My Multimodal Project

Rape Culture is a research paper that I wrote for a class that I created a visual series representing what exactly rape culture "looks" like.  Since the class was my senior capstone for my degree in Photography the images were not combined with the research that I put into my paper, as it was meant to succeed as a visual representation without needing a description.

By creating a web page with these images and descriptions found within the research paper and other sources I can fully express what each image represents to narrow down the "visual" element with the textual evidence/elements.

I will also be able to include clips of a song that is considered a contributing factor (as many out there exist) of a normalizing of "rape".

The internet will be the accessibility for this project as it is a platform to reach many people in order to enlighten on what exactly "rape culture" is and how we can work to create an anti-rape culture.  By creating a web-page I can upload it to multiple blogs as well as my own and other websites geared towards spreading this awareness.

Here is one of the images that I will be working with, among many others.  This girl is just a model that was used in the making of the project to project text that is commonly said towards rape victims.  "She didn't say No" has been used many times in the defense of men that basically says, if you don't say no the body is a right of passage to do with what one pleases.

The idea is that by juxtaposing these words that represent rape culture onto images that it better expresses to what it actually means when words like this are said.

I will be able to explain each created image along with the statistics about rape and information on rape that I put into my research paper, in hopes to further exemplify this world called rape culture.

Digital Identifications and It's Place Digital Rhetoric

In response to James P. Zappen's article "Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory", rhetoric is an ongoing construction of little truths rather than an exact big "T", which basically means (or so I believe) that rhetoric has been a theory and therefore, will continue to evolve into a changed theory and with it will be integration of new methods and in today's world the digital rhetoric.

I went online to find the digital meaning of the word rhetoric and the result that popped up on the first page of google as the second meaning was this: language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.  I find this interesting, when considering the digital personas that are created either to subside an identification to become more neutralized of a voice so that the speaker is not judged upon their gender, race, age, class, etc.  Zappen says, "Anonymity encourages experiments in self and gender identities, but it also problematizes notions of authorship and ownership and encourages “flaming”—the hostile expression of strong emotions". This matters to those who wish to trust the authorship and who have certain ideas on what that means: Does a person lying about their "identification" mean that they are somebody that shouldn't be trusted, otherwise?

I know of many Facebook personas that are represented by friends and in real life an outsider would never expect that they were the same person: real life person and Facebook persona?  What does this say about authorship online, does it matter, when and how?

I think that it comes down to the separation that Zappen makes from classical rhetoric and digital rhetoric: 

"Studies of the new digital media also explore some of the purposes and outcomes of communication in digital spaces: not only persuasion for the purpose of moving audiences to action or belief, but also self-expression for the purpose of exploring individual and group identities and participation and creative collaboration for the purpose of building communities of shared interest". 

My question: Does this added element of the digital media represent digital rhetoric or should it be considered under a different theory?

These "Identifications" are NOT My "Identity"

This morning I did an interesting practice, which I recommend, of plugging into google's search engine identifiers that I "identify" with.  The quotations there are important, as it is quite difficult to remain so strongly in connection with each individual word that I relate to as a word to represent my identity.  Such is the contrary, although these categories that may best "describe" me are used to represent my identifications, they are NOT my identity: We are more than the labels that are put upon us.

Here is a selection that I put into google: woman, white, lower-middle class (is there even such a middle class anymore, I'm pretty sure we're just about at two classes now: the rich and the poor-- but this is for another day), mother, student, worker, gardener, photographer, yogi, trail runner, and there are so many more I could add.  What I find interesting is that saying just one of these is not nearly enough: I am not just a mother, I am not just a student, I am not just a etc., YET I am a mother, I am a student, I am a woman.  It seems the more we write in terms of identifiers the closer we get to nailing down our identity-- or is it?

All of the things that I consider my identifications present areas of disidentifications, which then also become my stronger identities: I am a woman so therefore I am not a man.  Although, I feel that stressing this point is necessary for my personal "saving" of my face and who I am and who I am not, to decipher my identity, this too should be left for another day.

THEN, there's the whole digital world of "identifications', which are representations of these words that I feel don't accurately represent, yet I can see the representation "as a whole of each category" being understood as such.

So here is an image of a "woman", one of the first image results in google.  Sure, if being a woman means wearing make-up, having dyed blonde hair (naturally I do-but that doesn't matter, I don't think), pink lips, model pose, and sultry eyes.  No doubt we can't deny that she is representing the female sex, but is she representing a woman?

I then was curious, what would come up if I put the word "feminine" in the search engine.  And an image of tampons and pads appeared: what the fuck, was my initial reaction.  So to be feminine is to have periods: well, I haven't had a period in 4 years, so am I masculine?

This is a label that is difficult for me to 'wrap' my head around, because of the ongoing topic.  Sometimes it seems, that because the argument that society has created the these ideas of what is masculine and what is femine: what is male and what is female: then what we are really feeling in association to these words isn't true.  That they are merely, what the culture has created them to be, so where does that leave me?  Am I feminine (because I certainly feel it) or is this what society has led me to believe?  I know I am female, born of that sex.  I feel connected as a woman and certainly feel like I carry both "masculine" and "feminine" traits, but strongly connected to the ladder.  This may be because I am a mother, which leads me into the next image.

When I look at this picture, I can relate to the countless hours I spent playing with my son, making him laugh, staring into his precious little face, goofing around on the bed while he gained the strength to lift his head.  Does this represent the entirety of "mother" certainly not, but it does represent a mother.  However, that's because I live in America, am white, a woman, etc.  Would this still represent a "mother" in other cultures or societies?

So I thought, what would "lower-middle class" result in.  Sure, if you are married and have children.  But what about the single non parent people out there that don't make enough money to buy a house but isn't so poor that they are struggling to survive?

I am also an athlete, an avid biker and trail runner, and I practice yoga.  I won't even include a picture of "biker" as all of the images that came up are motorcycles and I downhill and cross-country, so that is definitely not accurate for my identification.  The trail runner image is mostly accurate, since I run in similar terrain, although I'm pretty sure she's more built than me.

I have to include the yogi results because I find it the most comical.


SO either you are yogi the bear or an oiled up, insanely muscled woman.....oh AND naked!!! Seriously, WTF!!!  I found that a meme best described my experience as a yoga practitioner.

Basically, the search engine came up with some results that are totally understandable yet definitely not ME.  They are geared towards internet  marketing, which is a technique of getting images and pages on the first results of search engines.  What is interesting is discovering what those are.

A University Website that Exceeds Visual Rhetoric

For this blog, Ross Sellers and I have collaborated to analyze the visual rhetoric of the University of Maryland's website.  We picked this website because we both felt that it succeeded audience interaction in both versions, desktop and mobile.

The main page of the desktop site, shown below, is an exceptional user friendly interface.  In Mary E. Hocks' "Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments" she calls this the audience stance. Hock says, "the audience stance is established on the opening screen as music, images, text, and hyper-textual structure all set the stage for a highly interactive experience.  The homepage of desktop site uses color strategically to differentiate the multiple sections, this hypertext, helps to create visual intractability for the audience, allowing the user to quickly find the text he/she further wants to explore without having to search around and figure it out on their own, which can be very frustrating for the user and happens far too often websites even our own Univserity's.

Homepage on the desktop version of the University's website.

Aside from the main tabs that organize the sections of the website under the logo in a slightly different shade of red box and white text, two of the topics that they have chosen to standout: In the News: black hypertext and Discover: blue hypertext (see image 1) have within those headlines titles of sections that are highlighted in red and then below a smaller font text summarizing what is further described when the audience clicks on the red hypertext.   The other sections that they made visually interactive are the sections: Maryland A-Z red hyptertext and Community black hyptertext I I (see image 2) by creating an interactive method.  When the audience scrolls over the different headlines under these sections the text changes from a title to a title with an underline,  this allows the audience to have an authoritative audience stance and control of the site. These are simple uses of hyptertext and text that create a profound easy experience for the user that visually rhetorically differentiate from sites that do not.

Image 1

Image 2

Cassandra and I had already decided to use the University of Maryland’s website for this blog. So, when I read Mary E. Hocks’ “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments” I was pleased to find that the ideas she conveys in the article align well with what Maryland’s website does well. However, I was particularly interested in her discussion of transparency. Hocks defines transparency as “the ways in which online documents relate to established conventions like those of print, graphic design, film, and Webpages. The more the online document borrows from familiar conventions, the more transparent it is to the audience” (Hocks 632). In other words, the more a website adheres to the conventional ways in which humans process information, the more accessible that website will be. Therefore, since Maryland is trying to cater to students mostly, and since students always have access to their phones, Maryland needs to make sure that their mobile site is just as accessible as their computer site. See the image below:

Image of the Univsity's homepage of the mobile site.

The website is a more broad expanse of information, shown below, whereas the mobile site condenses that information into headings that lead to certain destinations on the website. A mobile site must be simple and condensed, and it must provide the viewer easy accessibility so that they avoid pinching and zooming to find the information they need. Maryland understands that their audience is made up mostly of students, and they have provided accessibility for that audience that is clear and concise.

Screenshot of the desktop website.

According to Hock's definition of audience stance and transparency the University of Maryland has created a website that is a successful example of visual rhetoric.  Hopefully, other websites will start to adapt such techniques of accessibility and user friendliness.  

What is “delivery” and how does it matter?

Classically delivery in rhetoric is referred to as the oral/aural and bodily aspects of an oral speech and/or performance.  When we consider today, the digital world and thus digital rhetoric, James Porter has an point in that we need to re-implement and restructure what delivery is and to bring to light it’s importance.  What I have come to understand as digital rhetoric and the expressions of it that exist in today’s world, “delivery” is certainly a large factor to consider when creating a successful digital rhetorical text.

The “body” of rhetoric associated with delivery, how one presents their body as “text”, is similar to that of how a website (for example of digital rhetoric) is designed.  Websites vary in the way they are formed, shaped, designed, and marketed. This “body” is arguably the first introduction that it's audience has to the information it provides.  During a time when I was apart of a web design and marketing company, I learned about the psychology behind colors that reached into web design layout and expanded into text, amount of information presented on each page, and many other visual choices that are apart of the process. 

What I question is the legitimacy of the online avatars.  When the “body” goes from a text to an online identity and how that identity (avatar) is expressed.  The image or persona that is expressed online by people can be completely created as opposed to the classical age when the presentation was “in person” and not behind a screen with the ability to create an avatar that is of different age, gender, sex, physical appearance, etc.  But does this even matter?  Technically rhetoric is the effectiveness  of the writer, text, and audience and the message being successfully received, so does it matter how it is portrayed in association with digital rhetoric.  This leads into morality and ethics.

This questions the notion of false identification, being fooled by the writer, authorial intent, authorial execution.  When is what appropriate (and not) in the digital world?  I suggest that it’s context based and that we may possible ever fine tune a “manuel”.  There is certainly a “delivery” in digital rhetoric that needs to be explored and I look forward to more articles, essays, and publications on the subject.

Identity In Role Play Gaming: "Design Authority"

I am not a gamer, nor do I have any desire to play video games, so the rhetorical concepts that are found in such a genre have never struck my fancy until reading "Identity Performance in Role Playing Games" by Danielle Nielsen.  With the normal issues of gender, sex, race, and other divisions among people gaming provides the experience for people to escape these binaries, although on one hand it seems quite sad that it takes a "virtual" world for this experience to happen it's also quite nice that there is a "place" in which people are experiencing neutrality.

Nielsen describes this experience as "design authority", the place in which a player gets to design their avatar and the strengths and weaknesses associated with that avatar is not judged by gender, class, race, sex, etc.  How interesting that it is within the game world that these barriers are being shut down and even more so that the possibility of people first experiencing in the game world then can practice it in the "real" world.  This isn't a certainty as he does say that women are still targeted in the game as he states, "but the truth is there is a vocal minority in the gaming community that targets female gamers for an extra level of harassment."  What's interesting is that these "women" players could actually be just the avatar identity and the actual player behind the avatar could be male, and that a woman can actually escape this by choosing a male avatar.

The process of creating a character, the choices that one has to go through leads one into self-exploration that I never even considered with games.  These avatars can be expressions of how we see ourselves, how we want the world to see us, a way to hide the "parts" of ourselves that we fear "others" judge us on, and I would argue or a way to express a part of us that we weren't entirely aware was there until given the choice to explore it.  It seems as though, the virtual world of gaming is definitely a place that could bring up identities within people that they never knew was there and I argue that the next step is to bringing this awareness to the players so that they can better self reflect upon these decisions giving them more power and understanding of their "self".

Authorial identity in the gaming world is a place of experimentation and possibly even a place that a person gets have an experience that otherwise wouldn't be had in the "real" world because of the stigmas created around specific identities, but what does this do for the authentic self and truth online?