Erica's Critical Analysis Blog

 

The context of this powerful photo is unknown, but I interpret its meaning as a representation of the harmony between humans and animals. The boy in the photo is shown to be extremely calm while playing the flute for the kitten, and the entire image tends to give off a sense of calmness and harmony, possibly representing an ideal state between humans and other living beings.

The blurry background of the photo draws attention to the boy and kitten, making them the focal points of the photo’s message. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to the black and white colors of the cat and the more vibrant colors of the boy compared to the duller colors of the background. This allows the viewer to focus on the living elements of the photo and ignore the human-made unnatural objects in the background to some extent, further pushing across the message of the harmony between the cat and the boy.

The placement of the objects in the photo is also important. The boy is pictured as on the steps higher up than the kitten, with his flute pointed directly at the kitten. This makes the viewer view the boy as in a position of higher power than the cat, yet choosing to not act on that power, creating the harmonic feel to this image.

The state of the objects and figures in the image also has an effect on the message being shown. The boy, the kitten, and the background are all shown to be dirty and somewhat run-down, signifying that this might not be the most ideal situation. Most likely, this picture was taken in a poor area of a city, where the boy and kitten may not have the means to stay perfectly clean and healthy. This causes the viewer to realize that even though they are in a bad situation, the boy and kitten can still be at peace with one another. This pushes the message that whatever the situation someone is in, kindness and peace is always an option.

Through the use of colors and blurring, placement of main objects, and appearances of the objects, this photo argues that no matter what, peace and harmony between humans and animals is always possible. This young boy and kitten were able to create a moment of peace with one another, and this was shown in a powerful way by this photograph.

The TED Talk I chose to analyze was the talk “The link between fishing cats and mangrove forest conservation” by Ashwin Naidu. The main idea of the talk was that if you bring back the endangered fishing cat through creating more mangrove forests, you can improve the ecosystem and ultimately slow down climate change. Focusing on one thing like fishing cat conservation can ultimately change the ecosystem. In order to protect the fishing cat, you need to bring back mangrove forests, which were extremely valuable to protect. Mangrove forests prevent soil erosion and are a line of defense for storm surges and tsunamis, but most importantly, they can hold up to five times as much carbon dioxide than a tropical forest, making them incredibly strong fighters against climate change. Another important idea in the talk was the importance of working with the locals in South and Southeast Asia where these mangrove forests are located. By educating the locals and getting them involved in saving their own communities, conservation goes a lot quicker and progress can finally be made. Personally, I had no idea about the importance of mangrove forests, but I did have knowledge about the fishing cat. This talk connected those important conservation issues and expanded it to a topic that everyone knows about: climate change.

Overall, the speaker had a relatively strong presentation style. He made jokes with the audience and seemed very passionate about the subject. The images used were very personal to his story about conservation, making the subject seem more real to the audience. Occasionally, he seemed a bit uncomfortable and uncertain when making jokes which took away from his presentation a little, but it was not too distracting from his overall message. This TED Talk really showed the difference between a speech and a talk. He connected more with the audience in his talk than if he had given a regular speech, and his images added to the important message he was trying to deliver. The talk spoke to the audience and left a long-lasting message, while a speech might not have been that connected. The speaker of this TEDTalk presented a very well-done talk and truly left a long-lasting message with the audience.

The speech I chose was President Barack Obama’s address to the Democratic National Convention in 2016. I chose the first two minutes of the speech (2:30-4:30 in the video).

In this part of the speech, I think that President Obama’s organization was particularly good. He started out talking about the first time he spoke at the DNC, then about how much he and his family has grown since then, and then at the end of the two minutes added the fact that back then he had a lot of faith in America, and that it had changed since then. This transition from past to present set up the rest of his speech which was, in my opinion, very good organization on his part.

The persuasive appeals to ethos are also very strong in this point in the speech. President Obama immediately provides his credibility by stating how he had been on this stage before 12 years prior. President Obama already had a lot of credibility to start with, but if someone didn’t already know who he was, they would have been assured of his credibility with that line. President Obama also managed to humble himself in the beginning of the speech. He mentioned his family and how proud he was of his daughters, and even admitted to aging, immediately causing the audience to find him more trustworthy and similar to themselves, an important thing to do in the beginning of a political speech. President Obama uses strong appeals to ethos in this two minute segment of his speech.

President Obama’s delivery is also very well-done. He consistently made eye contact with and interacted with the audience. His voice was a bit loud and forced, but that was to be expected in such a large venue. He also kept his movement flowing and made hand gestures here and there. He moved just enough to not appear stiff, but not too much as to make it seem forced or overzealous.

Overall, President Obama’s speech was very well given. His voice could have been a little less forced, but the content of his speech, the organization, and the overall delivery were very well done. The speech was also minorly affected by the audience cheering and interrupting him occasionally. This was such a short part of his long speech, but just this one part was able to be given very effectively. It is extremely obvious from the start that he has had a great deal of experience in giving speeches.

After reading this article, I can agree with the author that checking the sources of a research study and how the study was performed is extremely important. Many people just believe the words of studies without doing their own research and really thinking about whether or not it makes sense. People see “facts” and take them as they come, not really checking to see if it is true or not. Some researchers even try and get away with missing information in their reports and hope that no one notices, and sometimes no one notices and things that aren’t really true can be believed as true. Researchers can basically write anything they want and call it a “study” and some people will actually believe it is true, no matter how outlandish the “proof” is. This can actually be seen with the anti-vaccination movement. The doctor who did the study that “proved” autism is caused by vaccines had his entire research debunked and even got his license to practice medicine taken away, but because some people believe that all studies are true even if they are debunked, many children are not being vaccinated anymore, proving the danger of not fact-checking research studies.

This concept will be extremely important when writing the paradigm shift essay. In the essay a lot of research will be included, and if that research isn’t thought about or fact-checked, then a lot of misinformation can be included, creating a slew of problems in the essay. The essay requires more than just listing facts from random studies found on the internet. It requires thought and skepticism and connecting the dots between research throughout the ages, and if you believe everything every study says, then the paradigm shift essay might just be a boring research paper with no original thought and experiences. Not all research studies are actually factual and true, but most studies look the same when written in a formal way on the internet, and it is hard to tell the difference between a real study and one that was completely made up unless you reflect upon and draw on your own experiences and other research.

It is dangerous to believe everything someone tells you in this society, as many people may lie and lead you on the wrong path, so why would you blindly follow a research study without fact-checking and critically analyzing it? Not everything on the internet is true, and even if the person writing the article or research paper believes it is true, their methods might have been wrong or they might have analyzed the data the wrong way. No research study, especially those in the field of human study, is completely accurate, but it is important to be able to tell whether or not it is accurate enough to be used in this paradigm shift paper.

For my paradigm shift project, one idea I had was the concept of ‘helicopter parenting’. Most people know that some parents can be a bit controlling and make decisions for you, and many parents do that to some extent, but even just 50 years ago, this was not the case. Many older adults might describe their childhoods as ‘wild’ and ‘unrestricted’, but most teenagers and young adults would not use the same descriptors. Parents have become increasingly more involved in their children’s lives, from choosing which sports they will play in elementary school to practically choosing a college for them their senior year of high school. Even this past weekend (parents and families weekend), I noticed a lot of this with parents dragging around their students and not letting them live independently.

Society has shifted from parents letting their children go off on their own and be independent to parents being overly cautious and sometimes controlling every aspect of their children’s lives. It would be incredibly interesting to research the root causes of this movement and exactly how widespread it is, as this is a major societal change that might not be noticed too much due to how commonplace it seems to be.

The rise of the internet might be a major contributing factor, because parents might unconsciously not like the idea of not knowing what their children are able to do and the people they are able to talk to on the internet; however, this societal change was most likely caused by many different factors happening all at once in the background. Studies show that this phenomenon started back in the 1980s, a time when the school system started changing and more stay at home moms started taking up jobs.

This shift in parenting styles has also contributed to changes in behavior and thinking in their children in the long run. Helicopter parenting doesn’t allow for a child to correctly develop the decision making part of their brain, impacting them emotionally and behaviorally in the long run, and this ultimately could affect them as adults, creating even more societal changes.

Both the increase in helicopter parenting and the societal changes caused by it makes this topic a possible candidate for my paradigm shift paper and Ted Talk.

If a Paradigm Shift is defined as a shift in society’s views and thinking through different agents of change, then the invention of and growing dependence on smartphones can most definitely be labeled as one of the current agents of change.

This singular invention has drastically changed an entire generation to the point where the previous generations can’t even comprehend how we view the world anymore. Smartphones have put the world at our fingertips, changing how we see view everything from our friends to global politics. A wave of change has swept through society, altering social patterns and creating new solutions and problems in the younger generations.

The article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation” by Jean Twenge explains how the prevalence of smartphones in young children’s lives affects them as they grow up and throughout the rest of their lives (as far as the data has been studied that is). The changes seen in the generation are completely different from those before them, which can make the introduction of smartphones a definite Paradigm Shift, or at least the beginning of one. With only roughly a decades worth of data, it is still unclear as to how this shift will affect the far future, but as of now, it looks to be causing great changes in society. Teenagers now have access to a world of information in one device in their hands, but that information and instant communication comes with the price of increased levels of depression and isolation. Times are changing at a pace never before seen, most likely attributed to the internet and smartphones, and things will only change even more when new discoveries are made and even newer inventions come out, but for now, the most prevalent game changer is the smartphone.

Right now, only predictions can be made about the future effects of smartphones, but from what it looks like now, this invention can definitely be categorized as the start of a Paradigm Shift.

We tend to use our smartphones way more than necessary, and this is going to have a large impact in the near future.

This image was taken at the second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. This march occurred during the height of the AIDS epidemic that plagued the LGBTQ community, and the purpose of the march was to spread awareness of the truths behind the AIDS epidemic and encourage the government to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation in both the military and throughout American society by adding it to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This never happened, but this was the largest march of its time and made an impact by showing America just how many people were being affected, as over 200,000 people took part in the march. It was organized by Steve Ault and Joyce Hunter who contacted LGBTQ organizations across the country to make this march a reality.

This image of the march argues that LGBTQ people are as human as anyone else and that they deserve equal rights like anyone else.

I am drawn to this artifact simply because of the way the creators showed their rhetorical appeals. Instead of spreading their argument through newspapers or other passive methods, they took the streets and risked everything in order to spread their message directly to the people. I believe that this could be appropriate for in-depth analysis due to the fact that there are so many layers to peel away in this image. From the banners and signs the people carried to the overall message, there are rhetorical appeals placed everywhere. Personally, I am most intrigued about how the rhetorical appeals were viewed back then compared to right now, because this is a historical image and more knowledge has been gained since then.

The artifact in the Civic Engagement Speech is “The Equality House”, a house painted like the gay pride flag across from the Westboro Baptist Church. I will contrast the image of the march to the house by examining the different rhetorical appeals needed in the different time periods. The Equality House uses more subtle appeals than that of the march, and this is due to the time periods in which they were created. The march also focuses more on the LGBTQ community itself, while the Equality House tries to compare itself to the Westboro Baptist Church and create a civic effect that way.

This bumper sticker may show a very short phrase, but it actually contains a hidden logos appeal towards the societal issue of vaccinations. The sentence states “vaccines cause adults” which is a slightly strange statement to be saying by itself, but it causes the reader to think about the true meaning of the sentence, and this is when the logos appeal jumps out. This sentence is implying through logic that those who get vaccinated will be able to live towards adulthood, and those who do not get vaccinated may not live very long.

The current ideology in our society is that vaccines are a good thing, and the commonplace is to start getting vaccinated at a very young age, but recently that ideology has been challenged by the anti-vax movement. This bumper sticker is attempting to fight that opposing ideology by using the logical persuasion of not living due to being unvaccinated to convince people that the dominant ideology is what is actually true. By using the phrase “vaccines cause”, the designer is trying to play on the fact that many arguments from the anti-vax side of the debate often use this phrase as a negative thing. They are trying to create a logical connection between vaccines and living a long life.

I do not think that this bumper sticker will have much of an effect other than reassuring pro-vaccine people that others support their view. This short statement most likely will have any effect on those who strongly oppose vaccines. The designer of this bumper sticker was trying to convince people that vaccines will help guarantee their survival to adulthood, but this is ignoring a few key facts that make this logos appeal seem a little weak. Getting vaccinated is not a guarantee to live a long life, and not all of the people who do not get vaccinated die early, but they do have an increased chance. This bumper sticker attempted to use a logos appeal but did not do so as effectively as it could have due to the logical argument having a few flaws.

This advertisement may seem a bit old now, but that’s because it was released at the beginning of the US involvement in World War 2. Once the United States entered the war, they wanted to build up as many troops as they could, and so released advertisements such as this one to attempt to convince men to enlist. This advertisement is a subtle about its appeal to KAIROS, but war time is the best time to release ads like this. People are seeing the devastating affects the war is having at home, and so an image of Uncle Sam preparing to go to war should be able to convince some into joining the war efforts. The use of Uncle Sam, the bald eagle, and the American flag make the viewer believe that it is their civic duty to go and enlist in the army, but this may not have worked had it not already been a time of war. People pay very little attention to military propaganda outside of major war times, as evident by the low enlisting rate currently, but during high stress times of war, especially ones as large as WWII, military propaganda starts to become a part of daily life.

This advertisement gives off a strong sense of urgency due to the way that Uncle Sam and the eagle are depicted. Uncle Sam is rolling up his sleeves, appearing to be going straight to war, and the way the eagle is flying looks like he is going in for the kill.

There is a strong subtle emotional appeal going on in this ad as well. By depicting Uncle Sam as the one preparing to go to war, the ad is attempting to make people feel bad about not joining the army when they look at it. They are trying to make viewers be upset that since they are not the ones joining the army, one of the nation’s symbols has to do it himself.

It is understandable that the US army would use advertisements like this, as they were extremely desperate during the war for people to enlist, but it is still questionable whether or not the United States should be advertising for this at all. This ad doesn’t even mention the draft, which we now know came later on.

Personally, I am not convinced by this ad due to it being from a different time period. The KAIROS appeal does not work during times of relative peace, but I can infer that the people back during WWII might just have been persuaded.

The US army saw the opportunity to persuade people into joining the army, and they took it, creating an advertisement with relatively subtle appeals to KAIROS.

From just one glance, this advertisement has an obvious issue. The sentence “This Mother’s Day, Get Back To The Job That Really Matters” immediately states a very controversial opinion. This sentence insinuates that a mother’s job is to be the cleaner of the household, which is an incredibly misogynistic view for a company to show. It’s really not the best wording to make people want to buy your product, especially since this advertisement is directed towards women on Mother’s Day. Did Mr. Clean have to share their clear views on women’s places in the household, because that was probably not the best decision considering that in this day and age it is pretty much accepted that women can do equal things to men. It’s clear that the ad designers at Mr. Clean really didn’t think this one through. These words end up causing an opposite effect than the one desired, as offensive wording like this often causes drops in sales rather than increases. This extreme mistake is so painfully obvious that unless you look further, it can be hard to tell that there are any other mistakes, but they certainly exist.

Looking past the writing, basic design issues also become evident. Remove the offensive sentence and it is still a very badly designed ad. The glare on what is supposed to be the window just makes the entire image look confusing and blurry, causing everything other than the words and giant logo to become a jumbled mess of an image. The lines of an image are supposed to all lead to a focal point. That’s one of the first lessons in an art class! Your eyes are supposed to be drawn to one important spot in an image, but this ad has eye-catching things going on in every section, easily overwhelming the viewer and making it hard to grasp the big picture of the ad. A good advertisement does not create confusion in their audience, and this ad has clearly missed that mark.

The size of the logo at the bottom of the ad is another large design problem. The logo takes up nearly a third of the image which leaves very little space to persuade the audience. Maybe they were going with the whole “buy this product solely because it is Mr. Clean brand!” type of persuasion, but it clearly is not working in this case. Brand recognition does not work when the rest of the ad is a complete mess. At least the ad shows a relatively clear picture of the sponge, but, yet again, it is not in proportion to the rest of the image. The largest object in an ad shouldn’t be the brand of the product. An ad should show off exactly why you should buy the product, not just the product itself. In this case, just slapping a large logo onto an otherwise mess of an ad does not help in the slightest when trying to persuade the audience.

Honestly, I do not know what the designers at Mr. Clean were thinking, but the combination of offensive writing, confusing images, and a way too large logo created a truly terrible ad.