TOW #21: Visual Text

If you are someone who watches TV, chances are you have seen at least on of Snickers' “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” advertisements which have been airing for awhile now. They’ve created both magazine advertisements and commercials that have employed famous individuals from high-profile celebrities such as Betty White, to historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln. One ad in particular features Godzilla himself. Through ridiculous humor and stark juxtaposition, this advertisement effectively achieves its purpose of selling Snickers candy bars within the “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” advertising campaign.

          The commercial begins with a bunch of friends and Godzilla simply enjoying themselves on a sunny lakeside beach while happy feel-good type music playing in the background, when an attractive woman walks by and waves hello to Godzilla exclusively. His friends around him then take turns giving him high-fives and congratulating him for gaining the attention of the attractive young lady. Aside from the obvious humor of a woman being attracted to Godzilla, the purpose of this scene was to paint him as someone that everyone admires, which is also the theme throughout this commercial. 

         Godzilla is then playing ping pong against one of his friends with the rest watching, and when he beats him, everyone begins cheering. Following that we find Godzilla dancing at a party while two guests comment on him saying that, “Godzilla’s actually pretty cool,” to which his friend responds, “Except when he’s hungry.” The feel-good music is then replaced with screams as commercial then cuts to a classic Godzilla scene with him destroying a city at night when one of his friends manages to throw a Snickers bar into Godzilla’s mouth. Finally, feel-good music begins to play again and the commercial cuts back to another scene of Godzilla and his friends at the lake water skiing and having a great time. 

       This commercial was successful by utilizing humor throughout and first painting Godzilla as the cool guy that everyone admires and wants to be friends with. Then it cuts to a dark scene depicting how different Godzilla acts when he’s hungry, and then after eating a Snickers bar, how he instantly becomes fun and cool again. This not only makes us want to eat Snickers because the commercial was funny and Snickers satisfies enough to even tame Godzilla, but eating Snickers will also make us likable and fun to be around.

TOW #20: Is It Right To Waste Helium On Party Balloons by Tim Bowler

In an article from the BBC News Magazine, Tim Bowler describes the increasingly limited source of helium and presents the potential issue of one day completely running out of helium. Ultimately, Bowler asks if we should be wasting this finite resource on such trivial things as balloons when it is highly valued for such uses as superconducting magnets in MRI scanners. Bowler writes that it is important to conserve and value rare finite resources but his purpose is more to inform the audience of the issue and open up further discussion on the question. 
         The article sites quotes from several scientists on the issue. For example Bowler quotes "'We're going to be looking back and thinking, I can't believe people just used to fill up their balloons with it, when it's so precious and unique,' says Cambridge University chemist Peter Wothers" (par. 7). By including the insight of a scientist, Bowler shows that he has examined the viewpoints of experts working with the issue and knows his topic. 
         He also presents a factual background on the nature of helium, that it is one of the most common elements in the universe but is quite rare on earth, and that it has the lowest boiling point, which makes it a key part of superconducting magnets. Bowler also appeals to pathos in his article by presenting a rather alarming situation. He quotes chemist Andrea Sella as saying "'But helium is unique. When it's gone it is lost to us forever'" (Bowler par. 4). By presenting a potentially scary situation, the complete elimination of a valuable, finite resource, in a dramatic way, Bowler captures the attention of the audience. Finally, defining the issue in terms of a commonly known product allows the audience to understand the connection of the issue to their own lives.
          Most people have seen those brightly colored helium balloons floating at parties and for sale in grocery stores. By showing the importance of helium for other uses, it's scarcity, and how it is "wasted" for trivial party balloons. By pointing out the importance of wasting helium, at first glance most would see it as an unimportant issue but later Bower successfully establishes his purpose because it is an issue that can resonate stronger with the audience through his examples and background information. 

TOW #19: Are Malls Over by Amy Merrick

As new generations begin to form, people's way of living starts to change. This change is also redefining how people shop. No longer do Americans trek out to outdated malls to do their shopping, since they are able to make all of their purchases online comfortably in their homes. Amy Merrick, a writer for The New Yorker, wrote “Are Malls Over?” to describe the decline of popularity that Americans have with malls. Merrick uses anecdotes as well as analogies to relay how malls are becoming less popular and how they must be reinvented in order for them to avoid becoming obsolete.                                                                                                                                              
Merrick initiates her essay by using an anecdote that provides background about the typical American mall. Merrick recalled, “when the Woodville Mall opened, in 1969, in Northwood, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, its developers bragged about the mall’s million square feet of enclosed space; its anchor tenants, which included Sears and J. C. Penney; and its air-conditioning—seventy-two degrees, year-round!” She then follows by describing how this same mall is being demolished this year along with many other malls due to their outdated qualities. By providing this anecdote Merrick is able to show how malls were once the hot new trend in America, but are now quickly becoming outdated and unneeded. After proving that the typical American mall is becoming less popular, Merrick is able to suggest the idea of reinventing the American mall.

Merrick’s analogies allow her to show the opportunity for success if malls were reinvented. “As any cubicle dweller knows, people like natural light and fresh air and, when deprived of them, feel oppressed. So are people alienated by those older malls, with their raw concrete, brutalist architecture and fretful, defensive air?” By comparing a cubicle dweller to a shopper, Merrick is able to determine the key details, like natural light and fresh air that may reinvent the mall. Her comparison allows her to then provide others’ research and draw to the conclusion that outdoor malls with more than just shopping experiences may reinvent the mall, and make the mall popular once again. 

            Nowadays many typical American malls are being closed and in order for malls to thrive once again, they must be able to adapt appeal to what shoppers want. I believe that Amy Merrick does a good job at proving this point by using anecdotes and analogies to show how the typical American should be reinvented before malls become obsolete. The audience is able to follow what is being said and connect to how the need for malls is slowly dwindling. Developers need to pin point the desires of shoppers that will make a mall desirable to be frequented by the shopper to help malls thrive once again. 

TOW #18: Go Ask Alice (IRB Part 2)

As the diary Go Ask Alice, written by an anonymous girl, progresses the audience is able to take a deeper look into the downward spiral that the main character goes into. Alice begins her diary because she has no one else to talk to, and she spends her energy searching not for drugs, but for someone who understands her. Once she is introduced, the drugs only create a temporary illusion that she is in touch with people, nature, etc. Her purpose of illustrating the growth of what it is like living as a teenage drug user and the outcome of her life that her addiction caused is shown through her use of parallels and expressive prose.
       One of the positive aspects of this diary is that Alice is a very good writer allowing her to lace her unhappy vision of the world with poetic and sensitive language. Through this Alice puts a focal point on the parallels between the two different worlds that she lives in, one being the real world and the other being the fantasy world. The real world is surrounded by her home with her parents, her home with her grandmother, the homes of parties she attends with her friends, the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley, and eventually a psychiatric hospital ward. The fantasy world is everything she sees and believes in when it comes to her hallucinations. Due to the use of drugs, a parallel is created between the real world and everything that she used to know. When showing that parallel between these two different worlds, we can see that Alice thinks and acts differently when she lives in each place. 

        Most of all, Alice wants someone to talk to and because of her longing to do so, she uses the diary to fulfill her need to talk about things, promoting her expressive prose style. From the beginning, the audience notices that Alice feels like she has to hide her identity with others, however when it comes to her Diary, she can be her true self. As she goes deeper into the counterculture, drugs replace the diary as the center of her attention, but even so she still maintains her devotion to it. The diary's use finally comes to an end when when Alice gets rid of it because she feels she wants to share herself with other people, the tool that once allowed Alice to better communicate and understand herself has served its purpose and is no longer being used. 

         The author does a good job of achieving her purpose because the diary is able to highlight her initial innocence which soon progresses into into a character much different than she had ever expected. The book may have been confusing at times because of the constant ups and downs that were apart of Alice's life, also the fact that in the end it seems as though there is hope for her but it is revealed since the beginning that Alice died 3 weeks after she stopped writing in the diary. However, this does not take away from the purpose of the book because it exposes the audience to the harsh realities of drug users.

TOW #17: Go Ask Alice (IRB)

In the anonymously written diary, Go Ask Alice, the author describes her experience of being immersed into the world of drugs. The diary begins with Alice moving to another town because of her father's new job. She is just a normal teenage girl facing boy problems and weight issues, still very innocent with very little issues. At a party she attends, she is introduced to LSD for the first time when she is handed a laced drink, this changed her life forever and pushes her into a direction of constantly being under the influence.  The author's purpose of expressing the built up emotions and thoughts that a drug addicted teenager would have at that point of her life was well backed up through the use of clear symbolism and thorough use of smilies.
        One of the key devices to focus on in this book is the use of symbolism. Not only does it help illustrate what she is experiencing, but it also offers an insight into her mind and how it affects her as a character. Throughout the book Alice has a reoccurring fear of maggots and worms as they come out in her dream and she keeps thinking about them eating the dead bodies. Her first revelation of this fear was when she, "I [she] had a nightmare last night about Gramps' body all filled with maggots and worms, and I [she] thought about what would happen if I [she] should die." Although it is a gross image, as she goes further into the description of maggots and worms eating her there is a clear symbol that is seen. At first, her fear of the maggots focuses around the loneliness of her individual mind. Part of her fear is that she is unaware of what happens to a body underground that is hidden from sight. Alice's loneliness connects to this anxiety, that she fears no one knows what is happening in her mind. Later on when she is in a hospital, she remembers the "dead things and people" that were "pushing" her into a casket, becoming something that seeks to harm Alice. The audience is able to interpret the maggots and worms as instances of destructive impulses in society that Alice has incorporates into low self-esteem as if society is "pushing" her inside the coffin just how it has pushed her into drugs, away from her family, and even further away from reality. 
        Due to the fact that this book is centered around drugs, Alice often uses similes and metaphors to compare her experiences in a way that the audience will be able to take a look into how she is feeling. Her perception of being under the influence is often described in a positive way, especially when she says, "last night was like reaching heaven". Her comparison to experiencing drugs for the first time to heaven shows that she had a really good time and this contributes to how she becomes hooked into having an addiction. In another situation Alice explains that her and her peers were, "all crying unashamedly and like babies". By describing the way they were crying like babies, it is easy to see the extent of how Alice's emotions were heightened at the moment of when a certain event took place. She is able to make it dramatic and something that the audience can connect to because they have experienced that feeling at some point in their lives. 
         The author does a good job of achieving her purpose because she is able to utilize the rhetorical devices into an expressive way that helps the audience see into Alice's mind and her emotions. By repeatedly mentioning her fear throughout the book, we are able to see a clearly defined symbol that allows us to look into the deeper side of how drugs have affected Alice. At the same time the author also blatantly states her feelings and experiences through similes and compares them instances that the audience can understand, making it easier to see the main character's expression of emotions. 

TOW #16: Visual Text

A political cartoon published by cartoonist Steve Kelley, a Dartmouth graduate and Pulitzer Prize winner, shows a cartoonist sitting at the head of the table with his family during a thanksgiving meal. When the family is saying what they are thankful for, the cartoonist says that he is thankful for “Joe Biden, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, the Tea Party, the Cheney sisters, and most of all Obamacare.” Kelley’s purpose in providing these topics is to make fun of them but also at the same time to make fun of the cartoonists that have to be grateful for these foolish topics because in turn these topics are what provide them with jobs. 
         One of the main rhetorical devices that Kelley uses is irony. Usually at Thanksgiving when people say what they are thankful for, they talk about positive things and good things that are happening in their lives. They also may mention things that are good for a community, such as good health, family, or spending time with loved ones. As opposed to saying those things, the cartoonist in the picture instead says things that are controversial. However, it is ironic because the things he says give him a job, and provide him with something to write about, therefore the reason why he is grateful for them. 
           I believe that Steve Kelley does a good job at achieving his purpose. He provides a list of topics that have been on the news in the past and are controversial but still relevant. The audience for this cartoon was mostly Americans or anyone who is aware of what is going on in North American politics. Other political cartoonists would also be likely to enjoy the cartoon. Part of what helps achieve his goal is that when the audience reads through the list, they are able to make a humorous connection between the items listed and the news items that have caused some to think these are humorous topics.

Tow #15: How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus By Jim Taylor

Nowadays in our society, technology is becoming a growing aspect that is a part of people's everyday lives, and is also bringing up the controversy of whether or not it's harmful. Many use it for teaching and ease of everyday life, whereas others choose to keep their children away form it. Jim Taylor, a professor for Psychology at the University of San Francisco, looks to show his perspective differently. Taylor argues that rather than harming children, technology simply changes the way they think and focus through analogy and exemplification.
        Taylor begins by using an analogy of scuba diving and jet skiing to illustrate the different types of focus that it takes to read compared to just easily searching it on the internet. He claims, "book reading is like scuba diving in which the diver is submerged in a quiet, visually restricted, slow-paced setting with few distractions and, as a result, is required to focus narrowly and think deeply. In contrast, using the Internet is like jet skiing, in which the jet skier is skimming along the surface of the water at high speed, exposed to a broad vista, surrounded by many distractions, and only able to focus fleetingly on any one thing". By using this analogy, Taylor shows that even though reading requires a person to focus on one specific thing, searching the internet requires someone to scan many options and focus on many. By showing this to the audience, he illustrates that technology changes the way the younger generation thinks. Instead of learning to completely focus on one thing, technology teaches children to take in large amounts of information at once. The analogy of jet skiing and scuba diving helps the author achieve his purpose of portraying the difference. 
   In the text, Taylor aso uses exemplification to show the validity of his argument and to relay that technology is not as bad as others think. He includes "Research shows that, for example, video games and other screen media improve visual-spatial capabilities, increase attentional ability, reaction times, and the capacity to identify details among clutter". Taylor frequently quotes studies and other facts to back up his argument and provide ethos. By doing this, he is adding credibility to his argument, making his claim even stronger. Showing that studies and other accredited psychologists agree with Taylor's perspective creates an ethical appeal and causes the audience to believe what he is saying. 
   I believe that Taylor does a very good job on achieving his purpose because his argument is different than others regarding the effects of technology. Instead of simply arguing whether or not technology is good or bad, he uses an analogy and exemplification to show to the audience that technology changes the way children think and teaches them in a different way.