Blog Post #4: Context Analysis

When viewing and determining the contexts of this video, “Not Ready To Make Nice,” by the Dixie Chicks, it is very important to first understand the context in which it was created. The 2006 song, though powerful and very unrepentant, was written to, for lack a better phrase, “make nice” with the American public after the Dixie Chicks’ lead singer, Natalie Maines, made off-the-cuff remarks at a London concert about how she was "ashamed"to be from the same state as then President George W. Bush. The uproar and outrage about her comments surged through the relatively country music community and drove their songs and albums off the charts. For the next three years the Dixie Chicks all but disappeared. But in 2006 they resurfaced with a new album and were “mad as hell.” Thus, “Not Ready To Make Nice,” was born.

There are many other contexts in which to view the video for “Not Ready To Make Nice.” One important context is an aesthetic context. All of the choices made in the video were deliberate and significant. The dark setting and strategic lighting set up the mood and feeling for the video. The girls dressed in white, innocent and pure, are smeared with black paint, representing the way that their names were smeared and tainted. Also, the black paint stained on their hands that they are unable to wipe off is an aesthetic decision and visual representation of the words spoken that you can never take back, can never wipe away. The black and white color scheme chosen for the video is also an aesthetic decision representing the stark nature of our world and how things are either one way or the other, that they are black or white, no grey. Also, another important aesthetic aspect of the video is the pained and anguished looks that cover the faces of all the people in the video. This is seemingly genuine pain displayed metaphorically by the women of the Dixie Chicks as a visual representation of the turbulence and persecution weathered by the group in the years following Maines’s comments.

It is also pertinent to view this video in an institutional context. For example, when the women are sitting in the schoolroom setting and Natalie is called up to write on the board, “To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming.” This plays on the notion of how students are punished in schools and forced to write out sentences stating what they did wrong over and over again. And that is seemingly what happened to the Dixie Chicks. They were treated like children, incapable of individual thinking and forced to admit what they had done over and over again as a form of "punishment." Another prime example best viewed from an institutional context is the scene in which they appear to be in a doctor’s office or operating room. Two of the women are trying to hold the other down. This is suggestive of how little choice is often given in institutional systems and repressive they can be. Both the educational and medical examples when viewed in an institutional context seem to take on a contextual meaning of repression and that it would be in your best interest to stick with the status-quo, because if you don’t there will be consequences and the blood, or in this case, ink, will be on your hands.

Blog Post #2: Web 2.0 Video

Our world is constant and ever changing. There are new leaps in technology and science every single day. This video, created by Michel Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, is a prime example of that change. It demonstrates how stagnant paper and pencil writing is, and how fluid and malleable the web and technology have become.

This video is an example of how far humans have come in terms of communication and suggests where we might be headed in the future. It shows sharp contrast between how we have communicated in the past, the pencil writing, and not only how we communicate now, but also how we will continue evolve communication in the future. It suggests that because of all of the evolutions in technology we must rethink copyrights, authorship, ethics, identity, and ourselves.

The video begins slowly, showing simple writing with pencil and paper, and then typing and erasing, copying and pasting, and then turns into a flurry of activity as it begins to show html coding, hyper linking, websites, blogs, video, and all of the hundreds of ways we have taught computers to help us communicate with one another. While there is no way to understand all of the information shown in the video, there is a very definite purpose to that decision. The purpose is to visually explain to the viewer that although they use most of these types of communication every day, they actually understand very little about how all of it works.

The creator’s use of logos throughout the video is very effective. Not only does the video introduce many different ideas and suggestions about technology, it demonstrates the argument in real time. Reason and rationality are used throughout the video to support each claim made as well as examples provided for each different idea.

My reaction to the video was that it was an excellent example of a medium addressing another medium. It is a video about Web 2.0 using Web 2.0. I felt that gave it great credibility, as the video is the suggested answer to the arguments that it itself presents. I think this video really makes you stop and think about all of the ways that we use technology and communication. It is easy to jump on to your Facebook page, check your Twitter account, update your blog, and watch a video on YouTube without thinking about all that has gone into making them, how they were developed or considering how they have changed our world. This video really made me think not only about how we use technology, but how it has affected our society. Our world is ever changing, and because of leaps in technology, such as Web 2.0, we must rethink ourselves.

Blog Post #1: Quotation On Writing

"One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language." - Densie Levertov

This quote about writing from Denise Levertov encompasses many different aspects of writing. It states that it is each writer’s responsibility to use language to the best of their individual ability and describe the world as they see it using the language that they have a firm grasp of and understand. The quote also discusses how varied writing can be. It describes how diverse language is and how people utilize language differently to cater to different audiences and communities, convey purpose, and construct an effective argument. This means that in order for writing to be effective and enjoyable everyone needs to employ the use of the best language that they can. That doesn’t always mean using the most sophisticated language, but language that is accessible to the author and relevant to their audience.

In writing, no matter what the understanding of language, it is important to consider who your audience is and write in a style and context that will help them best understand you. In Compose, Design, Advocate, it is stated that, "Everything you do or say not only conveys information to your audience, but it sets up a relationship between you and them, and that relationship influence how things go" (p. 80) So everything that you say and how you say it matters. So as Levertov describes, when you are talking about and dealing with the world around you, you must describe it using the most appropriate language.

This also ties in with the context in which someone is writing. Once the audience has been determined, the pretense under which you are writing and the context of the writing will greatly effect the language that is used to form an argument and convey it’s purpose. Compose, Design, Advocate explains this by stating, "The audience is always feeling something, but what you say and do can redirect their mood and build a set of emotional responses that influences in turn how the audience hears your words." (p. 82) This is in essence saying that the audience will find some meaning in whatever you write, but how you write and the context of that you write it in directly effects what they are going to react and understand what you are trying to convey.

This quote from Denise Levertov states that it is the responsibility of a writer to convey all that they can and use the best language that is available to them. She encompasses not only the idea that we should write everything we can about the world, but that when we do it we need to consider our audience, our purpose, our context, and our argument.

TEST POST