Daniel's "Public Secrets" is a clear example of Jamie Killingsworth's idea that a trope is something an author uses to better relate to his or her audience. This can be done by four methods; identification, association, representation, and closing the distance. Daniel's work is a great example of this because she connected on a closer level with her audience by the medium of her work and the over all design.
By choosing to separate the entire page into inside (black) vs. outside (white) she really created a clear divide between the inside views and the outside views of the penitentiary system. The same feeling associated with this sharp contrast in color could not have been achieved if Daniel had not used this method of delivery for her digital archive.
Daniel also used audio only segments for her digital archive. This resulted in the forced attention you had to spend listening to the audio. Personally I find it harder to listen that to see a video, I would much rather watch a video than to only hear it spoken out loud to me. Listening forces you to pay more attention to what the speakers are saying in order to understand what is really going on. This delivery choice also helps the audience disassociate the speaker from jail, and to limit the emotional triggers that are associated with jail attire and other jail based visuals. I don't think that Daniel is completely trying to eliminate the feelings associated with jail, because the background to the digital library appears to be dark and gloomy as well.
The final thing I noticed was how Daniel decided to use words and phrases from the audio clips to highlight important statements made, and to also serve as a link to play the audio. In Killingsworth's essay he talks about the concept of word meaning. What I was able to grasp was that a word alone has little meaning but together they build a greater meaning. So by Daniel choosing which words and phrases to use as text, she is building up the meaning and emotion associated with the clip before it is even played.
I believe Daniel did a great job of serving as an example of Killingsworth's concept of a trope. Daniel was easily and effectively able to take full advantage of what her method of delivery had to offer. With the archive, she was able to fully get her point across. And in the end, I think that the use of these two texts together is extremely useful and clear to see.
Works Cited:
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. “Appeal Through Tropes.” Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary- Language Approach. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005. 121-135.
Daniel, Sharon. “Public Secrets.” Vectors 2.2 (Winter 2007): n. pag. Web.
http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=57
In my discussion, I leaned more on the second of the two words that Killingsworth uses for the tropes. Your elaboration on the methods as a way for Daniel’s to connect with her audience is great. I completely agree. Daniel’s uses every aspect of her presentation to pull the viewer into her story. The design of the vectors allows the viewer to explore and connect on whatever level they choose. Daniel’s delivery of the black inside and white outside shows a stark contrast. The contrast reinforces the divide Daniel’s is portraying.
ReplyDeleteI found the audio clips very interesting. I think that because there was no face to the voice, it invoked more curiosity. It intrigued me further. I found the quoted titles of the audio clips interesting as well. While all of them sparked my interest, I clicked the ones I thought would be more interesting. Before hearing any of the audio clips though, I ran the mouse across the titles to see what would happen. The different sizes of texts and formatting emphasized the variety of prisoners that reside in the penitentiary.
I think if I were to expand I would go into each of the 4 methods individually and talk about how Daniel addressed each one. I agree that there was a lot of material that could have been used to go more in depth.
ReplyDeleteI also like your observation about text size and how/why Daniel made some text larger than others. I just looked back now and saw that. Hmm, clearly the larger words are more important than the others... But that is also what she thinks and what she is trying to achieve, what if someone on the inside had created this blog. Would they have chosen another word or phrase to highlight?
The way you explained the four different methods as trope is a tool for relating to the audience made a lot of sense of sense to me. I agree with it being harder to focus when it is only audio, because I personally am a visual learner, so it caused me to have to focus even harder on the material at hand, which in turn allow me to greatly understand the material. The multimodal use of Daniel's video really allowed the information to hit home, which made the material have more of an impact. I like how you touched on how a word alone has little meaning, but with accompanying modes there is a greater understanding.
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