Jes and her advanced comp thoughts

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Week 13

A Supreme Court decision could derail Trump's trade strategy — but he already has 2 battle-tested tariff options

Even if the Supreme Court blocks Trump's IEEPA tariffs, he has other ways to impose sweeping duties — including dusting off a century-old ta

For this assignment I chose to incorporate my major (political science) with the concepts we learned in this course. This article is about President Trumps trade strategy and the potential supreme court rulings that might come stem from this strategy. This article is indicative of how policy and legislation are now housed in extremely mediated environments. When assessing this article through McLuhans's lens which tells us that the "medium is the message/massage" we can see how tarrifs significance is not centered around economics but it's importance determined through how the stories are framed, circulated through media, and then consumed by people. This is important because it shapes public understanding and it does so a lot more effectively than the law itself.

Going a step further and viewing it from Shipka's idea of multimodality we can see how our modern political discourse does not rely solely on written arguments but sound bites (clip-farming), visuals, and the framing of legal narratives. Policy is now a mediated performance. Assessing this article through these lenses has allowed me to see that power is not distributed solely based on legislation and policy but through the media ecosystem and rhetorical form it takes. This allows me to analyze law and politics from a different standpoint.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Week12

For this week I'd like to discuss my Electracy Memory Box for the non-digital project. I chose the electracy memory box. The memory box is centered around the idea that the Medium is the Massage, I made this the center (or top) of the box because even though it begins with Ulmer, McLuhan has conceptualized electracy and carried the torch. This box is multimodal because it echos the concepts of several thinkers who all follow in the footsteps of McLuhan. Shipka asks us to think beyond words and consider how materials and art can convey meaning. Each item is a rhetorical tool from shapes, ads, stickers, notes, strings, and chains. The memory box is an electrate space that brings fragments, emotions, and visuality together to represent how electracy shows up in various ways. Instead of focusing on one particular thought or argument the box invites us to interpret and navigate the world of electracy as we choose. Overall, I really enjoyed making this project and I feel like its the first time I truly enjoyed composing something all semester. Thank you for prompting me to engage with coursework in this way.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog Post 9

This week we explored Jody Shipka's writing Towards a Composition Made While. This writing helped me deepen my understanding of what it means to be a writer. Shipka argues that multimodal writing's extend beyond digitilization. This in so many words mean that writing doesn't simply live on a screen. It has several forms including but not limited to physical, emotional, and performative forms. Composition should be understood as how we engage with the world around us. Shipka's attention to non-digital multimodality connects to how I've began assesing my personal statement. My personal statement is my own multimodal project which extends beyond words on a page. It is a reflection of my experiences, values, and principles. Non-digital multimodality also teaches me that writing involves emotional processes when creating. In relation to my personal statement, I have utilized sticky notes, pie charts, and maps to highlight important moments within my collegiate experience. These are forms of composition that I believe Shipka would appreciate as a part of making my writing "whole."

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog Post 8

This week I am doing a free write about how the different topics we've discussed in this course have impacted my writing capabilities and style. Each thinker we've discussed have inspired me to think differently and write with another purpose. From Lanham, who inspired me to write from a space that captures the readers attention throughout my writing. McLuhan has inspired me to focus on different methods of communicatting and utilize the new methods of teaching to my advantage. These writers have reshaped my approach to writing especially as I work on my personal statement. Before taking this course I thought my personal statement needed to be centered around clarity and simplicity. But I view my personal statement now as a final performance to undergrad and an opening night for law school. A performance where structure, rhythm, and style work together to engage those who read my story. This class has reminded me that wtiging can be creative and still maintain it's seriousness and that I should view my writings as a form of artistic expression.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog Post 7

In Sirc's text English Composition as Happening he invites us to think of writing as more than a structured argument and as a form of expressive art. I find this to be inspiring and also informative, this provided me with a new way of looking at how we categorize writing. When we as writers view composition as art, we treat it as art and open up endless possibilities for the stories and places our writings take people. I think comparing writing to visual art is an important framework in composition. When I think of this I think back to all the times I would read books and watch the movies to compare the details, emotions, and themes between the two. This is one example of how we can compare visual art to writing. Visualizing writing helps us to create an experience based on sensory. It takes the writing off of the paper and shows us that it is happening. That it is something that is alive and something that we can participate in.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog Post 6

In our reading for this weeks instruction, we explore Richard Lanham's book Style: An Anti-Textbook. Lanham pushes us as readers to reassess what we classify as "good writing." Especially in a age and time where attention holds more value than content itself. Lanham stresses that it is important for writers to not only inform people but captivate their attention. This connects especially to the Medium is the Massage because it reminds us that presentation is just as important as the content itself. Lanham's ideas challenge the traditional academic principle of clarity and substance in writing. Lanham's principles affirms our previous readings especially aligning with Ulmer's electracy and McLuhan's ideas from the Medium is the Massage. It is apparent that in our current society the sizzle defines the steak.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog Post 4

This week I want to talk about some of what we've learned and just discuss my personal opinions about how these ideas are implicated within society today. I think when discussing the impact of media we discount how much it impacts our thoughts, along with its impact on problem-solving and creativity. I can personally name a few ways that media shapes those areas previously listed. Media shapes human thought in some positive and negative ways, more negatively it impacts our capability to think organically and truthfully. How many times have people saw a instagram post with big bold letters and take it as truth without question, blatantly ignoring the article below with the full interview or perspective. Media affects the attention span of humans today and by doing this it shapes how we internalize information. Whether the information is pertinent or juvienille it all makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. Problem-solving is also impacted by media, I will say on a more positive note that the environment of social media does offer various way to solve problems. By having access to the lives of so many people are able to connect world-wide without forming personal relationships, this means that you can look on TikTok and find someone who has the same problem as you...with a solution you might've never thought about. The downside to this is that humans are less inclined to form organic solutions to their problems and can become dependent on the our media environment. Overall, for every area listed above there is a positive and negative factor. I believe i've said it before but if not I'll reiterate, too much of anything can be bad .

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

McLuhan and Ulmer

McLuhan and Ulmer share similar perspectives on how media impacts not only the world of communication, but thought as well. McLuhan is known for the infamous "the media is the message/massage" where he showed us that technology is an active force that reshapes society and how we perceive things. For McLuhan the new mediums that are created daily help reshape our human experiences. This means that radio, television, and social media whether we believe it or not change how we think, learn, and relate to one another. Ulmer who agrees with McLuhan for the most part, builds on his ideas about technology and shaped it towards the age of digital communication or as we know it social media. Ulmer develops electracy which for short can be described as literacy for the digital age. Ulmers work is geared towards how society can invent new forms of rhetoric and problem-solving that fit with digital media.

From this perspective we can see how Ulmer extends McLuhan's ideas about technology and it's impact on society and thought. Both thinkers avoid describing media as a passive change but view it as an environment that structures human thought.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

Blog 2

Have you ever observed how completely different you feel when watching a TikTok video in comparison to reading an article on the same information? Well according to Marshall McLuhan this difference has nothing to do with the message at hand but the medium. McLuhan believes that the form of communication has more of an impact than the message. Meaning, consuming information via social media shapes our experiences differently than reading a newspaper or book even if the facts are the same. For the second week in a row I've learned something new in this course, something that specifically alters the ways in which I view my everyday experience. This week I have uncovered the Global Village which according to this week's text, are where the local and global events we consume feel intermediate despite distance and time. We have electronic media to blame for this shared connection, the internet collapses space and time which allows people to feel connected across the globe. According to McLuhan we're simply fish not aware of water in regards to the media influence that we exist within. I found this piece to be very introspective, it allowed me to examine my everyday habits and evaluate the ways I existed within my environment.

[jesagirlandherthoughts]

I'll be honest and admit that Electracy is a word I've never heard before. The meaning and terminology is a new discovery from taking this course, however, this does not mean that I am unfamiliar with the behaviors it describes. In fact, I find that I utilize themes from electracy to communicate very often. Now that I am familiar with some of the different styles of communication and how the eras align with the societal norms during its time. I have some reservations about this generation's use of electracy to communicate. For example, the intense use of media alongside text to gain ones attention. This is one of the behaviors that stuck out most to me when learning about electracy, mainly because now that I notice the behavior I can say that a lot of literature we consume in our digital realm comes with a meme or video to help engage the reader. I would imagine that overtime this can create difficulties with reading and digesting basic literature, and can lead to people having a skewed idea of what interesting literature is. The flexibility electracy creates for those who participate is another worry of mine, I for one have changed my username on social media platforms numerous times. Now that I think of this in a way that does not normalize it, I can see how the concept of identity can be impacted by this. If we're all able to change our identity and the click of a button how easy is it for people to mask themselves and continue shifting their identity at their disclosure. I imagine that this harms the authenticity of what that person would be writing and how they engage with their readers. Overall, being introduced to electracy has given me a new perspective on what I am consuming and what we have taken on as normal in our society.