Weekly Blog Post 2

I agree with the video regarding what it had to say about text online becoming more important in our society. It is, often times, the only or primary source of communication between individuals in the business field, students and professors at a large university, or even long-distance family members and friends. This fairly new means of communication has become so prevalent in our daily lives that two college professors wrote a book on it and its link to technology, identity and culture. Any person with access to a computer with Internet capability is able to view what is publicly posted on the web, so it is important that the author of the text recognizes this vast audience and uses strategies to properly address it.

To incorporate a personal example, my Facebook profile is blocked from any and all people I have not confirmed as my “friend.” This should bring about my unrestricted speech on my profile. However, I have realized that my Facebook friends consist of people I know from many different social circles – family members, church friends, the families I babysit for, high school friends, college friends, etc. – so I must adjust what exactly it is I want to say in hopes of keeping anyone from being offended or seeing me in a negative light. (It is more challenging than it seems to stay updated with photo uploads with friends when Dad still cannot accept that boys live on my floor, too.) Pleasing more than one age group or social circle at a time – especially on the Internet – can be a bit testing, but as I have realized these past couple of months, it is not impossible.

Creativity also plays a large role in the production of a webpage or blog. The creator wants to convey to his audience his ideas in a specific manner, giving them an idea of his personality. This utilizes the ethos appeal. Ethos is the way your audience perceives you in the context of your communication, which is difficult to achieve in web-based interaction. One must choose his words very carefully and select appropriate font colors and sizes, sound effects, and other visual and auditory components to make sure that his online project does in fact represent himself and his personality when necessary. Even in doing so, the author could be misrepresenting himself, as explained in the following article: How is Online Communication Different?

Moreover, I can only see the Internet and online communication getting more and more efficient and readily accessible in the years to come. So if you have not yet jumped on the online bandwagon, you should. Maybe you will get lucky and get your online poetry collection published or increase your business clientele! The possibilities are endless…

Weekly Blog Post 1

"Women do not always have to write about women, or gay men about gay men. Indeed, something good and new might happen if they did not." --Kathryn Hughes

This quote stood out to me because it expresses the importance of getting to know the differences of the people around us. I fully agree with what Kathryn Hughes is saying in this statement. How will we ever learn if we always stay within ourselves? How will we become better people if we know nothing about the other people among whom we live? I love diversity in people and in ideas, and I believe that living in America we have no choice but to embrace it. The purpose of this quote by Hughes is to suggest that we should write about people and things unfamiliar to ourselves, forcing us to learn about and become familiar with these different qualities and aspects of the people who make up our society. I think that this knowledge will help us all to better connect, leading to more effective communication and understanding of each other. Although Hughes only mentions two subgroups of people in this quote, she is addressing all people who choose writing as a means of expression as her audience. More than the knowledge acquired by the broad-minded writer in his research and writing of the unfamiliar people or topic, knowledge and awareness will be spread to the other people who read this person's work, causing an on-going chain of knowledge, awareness, and action. This quote can also be looked at from a different, less socially concerned perspective. Even if the writer is simply composing a brief English paper about a topic of his own choosing, it will do him better to write about something he knows little of; rather than his favorite sport or how his favorite dish is prepared. This will force him to research and learn something new, and hopefully grow to admire this newly-discovered material. In conclusion, we should all continuously be learning something new. We will become more effective communicators and all-around greater members of society; not to mention, we will all become a little bit smarter in doing so... :)