Prof. Vee’s blog question, response due Sun night.

Please respond to this post by Sunday (midnight) by creating your own, new post.

You talked in your small groups on the Bowden & Scott reading about audience and the ethical responsibilities of technical communicators. Now I want you to apply that thinking in the real world, in preparation for our discussion about those topics next week. Find a website or video or Facebook page or Twitter feed focused on a public issue. Then, in your own post or in the comments below, talk about how this website/video tailors (or fails to tailor) information to its audience. (First, of course, you’ll have to figure out who the audience is meant to be, and tell us what you think it is.) How does it makes its rhetorical appeal, or how does it attempt to stir people into action? How ethical do you think these rhetorical tactics are? For instance, does your video eschew facts in favor of playing on an audience’s emotions (i.e., pathos & puppies) or does your accurately or prominently claim its authorship or sponsorship (i.e., ethos, or a corporate site masquerading as an activist site)? Or does it provide a lot of facts and figures from reliable sources about its topic (logos)? Use terms you learned in Bowden & Scott to help you talk about the rhetoric of the site. You may have more fun if you find a site that does a particularly unethical job of talking to its audience. Don’t forget to share the link to your site/video, plus a picture if possible!

Then read and comment on at least one of your peers’ posts. Be sure to visit their site or watch their video so you know what they’re talking about! I encourage you to have a conversation here, that is, reply more than once and/or respond to one of your peers, and/or take the convo into the new twitter stream.

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