If rhetoric is the art of persuasion, one might see lying as one of the most sophisticated – though not noble – rhetorical activities. Lying is, after all, persuading someone to believe in something that the speaker knows not to be true. How do we do that? (more…)
Cool Tools: Interactive Mapping with Google Fusion Tables
Today, I want to introduce a cool tool I have recently discovered: Google Fusion Tables. The basic idea is simple but powerful: the program will take any spreadsheet it is given, look for geolocation information in it, and display the individual items in the sheet on a map. (more…)
Lesson Plan: Using Twitter for Research
Last semester I worked with the DWRL, as well as undergraduate students Chioma Nwosu, Eliza Marks, Kayla Marks, and Jazmyn Griffin, to develop a short podcast describing the research value of Twitter. It centered on searching Twitter for quotes by using the hashtag function, and covered some of the issues...
Using Twitter as a Writing + Research Tool
As I mentioned in my last post, Twitter provides students and teachers alike the ability to locate voices that would otherwise go unheard. As promised, this lesson plan helps use Twitter to (1) help students develop a writing practice, (2) refine their arguments, and (3) use hashtags to research a topic. Here's that...
The Faith of Hashtags
You hit your name and maybe something in the whole scheme of the system gives a death rattle. For now your name is over their name, over the subway manufacturer, the Transit Authority, the city administration. Your presence is on their presence, your alias hangs over their scene. There is...
Bringing Black Feminist Twitter in the Classroom
In most intro to Rhetoric courses, students evaluate the credibility of sources wherein they're discouraged from incorporating unreliable sources into their own work. Intentional or not, this lesson tends to limit students to major media outlets (e.g., New York Times and Wall Street Journal.) What might we risk in through this...
Studying Twitter Communities
Recently, Twitter user Aziah King posted a lengthy story via Tweets that took social media by storm. Chronicling a seemingly unbelievable weekend trip to Florida, King’s 148-Tweet epic is amazing not only for its content, but how she tells the story. Her voice—intensely personal, often hilarious, brazenly forthright—exhibits the Black discursive practice...
Social Media Survey: Results
The ‘Fantasy’ of Participation
There’s an article that I love, because it analyzes a growing trend regarding people and their relationships with technology. Titled, Communication in online fan communities: The ethics of intimate strangers, author Christine James analyzes relationships between celebrities and paparazzi, celebrities and fans, and fans among themselves. James wants to know...
Twitter’s Open Heart Surgery: More Than Just Cosmetic
As of this week, on Twitter you can no longer “favorite” tweets. Instead, you “like” them, a change in language that is visually represented by a move away from the little clickable star icon at the bottom of a tweet to a little heart that turns bright red if you...