In Class Assignment: Show and Tell/Using The Five Canons

For this assignment I decided to choose the time when I first went shopping for prom dresses as a junior in high school. It was my first prom, so i wanted my dress to be something meaningful that i could treasure forever. My mom and I were in NYC for a weekend looking at colleges and we found this cute little boutique with all different kinds of sample dresses from a sample store where the dresses were being sold there first and then sold from different large department stores. I couldn't have been more excited, I was going to have a one of a kind dress for my junior prom. The second i walked into the store, this pink, long, sparkly disney princess dress caught my eye, it was SO Sophie. I just had to have it, or i wouldn't have been satisfied with anything else. At a whooping 500$ my mom was not about to pay for the dress, but the sales people made their pitch quite convinving, after calling my grandma and asking her to contribute to my cause, i ended up getting the dress I paid 250$ and my grandma paid for the rest. I used almost all the money in my piggy bank, but in the end, I honestly thought it was worth it.

Now I'm going to use the Neo-Artistitilian approach and the five cannons to explain why i ended up purchasing this item/why i was so influenced. The first of the five canons is invention, invention is when you recognize the need for a message. The people that worked at the store knew that they needed to sell this dress, and i was the perfect consumer, a young 16 year old girl who wanted/(thought i needed) that dress. The next of the classical canons is arrangement, and that is how they organized the message, they made a sales pitch of why i should buy they dress and how it would be beneficial to me in the long run. They said i could sue it for any occasion when i needed a ball gown or to go to a fancy party. The next of the canons is style, they were very persuasive since they were sales people. Their goal was to sell their product to me. They were very polite and set up a dressing room for me, the fact that they were attending to my every need made me want to purchase the dress even more. The message was delivered from the two people working at the store, they told me where the dresses were made and why they were in that specific sample store. The last of the 5 canons is memory. There was no way i could forget the message that was being relayed to me. I wanted that dress and there was nothing stopping me from getting it, they even threw in a free pair of earrings with my purchase. Language really influences the audience because without their push for me to purchase their product and all the benefits it would come with I would not be nearly as inclined to purchase the dress at such a hefty price of 500$

Challenge Blog

For the challenge blog I watched Halle Berry's acceptance speech for Best Actress at the 74th annual Academy Awards ceremony in 2002. The context of the speech was that Halle Berry had just won the award for best actress and she went up on the stage to accept her award in front of hundreds of other actors and actresses. It was a very emotional time for her, as she walked on the stage she was crying and had lots of feelings and emotions to express to the audience. This clip of her speech is available online, on youtube and on many other websites. It is easily accessible over the internet to watch for free.

The target audience for the original presentation was definitely african american women. Halle Berry felt like she opened the doors for African American women to win awards and be able to achieve that goal, she felt like the award wasn't just for her, but it was for all of the talented African American women thats voices should be heard. This was definitely her target audience for her speech, but this speech was broadcasted on national TV in 2002 and it was a very emotional speech, not just about her feelings and beliefs, but also the way she accepted the award, your attention could not be lost while watching. I think everyone who watched the show could have been impacted in some ways, the people that would have been watching are people who frequently watch movies or are interested in movies or like the actors that are nominated for the award.

After analyzing her speech by using the neo-Aristotelian approach and the five canons, Halle Berry definitely used her language persuasively and appropriately to get her point across. SHe used invention or recognizing a need for a message stating that she was the first African American women to receive that exact award and she feels like she reached a new level for African American women, and that itself is a message she was trying to get across. She also carefully arranged the way she put her speech together. Before she even started to get her point across through her speech, she was crying, out of breath and emotional and the audiences attention was completely focused on her. Once she had the audiences attention she made her main point first, then moved off into thanking other people that helped her achieve this award. What was important about the organizational structure was that she explained that she made her point and stood her ground firmly throughout the entire speech. The language she used in the speech was somewhat simple, she didn't use complex words but she said 'this award isn't just for me, its for all the women out there' and she name some names like Jada Pinkett Smith and others who she felt were worthy of the award. Berry also had very intense facial expressions and actions which compelled the audience to listen to her more and this added to the language she used while speaking. She delivered the message on public television that everyone could see, so this message was delivered all across the united states, and after i was put on you tube and other online video sites. This message is very memorable because of its content as well as her emotional expressions, at least that was what caught my attention the most. We also remember this because it has cultural significance, it was a landmark for Halle Berry as well as other women and african american women in the world that strive to do something.

In my opinion, I though the speech was a little over the top, especially concerning her crying and emotional part. But i do think she made a very good point and got it across to the audience. As the camera was being flashed around the audience during her speech, there weren't many dry eyes in the theater.

In Class Blog 4/5/10- Use 5 phases and pick cultural topic!

For my cultural topic, I chose Twitter. Twitter is an outlet for people to tell everyone what they are doing at any point in the day, you can find news on twitter, you can follow your favorite restaurants, celebrities, newspapers or even president obama. It is a quick and easy way to be constantly updated on what is happening with your friends as well as around the world. Twitter was created for people to be connected in a simple and efficient way, a quote from twitters main website is "Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what is happening now." Twitter truly became a huge company when major corporations became involved in 'tweeting'. After breaking down the use of twitter by using the neo-aristotelian rhetoric, It was interesting to see what twitter was really getting at and what the huge appeal is.

The first classical canon of the neo-Aristotelean rhetoric is invention, and invention is recognizing the need for a message. Twitter is really one of the first organizations/companies to create an outlet for people to constantly express what is happening them whenever with 160 characters or less or re-tweet someone else's idea that they liked or thought was cool, or even create a trending topic. There was really no largely known organization like twitter prior to Twitters creation in 2006. Now there is really a system that can keep people connected around the world at all times, people are able to see the messages conveyed by other people with ease, its even possible to have twitter on any kind of cellular device, computer, pda anything. Twitter is also a faster and more accessible way to read the news. If your looking for a quick world update, just check the new york times twitter page, It is constantly being updated.

The second canon is organizational structure. The way twitter is set up is everyone has a homepage where all they put is their name, a few words about themselves and a picture. It is not very detailed, just a simple description. Then there is a wall where you can see your most recent tweets and everyone else's tweets that are being updated constantly. There is also a list of people that you follow and people that follow you, you can also use the simple 'search' button to look for more people. These people are allowed to see your updates (tweets) and you are allowed to see theirs (unless your profile is private). This structure is very simple, its not hard to use at all, even a five year old would be able to manage their own twitter account. The simplicity of the site also makes it more enticing to new users.

The third canon is style and style is the language used by the speaker. On twitter, everyone is their own speaker, but they can also read and interpret what other people said on their tweets. Every type of twitter is different, someone may use their twitter strictly for business and may only tweet information and updates to fellow employees, whereas some people may use their twitter just to tweet their everyday activities or their plans for the evening. There are also restaurants like Starbucks that are always tweeting about free drinks or new drinks being created, each twitter account or tweeter tweets for a different reason.

The fourth canon is delivery, this is how the message gets disseminated to the public. With twitter its easy, all you do is click a button and the message is posted to your wall and your followers walls. The update is instantly, there is no delay with the news, like getting the newspaper delivered to your house. The news is immediate as well as the feedback. If someone wishes to make your tweet a trending topic or re-tweet it for other people to see that is always a possibility. This is how the messages become more widespread and reach over thousands of followers. It is also possible to receive these messages on your cell phone and it will ring immediately when your twitter is being updated.

The fifth canon is memory, which is obviously how we remember and process the message. On twitter you are usually just checking out to see what your friends are doing, or what is going on with your favorite celebrity that day. Its like you are connected with your friends constantly even if they aren't contacting you directly. If you see your favorite celebrity just tweeted they have a new girlfriend or boyfriend, the first thing you are going to do is remember the name of that person then google it. It becomes very routine when it comes to checking your twitter, its part of your daily routine form memory. While you are on twitter, messages are constantly being sent to you whether you want to read it or not, but it is you that gets to pick whether you want to remember what you saw or just go on to something else.

As far as twitter achieving its goal, I would definitely say that it did.