Multimedia Project

My multimedia group met before break to discuss ideas for the project, and after investigating a few we decided on the topic of the electoral college and voting in our country. At the age of eighteen, we have all fairly recently gained the ability to vote, and it is important that with this democratic responsibility comes knowledge of how the process works in our country. However, it seems that more and more voters (and young voters especially) are beginning to doubt whether they actually have a say in our democracy—in short, does our vote really even matter. Our country has a fairly low voter turnout rate in elections (under 60% of eligible voters in the last presidential election), and perhaps the whole voting system is in need of some reform to reassure voters that their opinion does matter.

 

For our video, we want to get a feel for what our fellow college students think about voting and whether they believe their individual vote counts in our county, explain how our voting system/electoral college works, perhaps interview an expert (probably a Penn State professor) in the field, and present some possible suggestions for reform. It will be critical for our video to engage the audience from the start, and that is why we are planning on starting out with clips from interviews of college students answering our questions on the street—questions about whether they vote or not and whether they think their vote means something. The editing of these interviews into short, rapid-fire clips for the opening with quality audio and visual components (most likely including some cutaways and a lot of transitions) will be critical to grabbing a viewer’s attention and interest—it is important for us to instill a sense of relevancy from the start so that the topic means something. We’ll probably conduct these interviews on the streets of State College, and it will be important to get enough people to answer our questions to make a meaningful opening reel.

 

As for responsibilities, we discussed that it is critical for all of us to have an understanding of our topic. We’re going to have to conduct a fair amount of research about our topic in order to present it with ethos. I know that I for one don’t have a crystal-clear understanding of how our voting process works. Since I have editing experience with iMovie, a big part of my role will also be the editing process, but we acknowledged that roles and responsibilities in a group are fluid—in short, we’re all going to work to get the job done, even if what we have to do falls outside of our designated “responsibilities.”

TED Talk Outline

 

This is a rough outline of the topics I plan to cover in my TED talk–at this stage I think it’s more of a mental note sheet for me, so my apologies if it doesn’t make as much logical sense as it should.

The general theme of my paradigm shift essay was that the perception of the computer has changed, along with its role–in the mid 20th century, computers were machines of great power, used for science and military research as well as other important tasks. The personal computer became available to the consumer in the 70s and 80s, and although the PC still retains the “personal” moniker, I argue that the smartphone is more deserving of the “personal” title–it has changed the way humans interact with technology. At the same time, as the smartphone has risen to dominance, the PC is slowly fading in importance. With the rise of the post-PC era, what will become of the PC, and will the average consumer even need to own one in ten years?TED Talk Outline

Thoughts on my TED Talk

My topic for the Paradigm Shift essay was how the smartphone, led by Apple’s original iPhone in 2007, has become the true personal computer of our era. It has transformed the role technology plays in our lives and the way consumers think of technology, bringing us into constant contact with all the resources of the Internet, regardless of where we are.

For my TED talk, I’d be interested in explaining and documenting that shift, arguing that so-called “personal computers” (PCs) are no longer viewed as personal at all. The computer has changed from a revered but not personal (as in not for the typical consumer) piece of technology in the 1940s to more of a commonplace towards the start of the new millenium, while today it is beginning to become de-emphasized an less personal again. Ten years ago, the PC was how people accessed the Internet, but now the smartphone can assume many of the same capabilities and fit in your pocket. The role of the PC is changing in our society today, subjugated by the ever-popular smartphone and tablet, and further in the future, what will become of the PC as we know it today?

A (Very) Rough Draft of my Paradigm Shift Paper

When did the computer truly become personal?

The first electronic general-purpose computer, ENIAC, was developed mainly for the US Army to assist with research calculations on ballistics. The ENIAC was a 30-ton behemoth with an 1800 square-foot footprint. An article in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1946 announcing the war department’s unveiling of the ENIAC conveys a public attitude of awe and amazement–a machine that could perform 5,000 additions per second. Today’s computers (and smartphones) measure in the billions per second. But the point is that the ENIAC, like most early computing machines, was viewed by the public as a device used for important, top-secret calculations and scientific research. Today that attitude has shifted to super computers, while the ordinary computer, smartphone, or tablet (a “super computer” compared to the ENIAC) has taken its place in our pockets and backpacks.

What developments in technology caused this shift from the computer’s revered status to its relegation to a device for tweeting what you ate for dinner?

Has the PC’s role as the “personal computer” come to an end with the widespread adoption of “post-PC” devices such as smartphones and tablets?

What is the real personal computer of today? I would argue that it is the smartphone.

How did smartphones become mainstream? (adoption rates, etc.)

What was the public attitude surrounding the release of the first iPhone in 2007 compared to the release of the ENIAC in 1946?

How did computers transition from a novelty–something only used by experts–to something many people find essential to their everyday routines today?

My argument is that the release of the 1st generation iPhone sparked a movement to the post-PC era. It was one of the first widely-adopted smartphones to exist and one of the first to incorporate multi-touch technology. But it almost didn’t go as planned; after over two years of research and development, the iPhone still wasn’t working on the day it was scheduled to be demoed for the world. It was a make-or-break moment–if the iPhone made an unfavorable impression on the public, what would have happened?

Potential Topic for Paradigm Shift Paper

For my Paradigm Shift paper, I would like to focus on technology and its role in society. I know that might sound like a cliched and over-used topic nowadays, but I want to try to present it in a different manner. Rather than simply deriding the negative aspects or praising the positive, I want to focus on how and why society’s perception of technology has changed. How did we evolve from mid-20th century–the days of the ENIAC computer, which took up 1800 square feet and weighed a whopping 27 tons–to a society in which it is viewed as uncommon not to carry around a computer (in the form of a smartphone) at all times. And that very smartphone has a processing power orders of magnitude larger than that of the ENIAC. When did the computer really become personal? Some would put it in the 1980s or 1990s, around the the introduction of the personal computer, but I would counter that the computer only recently became personal. Apple’s iPod (2001), the rise of smartphone culture, and later the iPad prove much more “personal” than the antiquated desktop sitting on your computer desk, and I want to analyze what events lead us to where we currently are.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Brainstorming

The first speech that came to my mind while I was reading the assignment was George W. Bush’s first inaugural address (transcript), a speech that was referenced with considerable liberal bias on our text, Rhetoric & Civic Life. In his address, former President Bush offered the nation his definition of civic engagement, of what it means to be a citizen of our great nation. But our text derided his words because they described the model citizen as one focused on the good of the nation, not the individual. It seems that, in the opinion of the authors of our text, the individual liberties provided for within the context of our democracy are much more important than the common good. I took some offense to the at times arrogant tone employed by the author in his interpretation of the speech. Writing an analysis essay on George W. Bush’s first inaugural address, I feel that I could address its meaning from a different angle and possibly include references from our text to show how words can be interpreted in entirely different ways based on the individual audience member’s ideology and pre-conceived beliefs.

 

Another possible option for the topic of my essay could be the famous “got milk?” advertising campaign and the background surrounding it. This advertising campaign advocates for civic engagement in a different way altogether. Whereas George W. Bush’s speech focuses attention directly on what civic engagement is and what duties being a citizen entails, the “got milk?” campaign targets a more indirect facet of the definition of civic engagement: staying healthy. I realize, however, that the “got milk?” campaign would be a bit of a stretch for an essay about civic engagement. However, the TV ads have been largely successful in increasing consumer milk expenditure, demonstrating the rhetorical power of the campaign. I would have to ponder this subject more intensely in order to come up with a framework for an essay, but nevertheless I think the “got milk?” campaign would be a quite interesting subject for rhetorical analysis.

Skip to toolbar