Friday, December 2, 2016

Pokemon GO.... and Tell Us About Your Rhetoric

      Augmented reality is growing in popularity to give a virtual spin to the real world. One very popular game that has popped up is Pokémon Go, a game that allows people to catch, train, and battle Pokémon in the real world. Procedural Rhetoric, a term brought to light by Ian Bogost, has a part in this game as it does with most games and John Tinnell brings up how this virtual world is becoming a norm for young people. 
      First going through the procedural rhetoric. This game allows the user to become a Pokémon trainer and customization is necessary to feel more connected to the avatar in the game. Then, as with all Pokémon games, the user will be introduced to the original three Pokémon that will become the first companion. These consist of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle a plant, fire, and water Pokémon. (I chose Charmander. Fire Pokémon always grab my attention).
      When introduced to the first three Pokémon and one is chosen to catch, a Poke ball will appear with the target in the middle of the screen. At this point the user must correctly throw the Poke ball so that it hits the Pokémon. If it is swipes too far left, right, or too hard or too softly, the creature will not be caught and the Poke ball will just sadly roll off to the side.  
      Reality comes into play with this app after this point. Your GPS Location must be turned on so the app can track steps and know where to put Pokémon to catch. This game is supposed to get people out and about in the real world. One of the Poke stops that showed up on my screen was the art mural in USU’s HPER building. These locations allow the player to get points, supplies, and a variety of other things.
      Safety is key with this game, since it can be dangerous to be staring at a screen while walking around in reality. Because of this there are a few features to help with safety. There are reminders to stay aware of surroundings and the phone will vibrate or buzz when a Pokémon is near so the user doesn’t necessarily have to constantly look at a screen.
      The procedure continues as to gain points, hatch eggs, etc., the player must walk and be active. There are numerous items that can be collected, bought, and used in the game to help with the overall experience. There are choices to be made when battling Pokémon and every move has a consequence that can be beneficial or detrimental.
     John Tinnell brings up an interesting point in his article “All the World’s a Link: The Global Theater of Mobile World Browsers.” He quotes McLuhan who said “the result of living inside of a proscenium arch of satellites is that the young now accept the public
spaces of the earth as role-playing areas.” Pokémon Go is a good example of this because this game lets young people, those who grew up playing Pokémon on other devices or with cards, bring the game into reality. Virtual and augmented reality are becoming a social norm in the world as what’s real and what’s fake coincide. With this new technology, the surface of the world becomes a theater.  
      Pokémon Go is an interesting game that many appreciate. It is full of procedural rhetoric, just like any other game, and shows how the world is becoming a stage for young people to paly make-believe. It shows where technology is headed and what is popular.  

   Check out Cody's Blog
   And Sam's Blog 




Friday, November 18, 2016

Big Ben

The following is a video about a Twitterbot and issues involving agency


Check out Bryce's BlogDamien's Blog, or Emily's Blog for another awesome Twitterbot video.


Friday, November 4, 2016

Family Farming


Family Farming
1.       Get together with Peterson Farm Bros. They are a family of farmers living in Kansas. They have a variety of social media accounts, such as Facebook, YouTube, a website, and a TWITTER account which has 8228 followers and 4810 likes.
2.       Create a Tweet that is going to be informational. According to small-bizsense.com , since this is research and pretty serious the layout it going to follow this template. (positive/recommended comment about) “ARTICLE TITLE” http://www.url.com by @Twitteraccount #relevanthashtag.
a.       TWEET: “Without family farms, you would be naked and hungry.  “The State of Family Farms in the World.”  @gregpeterson33 #familiesfeedingtheworld”
                                                              i.      This is the Tweet that will be used to focus on family farms. It is exactly 140 characters with the url linked to the title of the article to save room. It is eye grabbing and personal to get people to think about what would happen to them without agriculture. It is also personal because everyone has a family and certain families in the world help to feed theirs.
3.       Two decisions must be made when someone sees a tweet. First they can choose to pay attention to it, then they can to choose to share it (Nahon and Hemsley 19-20).
4.       Half of all Retweeting happens within the first hour of original tweet, 75% within the first day (Nahon and Hemsley 23). With this information, we want to find the best time to share this content. Twitter peak times are between 11 am and 3 pm Eastern Standard Time. I would suggest sharing the tweet closer to noon when people are going to lunch.

5.       Social tweets tend to last longer than promoted (Nahon and Hemsely 25). The Peterson Farm Bros are not popular enough to be a promotion for this article, but are popular enough to get the article known to thousands of people who can then share it. It should circulate longer as people continue to share it. 

For other Social Media Plans check out Cody's Blog
And Sam's Blog 

Citation
Nahon, Karine, Hemsley, Jeff. "What Virality Is: I Know It When I See It." Going Viral. N.p.: Wiley, Oxford, 2013. 15-40. Print.



Saturday, October 22, 2016

Trump and Clinton are Actually Allies





1. Identification  of  Producers/Creators
a.   Where  did  your  samples  (images,  video,  audio)  come from?
All of our videos came from multiple sources off the internet. Youtube specifically has been the main source of our videos which were uploaded and created by other users. We also used other organizations such as the Huffington Post and NBC.
The Futurama video clip is property of Fox Broadcasting Company
The Simpson clip is property of Fox Broadcasting Company
Video clip of Trump (“Clinton, Yes” & “I want you to be happy”) is property of PBS News Hour and was uploaded to Youtube by the company
Video clip about Hillary stating Trump should not be in charge of the law is property of ABC 15 Arizona (News company) and was uploaded to Youtube by the company
The SNL video clip is property of NBC
Video clip of each candidate exchanging positive words is property of Huffington Post

b.   Who  has  taken  part  in  the  creation  of  these  samples?
i.   Individuals?
The videos we used from Youtube were most likely uploaded by individuals who have an account with Youtube.
ii. A community?
iii.   A company or other organization?
Within the Huffington Post and NBC sources they were creations of those individual organizations.
c.   Do  you  have  a  connection  to  any  of  these  individuals  or  groups?
i.   Is  this  connection  close,  or  does  it  resemble  seven  steps  to  Kevin  Bacon?
The connection we have to both political parties are not closely related, each of us in our group don’t support either candidate. The relation to each of the parties are more closely related to the seven steps to Kevin Bacon.
d.   Do   you  think  your  relation  (or  lack  of  relation)  to  these  individuals  or  groups  gives  you more  or  less  constraints to  sample  and  remix  their  creative  work?
Because we have very little ties to the individuals in the clips we felt very little constraint when remixing the videos. Since no one in our group is strongly for or against the political candidates we felt very free to do what we wanted.

2. Identification of Caring/Wounding a To the best of your ability, please research the groups and/or individuals from whom you have sampled. According to your sources (scholarly, popular, friends, etc.), what are some of the cultural values of these people and their communities? Provide some evidence for your claims. If you identify as a member of one of these communities, explain how you have come to understand the community’s values and how your own understanding of these values might differ from others in the community
Both the Huffington Post and NBC communities are credible sources that had their own view of the individual clips that we sampled. Both sources have professional values that make them a credible source for important information. Obviously SNL (Saturday Night Live) takes a more humorous approach that magnifies each individual's quirks and mistakes. Their values I feel are to be as “accurately humorous” as they can be, Youtube is a pool of varying opinions that allows individuals to post almost anything they want seen by others. They obviously have some values by restricting inappropriate videos/audio onto their website.
b   Identify 3-5 of your acts of sampling in relation to the individuals and/or groups you identified above as either acts of caring or wounding or both. Address the following questions in this identification:
i      In your sampling and remixing, are you potentially contradicting, subverting, changing, or even violating some of the values you researched above? Imagine someone sampling your work (something to which you have dedicated your life) and remixing it into a new work that actually violates the values expressed in your original work or that seems to take credit for authorship without acknowledging you. How do you think the “original” authors would react, should they witness your remix? How might it affect them?
Our video takes a more humorous approach (viewing Trump and Clinton as friends rather than enemies) which would support more of SNL’s values rather than the more professional sources such as Huffington Post and NBC. Our video does take many samples out of context and would possibly offend someone, specifically the clip of Trump agreeing with Hillary that he should not be in charge of the law.
ii    Are you appealing to their values? In other words, do you think the artists you sampled from would endorse how and what you sampled and remixed?
We took a more “SNL” approach towards our sampling by creating a light-hearted clip of the two competitors getting along which again, would be more in line with SNL’s values rather than the other credible sources we used.
iii   Under what conditions might your act of caring be an act of wounding (and vice versa)?
Our video trying to view the two political competitors as friends might wound others that are completely against the other candidate. Someone might view the video that completely despises Donald Trump (Hillary Clinton for example) and would be offended.
c   How might your caring and/or wounding change your relationship to those individuals or groups? Has your opinion of the different individuals and/or groups changed? Why or why not? How?

3 Identification of Ethicality a After completing and reflecting upon the previous sections, ask yourself the following questions:
i Do you consider your acts of wounding and/or caring to be ethical?
No.
i   Why or why not? Can you justify your acts of wounding? How?
With the fact that we are taking almost every sample out of its original context would not make it ethical.
ii   If you decide to distribute your remix, do you think it would be legal?
With the information we have within the video, it would most likely not be legal because there are no sources for which we took our samples from.


Check out another blog@ pwrbb.blogspot.com