murmuring" is definitely in a left alignment on the text, while "insects" is centered. That alone indicates that the word "insects" is meant to be a bit more emphasized, although "murmuring" is on the page longer. The reflection and fade of the words adds to the meaning to me, the way they drop into their respective place on the page and then fade away is very reminiscent of a "murmur."
2. Now all the text is aligned in the lower-center, save the word "insects" which is now lower-right. The closeness of the aligned objects indicates no emphasis on any particular word or phrase, but at the end, the sudden appearance and different position of the word "insects" once again implies the importance of the word. Were all the elements scattered around the page and lost their sense of alignment, I feel that it would be very difficult to tell what the keyword is in the text, all the elements would be questionably the most or least important.
3. I think that the alignments are different between "Earth" and "Air" because the setting is different. The text in the "Air" text is on a higher vertical plane than the rest of the videos, which fits since it is "Air." As for the audio track, in contrast to the "Earth" text, the "Air" text's audio is much clearer and less jumbled, which fits the air feel, as there are less people and less commotion in the air than on the earth, leading to a better clarity in sound.
Proximity
1. In designing the cover, I placed the title and sub-header close together at the top of the page, because that's what you would see first, and the author's name at the bottom of the page with a small picture of a seagull.
2. I find the title to be most important, and as such it is the largest element on the page, and also placed at the top. The sub-header is also important, and is placed directly below the title, although in much smaller font so as not to distract the reader from the title. To keep the cover interesting there is a picture of a seagull at the bottom, which is arguably the second most important piece of information, and is also about the second largest. The author is my least important part, and is placed in very small font underneath the seagull.
3. Being forced to only drag and drop certain elements onto the page, there's a huge limit on how one can organize the elements. There's no freedom to rotate the text or pictures, no ability to use perhaps a different, more fitting image, lots of missed opportunities. If we were to have full reign on the design the page would be much easier to design in a variety of different ways, rather than the relatively few we have to design it as is.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Blog Response 2!
Regarding the XKCD comic:
I would have to agree with the list it provides of things people actually go to a University's site for, mainly the actual map and the forms and phone numbers. I know from personal experience that I pretty much only go to the WSU site when I need to take a look at the map to find something, and before then it was really only to get phone numbers so I could call and get more information a bit easier. I can't remember any time when I actually went to the site to read through the information that it shows largest on that page.
Analyzing a University Site:
So I went to the University of Michigan's homepage, and I have to say, the comic fits pretty much perfectly when applied to this site. Now, I'm going on the idea that by "homepage," we're referring to the VERY first thing you see when you enter the site. Near the top there's a little menu bar that you can switch to other tabs on the site that show some actual relevant information, but without switching to that tab all you get is some information about news relating to the University, and lots of links that lead to other more important things. Considering all the talk in the chapter about audience and catering your content to fitting the audience you're trying to reach, I'm kind of curious as to what kind of audience the staff that runs the University of Michigan site is trying to reach. I mean, the information that potential students and parents of students would be interested in is not reflected on the homepage at all, and the news information doesn't really seem to appeal to students AT the university either. What's more, this is a trend that I feel is prevalent in most university websites, that the front page shows relatively no useful information that a prospective or enrolled student would want. It really makes me wonder what the point of these front pages are, and why they're so widespread among university sites if they seem to be doing nothing for the people they should be trying to reach. A curious situation indeed.
I would have to agree with the list it provides of things people actually go to a University's site for, mainly the actual map and the forms and phone numbers. I know from personal experience that I pretty much only go to the WSU site when I need to take a look at the map to find something, and before then it was really only to get phone numbers so I could call and get more information a bit easier. I can't remember any time when I actually went to the site to read through the information that it shows largest on that page.
Analyzing a University Site:
So I went to the University of Michigan's homepage, and I have to say, the comic fits pretty much perfectly when applied to this site. Now, I'm going on the idea that by "homepage," we're referring to the VERY first thing you see when you enter the site. Near the top there's a little menu bar that you can switch to other tabs on the site that show some actual relevant information, but without switching to that tab all you get is some information about news relating to the University, and lots of links that lead to other more important things. Considering all the talk in the chapter about audience and catering your content to fitting the audience you're trying to reach, I'm kind of curious as to what kind of audience the staff that runs the University of Michigan site is trying to reach. I mean, the information that potential students and parents of students would be interested in is not reflected on the homepage at all, and the news information doesn't really seem to appeal to students AT the university either. What's more, this is a trend that I feel is prevalent in most university websites, that the front page shows relatively no useful information that a prospective or enrolled student would want. It really makes me wonder what the point of these front pages are, and why they're so widespread among university sites if they seem to be doing nothing for the people they should be trying to reach. A curious situation indeed.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Multimodal: What the heck is it?!
First things first, "multi-modal" vs. "multi-media." Are they the same thing? Personally, I say no. To me, the phrase "multi-media" evokes an image of a text being created using different mediums, like text, pictures, etc, whereas "multi-modal" means that it uses more than one mode, which can be achieved using only one kind of "media." That's my feeling at least.
Now let's get on with these questions:
Linguistic Mode: First off, I notice the use of the word "pray." Though a small thing, I feel like it has a big impact in something like this. It's appealing to the majority Christian populous, kind of affirming their likely course of action. The other key passage to me is the last sentence. Firstly the statement refers to the Japanese as "our friends," which kind of establishes a stance on how much we'll help. I mean, we're much more likely to help out a friend than someone we don't necessarily like. The other thing I notice is the line "as they recover and rebuild." It looks to the future and give s a bit of hope, not using any tentative terms and saying that Japan WILL recover from this disaster.
Visual Mode: From the two twitter profiles, I feel like you can glean the extent to which someone uses twitter, and by extension what they might use it for. The first profile is much more stark, simpler design, and makes me think of a simpler user, who perhaps uses twitter more to just check up on her friends, and occasionally post. The second profile is a little more showy, and seems like a little more time was put into picking it, indicating a person who probably posts a bit more and uses twitter more often. From the profile picture, I feel you can tell how comfortable a person is with their presence online. On both the profiles shown, the profile pic doesn't show the full face, and in some cases no face at all, indicating that both users are at least somewhat uncomfortable with having their full presence online.
Aural Mode: As noted in class, the link is malfunctioning, and I will admit that I am just a tad too tired at the moment to look it up in google -___-;
Spatial Mode: I took a look at the U of I homepage (creative, no?), and I must say, my eye was certainly drawn straight to the large news app in the middle of the page. It takes up most of the screen with an image of the Mars Rover, and is very eye-catching. Personally I find this a rather interesting choice, since I would think it would be a better idea to have the main image of the page be something a little more related to the university itself. Most of the other elements are rather small in comparison to the news app, the actual university links quite small at the bottom of the page, requiring that I scroll down to even see them. As far as understanding, after looking at the page for a while I could see where all the U of I relevant information was, but at first glance it didn't seem terribly related to U of I....
Gestural Mode: I watched a short little "Weekly Address" video, and I don't really know how I feel about Obama's gestural mode. On the one hand, I found his facial expressions to be completely ineffective in portraying any sort of importance in anything he was saying, since it remained very static throughout the entire address. I understand this is a very Obama thing to do, but still. However, he kind of makes up for it with his hand motions. In almost every sentence, he accents words with his hand motions, almost pointing out what parts are most important for us to be paying attention to. Overall, I would say it works more or less effectively, since you are naturally drawn to his hands when he moves them so much, but if that's going to be his primary way of gestural communication, I would suggest they show his hands for more of the address.
Now let's get on with these questions:
Linguistic Mode: First off, I notice the use of the word "pray." Though a small thing, I feel like it has a big impact in something like this. It's appealing to the majority Christian populous, kind of affirming their likely course of action. The other key passage to me is the last sentence. Firstly the statement refers to the Japanese as "our friends," which kind of establishes a stance on how much we'll help. I mean, we're much more likely to help out a friend than someone we don't necessarily like. The other thing I notice is the line "as they recover and rebuild." It looks to the future and give s a bit of hope, not using any tentative terms and saying that Japan WILL recover from this disaster.
Visual Mode: From the two twitter profiles, I feel like you can glean the extent to which someone uses twitter, and by extension what they might use it for. The first profile is much more stark, simpler design, and makes me think of a simpler user, who perhaps uses twitter more to just check up on her friends, and occasionally post. The second profile is a little more showy, and seems like a little more time was put into picking it, indicating a person who probably posts a bit more and uses twitter more often. From the profile picture, I feel you can tell how comfortable a person is with their presence online. On both the profiles shown, the profile pic doesn't show the full face, and in some cases no face at all, indicating that both users are at least somewhat uncomfortable with having their full presence online.
Aural Mode: As noted in class, the link is malfunctioning, and I will admit that I am just a tad too tired at the moment to look it up in google -___-;
Spatial Mode: I took a look at the U of I homepage (creative, no?), and I must say, my eye was certainly drawn straight to the large news app in the middle of the page. It takes up most of the screen with an image of the Mars Rover, and is very eye-catching. Personally I find this a rather interesting choice, since I would think it would be a better idea to have the main image of the page be something a little more related to the university itself. Most of the other elements are rather small in comparison to the news app, the actual university links quite small at the bottom of the page, requiring that I scroll down to even see them. As far as understanding, after looking at the page for a while I could see where all the U of I relevant information was, but at first glance it didn't seem terribly related to U of I....
Gestural Mode: I watched a short little "Weekly Address" video, and I don't really know how I feel about Obama's gestural mode. On the one hand, I found his facial expressions to be completely ineffective in portraying any sort of importance in anything he was saying, since it remained very static throughout the entire address. I understand this is a very Obama thing to do, but still. However, he kind of makes up for it with his hand motions. In almost every sentence, he accents words with his hand motions, almost pointing out what parts are most important for us to be paying attention to. Overall, I would say it works more or less effectively, since you are naturally drawn to his hands when he moves them so much, but if that's going to be his primary way of gestural communication, I would suggest they show his hands for more of the address.
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