Public Rhetoric and Practical Communication - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Public Rhetoric and Practical CommunicationHow Are Form and Content Related?

Lecture 4: CAT 125Elizabeth Loshhttp://losh.ucsd.edu Slide2

Langdon Winner on “Mythinformation”

“Taken as a whole, beliefs of this kind constitute what I would call mythinformation

: the almost religious

conviction that

a widespread adoption of computers

and communications

systems along with easy access

to electronic

information will automatically produce a

better world

for human

living.” (NMR 592)

“information=knowledge=power=democracy” (NMR 595)Slide3

Wikiality and Tripling Elephant Population

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality Slide4

Colbert’s RhetoricTruthiness

In satire, truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.WikialityReality as decided on by majority rule. “Bringing democracy to knowledge”Use of the rhetoric of news graphics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI8_DDEuswk Slide5

Virgil Griffith, WikiScanner, and “Self-Determination”

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/183247/august-21-2007/the-word---self-determination

“Of

all the computer enthusiasts’ political ideas, there

is none

more poignant than the faith that the computer

is destined

to become a potent equalizer in modern

society. Support

for this belief is found in the fact that

small ‘personal’

computers are becoming more and more powerful

, less

and less expensive, and ever more simple

to use . . .

Using

a personal

computer makes one no more powerful

vis-à-vis, say

,

the

National Security Agency than flying a hang

glider establishes

a person as a match for the U.S. Air Force

.”

- Langdon Winner, NMR 595Slide6

Epistemological HierarchiesSlide7

Information in the Ancient World The information culture of the Roman world was exploding with new libraries and modes for disseminating written texts, maps, scientific illustrations, art works, and luxury goodsSlide8

Etymology of “Information”

“The term itself traces back to the Latin verb informare, which for the Romans generally meant ‘to shape,’ ‘to form an idea of,’ or ‘to describe.’ The verb, in turn, supplied action to the substantive, forma, which took varied, cognate meanings that depended mostly on context. The historian Livy used forma as a general term for ‘character,’ ‘form,’ ‘nature,’ ‘kind,’ and ‘matter.’ Horace applied it to a

shoelast, Ovid to a mold or stamp for making coins, while the wily Cicero, among other uses, extended it to logic as ‘form’ or ‘species,’ his rendering of the Greek. . . . The practical notion of ‘form’ as a last, mold, or stamp remained closely tied to its more abstract, logical meaning, which paired content and container.”

Michael Hobart and Zachary

Schiffman

,

Information Ages: literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolutionSlide9

What informational structures will you bring to your blog?

ChronologyLinks to primary sources and commentaryPhotographs and information graphicsTagsA Blogrollhttp://losh.ucsd.edu/courses/

example_blogs.html Slide10

Is everything really self-determinedA Word on Reflection

Reflection is not just about “personal reflection”Slide11

The Rhetoric of Governments, Universities, Corporations, Churches, and Organizations

We all serve as spokespeopleSlide12

Beginning a book with reflection

One day, in 1988, the computers and modems suddenly appeared, as if by magic. They were second-hand Apple IIe terminals, but in my mind it was a miracle to have them at all. At the time, I was fresh out of college and running a chronically underfunded after

-school program at a delinquency prevention center under the auspices of the California Youth Authority.Slide13

Ending a book with reflection Slide14

Reflection Does Not Need to BeAbout the distant pastA negative appraisalSlide15

Edward Tufte Slide16

Visual Explanations Slide17

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint“These costs result from the

cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP presentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spatial resolution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous decoration and Phluff, a preoccupation with formal not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.” (4)Slide18

Chart Junk in the Shuttle Disaster Slide19

Colin Powell’s Evidence Presented to the United NationsSlide20
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Strategic Thinking and PowerPointhttp://lay-uh.ytmnd.com/

Slide22

Does PowerPoint Oversimplify?Slide23

Professor Oreskes point about editabilitySlide24

The Lincoln PowerPoint

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm Slide25

Default TemplatesSlide26

The Yes Men

http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/trailer_hd.htm Slide27

PowerPoint as a Lecturing Tool Slide28

Jill Bolte Taylor

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html Slide29

Bolte Taylor’s Rhetoric of Personal and Professional Expertise

“I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder, schizophrenia” Speaking “as a sister and later as a scientist”Family photo “I can make my dreams come true”Lab of Dr. Francine Benes at Harvard Dept. of PsychiatryQuestion about biological differences: research question Mapping

microcircuitryAdvocate for NAMI, National Alliance on Mental IllnessMorning of December 10, 1996

Medical scan of hemorrhage

Show and tell moment with human brainSlide30

Bolte Taylor’s Rhetoric of Disempowerment

“I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall”“An infant in a woman’s body”Humor of personifying right and left brainsHumor of how language sounds to herA long tradition of “captivity narratives” and “conversion narratives”Slide31

Bolte Taylor’s Rhetoric of EmpowermentPeace of choosing to leaving left hemispheres

Who are we? The “lifeforce power of the universe”Power to choose how and who we want to be in the world – the “we inside of me”Rhetorical questions: Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? Slide32

Testimony vs. Evidence Slide33

A Thesis from Lecture ThreeAlthough TED talks seem to represent a new form of what Henry Jenkins has called “spreadable media,” the most popular online videos are often those with conventional messages that follow traditional narrative structures. For example, the TED talk by Jill

Bolte Taylor borrows from much older popular American rhetorics of captivity and conversion.”Slide34

Ideas worth spreadingSlide35

Spreadable Media not Viral Media

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY Slide36

Going shorterThe

pecha kucha formathttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZOt6BkhUgAssociated with architects, designers, game designers, etc.Image driven not text driven Slide37

The Status Update Format Slide38

Going even shorter to 40 characters Slide39

An Experiment for ClassSign up for Twitter before January 25

Enable its mobile functionalityBring your mobile device to class on January 25Use the #cat125 hashtag for the first twenty minutes of class, while we are viewing the disability videos and learning about Joseph Weizenbaum’s argument about computers

Think about decorumTurn off your mobile device while I introduce professor Humphries Slide40

For Next TimeThinking about Old Media and New Media with Vannevar

Bush and Lev Manovich