The situation I have chosen to look at is a common one: times people have been fooled by the Onion, a satirical news site. One situation in particular that I will focus on is when the Beijing Evening News ran a story on Congress threatening to leave D.C. after reading an article titled “Congress Threatens to Leave D.C. Unless New Capital Is Built,” which can be found here. The Washington Post reports, “While the Beijing Evening News originally refused to run a retraction, even challenging Western reporters to prove that their article was wrong, it later offered a printed apology to readers.” According to the Post, part of the apology read, “Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money…That is what the Onion does.”
There are several things that went wrong in this instance of digital communication. First, there was a misunderstanding due to the genre the Onion was writing in. While the Onion appears to be writing in the genre of most news sources, it is only using those genre conventions for a humorous purpose. This is where context comes in; the Onion is meant to be read with an understanding that most of the information in the articles is false, and the audience is not meant to take anything the Onion writes as fact. However, somebody who is not from the United States or even a person from the United States who is not familiar with the Onion or satire may not have the background necessary to understand the Onion’s context or genre. Audience is especially important in this case, because the audience for the Onion is not people trying to discover what the actual news it. The audience is people who are looking for a humorous and likely not factual take on the news. The Chinese newspaper that published the article was not the target audience for the Onion piece, as they were looking for actual news. The situation from So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed that most reminds me of this situation is from Chapter 4, when Justine Sacco tweeted something that she assumed would be funny but that was not perceived as humorous by others. The main similarity is the idea that humor does not always come across well on the internet, and something that is meant to be funny by one person can be taken completely seriously by another. When it comes to satire and sarcasm, especially, it is difficult to comprehend tone. Justine Sacco’s comments were offensive, while the Onion’s story was simply inaccurate, but both situations showcase the difficulty of identifying tone in online writing. I think that the best way to deal with this issue is to think twice before writing or publishing something, and to always check your sources. These are very basic pieces of advice, but I’ve found that people are often willing to post or share things that they have not bothered to do the slightest amount of research on. In the case of the Chinese newspaper publishing an article based on the Onion article, research into the Onion and their reputation as a fake news site might have saved them to trouble of printing a false story. To create my logo, I took the iconic image of Hamlet holding the skull and turned it into a silhouette. The photograph I used to do this is actually the one from our photo drive that was taken at the Nashville performance. I decided to use this photo because, although I tried to think of other iconic images and themes from the play, it felt most natural to use that one. There is something to be said for inviting audiences in with something familiar, even if we are trying to highlight what is different about this particular adaptation of Hamlet.
For my site mock-up, I decided to make it as simple as possible. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to highlight the photographs, and I found that a clean and simple way of doing that was to use a photograph for each link to another part of the page. I chose to divide the page into six different photographs, which link to pages on adaptation, costumes, actors, interviews, venue, and reviews. At the bottom of the page, there is another navigation bar that leads back to this home page, to the archive home page, and to a photo gallery. The fonts I used are Lato and Playfair Display. Playfair Display is my serif font, and Lato is sans-serif, which I only used for the navigation bar at the bottom. There is a lot of black and white in my design; the words on the pictures are white, and the title and bottom navigation bar are both black. The background is white. The photographs add color to the page, although not a specific color. My intention in designing both the site mock-up and logo was to create something simple but compelling. I don’t like sites that are trying to do too much, and I think that my design has the necessary elements without crowding the page. Any audience can navigate the page with ease, and it appeals to people who are interested in visuals. I did not highlight the Nashville element of the show, but I think that the information on the adaptation and venue pages would sufficiently explain what sets this version of Hamlet apart from others, while the home page emphasis the global nature of Hamlet and what is the same about it everywhere. I made my site by using a template, but I found that the template I chose, while very simple, was still too complicated for my purposes. I ended up deleting a lot of the html and using only very basic parts of the template, including the footer and the navigation bar at the top of the page. Initially, the template had a sidebar that expanded when clicked on, but I found this unnecessary when there was already a navigation bar at the top of the page.
I changed the number of tabs in the navigation bar to four. The first one links to the starting page, the second to an “about me” section, the third to a page of my own pictures, and the fourth to my list of desert island books. I made sure that each page could link to each other page, which was actually much easier than I anticipated it being. The most difficult part of creating the site was probably sizing my pictures correctly. There was a lot of guesswork involved. I’m sure that there was probably an easier way of figuring out how big my pictures needed to be, but my guess and check method eventually resulted in success. I didn’t have a grand vision of what I wanted from this project, because I am a realize and I know that using html doesn’t come naturally to me. Some parts of the site exceeded my expectations; I really like the way the background image looks, for instance, and I like the navigation bar with the font I choose for it. Some other parts didn’t go as well; I ran out of time working on my photo page and only included four. I meant to add captions to each one, but I could figure out how to do that in a way that would look good, so I ended up leaving the photos on their own. The link I included is to my Weebly blog. I think it looks a little awkward by itself at the bottom of my “about me” page, but I didn’t want to include it in the paragraphs on that page, either. If I was better at html and coding, I would have liked to make my home page a bit more polished, and I would have wanted to make my name a lot larger and in the middle of the screen. I also would have liked to create a photo gallery that looked nicer. The modes I used in this project are visual, linguistic, and spatial. The visual choice I made to include a background photo is probably the most significant visual choice I made. My intention is that it will make people enjoy looking at the site. My linguistic choices were not as well thought out as they normally are, because I was so focused on the design element. Overall, my intention with modes is to make an appealing site. I think my most noticeable design element is alignment, because I aligned most of the items on my pages to the left. In general, I tried to make my design as simple as possible, because I prefer sites that don’t force the audience to take in too much at once. I want my audience to perceive me as calm person who enjoys simplicity. The site for Globe to Globe Hamlet, http://globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com/, has two intended audiences; those who are interested in seeing the show and those who are interested in donating. These audiences likely overlap to some extent. At the top of the page there are two places you can click to explore the page and see pictures from performances, and slightly further down the page there are links to the blog, the latest show, and other social media accounts, as well as links to prior years’ information. At the very bottom of the page there is a link to donate to Globe to Globe Shakespeare. A person using this website would likely be here to find out more about the show or donate to it. The purpose of this website is to provide information about Globe to Globe Shakespeare, including the current season and an archive of previous seasons. Along with providing information, the website serves the purpose of convincing people to watch the show or tell others about it, as well as make a donation to the cause. These purposes come across through the layout of the site, which provides links to more information on the play and for donations. Another purpose of the site is to promote the play on social media, as there are links to different social media platforms on the site and people are encouraged to connect with Globe to Globe Shakespeare. Since it can be accessed by anyone with internet access, this site exists within the context of the internet. Readers will likely access it on their phones or computers, and it is designed with the knowledge that readers are less likely to make it through large chunks of text on a webpage. The images used on the main page of the website draw connections to the traveling aspect of the performance. While it is not explicitly stated that each image is from a different place, most people would be able to use cultural and context clues to understand that the images are representing different parts of the world. This text has an implied author, Shakespeare’s Globe. While the text was really authored by a variety of people not explicitly named, the site is published by an organization called Shakespeare’s Globe, and the information presented is theirs. Shakespeare’s Globe uses photographs and videos of past performances to establish credibility. They also include a post about President Obama visiting, which serves as a sort of celebrity endorsement. The genre of this text, very specifically, is websites about Shakespeare performances. It includes many of the same elements as other Shakespeare drama sites, because it includes past archives, current shows, social media links, a donation page, an a performance schedule. Rhetorically, this site is presenting information of Globe to Globe Shakespeare performances in order to inform people, convince them to attend shows, and/or convince them to donate to the organization. The use of videos, photos, and links throughout the website provides a somewhat organized experience for the website user to find more information about any of those things. My online presence is tied to the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Tumblr, as well as my Spotify account and the blog my friends and I started (and ended) in middle school. The most accessible of all of these is probably my Facebook page, which I started as a senior in high school. The least accessible is likely my blog, since it does not use my name, my email, or any real identifying factors, and can only be accessed with a direct link. I view social media as a way to connect with people I actually care about, and my curation of my accounts reflects this. I don’t post often to Facebook and Instagram and choose only to accept requests from people I know in real life. The pictures I choose to post are often about people or places that are important to me. The only person I follow on Spotify is my sister, since I like to use her playlists. I have playlists on my account that chronicle my changing music tastes as well as what I have consistently liked to listen to since I was a sophomore in high school. My Tumblr account was created for Dr. Stover’s creative nonfiction class, and is password protected. It hasn't been used since I finished the class. My Pinterest is mostly for my own use; I haven’t connected with anyone on it and I only use it to save recipes that I want to try later. Even if I had followers on Pinterest, my boards are secret and not visible to the public. All of my social media accounts are private, and I am picky about whose request I accept. By limiting who can see my posts, I feel less anxiety about what I am posting; I don’t worry about whether or not the people my posts will think they’re cool or worthwhile, because I’m mostly posting them for me and the people I care about. As a whole, I am as much of an introvert on social media as I am in real life. I don’t comment much except for on my very close friends’ posts, and I don’t make very many posts myself. My Facebook page is mostly me being tagged in photos by my social media savvy friends. My lack of social media savviness is intentional, to some degree. My curation has consisted of building boundaries that allow me to post what I think is interesting or appropriate. I’m not sure about the rest of my curating process; how do I decide if a picture is right for Instagram, or if I should start a new Spotify playlist? Mostly, these platforms serve as a place for me to share things about myself with others, and choosing what to share is important. But I don’t have a conscious set of criteria. Some people and places just seem worthy of a post. Some days I feel inclined to put the songs I’ve been thinking about into a playlist. As a whole, my online presence is limited, especially to those I am not friends with. I don’t post often, and don’t have a conscious set of criteria for what I post. The curation of my online presence has been much more unconscious than it has been conscious. |
AuthorDigital Literacies student Archives
October 2018
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