Breaking Down Political Media (the rhetoric point of view)

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Just recently I came across various articles in which the media promoted every Presidential candidate and explained the actions they took to win over certain states. After carefully analyzing each article I came to the realization that most everyone comes to, none of the candidates are perfect, but one is definitely better than the rest. I began to analyse the campaign, the articles, and the media displaying each of these individual candidates. One of these stood out more to me than the others ” Donald Trump Delivers a Flurry of Flattery to Iowans to Try to Seal the Deal”. This article portrays rhetoric qualities in about everything that  that was written. Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.This article just like the rest of of them gives us this framed idea that Donald Trump is favored in Iowa for the things that he has promised them. that also interests me because Donald Trump himself may possibly be displaying and reaching out to his audience in the same way the author of the article is reaching out to his. Rhetoric is important when reaching out to a specific group of people. Rhetoric is, for lack of a better word, “playing” the game correctly in favor of your audience.

The rhetorical situation in this case, is the public appearance and speech that Donald Trump has given to the residents of Iowa. Whether or not this presidential candidate truly means and holds the promises that he makes, his promises must be relevant to the issues in Iowa. For example, Donald trump has promised to get Medicare to negotiate the prices in prescription drugs. That being a large issue in Iowa earns Trump points in the eyes of the audience. The issues that he decides to address is what one would call an exigence. The exigence is the demands or issues that allowed the author to address them in the first place. For example, there are many nativists in Iowa who are overwhelmed and are concerned with the immigration issues in the country. The exigence is the immigration issue, and Donald Trump directly addresses the issue with a solution. Within rhetorical situations, there are constraints as well. A constraint is a limitation that does not allow the author from going any farther than needed or any farther than allowed. In this case with my first example “Over the last few days,  Donald J. Trump has proposed having Medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices…”(Kaplan) there is a minor constraint. He can not promise lower prices, so he therefore makes his choice of words very carefully and uses “negotiation”. Therefore if it does not follow through he is not to blame because lower prices was never promised. It is a very smart way of gaining the trust of your audience, but not failing them either.

A large component of rhetoric is the rhetorical triangle. This triangle is made up of the three Grecian components, logos pathos and ethos. Logos is the form in addressing something through principles, reason and judgement. The things you believe are morally correct depending on your knowledge of it. Ethos is the form of patterns such as, your beliefs, like religion and traditions. Pathos is an emotional aspect, the way you get to those people who are “suckers” for the things that can make them cry. Pathos is used through pity and guilt. You must once again play to your intended audience. For example, in the article the author writes ” Like the salesman he is, he finds ways to flatter potential customers.”(Kaplan). This is true, Donald Trump is a smart an when it comes to reaching out his intended audience. He is a business man who uses rhetoric to win the hearts of his audience. Just like the author who displays through his work that he seems indifferent to Donald Trump’s success but is also leaning towards seeing his strategies to fool us. He writes in a way to reach out to his readers to take a second look at Donald Trump and then make up your minds about him. This is true about all candidates, they will use rhetoric to win the hearts of the public. The truth is because everyone is so good at playing the game, we will never truly know who means it the most. It is just the fact of who plays it better.

Damon winter/ The New York Times

This is another example of rhetoric. In order to win over his audience, Donald trump presents himself in a way he knows his audience will approve and trust in him more. he is well dressed and presentable. Who wouldnt trust a man who takes the time to present himself nicely and neatly. You wouldnt trust a man who looks like he just got out of bed and rushed over to give a speech. Another aspect, he is accompanied by his wife. She must fit in the same type of framing that he displays, the clean sophisticated look. He also takes the time to care for his fans and the people he speaks to. If you dont take the time to get to know your intended audience you have already lost them because you have to understand them to gain their trust.

Rhetoric is a part of the everyday American consumer culture. It is what allows authors to directly affect their intended audience in a way that will real them in and make them believe what the author is portraying. The next time you see a commercial, article, or picture promoting something, try breaking it down and looking at it through a rhetors eyes. It will change your mind.

 

 

 

Haberman, Maggie, and Thomas Kaplan. “Donald Trump Delivers a Flurry of                                                                                                          Flattery to Iowans to Try to Seal the Deal.” The New York Times. The New York                                                                                        Times, 31 Jan. 2016. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

Virtual Field Trips with VoiceThread Mobile

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Confession: My name is Jaime and I am a regular VoiceThread user. I have been using VoiceThread for the last few years after being introduced to it by Jill Leafsteadt and Michelle Pacansky-Brock. I have integrated VoiceThread in a variety of ways into my courses, from asynchronous discussions about ethical issues in nursing to integrating […]

About the project

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One thing that I just realized is that I haven’t explained what my capstone project is. I am sure that I gave out a link or two so those people will know what I am posting about but what about people stumble on this by accident. So here is the run down on my project. The school that I go to CSU Channel Islands was given money via a grant called B-Wet. This allowed college students to work with high school and middle school students that are underrepresented and to lend them a helping hand in learning about the environment. This portion of the grant is called crossing the channel; this is more of the general of college students helping with high school and middle school aged students. The part that I am helping with specially is the educational portion of the grant. Myself and another capstone student are working with Channel Islands High School and R. J. Frank Academy of Marine Science and Engineering. During the time of the two semesters or the whole school year using a curriculum created by NOAA called LiMPETS, this time was spent teaching the students about the amazing channel that is in their backyard. The people were during this was our advisor Chris, a graduated student (MJ) a fellow CI student named Dulce, fellow capstone student Erika and myself. Erika and Dulce are working with the middle school students; MJ and myself are working with the high school students, lastly Chris goes between both schools and helps us all along. The first lesson we taught was that we split the classes into groups where they needed to do research into a group and animal that both use the channel for different reasons. The groups needed to then present their findings to the class and place a representation of animal where they could be found. After that lesson, Erika and I taught a lesson to the classes about how limited the resources are on our planet. Then Chris, Erika and I taught the classes about how watersheds work and how much pollution can get into the watershed system. This was all done during the past semester.

 

During this semester Erika and I will be teaching an entire until ourselves. This is where the LiMPETS program comes in. This program was made to get students out of the classroom and out into the field to do some citizen science. The science that the students will be participating in will be looking at intertidal zone and sandy beach. In the intertidal area they are going to be identifying a number of invertebrates and algae’s. They will also be counting and measuring the sizes of Owl Limpets. These are going to be counted and measured because over the course of time people have gotten into the habit of taking these creatures off and eating them. To see how big the limpets get without being taken off and eaten. They also count and Ochre Sea Stars, they are counting these because the sea stars are keystone species because they keep the sea mussel downs. That is what the students will be doing in the intertidal area. Then there the sandy beach stuff. The students are going to try to get sand crabs and measure them, and record all of the measurements of the shells. The students then put the sand crabs back into the sand. That is what the students will do. This will all be done at Carpentaria State Beach on February 18th and 19th.

 

Do get everything all ready for this all to happen. Erika and I have been working really hard in getting together packets for the students to work on so that they can all hopefully retain the information that we have been giving them. We have been working on lessons and PowerPoint’s for us to give to the students. We have been making plenty of meetings with our advisor Chris and with him giving us plenty of advice on how to continue. So over all everything is going well for me, just got to get through it all.

starting up again

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My partner and I have been working hard getting our lesson plans done and the research packets the students will be working on. I have also been working on the survey I will be giving the students for my data collection for my capstone. Starting February 5, 2016 I will be going to the middle school to start unit 3. I am excited to start this unit and collect the data I need.

Winter Break Update

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Over winter break I have collected a good amount of data through weekly testing. High water flow due to the first El Nino event on January 6 allowed me to use the sonde to collect data directly but recently lack of rain has reduced flow so I have been bottle sampling and testing manually. The lack of water flow has increased levels of chlorophyll, conductivity, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, and pH while turbidity has decreased. I will continue to analyze these levels and convert them into a few graphs this week.

Site SB02, January 6, 2016
Site SB02, January 6, 2016
Site SB02, January 29, 2016
Site SB02, January 29, 2016

Which are you: A Taker or a Leaver?

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In most situations there is always a “good guy” and a “bad guy,” where most of the time the participants of the situation are arguing to one another that they are  the better of the two. Having old age rivalries between such forces as God and the devil, the Capulets and the Montagues, progression versus the environment, being unsolved due their strong separate arguments for one another. landscapes%20nature%20trees%20chess%20earth%20surrealism%20human%20surreal%20artwork%20industrial%20plants%20rivers%20enviro_www.wallpaperIn being that such rivalries can and may never be solved each side is forced to gain additional “firepower” against one other to potentially draw the war to an end. Setting out to inform, persuade, and even force other members to join their cause to gain strength in numbers. By using rhetorical situations the rhetor or in other words the organization, creates an exigency that calls for the audience to make well informed and educated decision based on their logos and pathos on why they should join a particular side.

There are decisions to be made every day whether it is to eat breakfast or to do one’s homework, we are always making decisions based on what we believe to be better for us. In a matter of speaking we use rhetoric to make these decisions to from a quick cost benefit analysis of a situation. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” was in brief terms, all about this rhetorical analysis we humans conduct even in the smallest of scenarios. Books, advertisements, the media, and all extensions of communication form this rhetorical triangle between reader, purpose, and writer that causes such rhetorical situations to created.

This is no less the case in the novel Ishmael written by Daniel Quinn. Throughout the novel the gorilla which the title derives from named Ishmael talks to an unknown narrator about the driving forces of the environment and the two different types of people. Explaining in brief that a taker is one not only takes from the environment  but takes more than it needs and doesn’t give back. As opposed to a leaver who takes but only what it needs too, but gives more back than what it takes. With this being the main focal point of the novel, having it put into question the existence of humans and our role in the grand scheme of things.Population_timeline

In being that this is what Quinn is trying to project to us as readers, I believe this is why the narrator is never given a name, that way as us the audience and Quinn as the rhetor he can appeal to our emotions more clearly and closely. By doing so he would have implemented the reader by the end of the novel with ideas on how they effect the environment and their world around them. Of course I do not believe Quinn did this on accident he wanted us to think about our place he wanted to present us with this idea in our head.

Most people may created exigency, because they like to state trouble and watch constraints be broken well I believe this is not the case in Quinn’s scenario. I believe what is being done Is to personally better the world around us.

 

Works Cited

Bolin, Laura Carroll. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 45-58. Writing Spaces. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. New York: Bantam/Turner Book, 1995. Print.