There is a sense of finality in writing this. Will I ever use this blog again? What class would I use it for? Should I continue writing these because I enjoy it and have a place to articulate my thoughts? Rhetoric was an interesting class, to say the least. I would say I’m a more effective person for taking it. I read scientific papers for my other classes with more intent. I enjoy the literature I read and the television I watch; as it has more meaning now. Most of all, I handle discourse better from taking this class.

This class brings to mind a lot of things in my life, as rhetoric is inherently human. Mostly though, I end up ruminating on a friendship I had with a coworker before I transferred to Bloomsburg. This is due to the effect on my life this person had and the discourse we engaged in. I often joke about this to my family that I’m alone often now because unlike my days early in college, I am no longer forced to spend 8 or more hours with the same two or three people. This was the first time a person actively had challenged my views without attacking me for having them, despite our differences we were good friends, and this class solidified that lesson for me. 

The discourse included political, religious, and philosophical discussions in both this class and the friendship I had. There were times where I actively disagreed but I was taught to listen in both. It’s really amazing what you can learn when you just listen to what someone is saying. I said this in my first blog, what persuades a person reveals a lot about who they are, and I still believe is true. 

We are drawn to what speaks to our mind and soul. When I put this in light of my own faith, one of the books that have rhetorically appealed to me the most is Ecclesiastes. The message seems desolate and obsolete to many people, but the last verse of the book, the conclusion, is what I believe makes it strangely optimistic rather than nihilistic. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Behind this verse is a book, making statements such as “there is no remembrance of people of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them” (Ecclesiastes 1:11) or “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). These are dark, the book quite literally declares life is chaotic and you have no control over it. Yet the ending statement is asking us to keep the commandments of God because it is your duty. I enjoy this dichotomy. On the one hand, we are being told life is random and it does not matter how good you are because bad things will happen to you, and on the other hand we are being told to essentially be good in spite of this. 

The debate about what truly defines goodness in a person interests me, but the rhetoric of Ecclesiastes persuades me to these thoughts. However chaotic and miserable life may be to you, that should not dictate your level of goodness. To be a good person is usually very boring, it’s not putting up Facebook posts showing how good you are, or declaring your moral character over other people, but it is small steps taken behind the highlight reels of our lives that are taken for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do.

This is better articulated after taking English 225, but a very rhetorical lesson I learned from that friendship as well. By seeing them take small steps to do the right when it did not benefit them, in my early years of college I learned to do the same. These lessons were further driven into me when our textbook defined a rhetorician as a good person who speaks well. Though no one is always capable of doing good, it is the small, continuous, boring efforts to do so behind our delivery that make us this. I’ve learned a lot this semester.

During the first week of class, digital literacy was emphasized as something we must have in the working world we were entering. That was January, it’s almost May and it seems like another lifetime. As I sit and consider this, I see the differences in myself and my views on digital literacy over the past few months. While I’m still a curmudgeon and would rather keep my phone off in order to enjoy my solitude, I’ve come around to the digital literacy that is associated with my generation. I’ve started enjoying social media more. I use it to keep in touch with some of my old coworkers from Tractor Supply Company or message one of the only friends I bothered to stay in contact with from high school. I have even started using TikTok as a mechanism to make study videos for my cell biology class (Patterson and Donovan 2020). Digital literacy can be described as our ability to use technology (Blog – K–12 Education Trends and Insights 2020). Why should we be digitally literate?

Our need to be digitally literate has become incredibly necessary within the context of the pandemic. The working world we were entering may very well be gone. Digital literacy is no longer a bolster to a resume but a survival skill. We are either adjusted to online learning at this point or disheartened. With the hope of states opening on the horizon, we anxiously await what is next. There is still a heavy sense of uncertainty. There is talk of college campuses being closed up until 2021, where will this inevitably drive education?

As a biology major, I believe that we are moving into a more pragmatic form of education. Something I have mentioned before as a negative of higher education, specifically STEM, is that there is a form of elitism. The idea that only specific, special, few people can do it (Gibbs 2016). I think that STEM is difficult, and I think that getting a career with any major takes drive. With STEM though, a lot of students often go from high school to undergrad to graduate school and then a job (without having a job in some sense throughout those three stages of education). If those who had to be doctors had to be lab techs or nurses first, I think this would be a different story.

Where subjects such as biology and chemistry clash with online learning are the aspect of labs. It is necessary to learn the hands-on skills needed to do a job and the natural and physical sciences. This could be accomplished by having students work a certain number of hours at a clinical or an internship in order to learn the skills while simultaneously learning how to do them on the job and outside of an academic setting. Truthfully, I think to have students use lab equipment once a semester doesn’t help them to learn how to use it. It just becomes another chore to do on top of several other things that may be worth more to the grade. The system on some level is incredibly ineffective and creates students that may lack an understanding outside of the lab.

This does not just go for sciences but most other majors. While some majors may be more applicable to the online format, I believe that all areas would require some kind of reform. This goes along with the college experience-partying, completing education in four years, and the social media fear of missing out. The more I’m in school, the more I realize the difference between what we expect college to be and what it actually is. I spent most of my time when I started college either working, studying, or in free time exercising. My life was boring; I did not go to parties, it took me a while to make friends, and then I had to transfer when I finished my associate’s degree. Then I had to start over. My life is still very quiet but I’m glad I picked the financial path I did because I will avoid a mountain of debt upon graduating. I’m starting to see more people taking this path due to the accumulating cost of college and how this simultaneously undervalues the college experience.

In the end, your college experience is not for you, it is a step you take in contributing to helping humanity in some way. The digital literacy we learn should not elevate us but make the world more accessible for others. We come to the conclusion that science and technology can only be at its most useful when caring for humanity. Truthfully, all the existing pomp and circumstance goes away as adulthood is reached. This is an intriguing realization to have from a class about digital literacy. The skills we are learning are going to ultimately help someone else besides us. We may use digital literacy to reach out and council a loved one, science is utilized every day to save people, and when both are combined they may benefit us in the state we are in. With this being said, it adds to the values of doing college pragmatically through online schooling, community college, and state schools. My education is not for me, someday it may help save someone else. COVID-19 is devastating and has changed our world. On a fiscal and educational level, we should use this to prioritize and reinvent ourselves. Our digital literacy can be used to do this in all branches of life and education.

Literature Cited

Blog – K–12 Education Trends and Insights. 2020. Renaissance. [accessed 2020 Apr 28]. Available from https://www.renaissance.com/about-us/blog/

Gibbs K. OPINION: Response to STEM Supremacy. 2016. Technician. [accessed 2020 Apr 28]. Available from http://www.technicianonline.com/opinion/article_dbed3256-890f-11e6-b160-4fa76d2e4364.html

Patterson G, Donovan H. Leveraging TikTok for growth. 2020. TechCrunch. [accessed 2020 Apr 28]. Available from https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/leveraging-tiktok-for-growth/

Satire utilizes digital, visual, and linguistic forms of rhetoric. The writers of the satire analyze the word choice which is both most comedic and impactful through the medium. Humour is something we can utilize in the crisis and time we are in. Sometimes when laughter seems inappropriate is when it is needed the most. To be comedic in a rhetorical sense means that you can both analyze and persuade the audience (Greene 2012). The goal is to persuade not for a great cause but to see the situation in a simplified easier to absorb way (Nordquist 2019).

 People attempt to use comedy on social media in order to gain the adoration of others. In the context of Facebook and other outlets, to be comedic is to also be digitally literate. You are able to elicit reactions from an audience by using rhetorical and digital techniques, you are appealing to both emotion and intellect. Often times comedy can be connected to images online. Still, with the usage of the internet, we often forget that the original screen we were drawn to was the television. One of the original twentieth-century applications requiring the use of more than one sense to enjoy a specific medium.

The idea of a representative image being a connection between ourselves and the public is a practice used by both animators and media influencers. By maintaining a distance between the avatar and the audience, the audience is able to project and observe in a way that would not be easy if it were expressed in a conversation between two people. A social media influencer would portray a highly edited version of themselves for their audience members to digest and understand. This distance between author and audience can be utilized in satire when persuading the public to think about an issue. The same distance that allows people to project and fall in love with celebrities is the same tactic used to cause an audience to think about an issue that may not be a dinner-time conversation. If we see an image touching upon a topic, it enables the audience to talk about it by having to acknowledge what they are seeing.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have perfected the usage of the avatar, rhetorical distance, and the projection of a message. What the creators of South Park have achieved is the use of crude construction paper cutouts as symbols for the events happening over a twenty-three year period. If you’ve ever watched the documentary 6 Days to Air it shows the development and what I would call digital literacy that has developed as their satire and writing methods have progressed. The two went from creating one episode in a three month period to creating them in less than a week. This allowed them to become more topical and intelligent as the years have moved forward (They became fast learners). The creators have often commented that they have identified with different characters that they have created. This can be seen as two of the main characters were based on them and act as their avatars for how they see and experience the world (Comedy Central).

When I was thirteen, my best friend showed South Park for the first time, it mocked the fad of Jersey Shore (Late 2010). I noticed at the time the persona of the reality show appealed to a lot of kids my age (I was really confused as to why, but that is beside the point). South Park accurately parodied the behavior I saw in my peers at the time and kicked it up by ten notches. I remember laughing as I saw a parodied version of Snooki from Jersey Shore. South Park criticized the behavior from the Jersey Shore as being both ridiculous and repulsive to a point. This was not as much persuasion but validation to what I had already felt as a young teenager. Their purpose was to communicate the vapidness and the appeal of the worst part of human nature that is displayed on a screen and appealed to a lot of people at the time.

The use of an image or avatar to express or convey a message in a medium is an expression of both visual and digital literacy. Satirical images and TV shows use the distance between the audience and the work to imply a purpose. The message would be received much differently if it were looked at with actual people involved in the situation, and may even receive a different type of empathy from the audience. The rhetorical strategy of satire is one that implies both linguistic, digital, and visual aspects of rhetoric.

Literature Cited

Did You Know The South Park Characters Are Based On Real People?: News. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.comedycentral.co.uk/news/did-you-know-the-south-park-characters-are-based-on-real-people

Greene, G. C. 2012. Rhetoric in Comedy: How Comedians Use Persuasion and How Society Uses Comedians. The Corinthian, 13(11), 134–154.

Nordquist, R. 2019. What Is a Rhetorical Situation? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/rhetorical-situation-1692061

How does one address their own past? Forensic rhetoric is concerned with what a person has done and is usually thought of with how that applies in a legal sense. I believe we are often unsure of how to address our own past. If you have committed an atrocity, how do you react? Every person is capable of doing both good and bad. Are you forgiving to yourself, in the way that you would be so to a friend struggling with their own past? Some try to forget about the past in an effort to not relive or feel the pain it may have brought them. They may refuse to think about it and in turn, learn nothing about it. Maybe you are the kind of person to actively punish yourself for something you have done even if no one else is. Your mind constantly brings up the thought that tortures you. You lay awake at night thinking about something you should not have said or done. These both seem extreme, on one end you have someone who never grows from their mistakes and on the other hand, you have a person who commits themselves to a life of unreasonable shame. How do we just take responsibility for ourselves and the things we have done? How do we own up to them? How does a country or a culture do this?

I believe America is a great country, for all the flaws it may have and dark moments in history, I think I am lucky to have been born in a country where I have the freedom to criticize my government, choose to have an education, worship in the way I see fit, and love or marry another person on my own terms. Still, as a country, we are not without our darkness. How do we account for slavery, discrimination, and classism? NPR reported that several decades ago, two officials in Virginia had worn blackface during the 1980s. As much as we could argue that this was before the movement of political correctness, this may be unacceptable even at this time. This precedes African Americans having the same rights as those with different skin colors, but obviously attitudes may have not been as progressive with it. Despite often hearing jabs at other races as jokes, I don’t think I have ever seen someone go this far and heard criticism of this behavior growing up from both a conservative and liberal side of the spectrum. I think the question is less of one that decides if we have done something wrong but in what context it is wrong. Objectively, this is degrading to another race and even if it was all in good fun in that time period, we can all agree now that it is unacceptable behavior. Unless you are criticizing everyone on equal terms, it is not fair to single out and criticize a single race of people and treat them as a Halloween costume. 

I think a reason this kind of topic has become almost combative is due to generational differences. Online discussion boards amongst teachers often sight Generation Z to be more empathetic towards others than Millenials and the preceding generations that they had the opportunity to teach. While I would argue that Generation Z is involved with humor as a coping mechanism to engage in equal criticism and free speech, it is accompanied by awareness and empathy that shows interest in what others go through. This opposes the idea that young people have a self-serving view of the world. While possibly ignorant and a little naive, I don’t think that erases good intentions of helping others seen in them. 

What combats between these two views of empathy for those who are martyred for who they are and what warrants criticism is where we draw the line between victimization and forgiving another person for something. Should someone who wore blackface be treated as a social outcast for the rest of their lives? What makes a person liable to be redeemed? How can we trust a person has learned from their actions? Personally, I can’t answer these questions because I am not sure what warrants redemption and forgiveness. Personally, when I think about the subjects on this level I realize how interconnected theology and culture really are. Redemption is a larger theme of the new testament in the Bible and I think that should raise questions to us not only of a victim’s humanity but a perpetrator’s humanity. Can we draw the line when a person lacks it? 

Our ancestors inherited behaviors and actions that we have deemed of poor taste in our modern-day. What I’d like to end on is how we can be better. No matter what this is America and the past we came from. I’m sure 200 years from now our descendants will feel shame at some of the things we did or behaviors we exhibited. While they do have the right to criticize us, we should hold hope that they will forgive us and their past. If we want that to be the reality we may need to look at our own past and learn to be better, while forgiving and accepting the country and people we were in those times.

We are living in drastic times. It is hard to believe four weeks ago the nation resided in a state of normalcy that changed abruptly. I watched the crisis go from rumors of the school being closed, then closing for extending weeks, to finally a shut down for the time being. As someone who reads about disease and death as much as I do in both my classes and free time, I believed the situation was under control. In hindsight, this pandemic makes me reflect on how lucky I am. I have been able to grow up under the protection of modern medicine, a middle-class income, and community in both my church and home life who is ultimately willing to help each other. Still, as I place myself in the middle of the aisle being reasonably concerned for myself and others while also remaining calm, I hear a clash between rhetoric over in media.

Day-in-and-day-out I hear two different rhetorics; the one from the media that seems to be describing the end-times, while the other is possibly being too optimistic of when it will end. Is the worst behind or ahead of us? Are we in the thick of this now and will it soon be gone? As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between. While President Trump delivers a message of optimism to America, I’m not entirely convinced. While I do believe his intentions are good, I see Immunologist Anthony Fauci having to balance out his claims often. In an NPR interview, Fauci states that President Trump wants Easter as the aspirational date for Americans to get back to work but has warned Trump he will have to be flexible (Noel King 2020). It should be noted that President Trump has an election coming up, and for his own benefit handling this situation well could land him a second term. I appreciate Anthony Fauci’s pragmatism and grounding that he offers to President Trump’s high expectations. This is a dire situation, but the way the media often portrays it I think is a disservice to the public. Hysterics never makes a situation any easier, I cringe as ABC News with David Muir comes on and I hear the presentation of the headlines. The tone and delivery I believe do more harm to viewers than good. Broadcasts are required to get ratings and that is something we often forget to keep in mind, alarmism brings money to media outlets. I see headlines that are meant to implement the rhetoric of fear, one that is just as hurtful as rhetoric lacking urgency. What are we communicating to our citizens if we show the virus this way? 

The rhetoric between countries brings to mind books such as Lord of the Flies. The pandemic has formed a tribal mentality amongst us and other countries, and we are more likely to look towards one source as the problem in times of panic. Some are misdirecting this at Asian Americans rather than a corrupt government that resides over the origination point of Wuhan, China (Margolin 2020). Still, if we cut off the head of what we believe is the cause of the pandemic, will another head sprout back in its place? What do we have in our power to do about a government that is not our own, especially when we are quarantining ourselves at the moment? While the disease has a country of origin, I don’t believe that the citizens of that country should suffer for it, rather the irresponsible government. If humanity is what we are protecting I think we have reason to be wary of a government that disregards the humanity of its own people by putting them in harm’s way of the virus originally (Meservy 2020). 

As someone interested in public health and bioethics, I have respect for the individuals leading us through this pandemic both in government and in medicine. My generation has never experienced hard times, I grew up hearing stories of the great depression from my grandmother who suffered as a child and had to conserve probably more than I am doing now. We are lucky to have been born in the times we live in for advanced technology and medicine as the tests become more available to the public (no matter how slowly). Despite this, we are seeing hard times in our lives (most of us for the first time) and this should make us value human existence and everyday life more than ever. 

Literature Cited

King N. 2020. Dr. Anthony Fauci Discusses The Latest Coronavirus Facts. NPR. 2020 Mar 26 [accessed 2020 Mar 28]. Available from https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821842052/dr-anthony-fauci-discusses-the-latest-coronavirus-facts

Margolin J. 2020. FBI warns of potential surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans amid coronavirus. ABC News. [accessed 2020 Mar 28]. Available from https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-warns-potential-surge-hate-crimes-asian-americans/story?id=69831920&cid=clicksource_69335433_2_hero_headlines_headlines_hed

Meservey J. 2020. China Ignores Lessons of the Ebola Outbreak and the World Pays. The Heritage Foundation. [accessed 2020 Mar 28]. Available from https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/china-ignores-lessons-the-ebola-outbreak-and-the-world-pays

March 13th, 2020 will live in history as the day the world shut down (Safi 2020). The digital world lit up with panic as the coronavirus was declared a national emergency in the United States. Some people are out of jobs and concerned about the future this virus will bring to us while others live their lives unaffected by the virus. The narrative is given by social media and the one given by our communities and homes can have some gaping differences. While one person may be trying to find online work on account of an office closing another next door may be working overtime at a hospital and be exhausted.

I have seen some extremely concerned about the conditions we are living in and others that could not be bothered by it. Some will not engage in physical contact with family or neighbors and some are have no qualms with continuing it. Still, with living in cabin mode, are we now in an age where we must be digitally literate. A few years ago a meme came out called “learn to code”, it was a literal suggestion to miners who were put out of work and needed to find another field and a satiric remark to the journalists who originally posted it after losing their jobs (McHugh 2019). With the quarantine of the Coronavirus, we really must “learn to code” or in this case be digitally literate.

Technology such as VR, AI, and AR I think are becoming a necessity amongst this pandemic. To stay marketable differing fields must become digitally literate. My mother is a teaching and practicing music therapist and she is partaking in a webinar that teaches how to offer services online in order to continue working at nursing homes for the time being. My current position at work is being moved to an online setting in order to continue despite the isolation required of us.

These technologies may play a key role in treating people. This gives modern medicine a sharper edge on the diagnostic aspect of understanding diseases through the usage of AI and VR. These technologies make safer conditions for medical professionals and more accurate diagnoses for patients. Recently I have even seen scientific articles speaking about the use of VR in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. This treatment helps those struggling with the disease with facial recognition (Viccaro, Sand, Springer 2019). It gives patients the ability to practice using their minds and maintain a stable memory for as long as possible instead of being overtaken by it immediately. AI and VR are no longer stereotypes we see in science fiction movies, but healers in our medical facilities.

Technology provides us a way to maintain life in these anxiety-inducing times, and maintain our lives. The fact that the American middle class can still work online instead of being put out of work is beneficial to many homes. We are now able to have an opportunity at a continuous income on account of the technology that has been given to us. When it comes to classrooms, the idea of online schooling may be the norm in the next fifty years. Statistics state that most students will attend classes online and the in-classroom university setting will belong only to the upper class. Can this recent usage of technology within a pandemic be looked at as preparation for the future? 

I would also argue that the usage of technology also may reduce the need for travel and carbon emissions. With the need to work from home we have to travel much less and this may be a small step in solving environmental problems. Along with this, we may learn to be confined to small rural and suburban communities again. Something that my generation is drastically missing. By being confined to one area we are forced to spend time with the people we are with, and commune with our families and friends. This is the opposite effect of what is usually argued for technology. We may be allowed both a more comfortable, pragmatic, and environmentally aware life due to our current situation and dependence on technology. While these weeks have been dark, there is light at returning to normal. This situation may even lead to a ‘better’ normal.

Literature Cited

McHugh M. 2019 “Learn to Code”: The Meme Attacking Media. The Ringer. [accessed 2020 Mar 22].Available from https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/29/18201695/learn-to-code-twitter-abuse-buzzfeed-journalists

Safi M. 2020. Coronavirus: the week the world shut down. The Guardian. [accessed 2020 Mar 22]. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/coronavirus-the-week-the-world-shut-down

Viccaro E, Sands E, Springer C. 2019 Spaced Retrieval Using Static and Dynamic Images to Improve Face–Name Recognition: Alzheimers Dementia and Vascular Dementia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. 28(3):1184–1197.

Forms of emojis have existed since the beginning of civilization. We see these examples in french cave paintings, hieroglyphics in Egypt, and the picture books we pick up before we can read. These reveal communication through the image, which helps across different language barriers. We are then able to better understand each other through the portrayal of the image. Visual communication helps us to understand each other without using narrative.

Through the use of emojis, we are able to show a form of facial expressions without a narrative description. By including these we tell readers what we are saying in body language through a text. What we interpret through facial expressions and hand movements we now interpret through text messages. This tells us the tone of the conversation we are having with the person on the other side of the screen. With the use of an emoji, we are able to picture what the person might be doing while sending the text message. It is an artificial way of knowing what the conversation would be like if we were having it face to face.

Emojis are a form of visual rhetoric. They are used in order to communicate the individual’s tone and body language but also elicit a response from the other person. Visual rhetoric is used in order to communicate something to us from other senses. This allows us to feel the emotion through other aspects of expression outside of words. They evoke our own reaction to what the person is saying, giving means of what conversation is or could be. Even though depending on the conversation this may not be as intense of a piece of artwork, it is still communicating and evoking a reactive feeling. Why is it ideal to use pictures to express ourselves or tell a story? Language provides us a way to describe and put on a page how we feel, but visuals allow us for people to see how we feel. When we look at art we are able to see what kind of emotions a person is feeling. Specific lines, colors, and shapes when combined can denote specific emotions. We are told how twisted or content an artist is feeling or once felt by seeing a visual piece of work. Emojis work in a similar way, as they are visual expression. Though they are mostly associated with a specific age group.

Emojis were originally associated with teenagers’ usage in text messages but have now spread out to adults using them in recent years. Marketing and businesses will use emojis in order to appeal to a younger audience and sell the product to different demographics. In business, emojis can be used in both a professional and personal way. They can give a sense of being in connection with a younger demographic or be used as means in communication to make a client feel closer to the business which they patron. This comes at the benefit of bringing younger generations and some adults in but at the cost of isolating older generations. 

Personally I am not as big a fan of emojis. I use them on rare occasion but usually, when considering who I’m texting they give off a signal of which I did not intend to give. While I do associate emojis with teenagers, I see a lot of my older family members use them excessively. I try to be more direct in my speech and like to avoid mixed signals. Texting can leave room for a lot of misinterpretation and even with visuals to get across your point you never know if the person actually feels the way they say in a text, the lack of genuine facial communication leaves room for confusion a lot of the time. I have to be very close to a person to use them at all.

Visual rhetoric tells us a story, and emojis are a form of this communication. Communicating expressions with language employs more than one sense which is necessary in our changing world in order to keep the attention of others. Emojis have also developed to being animated for specific companies. We are left to wonder what our world is moving into visually speaking.

What warrants exigence? My Dad has always said that people will only change when they have experienced enough pain that they can no longer continue the behaviors that detriments them. In a humanistic way, I think the statement is an example of the exigence we experience in our own lives. We will only realize something needs to happen or change when we realize our circumstances are disastrous on our own account in this case. The urgency is that we need to change and the constraints are both ourselves or our present situation.

In Mona Lisa Smile, Betty is the character that experiences exigence both in her family and marital situation. I’d even argue that Betty is the character in the movie that has the most development on account of her realizing the thing that needs to change is her. After Spencer has an affair and her family encourages her to stay married to him, we begin to see changes in her. The vulnerability she shows with Giselle after hearing about her affair with the psychoanalyst is emotional but is the breaking point and pressure that shows Betty is changing. The exigence she experiences has both to do with herself and the times around her. Her family asked her to stay with Spencer for the sake of being image-conscious. A divorced woman is not desirable in that time period, it is the equivalent of a scarlet letter that wards men away. Betty realizes that continuing this cycle of toxic thought and behaviour patterns through both herself and others only hurts herself and others. She then makes the active choice to join Giselle in New York and eventually go to Law School. If we most actively have control of ourselves then does rhetoric and exigence have a larger effect?

Rhetoric is incredibly situational and in application to exigence we have seen it in our lives. Recently, Harvey Weinstein was charged as guilty of sexual assault. The idea of the Hollywood casting couch has been around for decades but is called into question with this trial. There was exigence surrounding this situation. While many actresses called his behavior out, the constraint was brought up against their careers and by other public figures that sided with him. When they would demand Weinstein be held up to the court-of-law, he would go out of his way to bad mouth them and ruin their careers. While many who suffered because of his behavior cheered as he was finally brought to justice, those who gave him the cover of their friendship gently bow their heads without vocalizing their thoughts on his actions. In what ways can exigence be seen rhetorically? What are people’s reactions to it?

Exigence makes people uncomfortable, it pushes against the status quo and asks people to do more or make an effort to change. This can be done through deliberative rhetoric, asking others to change for a better future. This would lead you to picture someone leading a resistance as a crowd cheers on their leader who is making a boisterous stand against a corrupt government. Corruption occurs in more than the government as it is a human concept. We see a lot of it in human nature but it crosses over to international dealings. How is this corruption called out? How does self-awareness root its way into exigence?

In September 2019, South Park aired an episode called “Band in China”. The episode criticized the Chinese Government’s censorship of art and literature and how Hollywood bends to their will. Ironically after the episode aired on Comedy Central, China had permanently banned the series from their country. Matt Stone and Trey Parker issued a pseudo-apology to let China know they were not sorry for publishing their artwork. The tactic that Matt Stone and Trey Parker apply here in their use of exigence is satire (the thing they are best known for).  The episode follows Stan as he forms a band with several of the other characters and is censored in the process when trying to publish a film on their music career as the producer continuously changes the script to cater to their “audience” within China (meaning what the government allows their audience to see), a secondary storyline follows Randy as he tries to move his business of selling weed to China and is met with an arrest as he arrives in the country. The episode and apology functions as criticism of lowering the ideals of freedom in order to please others in the film industry. This form of exigence brought to light aspects of censorship being used against writers when publishing their material and having it censored for the sake of capitalistic gain. For many young adults on social media it shed light on the Hong Kong protests and the threats that China held to citizens by passing a bill that threatened their ability to criticize the government. It also raised questions about our own country bending our creativity and integrity to please a country who was taking this use of free speech away from their citizens. This was a rhetorical call-to-action: articles were posted to boycott companies who supported China’s censorship, students showed up to events with t-shirts saying ‘stand with Hong Kong’, and it was listed to boycott the upcoming release of Mulan 2020 on account of the main actress supporting police brutality in China. 

The idea that we are rhetorical as people plays into this notion of exigence. Injustice is brought to light and we are challenged to do something in order to change it and better the world we live in. Whether a declarative speech that causes a crowd to cheer or a simple question that leaves us thinking about our role in a situation and how we can change it, exigence in rhetoric gives us the power to do this. This use of language when used correctly is a valid use of criticism, protection for people and their rights, and a prominent usage for rhetoric. A voice asking for change can be one screaming out to a crowd that they have had enough or a snide comment opening a space for a conversation to take place.

Visual literacy in our digital age is something we see every day. Our very profile pictures on Facebook are a form of digital literacy. To be literate through image is to understand how to appeal without narrative. The main point of digital literacy is to evoke something using multiple forms of sensory input with doing so in a gratuitous way. This has opened a new age of what is considered literacy in our culture. We are no longer creatures who only communicate through narrative but are adept at speaking through visuals and sound.

We see media that is created with a purpose, this purpose can be to evoke emotion, or cause significant thought on a subject. We see commercials that appeal to our emotions, and instead of getting us to buy the product we invest in the company. Emotions related to the media is sometimes observed through satirical lenses. Multiple satirical shows use visual means and world-building in order to generate thought and display a message. These uses of visual literacy can express a political, humanistic, or theistic viewpoint through means that engage more than one of the senses. Visual literacy gives us multiple ways of expressing these viewpoints, and may even enhance the narrative.

Generation Z is the new frontier of digital literacy. This modern group of people have a cynical outlook of the world and express that through the use of visual literacy. Tik Tok is used by Generation Z to make videos surrounding dark humor with a satirical message of the world behind it, it is thought to suit generation Z on account of their shorter attention spans coinciding with the shorter videos on the site. The app is also a melting pot for multiple cultural facets, this allows users to create fun mashups outside of a defined genre. Like generation Z, Tik Tok does not take itself seriously. Generation Z has become known for nihilistic humor pertaining to events occurring in the world, and Tik Tok allows for means in which to express that (Wheeler 2018).

Tik Tok is honored in some cases as a source of visual literacy in schools. Some teachers allow students to do projects through their Tik Tok accounts, making videos on historical events learned about in class. By using apps such as Tik Tok, it is thought to keep the student engaged. A teacher in Maryland asked students to use Tik Tok on a field trip they had gone on, in order to document what they learned. One Spanish teacher asked his students to make Tik Tok videos in Spanish for projects in the class (Klein 2019). These are uses of both visual literacies in the classroom that reflect the move into digital literacy.

Millennials were the generation that grew into technology, Generation Z was the generation raised in the digital age. I would even argue that Generation Z was born with digital literacy as a second language in the home. The main form of communication for those born from 1995 onward is digital. Millennials were raised in a time when technology was developed and being introduced to them. The aftereffect of this has caused a generation to be less narratively based and more based on visual literacy and sensory storytelling. 

Rhetoriticians have begun to do research on visual literacy and rhetoric. The two strongly intersect in the use of media today. Sometimes a verbal message will be a three-word slogan aided by an image, wherein this case the image does most of the communicating. When we apply for a job using sites such as LinkedIn, the information we have put up says a lot about us; financial competency, education, how we have applied that education to our everyday lives. Something that sells all of the narratives we write is our photo. Earning a job can depend on your physical appearance, as it can affect your social standing as a person (Beerman 2015). This bridges the usage between visual literacy and visual rhetoric. The use of an image through digital means evokes the employer to believe that a candidate has potential for the job they are hiring for based upon appearance.

Visual literacy as a narrative is a tool in both technical and creative fields. We see the applications through scientific graphs and silent episodes in television series. As human beings, I believe we are visual creatures and because of that are drawn to this form of literacy. In earlier stages of humanity, we wrote on walls with images and now we write on digital walls in similar ways. This all centers back to every person being able to be evoked by an image; a sunset, a painting, or a place. We as human beings were born with the potential for our eyes to speak to us when our own words and minds cannot. 

Bibliography

Wheeler J. 21 Dec 2018. Why TikTok is social media’s new Gen Z darling. Gen Z Insights – Presented by UNiDAYS. [accessed 2020 Feb 22]. Available from https://www.genzinsights.com/why-tiktok-is-social-medias-new-gen-z-darling

Klein A. 26 Nov 2019. TikTok: Powerful Teaching Tool or Classroom Management Nightmare? Education Week. [accessed 2020 Feb 22]. Available from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/11/13/tiktok-powerful-teaching-tool-or-classroom-management.html

Beerman R. May 2015. CONTAINING FATNESS: BODIES, MOTHERHOOD, AND CIVIC IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY U.S. CULTURE. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. [accessed 2020 Feb]:1–246.

Debating another person can be intimidating. Your knowledge of a subject you feel passionate about is put in the spotlight and judged by how much you understand both about it and the other side. An argument must be based on facts, which is why a lot of the situations we consider arguments are actually not. A heated discussion about morality and someone’s behavior can reach emotional highs when it crosses into personal territory. The further we drift from fact and into emotion, the more ground we lose in order to persuade someone to our side. We are meant to combine both logic and passion in a debate. By using both in an argument, your insight becomes balanced. If you are uninformed, how do you understand what you’re saying? If you lack passion for your topic, then why are you arguing? The most important is credibility, and if you lack that where do you stand?

Logic and passion can be displayed through a systematic approach. As a high schooler, I ran track and field and was told to set up a training plan to reach specific times for my races. The product of my running became the outcome of small details I would do after a run. Aspects such as getting enough sleep, eating well, or running hills after a workout. The little steps I took counted toward the overall product. When writing an informative piece, you should approach the process with strategy. The system set up for this allows us to move towards a persuasive end product. The five canons of Rhetoric give us steps and a system to follow. These consist of; invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. These 5 canons help us constructively think about what and why we are arguing.

 Invention gives us a place to begin. Wilson and Wilson state in The Rhetoric Companion that invention focuses on the problem. Within invention, we have the proofs of ethos, pathos, and logos; a triad that forms an argument properly. All statements made could be sorted into one of these three categories. A focused topic allows you to draw upon the connection it has to others. Information used should appeal to the audience in a substantial way through all three. To appeal to my audience through logic and reason will cause them to see the nuance in the argument. A passionate and emotional appeal will allow my audience to empathize with me in the correct context. Of the three, credibility and ethical appeal will allow my audience to take my word for it. In the beginning, when gathering information, we should holistically consider who and where we are to make this argument before organizing it. 

Arrangement is what we use to make our arguments organized in a way that our audience will understand them. An audience will be more willing to listen to your argument if arrangement is employed. If you were standing on the side of the road, and a stranger offered to pick you up, you would likely not go with them. If the most credible and reliable person you knew offered to give you a ride to a specific place and told you the directions, you would feel more persuaded to go with them. Organizing your argument gives your audience a road map to follow your statements and claims so they know where you are taking them. Through this canon, you ask “may I challenge your stance”, then layout the way in which you plan to do so. After a person agrees to have their ideas challenged, you must directly show why the argument has personal meaning.

How does one display their own meaning? Style is not just presentation, but depth and clarity in an argument. How are you trying to persuade the audience to feel? The technical accounts for style are rhythm, word choice, and even emphasis on syllables. Word choice and emphasis are a heavy consideration in monologues and screenwriting. In season 5 of the show Bojack Horseman, the character Diane confronts the protagonist Bojack about the morally grey actions he has taken. The argument dissects the idea of accountability for one’s worst actions. Bojack argues ‘he has suffered most’ due to having to actively live with himself every day and his choices. Diane confronts him with the loss of his on-screen daughter on account of his substance abuse and how his choices led to that. Alison Brie as Diane, portrays a venomous tone in this scene, emphasizing words such as deserved, and ‘most’ as Bojack used it in his statement. The application of style and pathos in this scene gives it the gut-wrenching feel that changes your opinion on the characters that are involved in it. Ralph Bob-Waksberg considered the strategy of style and tone in character speech in order to get the audience to emphasize with Diane when writing the scene. If your argument (or in the case of the example, dialogue) has substance, your style will only enhance it on account of being able to correctly portray it to your audience. 

You cannot read off of a paper and have a fully fleshed out enhanced argument. Memory is both a canon of rhetoric and a muscle to be exercised. As someone in the sciences, I have learned to effectively use this to my benefit in both presentations and testing. While route memorization the night before a test is not the answer for understanding information, healthy amounts of it in extended periods of time can help the information to stick. Memory is a mechanical precursor to thinking and understanding. Before I understand a scientific concept, I have to commit it to memory. Even in science, there is a linguistic aspect to it. Once the terminology is with me, I am able to better process a concept as I read it from multiple sources. When the test comes around, and I have studied enough, the information means something to me. The roles played by different cellular structures are something that has crossed over from memorized terms to organelles with distinct roles in the human body. If we have our facts committed to memory, we can fully digest them and understand them. After an understanding is reached, our words start to be spoken with meaning. This envelopes logos, and understanding what you are talking about. Understanding your topic is important, but it is more important to tell people what you know.

To have wisdom and bury it is regarded as wasted potential. The product of our credibility, logic, and passion should be given to others in some capacity. Delivery is the final product. In a technical sense, delivery is; voice, pitch, body language, and rhythm. All canons and proofs act as components of delivery. The holistic aspect of delivery should feel natural, as though all the pieces of a puzzle have fit together and created a picture for you and your audience. Your delivery is a demonstration to the audience of your character, mind, and heart. In the book of Matthew, chapter 25 tells us ‘The Parable of the Talents’. The verses tell of three servants who were each given a different amount of talents (a unit of measurement) by their master. While two of the servants traded and gained more talents, one held onto the singular talent they had. The first two servants were applauded by their master and their use of what he had given them, the third was scorned as he held tightly to what he was supposed to give away, as it had done him and others no good since he kept it to himself. This parable exemplifies the importance of delivery. What you know is of no use if you hide it to yourself. If it is important to you for a reason then hiding it will not benefit you or your cause.

‘Rhetoric is a person of a good character speaking well’, all five of the canons fall under this saying. The canons account for your morality, reason, and emotion behind your topic. Shallow sayings and empty sentiments all too often fill up space where meaningful discussions should be. The ideals that you genuinely stand behind are difficult to put through scrutinization. The five canons do not just enable other people to learn from you, but you to learn from yourself. Through learning to analyze and understand your own rhetoric, you may find something about yourself or thought process that may have gone unrecognized before. Whether good or bad, understanding why you believe something is incredibly important to your own growth.