E-Portfolio

Hello!  My name is Christina Brown.  Welcome to my E-portfolio.  I’ve created this portfolio to keep track of my academic progress at Penn State University.  I am a psychology major and plan on graduating in 2014. 

When I started college, I only had a vague idea of which direction I wanted to take my education.  I have always struggled with finding a single topic or area of study that particularly interested me.  I never found history or english too interesting, but they were bearable.  Even the subjects that I was more intrigued by such as psychology and math never sparked a passion.  I still have yet to find that subject that I am truly inspired by, but my college career thus far has started to guide me.

Through middle school and high school I was involved in a research study in the field of neuroscience led by one of my good friend’s mother.  Since then, I have been exploring the idea of possibly doing the same type of research after graduating college.  I have taken quite a few science classes that would be required to be involved in this research, and I’ve realized that they are quite difficult.  This realization has only boosted my attraction to this field of study. 

A couple of classes that I’ve taken thus far have not required my effort on my end to receive a decent grade in the class, but I also never got much out of them.  Although this is relaxing, it is not fulfilling.  Looking back on the courses that I’ve completed, I’ve found that I am most fond of the ones that required work, but also taught me the most.  I find that it is better to challenge myself than to breeze through classes because the more difficult classes will ultimately make me more competent.  I have already learned new ways to study, manage my time, and work that I am confident will continue to help me in my future endeavors.  Even though a career in neuroscience may be difficult, I am confident that it will be well worth the effort in the long run.

Christina Brown's E-Portfolio

Rhetoric of Abortion

DISCLAIMER: I am not writing this post to debate the actual issue of abortion, I simply aim to discuss the rhetoric surrounding it.

I'll start with a bit of background information.  I am a very strong supporter of Planned Parenthood; not because of anything regarding their abortions, but because of everything else they do.  If you are unaware, they provide basic health care such as birth control, STD screenings, and cancer screenings, among many other things to men and women who may otherwise not be able to afford such things.  It has recently come under attack by republicans who want to cut all federal funding to it.  This seriously upsets me, because no federal funding goes to pay for abortions for women, and they provide so many other services.  Anyway, I have been trying to keep up with this issue, and have been receiving emails from Planned Parenthood. 

Yesterday I got an email urging me to go to a rally, call my congress member, etc.  This email would have gone unnoticed aside from the fact that it was littered with the term "anti-choice." 

The terms originally used to describe the two sides of the argument were "pro-choice" for people who thought abortions should remain legal, and "pro-life" for those who wanted it to be illegal.  I personally don't find either of those two terms offensive towards either side.  I have a cousin who is extremely religious, and extremely pro-life, who constantly posts things on Facebook regarding abortion.  I've taken the time to look at some of the websites, and every one that I saw talked about the people that are "pro-abortion."  Granted most of these websites were fairly extreme, but I was shocked that they would use that term, to say the least.  I'm pretty positive that there is no one out there that is pro-abortion.  It's not that pro-choice people want women to have abortions, just that they should be able to make that decision for themselves, as the title implies.  The term "pro-abortion" completely skews the ideals that pro-choicers fight for.  So up until yesterday, I had never seen any of these behaviors from the pro-choice side, and I must say, I was thoroughly disgusted when I did.  Just as "pro-abortion" tries to make pro-life sound bad, "anti-choice" makes it sound like they are trying to take away our freedom.  

I don't care how strongly people feel about a subject; stooping to name calling is never the solution.  Both sides have legitimate arguments that can be made, so there is no reason for them to do this.  Both sides seem petty and immature.  It may work to further persuade people that are already on their side, but I cannot imagine it helps them get any moderate people to agree with them.

April Fool's Day!

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!  While scrounging my brain for something to write about this week, I thought about this lovely "holiday" that is April Fool's Day.  I've found that people either take it very seriously, or don't even realize what day it is.  Then I started thinking about the rhetoric of pretty much everything for the day.  I was looking around at news websites such as Time.com and cnn.com, and found myself wondering if all of the articles were true, despite the fact that these are very reputable news sources. 
I found myself judging whether or not they were real by the language used and the content of the articles.  I didn’t actually end up finding any joke articles, probably because I was on all credible news sources.  But earlier in class I overheard two girls discussing the latest edition of the Phollegian, the Penn State joke newspaper, and was thinking about how we decide whether or not something is true.  The Phollegian is an extreme example because the topics they write about are extremely outlandish, and obviously not true.  Despite this, the articles are still written professionally and in the same fashion as a legitimate newspaper.  So if you wanted to write a joke article and make it convincing, the key would be to write it in the same format.
I also overheard a lunch lady telling a couple of girls that the commons ran out of grilled cheese, which was also just a joke.  Pulling something like that off in person is much more difficult than writing it because it requires you to control more than just your choice of words.  Aside from just having a convincing story, you have to control your body language, facial expressions, and vocal tones.  This is often difficult to do because you may not even realize that you’re doing something that’s giving away your lie.
Moral of the story; if you want to play a prank on someone, make everything seem as normal as possible for as long as possible.

5 Hour Energy

So I was just watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the 5 Hour Energy commercial came on.  There are a lot of different ones, but this one always bothers me:

Just kidding, I can't find it on Youtube.

Anyway, this particular commercial that I'm talking about starts out talking about all of the things that we do in the morning to get our coffee such as "fuss with it, carry it, make it, wait for it," etc.  During this they show people spilling coffee on themselves, waiting in the longest lines you've ever seen, and just being extremely over dramatic.  Then it goes on to tell you how fast and easy 5 Hour Energy is.  They show a guy drink it, look at his watch, and sit down to read a newspaper, or something along those lines.

Now clearly the rhetoric is trying to convince you that coffee is very difficult to have in the morning, and 5 Hour Energy is the obvious solution to this hassle. 

That would be all fine and dandy, but it just doesn’t work in the commercial.  At least not for me.  I’m not a big coffee drinker, but occasionally I’ll make myself a cup in the morning if I’m feeling extra tired, and sometimes I’ll stop at a coffee shop and pick one up, so I know that it’s really not that difficult.  Plus their target audience in this commercial is people that are regular coffee drinkers, and I assume that they all have their coffee routine down pretty well (I assume this because even with how rarely I drink it, I can do it quite efficiently).  If my assumption is correct, this commercial is essentially trying to fix a problem does not exist.
I’ve seen other 5 Hour Energy commercials that focus on the fact that it gets you over “that 2 o’clock feeling,” and that there’s no crash, etc.  Those all make sense, and work to fix something that is a problem that many people have.  This commercial in particular just seems to dramatize something that I’ve never heard people complain about, and ends up seeming comical rather than persuasive. 

Movie Posters

This week I'm going to talk about the rhetoric of a couple of movie posters, because I'm in a movie mood right now.

The first one is the poster for Jackass: The Movie, since I'm also in a Jackass mood!

First of all, what a fun picture!  A bunch of guys crammed into an over-sized shopping cart racing down a hill being followed by a huge explosion.  This poster is basically promising fans that the movie will be a bigger, better version of the television show.  The shopping cart does this because anyone who watched the show knows they often ride around in them.  In the poster, they are literally in a bigger and better shopping cart than a real one.  Next, the explosion is huge, and bigger than anything they would have been able to do with the show, so once again, they are making promises of new and more exciting stunts.  It also has the recognizable "jackass" in all white written at the bottom, but written in red over top it says "with stuff you'd never see on t.v." once again convincing the fans that if you like the television show, you'll love the movie.  I think this was important for the movie because I'm sure there were doubt that the show wouldn't work out in a movie format because it's comprised of short clips, which you may not expect to work for 90 minutes or so.  Overall, I think this poster does a great job in what it wants to express about the movie; it is just like the show, but with more exciting and crazy stunts, which is just what fans would want to see.

Poster #2: Valentine's Day

I haven't seen this movie, because I'm not particularly a fan of romantic comedies, but that's beside the point.  The main focus of this movie poster is the celebrities.  You look at it and see a heart filled with faces, so immediately the target audience (mainly women) is drawn in.  Upon further inspection, we see the words "From the director of Pretty Woman comes a day in the life of love."  The entire poster is focused on boosting the recognizable names.  Pretty Woman is an extremely well known romantic movie, so the poster tries to promise that this movie will be just as good as that one because it's the same director!  Then you look closer at the faces in the heart and realize that they are all extremely well-known and young faces in Hollywood.  You would be hard pressed to find someone that would not recognize at least one face in that group.  By doing this the poster is basically saying "Look at all the famous people we got to be in our movie, it MUST be good!"  All you really know about the movie is that it is about love, and it has a whole bunch of famous actors and actresses, but I think it works to get the target audience interested in the movie.

These movie posters are extremely different from one another, but both work for their different purposes.  The Jackass poster promises its fans that there will be more action than there was in the t.v. show, and therefore way more fun.  The Valentine's Day poster was released on Valentine's day, so many people were already looking for a romantic movie, and this poster claims to be the best by promoting all of the famous stars that it has. 

Ikea "Save The Lamp" Ad

So while perusing the internet for this week's ad to analyze, I came upon this gem from Ikea:

This is quite possibly my new favorite commercial ever... Well, probably second after the Darth Vader commercial.  Anyway, this commercial first manipulates our emotions by personifying the lamp then bringing us back to reality with humor.

The majority of the commercial is spent making the viewer connect to this old lamp.  We first see this lamp carried out of a house and put next to the trash.  The shot is very dark, it's windy out, and there's slow, sad music playing.  The commercial uses commonplaces such as windy, rainy nights to draw on our emotions.  We've all seen a movie scene where a character is left by themselves in the rain and forced to fend for themselves.  They also had the woman literally put the lamp out in the trash, which we easily equate to being rejected or broken up with by a partner.  They even show the woman in her house enjoying herself with her new lamp while the old one sits in the rain.  We relate these images and situations to being sad, but only because we connect them to our emotions and interactions with other people.  We imagine ourselves being thrown away, and left for another, better version of ourselves.  Because of this, we attach our own emotions to this lamp, and feel bad for it

Then a man walks into the shot, and suddenly the music stops.  Then he says "Many of you feel bad for this lamp.  That is because you're crazy!  It has no feelings, and the new one is much better."  Then the commercial ends with Ikea's logo and "unboring" written underneath it.  The first time I watched this I was shocked.  That was the last thing I expected to happen, and it really caught my attention, I had to watch the end again, and that is exactly what Ikea was going for.  In a couple of seconds they bring us back to reality and remind us that no matter how many personal emotions you attach to a lamp, or any other inanimate object for that matter, it is still simply an object.  It doesn't have feelings, and leaving it out in the rain because you got a new one will not make it sad.  This attempts to persuade us to go out and buy Ikea's new "unboring" items, because they're much better, and getting rid of your old things won't hurt anyone.

I think this commercial is extremely effective rhetorically because not only does it involve comedy to make its point, but there is a strong logos appeal in the fact that no matter how you perceive a lamp, it's still just a lamp.

Darth Vader Volkswagen Commercial

So a little bit before the Superbowl this year I discovered the best commercial I've ever seen.  Just watch it and I'm sure you'll understand why:

I think it works so well because aside from being completely adorable, the storyline of the commercial is very familiar to the general audience.  First of all they used the image of Darth Vader, one of the most iconic characters of pop culture.  Even people who haven't seen Star Wars are likely to recognize this symbol as the dominating leader of "the dark side."  In the movies he is played by David Prowse, a body builder who towers over the other characters in the movie.  In the commercial they do just the opposite and have a little boy in the costume.  This is surprising, and catches your attention.  It's entertaining to watch this little boy parade around attempting to be a character that is by nature very large and dominating.

Little kids always have that one character that they always dressed up as and wanted to be like, whether it was Darth Vader, Superman, Cinderella, Tinkerbell, so this is very easy to relate to.  It brings back fond memories of your childhood, or of watching your kids grow up.  By reminding you of these good times you are likely to associate the car with the good emotions you are feeling.

The last really important part is that the commercial basically says that if you buy this car, you can achieve your goals.  Throughout the majority of the ad, the boy is running around his house trying to "use the force," but continuously fails.  When his dad drives home, it looks like he is going to make one last attempt at the force, and it works! (or so he thinks)  Either way, he finally achieved his goal, and it makes it seem like it will help you achieve your goals also.  It also shows that both the parents and the kid are happy at the end, also reminding you that if you buy this car, you'll be happy!

Overall I think this commercial is great.  I mostly love it just because it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen, and that little boy is an amazing actor even without seeing his face.  But then after looking deeper into it, it's obvious that there's a lot more going on to remind you of success and happiness.

The Dark Knight Trailer

I'm assuming that almost everyone has either seen or at least heard about The Dark Knight, released in 2008 featuring Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger.  Aside from being highly anticipated and therefore heavily promoted, the movie drew in even more attention after the death of Heath Ledger following the completion of the movie.  He died from a drug overdose, and many people believe his death was at least partially related to his work on the movie.

There had been a large marketing campaign for the movie, and after Ledger's death they changed the marketing to focus very heavily on the Joker character.  This trailer is a very good example of how much stress was put on this character:

For the first half of the video, the entire focus is on the Joker.  Aside from the company logos, the first thing we encounter is a voice over of the Joker's very distinct voice.  Although other images are shown, the focus is really on the voice over.  I thought it was especially interesting that he says "You've changed things, there's no going back."  This seems like it could be drawing a parallel to the fact that Ledger had passed away, and there is clearly no going back from that.  Then, although there is a quick flash of the character about 30 seconds in, it's a long shot and you can't make out much.  You don't actually see the Joker up close until almost a minute into the trailer when there is a close shot of the character, and then his infamous line "Why so serious?"  By not showing him until that point and not really showing much of the movie at all until then, it builds up the suspense and really draws your attention to this character and the fact that without him, there really is no movie.

If you knew nothing about Batman and only saw this trailer, you would surely think that the main character is the Joker, and this was definitely done on purpose.  Since people were so shocked by Ledger's death, the intrigue of the movie was even higher, and highlighting his performance would make them even more inclined to see it.  I think they could have also used this as an almost exploitative way to get people to see the movie, almost like saying "Hey, look at this guy!  He died, it would be wrong not to see his last movie."  By showing him so much it is impossible to ignore the fact that he's a big part of the movie.  The emphasis on the character was undoubtedly a good way to promote the movie through sympathy, intrigue, and sheer fascination with the character.

Ozzy vs. Bieber Ad

So last weekend was the infamous day of commercials, Superbowl Sunday!  There are so many people who look forward to the commercials more than the actual game, so I can't imagine the amount of money that companies spend not only buying that chunk of time, but also on creating the commercials themselves.  Because of this, it's safe to assume that these commercials are the best that they can come up with, so it seems weird when a commercial is less than impressive, but this week I'm going to talk about one that I found hilarious.  The Best Buy commercial with Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne.

 

The ad is for Best Buy's buyback program in which they buy old or outdated electronics.  Firstly, the ad makes a statement about how quickly technology goes out of date nowadays.  They're not even able to finish filming the commercial before a new phone is released.  Although it's an exaggeration, it is very true that there is new technology being released almost nonstop.  To play on this idea, the commercial starts out with Ozzy Osbourne starring in the commercial.  He was very famous about thirty years ago, but now he's in his sixties.  It's made very clear in the ad that he can't keep up with the new technology, so they bring a new star, Justin Bieber to replace him just as they were replacing the phone with a new version.  

I realized also that the stereotype of men being incompetent was used.  We discussed in class how decades ago women were portrayed as helpless, but after women's rights movements, that changed.  In this ad, Ozzy's wife has to come in and try to help him with his lines.  Not only does this play on the useless man stereotype, but also that the older generation in general is having trouble keeping up with new technology, which I'm sure we've all seen with either our grandparents or parents. 

I think it was very smart rhetorically to include both Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber in the commercial.  By using huge stars from two different generations, it makes it easy for practically everyone watching to be able to connect.  Also by choosing Ozzy, someone who has maintained at least some of his fame through the years, and Bieber who is a huge phenomenon right now, they increase the likelihood of people recognizing both stars. 

Dove Beauty Ad

So I found this ad from Dove for a beauty workshop for girls, and I found it extremely compelling.

First of all, let's consider the exigence.  Why is this commercial and workshop even necessary in the first place?  Our society has been changing the perception of beauty for years now to something that isn't a reasonable goal for any woman.  Models are extremely skinny, women in ads have flawless skin and look perfect in every way imaginable.  Because of this, women often feel they need to reach these standards to be beautiful.  This commercial was made to counter this.  It shows the exact process that companies can use to alter an already beautiful woman to a completely unreachable goal through computer manipulation.  I think it is really wonderful for a big company to finally make a stand and try to teach girls and women that the media portrayals of women are unrealistic.
The commercial is also put together very well.  The woman starts out without any makeup, and it first shows how much of a difference makeup and hair can make.  Personally, I think she looks perfectly fine like that, but the company continues to alter her look on the computer.  At this point, the audience can see how much she was actually changed and manipulated to make her look like she does on the billboard.  It actually exposes how much work it takes to make a woman look like that, and how much isn't even physically possible in real life. 
Overall, I think this is a great commercial rhetorically.  It effectively shows how altered our perception of real beauty is by showing an actual transformation of one woman.  They acknowledged the need of young girls to have a realistic role model, and have started this program to do so.  Often times it's easy to forget that celebrities and models don't always look like they do in the pictures, and this commercial really brings things into perspective.

This I Believe Podcast

http://www.zshare.net/audio/860502003f2e6c84/

Advertising!

We are surrounded by advertisement every second of our lives.  It's all over the internet, plastered on practically every outdoor surface, and even worn by people on a daily basis.  But, is it really saying anything?  I'm currently taking a class about the effects of media on society, and we just talked about how the switch from print to electronic media has changed our society.  I started thinking about it, and  there's a big difference in advertisements!

Let's take a look at an ad from the 1950s:

It's an ad for a Zenith remote control.  Immediately the differences between that and today's advertisements are extremely clear.  First of all, almost half of the ad is writing!  The fact that it is too small in the picture to read is beside the point.  Most people nowadays would never take the time to read that much information just for an ad.  But we can assume that the writing explains the benefits of this remote and all of the great things it can do.  Now let's look at a new ad from the time of technology.

It's just a picture.  Aside from the tiny little logo in the upper right hand corner for Adidas, it's just a picture of a woman working out.  What does that say about the product?  I can't even tell what the product is!  Maybe it's that if you buy Adidas you'll become a fit young woman?  I have no idea.  The point is, ads used to have a statement.  The first ad would have explained the benefits of the product, and you could either agree or disagree with it, and make an argument for why you feel that way.  I could ask "Is this ad true or false?"and you could give me an answer.  If I asked the same question for the second ad, it makes no sense.  You can't say whether a picture is true or false, it's just a picture.  So by taking away the statements in their ads, companies are effectively removing our ability to engage in discourse about it.  This is true with commercials also.  Think about all of the McDonald's commercials out there that show a happy family eating McDonald's.  What is the statement in that?  I can't disagree that a happy family might eat McDonald's, so there is really no way to thoughtfully agree or disagree with advertisements anymore.  Now advertisements aren't judged on their truthfulness or what ideas they present, but how aesthetically pleasing they are.  Do you guys think this is a problem, or just a progression in society?

Rhetoric or Reality?

    Prior to this class, I had really never given the idea of rhetoric any thought.  Frankly, I had no idea what it was.  Now that I’ve been introduced to it, I’ve already noticed it being used and brought up in the media.  The other night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he interviewed the former Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty.  (The interview can be seen here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-12-2011/exclusive---tim-pawlenty-extended-interview)  Jon Stewart asked Tim Pawlenty whether the rhetoric used to describe the Obama administration actually represents true beliefs held by republicans, or whether it is just a tactic used to create fear and gain votes.  He brought up a very good point that the Bush administration created new national mandates such as “No Child Left Behind,” and there was not much outrage, yet the Obama administration creates a health care bill, and people accuse it as being tyrannical.  The republicans even named a new bill the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
    The two administrations are generally very similar to each other, yet the rhetoric used to describe Obama and his actions are far more harsh and serious than that which were used to describe Bush.  Because the realities are so similar but the rhetoric used are so different, the rhetoric must be playing some other role than just discussing the topics.  Maybe people are scared about the state of our economy right now and are therefore reacting more strongly to changes.  Maybe politicians and people in the media know that people are worried, and are creating more reasons to worry for the sake of gaining votes.  Maybe people actually feel more strongly about the actions of the Obama administration.  If so, why would that be the case?  Are politicians trying to scare people into voting for them, or is it something else entirely?