#she also framed it as like these opinions and stances only exist online and if u get offline you will realize how misled you were and like

[myfandomrealitea]

I lost the ability to care about fandom discourse. As in actual discourse not doxing and harassment being framed as discourse obviously. “They only ship it because it’s gay!” Don’t care, they’re having fun. “That ship is problematic!” Everything is problematic if you try hard enough so loosen up bud. “But that character is canonically [insert sexuality]!” That sucks I guess but one person shipping a ship isn’t going to suddenly delete all queer rep. “But they only like it because they hate the main girl!” Kinda shitty I guess but also she isn’t real. Her feelings aren’t hurt because she is an object. “But the creator said no shipping is allowed!” Then why did they post it publicly? Don’t get mad when fish come near after you threw them a bait bucket. “It’s illegal!” Proof? Source? Evidence? If you got none, then go home and take a chill pill. Just saying “it is” is not a real source. “But it sexualizes my trauma!” You don’t own trauma, all you own is your own online space so protect yourself first before snapping at others.

The list goes on. I think it’s because I have too many big problems to worry about that silly shipcourse is just that; Silly. Obviously it’s not silly when you remember the real issues like death threats, doxxing, suicide baiting, unwanted gore being sent, and real illegal shit like the constant accusations of real life crimes but let’s be honest, that’s no longer discourse since it’s hurting real people.

For me, once actual discourse (in the blatant definition of it) starts becoming virtue signalling and morality showcasing, that's when I lose interest.

Discussing things is how we learn and shape our understanding and opinions. For example; in many discussions I've had with antis, they've walked away with at least a new understanding of the subject or a slightly altered perspective, even if their core stance on it hasn't changed.

Discourse in fandom spaces will always exist and there will always be points that are both subjective, valid and just plain stupid.

But certainly, the attitude of 'just co-exist with it' is definitely a valid one. And there's times where, such as recently, the literal only energy I can devote to a response is telling them to look elsewhere or eat shit.

[privycommblog3p18-blog]

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #3

Throughout this blog, I will be discussing how I have been an audience to social media and seen the way it frames stories. I watch as it takes information, manipulates it, and makes people believe things that are both deceiving and ignorant. This happens in all types of media but I find that this happens most specifically when referring to news and politics.

Lately I have been feeling really frustrated while being online. Part of the reason is because I am, more now than ever, realizing how much of a minority opinion I have in comparison to what is being most broadly showcased through social media. This would not be such a big issue if I felt my voice was, in some way, being heard. The problem, is that my opinions are not heard and I can guarantee I am not the only one who feels the way I do, yet I seem to be one of the few people that is willing to stand up against this. Earlier in the year we discussed a topic called spiral of silence which is essentially the idea that people will stay silent when they do not share the opinion of the majority. This not only leads to people’s voices not being heard, but calls into question how democratic our society truly is. I think that a big reason why this could be happening is because of the transfer from “producers” being the dominant producers of content, to “procumers” who are the consumers who are also influencing the production. This is very much related to symbolic patronage which provides one measured example of a way in which audiences now have a greater ability to influence production and industry decision-making (Navar-Gill, 2018). By giving people the ability to control content, we loose the ability to censor what is true and what is not.

Even though I do not agree with the way that our media is evidently one sided, I am still able to understand that in order for producers to be successful and for them to be able to continue putting out their content, they need to be producing for the masses. With this means producing for the dominant ideology in society. This is unfortunate for me because it will in turn make me feel like my opinion is not valid. On the other hand, it is unfortunate for the masses because they are now only being exposed to one side of things which limits their ability to have a fully rounded view of the topic.  

Going a little further into my rant about how frustrated I am, I want to talk about the idea of Alchemy. Alchemy is when “A base metal is being transformed into gold, or at least mundane data are being transformed into a virtual currency unit” (Athique, p. 64). This is important in audience studies because it is our ability to create value from our essentially worthless data through aggregation of details. The reason that this relates to my topic, is because it exemplifies the idea that people are able to take useless information that no one is affected by, put a twist on it and make it blow up on the internet framed as something it isn’t. Antique expands on this and is able to relate it to how people use this for advertising, marketing and consumption purposes. Just because I love ranting SO MUCH.. I am going to give a personal experience with this. Two weekends ago, I had the honor of attending the Provincial Conservative Convention in Toronto as a delegate representing Brock. With being a delegate came the responsibility of voting on proposed constitutional amendments and other possible propositions. One of the things that I had the chance to vote on was Policy Resolution R4—Education and Community Safety. Essentially what this was trying to get across was that as of right now, the educational system teaches and promotes “gender identity theory”. If it is nothing but an ideology or theory and not fact, it is not something that the conservative party wants to be taught until it is defined so that there is no confusion to the children who are learning it. If Gender is defined more clearly then the conservative party would fully respect it being taught, but an ideology is not enough for them. When the media got a hold of this policy resolution they went crazy. A big thing that we learn about in our Audience Studies class is the idea of framing, which is “the selection of certain aspects of reality in order to make them more salient in a bid to promote a desired interpretation” (Entman, 1993). With this specific situation, framing is what completely misconstrued the masses. The way that people began to see this story was that Conservatives hate LGBTQ which is not true at all. More specifically I saw a post that a woman made on Facebook as seen bellow. She utilized the theory of Recontextualization which is when gaps are filled in texts by adding in stories or missing scenes (Good, Lecture), She did this by making her own content up to give a false context. When I saw what she wrote, I was filled with rage because I am beyond tired of seeing people who are not educating themselves on topics, becoming prosumers and putting false information out to the world. When people do this, they often use a catchy title and draw people in. The worst part is that people who are using social media are often not interested enough to do research or explore the topic and they believe the headline which is almost always exaugurated and opinionated, not fact. In this situation, the woman is attempting to say that Conservatives are trying to erase people’s existences which is so incredibly far from the intent its actually comical.  I attached my response to the post to give you guys an idea of how I tried to interject while staying somewhat respectful.

I believe that the comment I made could add to a potential moral realignment. This is when the original narratives moral universe is inverted. What happens is the villains’ adapt their own stories and become the protagonists (Good, Lecture). By me being respectful and showing her that she can not blabber on, I opened up the doors for her to change perspective and possibly do some further research. I, being the villain here, because I share a different view, could now become the protagonist because I have made a stance that could entice people to look further into me and other things I believe in.

Feeding off of this post, I want to briefly mention “SME” which stands for social media editor’s. Overall, “SMEs emphasized technology and human interest stories while downplaying the conflict and economic impact frames” (Wasike, 2013). Evidently this woman could not be more clear with acting as an SME.Going away from my own example but looking at the topic as a whole, SMEs can relate, especially when talking about politics, the stories that make it big on social media are based entirely on progressive issues relating to people and technology. The second that economic impact is brought in, the story becomes boring or seen as ‘ignorant”. This is why it is so hard to talk about facts online. To quote my favourite political speaker, Ben Shapiro, “Facts don’t care about your feelings”. The reason that I love this quote so much is because I believe that people today are way too hung up on the way that they feel and become micro aggressed by everything that they see to the point that people are ignoring facts to compensate for the way that people feel. This can become dangerous, especially online because it increases the chance for false information to be spread just because it makes people feel good.

During lecture, we discussed data mining and how “The primary motivation of the data-mining process is to create value through the aggregation of details which in their raw form are largely worthless” (Good, Lecture). I find this idea really interesting because often when there is a lot of information on a topic, the pieces that seem the most interesting or shocking become the main focus similar to clickbait. This is done by combining several smaller points to create something bigger. The problem with this is that a lot gets left out and people become uninformed.

At this point I know I have been ranting quite a bit but I want to finish off this rant by discussing a few more issues that really urg me at times.

A big part of the Navar-Gill article was understanding the difference between transformational and affirmational fandom. Transformational fans are primarily those who want to celebrate women, queer or minorities who feel underappreciated by the media (Navar-Gill, 2018). Affirmational Fans are seen as male, white and heterosexual. These are people who are unaware of their own media privileges (Navar-Gill, 2018). Right now, there is a big push in the media to see only the progressive voice, but a question that I must raise is “at what point are we progressive enough, and when are we going to far?”. I understand that transformational and affirmational fans are using generalizations to define them but it bothers me that we are told that being male, white, and heterosexual also means that you are unaware of your privileges. As if it is impossible to have a different opinion. The point I am trying to make here is that this leftist ideology is even in our education system. Refocalization, which is when the focus of the character shifts to secondary or minor characters, is often done to allow minorities and women a chance to be heard (Good, Lecture). It is something that I am happy that has been implemented to allow those voices to be heard. I will not argue that we need to be accepting and celebrate our minorities as the transformational fans do, but I do not think that this should mean hating on affirmational fans as they each serve a different purpose.

My rant is over, but I just want to leave you with something to think about. Please, when you are on social media, do not allow the first thing you read to leave a lasting impression of the topic. Do some research and educate yourself to give yourself your own opinion and a voice. Stand up for yourself when you see people spewing false information and only share factual information.

[maddydenniswrt255-blog]

Video Games Go Viral

One of the most controversial topics in the digital age is whether or not video games are better than real life, and if they are, is that a problem? People also ask what does the future hold in terms of graphics within the video game world, and how does this affect the future of gaming? In late February of 2006, game designer David Perry, gave a TED talk entitled, “Are Games Better than Life?” in which he explored his concern that the videogames of the future would not only be more fun, and more engaging, but they would create an emotional attachment between the gamer and the game. The video of this TED talk then went viral, and I believe that this may be due to the fact that the topic of gaming is so controversial overall. Perry, a Northern Irish video game developer and programmer, became prominent for programming platform games in the early to mid 1990s, and is known for his contribution to Disney’s Aladdin, Cool Spot and Earthworm Jim. His spoken argument about the future of gaming is a critical one, because it uses rhetorical strategies to make a persuasive argument. When this spoken argument is examined closely, it can be seen that Perry uses the majority of the rhetorical frameworks that  Lunceford claims are crucial, and it can also be seen that his talk is an example of Burke’s concept of identification. Additionally, Bitzer and Benson may be referenced in this analysis, because Bitzer introduces the importance of connecting the argument to the audience as well as to the situation, and Benson discusses the importance of adding emotion to make an argument stronger. While analyzing his argument, I noticed that Perry’s main goal was to engage the audience as much as possible, in order to put people at ease and gain their trust, so that he would be considered a credible source of information about his chosen topic.

In unit 1, we reviewed Bitzer’s stance on how to construct a persuasive argument, and  that involved three major concepts: exigence, audience and constraints. This paved the way to create a comparison of written argument versus spoken argument, and to learn about the factors that impact the effect that a speech might have on an audience. In Unit 2, Lunceford extended these ideas when he suggested that in order to have a strong spoken argument, the rhetor must consider five major concepts: purpose, audience, stance, support and structure. Within this particular argument, then, the purpose is for Perry to inform members of the tech industry on the future of gaming, and to let them know about his hopes to expand videogames and make them more interactive. Perry also suggests that he wants these games to be an emotional experience. He does this by engaging the existing interest of his audience in the topic of video-gaming, and then he cautIons them about the dangers of the evolving technology. This relates to exigence because this TED talk was given when the tech industry was hitting a major boom in video-game sale, due to the high-def quality and graphics that were being produced, as well as the hope for better games in the future. In terms of audience, Lunceford points out that the rhetor must consider who he is orating to in order to persuade them to his opinion. Perry demonstrates that he is aware of the idiosyncrasies of his live audience, as he appeals to their desire for learning through experience. He does this by using comic relief, by adding funny pictures into his slideshow, by sharing personal information and by including a video projecting what the future of videogames might look like. One of the most effective anecdotes that Perry includes in his presentation is when he shows a clip about the input of a particular gamer, who says: “I, like many of you, I live somewhere between reality and video games. Some part of me -- a true living, breathing person -- has become programmed, electronic and virtual. The boundary of my brain that divides real from fantasy has finally begun to crumble. I'm a video game addict and this is my story...” This message occurs despite the fact that Perry’s audience is mostly made up of people from large corporations as well as major gamers. I believe that this TED talk would not have gone viral, though,  if it included a false or unimportant message.

Lunceford goes on to talk about how it is important to have a clear stance when making a claim in an argument. Perry claims that the future is filled with endless opportunities for new and interactive video games, and that this will give gamers the full effect of feeling like they are inside of the game. The fact that Perry is giving this talk shows his commitment to his stance, which is partly about warning against the realities of addiction. Another interviewee shares this with him: “I'm a video game addict, and it's not because of a certain number of hours I have spent playing, or nights I have gone without sleep to finish the next level. It is because I have had life-altering experiences in virtual space, and video games had begun to erode my own understanding of what is real and what is not. I'm addicted, because even though I know I'm losing my grip on reality, I still crave more.” This quote reinforces Perry’s cautionary stance. Lunceford then discusses how it is crucial for a rhetor to have support, and that this means including facts and information. Indeed, Perry includes statistics on the gaming industry in his talk, in hopes of convincing his audience that if all goes according to plan within the next year, the gaming industry would make 100 million dollars more than it had the year before. Lastly, a great presentation and speech, according to Lunceford, must have a structure that also flows. Perry started off by using a PowerPoint, which indicates his planning, but he then also made his presentation interactive on a  moment-to-moment basis, by engaging the audience through questions, and further comic relief. I believe that the reason why Perry’s spoken argument was so powerful was due to the fact he was able to fulfill all of these key concepts, as discussed by Lunceford, when presenting his argument to his chosen audience.

Furthermore, in unit 1, Benson provided us with a framework for understanding how using using emotion can be effective when a rhetor is attempting to reach an audience. Again, we have encountered a writer in unit 2 whose ideas echo those of one of his predecessors. In particular, Burke’s ideas relate to the idea that in order to have a strong argument, one’s ideas need to stand out in comparison to others, in a way that people can relate to emotionally. To appeal to his audience emotionally, Perry includes this in the end of his spoken argument: “This is my daughter, her name's Emma, she's 17 months old. And I've been asking myself, what is Emma going to experience in the video game world? And as I've shown here, we have the audience. She's never going to know a world where you can't press a button and have millions of people ready to play. You know, we have the technology. She's never going to know a world where the graphics just aren't stunning and really immersive. She's never going to know a world where video games aren't incredibly emotional and will probably make her cry.” The inclusion of this reflective moment relates to Burke’s main theory is about how the identification of the audience is a crucial part of persuasion. Burke believes that whenever someone attempts to persuade another party, personal identification occurs, precisely because individuals are inclined to try to identify with one another; the one that becomes persuaded sees that the speaker is like them in some way. Burke believes that identification works not only in relation to the self, but also to the outside world. Upon reflection, it can be seen that Perry makes use of this pattern of people wanting to identify with one another to strengthen his own argument, and drive his point home.  

In conclusion, Perry’s spoken argument entitled “Are Games Better than Life?” keeps the live TED talk audience on their toes, and keeps them interested through the use of exigence, emotion, and identification. The fact that this talk was so popular online also points to the urgency and relevance of his topic, as well as his stance. He starts off his presentation by providing the audience with background information on his life, and he includes funny childhood photos of himself. This rhetorical strategy of making the audience laugh and using emotions and humor to connect with the audience is a powerful tactic that may be used to persuade an individual, and affect their opinion or perspective. This strategy is effective because in order to gain the trust of an individual or a group people have to not only respect the speaker, but trust them as a person. It is from this place of trust that Perry effectively convinces people that there is a powerful future in the video gaming world and this may be cause for concern. I believe that this video went viral because no one was fully aware of the addiction that video-gaming causes and once people are addicted they can’t easily stop. In this argument, the rhetor is able to persuade the audience regarding his opinion that the videogaming world is growing and expanding constantly and is thus taking over the real world. In a TED talk, the rhetor puts the audience first, as the goal of a spoken argument is to sway the audience as much as possible within the twenty minute time frame of the speech. Perry predicts that people will continue to choose to play video games rather than experiencing the real world, but he acknowledges that this is part of the reality of supply and demand in a digital age. Overall, this was a frightening and alarming thought for the audience, who may have already feared the idea that if everyone is constantly becoming addicted to video gaming, and if they unaware of the real world, then the group disconnect from reality will be more than a little bit problematic.