due: Tuesday, February 1
length: 500-750 words (roughly 2-3 pages, double-spaced)
points: 50
According to Patricia Sullivan, visual rhetoric is “the melding of visual esthetics and concern with rhetorical effectiveness for an audience” (109).
Based on Sullivan’s discussion of “safe” visual rhetoric and our discussion of various blogs in class, analyze a blog that has a similar audience and purpose to yours. For example, if you are planning to apply to graduate school in biology and will be presenting yourself as a student-biologist writing to other biologists, you should analyze the blog of someone else in that field of study. Or, if you are planning on a career as a non-fiction writer and will use your blog to establish yourself as a film critic, you should analyze a film review blog.
Be sure to accurately use Sullivan’s terminology: “prose” and “theatrical” graphics; “transactional” and “experimental” websites. After explaining which style of information presentation the blog uses and how, explain whether or not you think the style is appropriate for the audience and purpose of the blog using the Design Plan model as your analytical guide (refer to our class discussion and the terminology page for more information). At this point you should consider the style and arrangement of the writing as well as the visuals. Does the visual presentation of the information cue you in to what style of writing to expect or does the visual presentation seem at odds with or disconnected from the writing?
Next, explain whether or not your chosen blog is a good model for the blog you will keep. When writing, keep in mind Sullivan’s claim that “there exists no clear arbiter of what constitutes good or safe visual rhetoric on the Web and therefore those of us in writing have the option to make our own decisions about quality visual rhetoric online” (117). In other words, choose your rhetorical approach based on your audience and purpose (and thus the written style that you will use): who is your audience for your blog? What professional image do you want to portray with your blog? What is the purpose for your blog–are you looking for a job, applying to graduate or professional school, promoting a skill or expertise?
Blog Examples
Here are links to some blogs that might give you some ideas for your own blogs. I’ve tried to categorize them if possible or to provide a brief description.
If you want to explore on your own, Technorati indexes thousands of blogs, and even has a ranking system. If you come across some interesting ones, let me know and I’ll add them here.
Many blogs also have “blogrolls” where the author of the blog will list other blogs they think their readers might be interested in, so as you’re exploring check out the blogrolls too.
And, I must thank my colleagues from across the country who turned me on to many of the blogs listed here (and apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone): Angela Crow, Jim Kalmbach, Steve Krause, Cheryl Ball, Ben Reynolds, Alec Hosterman, Carrie Finn, Marcy Bauman, Devon Fitzgerald, David Thomas.
Academic Blogs: Rhetoric and Composition (mostly)
Forgotten Canon
Blogenspiel (this blogger is actually a medievalist, but there is a great blogroll that will take you to many other academic blogs)
Books/literature
http://books4breakfast.blogspot.com
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/
This is an official New York Times blog written by the the editors of the paper’s book review.
visual arts
http://artblog.net/
Photography
http://craigwolf.com/news/
a photo blog on landscape and nature photography. What I like about this blog is that the photographer posts photos and discusses the techniques he used.
If you are interested in looking at other photo blogs, explore the following blog index site. Many of these blogs feature photos only and very little text, so they are not exact models for what we will be doing in class, but they can give you an idea what photographers and other visual artists are doing with blogging technology.
http://www.coolphotoblogs.com/
(make sure to click on the “URL” button to go to the actual blogs and not just to the website’s description of them.)
Film and Video
www.daviddylanthomas.com/blog
This is the film blog of David Dylan Thomas, who was super helpful in providing me, a complete stranger with the links to and descriptions of most of the film blogs that follow. This blog got me thinking about films I haven’t thought about in years and made me laugh out loud–that’s a good combination in my book.
http://filmmakermagazine.com/news/category/news/
Independent film
http://www.cinematical.com/
Group blog covering all aspects of the industry
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/
Film Critic, Glenn Kenny, who tends toward more obscure films.
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/
Critic David Poland’s acerbic take on the industry. Good economic analysis and good analysis of the media that covers the industry.
http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/
Interesting for a somewhat religious (but not dogmatic) take on cinema.
http://johnaugust.com
Blog of screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Very interesting. A lot of advice for screenwriters.
Feminism/Women’s issues
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/
This is a hardcore feminist blog and wickedly funny.
http://www.mothertalkers.com/
A blog about women’s issues and activism related to parenting.
Journalism/Politics
http://www.dailykos.com/
This probably one of the most famous liberal political blogs and it has a long list of regular posters, but it is managed by one person, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, who founded the blog. Dailykos also has a long and interesting blog role you can check out (scroll to the bottom and you’ll see it on the right-hand side of the page.
http://www.redstate.com/
A popular conservative blog
http://icga.blogspot.com/
The title, Informed Comment Global Affairs: a group blog, explains the topic of this one.
http://www.juancole.com/
Juan Cole also writes for ICGA (above), but this is his individual blog.
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/
UK blogger comments on online journalism
Here are some interesting blogs that defy categorization
http://waiterrant.net/
This is a creative (fiction or non-fiction–hard to tell) blog
http://andreaseigel.typepad.com/afternoon/
The blog of author Andrea Seigel. I haven’t read any of her books, but after reading her blog, I want to. All her posts have a cynical, oddly feminist edge to them.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
People mail in their secrets on postcards and they are posted here.
http://onemillionfootnotes.blogspot.com/
This blog, One Million Footnotes, has recently provided me with random thoughts for my day.
http://www.yarnharlot.com
A blog all about knitting (yes knitting) by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who has written several books on the subject.