Margaret Kiernan Reflection

I have always taken a minimalist approach when creating web pages for my work. I choose to focus more on simplicity and ease of use over fancy bells and whistles. I find it more aesthetically pleasing when pages are balanced formally. I like to have the material evenly distributed on the page. I enjoy letting the material speak for itself rather than dress it up with distracting images and design. I don't believe in using a lot of different fonts as I feel like it can be hard to look at against different backgrounds.

As far as things like psychological implication goes, I use different shades of green on my webpages. According to the rules of design articles, this suggests influence and contentment. It is a very calming and welcoming color.

Creative Commons

I, along with my band, have used creative commons licenses for years. In my experience, it is a much more cost effective way to protect my intellectual properties online. We have always used the noncommercial/noderivs license on our material. While we want to be able to share our work for free with the public, we also want to protect our material from being used by outside sources.

This being said though, I realize that these licenses can be hard to police. Once something is placed online, it is pretty much there forever. So a good amount of the license seems to be based on using the honor system and hoping that people will respect the restrictions of your license.

digital rhetoric

While classic rhetoric usually focuses on what is said and how it is said, digital rhetoric focus on visual aesthetic and ease of use.

In terms of web design, a page is less likely to have any foot traffic if it is poorly designed, difficult to navigate, or simply unpleasant to look at.

Internet users want their information to be clear and concise. They expect to be able to access it with minimal effort and they expect it to be easy to digest.

For example, a PDF file containing pages from a scanned text can often be troubling to its readers. More often than not, the pages are scanned at odd angles and can be slightly out of focus. Also, if a reader is trying to read it on their computer, they may find themselves scrolling up and down on the same page to read the text. This example of poorly put together text speaks to the quality of its digital rhetoric. The amount of effort a reader would have to put in is frustrating.

As I said earlier, classic rhetoric tries to persuade an audience with eloquent speaking. Digital rhetoric has to rely on visuals to persuade an audience; be it to sell a product or simply to gain readership.

Hypertext Exploratory Writing

I've been going through my interests and subjects I feel strongest in and I feel like I could write at length and with the most interest about cult cinema. Namely cult sci-fi/horror films of the late 70s/early 80s. I feel like I could find a lot of interesting and amusing information to link into my essay. My goal here is to put together an essay that would not only be enjoyable for me to write but enjoyable for the reader as well.

Rhetoric

I feel that most of the readings we've come across this semester use the tenets of rhetoric in one way or another, whether they mean to inform or persuade an audience. The rhetors will often use ethos in their favor by using their academic credentials to back up their arguments. The rhetor is also aware of the factors in which their arguments will be presented and who the audience and will adjust to the situation accordingly. Arguably the most important factor is how the rhetor approaches decorum. The words they use and how well they are put together is often the deciding factor for an audience.

Online Identity

I've actually never joined an online forum. While some are use wells of information, most of them feel like a room full of angry men in fedoras shouting at each other in the dark. Most of my  experience comes from reading through forums that are directed toward bass players. As a musician, it helped being able to get good first hand accounts about gear before I went out and bought it. Though it never made me want to participate in any of the conversations.

Danah Boyd Article

In the article, Boyd tries to challenge the idea that friends you make online aren't as valid as the friends you have in real life. And to a certain extent I agree. The rise of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and even the nightmarish ChatRoulette have given people the ability to connect with other folks that happen to have the same interests.

On the other hand, if you work at it, you can be anyone you want on the internet. More often than not people's public personae infrequently match up with their online personae.