The Little Things

Recently I’ve been watching several short, but touching videos on the internet that certainly pack very powerful messages that I feel are worth posting about in my passion blog. The first of these two videos was released by the Anti-Defamation League that can been watched here if you are interested. Lasting only a minute long, this is by far one of the most powerful videos I’ve seen in a long time. To summarize the video, it depicts several well-respected “martyrs” such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank with headlines highlighting things they could of potentially went on to do had they not been murdered. I found this video after it popped up on my facebook feed and after watching it touched me in a way that most things can’t. It invoked a sentiment of both hope and sadness as you leave the video thinking of all the wasted potential that was killed as a byproduct of both hate and intolerance. It really makes you think about the power of symbolism and the things a message can deliver.

The other video I watched I discovered through this organization called Upworthy that I  follow on facebook. I’m not very clear what Upworthy is all about, but it just seems to distribute really emotional videos that suddenly go viral. If you interested in watching the video you can find a link to it by clicking here. To summarize what this video is about would be difficult because it’s hard to put into words. The video targets the emotions of other peoples by telling several stories of love including the boy who provided a guy with few friends with a new and valued one or the biology teacher who retells the story of how he met his beloved wife. While the other video revolved around death, this video provides its theme around life and why we should aim to cherish it. With the tagline being “Watch this when you are sad and this will make you 100 times happier” it aims to bring you to a realization that, most likely, you life isn’t nearly as bad as you think it is and no matter bad life gets there is always things to look forward to.

Ted Talk Reflection

After watching my TED talk, I noticed several points of which I did a good job and some points at which I did a particularly poor job. To start, I think I did a rather good job at capturing the audience’s attention. At the beginning, I started with an anecdote followed by  a sense of humor surrounding my roommate depicting him as a person hopelessly dependent on technology. I also feel that after watching my presentation I did good job at guiding a logical chronology to the audience.

As for flaws, I think I had quite a few, but I’d expect this much seeing this was my first TED talk delivered in this fashion. For starters, I felt I had a limited amount of room in the TED talk room. I often found myself feeling cramped with little room to move in the presenter’s box. As a result, I found myself feel as though I was shuffling around in the presentation area with aspirations of more mobility. I also feel that my presentation lacked fluidity. After watching myself, I noticed I had many moments in which I found myself pausing to gather my thoughts looking up and away from the audience. I also paid close attention to my use of hand gestures. I used a lot of similar hand gestures that appeared from my perspective to be repetitive and I felt detracted from the performance.

On a general note, I would like to pay attention to the awkward placing of the camera. I felt the camera during the presentation was placed in a particularly strange place because I spent a large portion of my time looking down at my audience when I was unsure if I should be looking at them or the camera.

Response to Sarah Silverman Talk

After watching this I can totally understand why the people in charge of TED took down Sarah Silverman’s “A New Perspective on 3000”. To put it simply, Silverman belittles and disgraces the entire of a TED talk in this video.

A TED talk generally is supposed to consist of an idea with the hopes of persuading the audience at hand to agree with the idea in which you are presenting to them. This video does the exact opposite of what a TED talk attempts to accomplish. To start, Silverman begins by not introducing any relevant topic of discussion. Instead, she introduces her TED talk with irrelevant information by talking about her age and how she hated going to grade school as a kid. Silverman takes the causal performance to the extreme by cursing in her performance. She also has a tendency of going off random tangent. In fact, at a point in the talk she breaks her guitar out and starts singing.

Furthermore, there is a huge condensing atmosphere during the entirety of the TED talk. Every “TED topic” that she brings up makes it look stupid with the undertone that TED as a whole is stupid. A presentation with absolutely no value gets more attention then one of the actual talks. This creates the sarcastic concept every single TED talk is pointless.Towards the very end of the video, Silverman discusses “The New Perspective on 3000” which is her brief idea that is particularly stupid to be used a metaphor for every TED talk as being useless and boring.

 

The Nature of Copyright

As we have just recently began work on our Controversy projects, we were asked this week to look into Copyright law. After watching the coursecast posted on Billy’s blog, I learned a few things to keep track of when working on a project as far as copyright is concerned so here is a brief synopsis.

First and foremost, what is copyright? Copyright is strictly any originally produced material. This can come in the forms of literature, drawings, photos, and roughly any form of creative material that isn’t an idea.

The first tip to working on a project entailing copyright, is to make sure that you only use what you need. By only using material you need it lowers the risk that you violate copyright law and so long as the material is used to demonstrate a broader point it should be okay.

There is also a general assumption that if someone is using copyrighted material for education then they are given permission to then use it for a given process. There is more flexibility when dealing with copyright when being used for educational purposes, but that doesn’t mean anything that is copyrighted can be used.

The individual working on a project should focus on seeing if their is a license attached to the copyrighted material. If there is, that material’s licensee can be contacted in regards to whether they can use the stuff in their project. Something to look for is material copyrighted under an open licensed Creative Common License. These license also allow for more flexibility because the copyrights can be used by anyone.

Stasis

 

This past week we have been learning about the rhetorical concept of stasis. Stasis is roughly breaking down the central issues of a dispute and then finding effective arguments to address those issues effectively. The central issues of stasis are generally broken down into four different categories.

The first of the four categories is conjecture. Conjecture asks the question of whether or not something is valid. Did this happen? Is this a thing? Conjecture goes about obtaining fact and strictly fact. Following conjecture is definition. Definition aims to expand on conjecture by taking a fact and expanding on it by identifying its nature. What is it? Was is it this? Then there is quality. The intent of quality is to identify the significance and motivation behind a thing and/or action. Was it justified? Does it serve a purpose? Finally, there is policy. Policy asks the question of whether this action is justified and if action has to be taken. Should action be taken? What is proper?

To give a better explanation of stasis I’ll use a scenario to put in context. Since stasis was originally framed in the sense of legality well demonstrate stasis through the use of a crime. A High School Professor has charged with having sexually harassed a female student in his class. The female in question approached the teacher after class following her poor performance on a test. The professor argues that he was the victim being harassed by the student.This act was not done in secrecy, but instead, was witnessed by several students as they left the class. So let us begin by searching for conjecture. Did this happen? Well from the facts we are given it seems that it most likely happened since it was observed by several students while they left the class. To classify the definition, the act in question is defined as “harassment”. A very specific term is used to specify that the sexual advance was done in an unwanted fashion and was inappropriate during the said situation. The quality of this event exists because the student feels violated and unsafe in her learning environment which justifies the significance and motivation towards contacting the administration. Finally policy should be conducted as it seems as though the professor as at fault and should be consequently dealt with by the school administration.

 

Kairos

I view Kairos as being a particularly interesting rhetorical tool. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Kairos as “a time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action”. In any speech, timing influences both the delivery and level of persuasion.  Key examples of Kairos can be seen at various instances in politics. With the presidential race raging on, a large correlation can be found between timing and the success of the presidential  debate. In the first presidential debate, Romney’s performance in the debate was crucial if he wanted to continue as a serious contender. Although Romney performed well in this debate, a substantial amount of support to why he did well can be accredited towards the timing of his victory. When Romney won the first debate he trailed in the polls, was viewed as the underdog, and criticized in the media about his video pertaining to “The 47%”. With Romney being viewed in a negative disposition, Obama came into the first presidential debate not intimidated and consequently, less prepared. With Obama unprepared, Romney was given his “moment” as a tool to assist him rebound. In this situation, timing made all the difference in deciding the overall outcome of the battle. Another political example of Kairos can be found in the presidential election of Jimmy Carter V. Ronald Reagan. That year, a single presidential debate was held a week  before the election. Prior to the debate, Carter only trailed in the polls by 3 points. Following the debate, Reagan held a two-digit lead in the polls making a Carter comeback inconceivable. The timing of this debate gave Reagan his “moment” as he made an attack on Carter’s Credibility. With debates being structured  to put the incumbent at a disadvantage, one could assume that the debate would increase Reagan’s number , but, more importantly,  placing the debate a week before the election prevented very little room for outside intervention which would lead Reagan to victory.

The Turn of Battle

Since we have the opportunity to talk about whatever we want this week for our RCL blogs, why not discuss a topic filled with plenty of rhetoric that is the forefront of the news lately. A battle of the best rhetoric, I can be talking of nothing other then the upcoming presidential elections. With a close presidential race what else could be better to discuss? That being said, the debates from last Wednesday can be used to analyze rhetoric.

I must say, it is amazing how two hours of oratory can change the minds of hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. Going into this debate the american people looked at Mitt Romney thinking he had a very little chance of winning. Between the video on “The 47%” and various other plunders over the last few weeks, it appeared as though Romney’s campaign was done. Although it seemed like it was over, when it came to the debates in Colorado the tide quickly changed.  All of this thanked too rhetoric. When the debate was analyzed afterwards it, people felt that Romney won the debate on a landslide. During the debate Obama spent a large part of the time staring down at the podium, while Romney stood, starring at Obama, eager to rebuttal. Now Romney did not win for having better ideas or generally better beliefs, but because he simply came off as being more charismatic. In fact, on several media outlets that ran fact checkers on many of the things that Mitt said, they were found to be false, but the accuracy of the points were overlooked by Romney’s presentation.

Later in the week, with Obama dropping in the polls, Obama’s campaign wasn’t afraid to take a risky course of action. Throughout the week Obama brought a large amount of attention to a comment made by Romney about PBS and a Big Yellow Bird from Sesame Street. The spin on the presidential candidates words resulted in an attack ad that can be found  here.  With less then a month to go, these candidates are beginning to rely completely on rhetoric to assure victory of the White House.

 

Viral Videos

Over the past few weeks a video has been released that has gained a significant amount of attention know as “Gangnam Style” by South Korean Rapper “Psy”. From dance routines at the football games to skits on Saturday Night Live, in just a few weeks this song has gone from unknown to viral.

Now my question is, why? What makes or breaks a video from hitting the absolute threshold in order to touch every nook and cranny of the globe. The team backing Psy didn’t just release the video recklessly. Careful intrigate planning went into assuring that the video went viral, so let me give you the crash course on how to make a viral video.

The first part to making a video go viral is having a plan. As many people are very familiar with the now famous-infamous “Kony 2012” video from last spring, they released it with an intricate plan. On March 5th, every member of the Invisible Children organization shared the video via every social media medium at the same time. With more then 100,000 members in Invisible Children, the video spread like wildfire. That being said, with every viral video the first is having a plan to assure that it gets to as many as people as possible in a quickly fashion.

The second part to a successful viral video is the delivery. If you are trying to make an informational video, you want the video to be short and deliver the information in a quick, concise fashion. If you are attempting to make a music video go viral you want it to be particularly flashy with several different settings and backdrops along with jaw dropping special effects. Regardless of viral video genre, every viral video should focus on the delivery of a “big idea” whether that idea is implicit or explicit.

The third part is finally releasing the video on the web to be criticized and critiqued by the masses . One thing to keep in mind when releasing the video is to be aware of the audience that it is suppose to be targeting. Once you have determined the audience you will be targeting, carefully execute your plan and your set. If you are lucky, you’ve made it to the promise land and your video has gone viral.

 

PA Voter ID Law

For those of you who don’t know Pennsylvania recently passed a voter ID law restricting people from voting if they don’t have a state photo ID along with expiration date. Now how might this effect your or some of your friends? Luckily, if you are a freshman your ID+ has an expiration date and therefore allows you to vote come November. Now, for those of you have friends who are Sophomores or older, they may be at risk of being ineligible to vote. The ID+ cards for all other classes lack an expiration date on the card so unless they have an alternative Pennsylvania issued ID, they will be bared from voting in the Fall. This dilema can be easily altered if you urge your friends to go to the HUB and get an expiration sticker to place on their ID card. Furthermore, urge people to register to vote in State College so they can exercise their right to vote.

While we are the topic of voting, keep in mind, voting is a civic duty and each every person should take part it in. Why? Living in a democracy we are given the ability to speak our mind freely. By voting you are expressing the ideas that you want to be implemented in  the coming two year even if that means you going to the voting machine and casting a ballot with no one on it. You would think people would be more interested in spreading their opinions, but unfortunately, many people don’t care to take part in this civic duty. That is why just yesterday, Jack Johnson played in State College as part of an initiative  called “Rock The Vote” encouraging people (generally part of the younger demographic) to take part in the voting process.