Welcome to my homepage and my first blog post of the semester!
Based upon the content we have created in class thus far and the direction we are taking, I am very interested and excited to see how the elements of this class come together
and how we can utilize this content in future careers. Personally, I work really closely with social media marketing in my current job, and I believe that a lot of elements
of this class will be very helpful in that job and potentially in a future career. From this class, I hope to takeaway a more sophisticated sense of what it means to utilize
technology and the internet to our advantage. I want to develop a solid understanding of our ability to access information and build a name for ourselves
that can expand outside of the standard realms of social media.
We're already more than a quarter way through the semester and it feels like time is flying by!
This class has been stacked with unique projects and we've barely just begun. The projects assigned in Rhet233 so far have pushed me to access a type of creativity
and perspective that I've never had to utilzie in other classes. Take the Forgery project, for example, this project forces the writer to step outside of their own mind
and into the brain and speech of another person. In all other writing classes, the essays and projects written do not require perspective of another person, it is always
the writers take on the events being written about. Rhet233 has, thus far, taught us the importance of expanding perspective and how writing is fluid and unique, not rigid and confined.
The semester is officially half way done.
The past few weeks we have focused on our deviancy projects, and have had to learn how to think and write like bonified con artists.
The phishing scam project was particularly interesting because it involved becoming a true scammer; the more you learn about phishing scams,
the more you realize that the people who partake in them are not masterminds or particuarly intelligent. Being a phisher requires nothing more than
a computer and the ability to write a decently convincing email. These lessons of deception will be particuarly intersting going into our final projects.
It doesn't seem like a project about student activism and deception would go hand in hand, but for me, I plan on focusing my project on Vietnam War activism.
The Vietnam war involved a lot of propoganda and government deception, and it will be very interesting to research the ways in which U of I students
protested this alleged deception, and how young students were able to see through lies propogated by ou government. Below is a sneak peek photo of how
U of I students felt about the war, which you'll see much more of very soon!
For the next few weeks, we will be in full final project mode!
Following spring break, our attention has almost completley shifted to the final projects as well as our podcasts
I'm most interested in delving into the audio aspects of the class, and how it has been a powerful tool through time
Radio and audio broadcasting was the primary mode of communication until the last few decade
I believe by exploring audio messages and broadcasting, we will be delving into the history of communication and tying it to the present.
Podcasts have become wildly popular now-a-days, and are a cultural phenomena to talk about pretty much anything!
Personally, I really njoy listening to podcasts analyzing current events and hearing about hot topic issues from a different perspective.
NPR is one of the most popular podcasts, and they consistantly analzye current events well.
Sometimes, our current news stations can become hectic and very bipartisan; podcasts like NPR can offer an objective and scholarly view of the world.
I am excited to explore what makes audio broadcasting so powerful, and I am excited to incorporate it into my final project.
This will be my final blog post of the semester!
We are beginning to wrap up anf put the finishing touches
on our final projects. Researching this project has been a very insightful and interesting experience.
Not only was my own research interesting, but watching my fellow students bring their projects to life was
quite insightful as well. The U of I has such a rich history of activism, amongst both students and staff!
Personally, it was very interesting to see how the Vietnam war protests were so similar to student protesting happening today.
The protests that occured in the mid-20th century really shaped the way our democracy operates, and paved the way for modern activism.
Vietnam War and Civil rights protests demonstrated the true power of citizen power, and we continue to feel those affects today.
I am very excited to see all of the final projects come together and continue to learn about
the history of activism at the University of Illinois!
