In our continuing quest to better understand the essential elements of any argument, each of you will be writing a more extended analysis of an advertisement. It can be a commercial, a print ad, or even an infomercial. (I’ve never had anyone analyze an infomercial before, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work…)

The format for these analyses is in your syllabus.

Post questions or good commercials you come across (as long as you aren’t using them) below. Your response should be typed, and in this format.

Update: It seems that I neglected online advertisements. While we will focus primarily on the form and content of individual arguments, it is always interesting to take a look at the bigger picture. The video below illustrates the scope and possible impact of online media and advertisements. It is aimed at businesses (especially around the 3:00 mark), I thought it worth sharing.

Today we briefly discussed the three basic appeals of any argument: appeal to the audience’s emotions, the speaker’s credibility, and the author’s message itself. Tonight, find commercials or advertisements on the Internet (YouTube is a goldmine, but you may be able to find static ads elsewhere—just turn off your ad blocking plugins) and post a link in the comments below. You should include a brief explanation of how the ad works in light of the appeals we discussed in class. For example:

While O.J. Simpson’s plea for viewers to “snap that seatbelt” may have been persuasive at the height of his career as football’s golden child, the events surrounding his trial have since sullied any credibility he might have as a role model.

We will discuss your advertisements and explanations in class tomorrow. As always, email with questions.

Glad you made it to the site okay. Today was a bit of a whirlwind, but we have a lot to do.

Homework:

• Please go to the page above entitled “Tell Me About Yourself” and fill out the form. This will save me much time when I need to get in contact with you or your parents (I email them good things as well as bad, so don’t worry about negative messages).
• Sign up for an RSS feed or email messages under the “Feeds” page above.
• Sign into WinsomeWiki with a username that clearly identifies you.

To find the latest information on your class on this site, go to “Categories” above, then “Courses.”

Some of you asked about materials for my classes, which I seem to have overlooked in the syllabus. Here’s what you’ll always need:

• The book we are reading as a class (or a personal book if we’re not in a novel at the moment).
• Something to write on, preferably a small bound notebook of some sort, for taking notes as you read.
• Post-its, highlighters, your favorite pen, something to write in your book with.
• Loose paper or a notebook with removable pages, and a pen.
• Any work in progress—this is important; even if the paper or essay is not due that day, I may ask to see how it is coming along. It also helps me answer any questions you may have about the assignment.

As always, send me an email if you or your parents have any questions.

“[T]he parties were a blueprint for a way for things to work or function without a hierarchy as much as possible” (Mason 141).

Software creators’ response to open collaboration include Linux, the open-source operating system; Firefox, created by Mozilla (they have also created open-source email box and calendar programs); Google Code allows developers to play with Google’s software to support new uses…. The list is massive.  [Skip to the next paragraph if you aren’t interested in this stuff.] SourceForge is a great place to start looking, and Open Source as Alternative allows you to find, well, open-source (free) alternatives to the most popular software out there. I found Inkscape (a vector graphics creator/editor) and GIMP (a bitmap graphics creator/editor) through this website.

The bottom line is that things (software, albums, radio broadcasting, ideas, lectures, information, education, storefronts) that were once too expensive or proprietary are now open to the public. We can all try to imagine what this will mean in the future, but by looking back (as Mason is doing brilliantly in his book), we can get a more precise vision of trends.

Here’s the Rolling Stone article mentioned on page 144: “SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums” by Stewart Brand. By hugely wonderful synthesis of history, Brand was one of the founders of the Whole Earth Catalogue. This is how the publication is described on the website:

With a seemingly haphazard arrangement of information within its categories, the CATALOG was the desktop-published equivalent [of] an early search engine that invited readers to learn something new on every page—and to connect unrelated ideas and concepts. It was read by nearly every segment of American society; even disparate groups could find common ground within the pages of the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG. (Whole Earth)

{Synthesis goosebumps}

Article on the fashion industry I mentioned yesterday.

Great (if short) discussion today. If you didn’t catch it the first time around, check out pages 81-3 for a great explanation of how to write a paper:

A good remix is defined by its signature original elements. . . . You may decide the originality is already there; an original process or take on sampled material counts. Or you may end up with one tiny piece of the original mixed with an entirely new score of your own. Either way, your originality should outshine the borrowed elements, or at the very least, present them in a new light.

Marc Ecko Tagging Air Force One

You should also check out Ecko’s explanation. He’s a great apologist for the DIY ethos and free speech. He also makes money from this ethos (his products represent rebellion and free speech, therefore those wearing them are as well). Think back to our discussions on cliques and the high school hierarchy and see where this leads you.

The Wooster Collective is a fantastic blog that showcases street art from around the world. Worth taking a look. And another. And another. And an article on TAKI 183.

It’s worth noting that graffiti is illegal; it wouldn’t be a message of change and rebellion if it wasn’t. Gladwell mentions the other side of the argument in his book The Tipping Point, and his point is summed up well here, in an article where gangs and graffiti always go hand-in-hand.

In sync with Marc Ecko’s use of graffiti in advertising, the opposite:

The authorities raised the stakes once again with harsher vandalism laws and sentences, so artists . . . worked faster and smarter, using techniques borrowed from the advertising industry and the high art galleries that had adopted graffiti. (Mason 119)

Mark Jenkins’s website. With pictures!

Have fun, see you tomorrow.