blog #7

For this blog I watched a half hour of the coverage on ABC and a half hour of coverage on NBC. I have to be honest and say that this was honestly one of the longest hours of my life. I do not really support either candidate did not have someone I really wanted and I found this cover long and boring. I happened to choose two stations who's coverage seemed to be pretty unbiased. They stations focused on providing up to date information on the coverage which states were going which way. There were lots of graphs and maps and other types of information presenters. I think that these tools along with the lack of support for one candidate in specific made the whole thing much more bearable because I was able to act like it was just some report. I did feel a little bit of relief as each state came in because I am so tired of all the politics that has been flying around campus and can finally talk to people without hearing soapbox speeches of why their candidate is the best and how anyone who doesn't agree is naive or an idiot. These coverages, while mainly unbiased, seemed to be somewhat conservative. The reporters all seemed to be somewhat reserved and the feeling of the station in general was conservative. Their audience seemed to be anyone who was conservative and people who wanted an impartial coverage of the election. I believe that this was an attempt to appeal to as many viewers as possible and therefor have the highest ratings. Both stations made appeals to logos with all their graphs and statistics, which was something I was very grateful for. There was also a feeling of trying to seem human that I got from the stations. In the background of some of the shots you could see the rest of the newsroom. Why I got a feeling of being human from these shots is because the background was filled with people running around and everyone just looking completely busy. This made it feel like there was a definite human aspect to this information, reminding that it is being put together by a bunch of people at the station, not just some big computer in the back room somewhere. I believe that this was an attempt to keep people interested in the station, saying "Look at how much work we're doing to present this for you, the least you could do is watch!" Again I feel that this was just a well thought out ploy for higher ratings, I always feel that everything that stations do is purely for the ratings, not because they care. I don't particularly blame the stations, I know that it's a taboo and that more than a few people will want to come after me for saying it but, thank god the election is over, I am so tired of hearing about it and frankly don't care that it was Obama, I didn't support either candidate.

Blog 6

For this blog I analyzed a story from the USA Today newspaper that I found online. The article was about states cutting health care coverage due to the economy. I do believe that Lasch's description of modern-day journalism is justified in this article. One of the main reasons I feel this way is because of the lack of argument, which Lasch sites on page 308. This article defiantly circulates information but does not promote and argument. The article states facts about what states are affected by the cuts and how big the cuts will be and other information like that, but it doesn't promote a debate or suggest any further discussion on the topic, just basically says "Here's what's happening, now move on". That is exactly what Lasch said about current journalism. This article is defiantly written objectively, without any one thing really being supported or said. This is what Lasch was saying about the modern-day journalism, that they no longer promoted debate because being objective in reporting in order to provide information as accurately as possible has become the ultimate goal of the modern-day journalist. As Lasch says on page 310, the journalism community no longer promotes the development of "the ability to follow an argument, grasp the point of view of another, expand the boundaries of understanding, debate the alternative purposes that might be pursued" in the public. The journalism community has turned from originally stimulating public debate and development of knowledge to a source of objective information and nothing more. I do believe that I am presented with a very well researched article, however. This article is very detailed with more than half of the total length of the article coming from specific examples of what the health care cut meant by state. The article is in a nationally known newspaper so that helps me feel that it is well researched and reliable. Articles in a well known paper like this have to be very well researched because so many people read the paper that any mistake will be found and pointed out. While I do feel that Lasch was completely correct in his description of modern-day journalism and that this is shown in the article that I found, I still believe that this article was very well researched and that it is indeed reliable. I think that the statement of objective fact actually does help promote a sense of the article being reliable and well researched, even though it does cause for a lack of debate over it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-28-health-cuts_N.htm

Blog 5

For this blog I decided to watch the Vice Presidential debate. I missed this on tv so I watched the video of it on youtube. I believe that the purpose of both of the candidates was to inform people of their stance towards the bigger issues and show the difference between the two parties stance. The purpose was also to persuade the views to vote for the speaker's party. The speaker's purpose was also to motivate the viewers to support each speaker's party and spread the word and get more support for the party. I believe that these purposes were actually accomplished. Both of the candidates had good points and debated very well. They stayed away from personal attacks and focused on the issues. I believe that anyone watching the debate who was unsure of who to vote for would definitely have been swayed to supporting one of the parties, as to who did this the best I couldn't tell. I believe that both candidates did a fantastic job and deserve the support of the people watching. I feel that Governor Biden presented himself as more of an authority instructing with a hint of a peer sharing information while Senator Pallin presented herself as more of a peer sharing information with hints at being an authority every now and then. Both of the candidates had great eye contact, not being able to speak from a prepared script but reacting to the question and the opponent's response. The audience had a couple of reactions, but they were instructed from the beginning to not react at all so the audience reaction was kinda of misleading. The candidates usually finished in the allotted time but both were cut off a couple times in the middle of a point, so both could have used a little more time management but did a great job regardless. I believe that both candidates were very appropriate for the audience. They both used very profession language and were mostly formal with enough informality mixed it that it made both candidates very understandable while not taking away from their credibility.

Blog #4

http://www.360tuners.com/ProductImages/engine/coldairintake/AFCCAV9524L.jpg

I am going to write my fourth blog about the effectiveness of ads. The specific ads I'm talking about are air intake ads online. I am looking for an air intake for my car to try and boost gas mileage a little bit more, and maybe grab an extra horsepower or two, but I don't want to spend a lot of money. This has resulted in me looking through a very large number of different websites and ads. The image above is one of the better sites that I visited. The majority of the pictures were just a blank white background with the part shown in the center of it. This resulted in high contrast but I don't feel it was very effective. It was hard to focus on the part when the background was white, my eyes would start to drift around the page instead of focusing on the part I was trying to look at. The ad I have shown also uses contrast, but instead of just a white background it has a background with subtle colors and shapes. This causes my eyes to stay focused on the part shown, since the background doesn't blend into the rest of the web page my eyes are able to stay centered on it easily. Another common issue I had with most of the images was alignment. Most of the pictures were of the air intake horizontal across the middle of the image with nothing else. This alignment allowed my eyes to move from the left of the image to the right without anything really stopping them. That alignment was completely boring and didn't prompt my eyes to really take notice of anything. The ad I attached also doesn't have this problem. The ad has the intake vertical, using the bend in the pipe to hold the logo of the part maker, which most other websites also lacked, and also to cradle a smaller image of exactly everything that comes with the air intake. This is highly effective because my eyes start at the top, move to the logo, then to the filter on the fully assembled intake, then to the smaller picture, all without every really being told to move. This ad is far more effective than most of the ads I saw and I feel that this ad is actually a very well made ad.

Ad review

This ad makes me laugh really hard. I love how this ad comments on the idea that a diamond is a woman's best friend and that if you give a woman a diamond it's the best thing you can do and how all woman want from a guy is a diamond. It makes me feel this way because it takes the typical diamond advertisement of a black background, a piece of diamond jewelry and the saying "A diamond is forever" and pairs it with the phrase "Hey, what do you know, she thinks you're funny again." It's funny because the ad has the typical diamond ad background, which has always been paired with some sort of love slogan or cheesy love poem saying that giving a diamond is the best way of showing love, and instead pairs it with a critique of today's society and the values taught to the women today. I think that this is funny because it is a commentary of society today and how, even if a woman isn't interested in you, if you spend a lot of money on her she'll pretend to be interested. The ad takes what we've come to accept as normal and typical, a diamond is how you should show your love, and makes the observer question why it is that love has to be shown with a diamond and if it really is love if it takes a diamond to bring it out in the receiver. The ad uses extreme contrast by having an all black background with a diamond bracelet and the writing in white. This makes the large writing in the center of the ad stand out and become the focus of the ad. The ad also uses proximity to make the text stand out. The text is taking up the majority of the center of the ad with empty space all around it, with the bracelet along the top edge of the ad and the line "A diamond is forever" along the bottom edge of the ad. This empty space around the main text brings the eye's focus onto the text and insures that the observer will read the text. The contents of the ad are also aligned vertically, with the bracelet and both texts centered in the middle of the ad forming a vertical line for the eye to move down. The only repetition in the ad is the use of white for the border, the bracelet, and both lines of text.

http://www.shamelessmag.com/media/content/2007/12/diamond.jpg

Kuhn Post

When he wrote the essay The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery Thomas Kuhn was trying to show that the idea of attributing a single person for making a discovery at a specific time is almost completely impossible. In his essay Kuhn really didn't waste any time trying to build up his pathos or really set up the kairos, Kuhn's basic strategy was to use logos to prove his point. He very logically and scientifically approached his essay, stating straight out what his thesis was and what he was trying to accomplish. He then moved through several examples and then analyzed the examples and applied them to his thesis. His analysis of the examples was all based on logic and actual examples, he didn't worry about appealing to the reader's emotion or anything besides very clear and defined logic. By doing this he kept the theme of the essay very efficient and scientific, without any unnecessary words or frivolous extra the essay was very concise and didn't leave much up to interpretation, everything that Kuhn said was very provable and really suited the purpose of approaching the scientific community. His entire essay is laid out in a very logical order. He fully explains one example and relates it to the thesis before moving onto the next. Then Kuhn restates all the examples at the end of the essay and relates all three back to his thesis again. He is very logical and clear with everything in his essay, making sure that every aspect is fully explain and tied in. Kuhn's essay is so logically setup and executed that there is no room left in it for any appeal to the reader's emotion, creating an essay that completely lacks any attempt at creating pathos. Kuhn's essay is a perfect example of what kinda of essay would rely on logos more than anything else.

Blog 1

My name is Ryan Kilbane and I am currently a junior with senior credit majoring in mechanical engineering here at Ohio University. I have always been very mechanically inclined and also good at math, so mechanical engineering seems to be the perfect major, at least I have thought that so far, I have had mechanical engineering declaired as my major since I applied. My first engineering professor defined mechanical engineering and solving societies problems using technology. This is the most basic, yet the most useful description of the major that I have yet to find. As a mechanical engineer I more or less look at the world as it currently is and try to fix the problems people are having and just make life all around easier by designing something. I'm not sure yet as to what specific field I want to go into. I spent two breaks working at a consulting engineering firm and hated it so that's out. Consulting engineers layout the ventilation systems, electrical wiring and the plumbing on the blueprints of a building that is being built or remodeled. My job was to spend all day in front of a computer screen and draw lines on AutoCad. I am much more interested in the workings of an engine and things to that extent so I think that finding a job with a company like Edelbrock would be something that I would be much more interested in, but I'm always keeping my eyes open just incase there's something else that is more apealing. The main goal of mine is to use to money from the job I get when I graduate to pay for finishing getting my pilots lisence and one day flying commercial freight. Flying is really expensive and I figured that engineering would probably pay enought that I would be able to afford the rest of my training and that way I could get my dream job as a pilot.