Artifacts Analysis Paper!

My Interview for my Writing Artifact Analysis is one my friends and mentor. The man is a legend in my eyes because - for the last 6 years – he has been steering the music scene of Santa Barbara out of the depths and back to a place where it is cool again for musicians and music fans alike to go support local shows. His Program: New Noise Santa Barbara is Santa Barbara’s mecca music conference and festival where music lovers, artists and innovators all come together for a 4-day event in the heart of Santa Barbara and celebrate and expose themselves to what is cool and new about music! He was unable to send me any complimentary artifacts before this paper needed to be written so I did some research on my own to uncover what public artifacts New Noise SB has implemented.

My first Artifact is the “about” page of New Noise Santa Barbara’s Website. Its layout features the company branding and logo for 2014’s festival. The colors are of a blood orange and contrasting white, black and yellow. The warm, but harsh tones are reminiscent to the punk and early alternative style genres. The logo for this last year’s site also features a lightning bolt that is striking between the “New” and the “Noise” of the logo. This theme’s symbolism says to me that lighting does strike the same place twice! In this case, 6 years in a row for this music festival. On either side of this spectacle is quick and legible information concerning need-to-know facts such as: dates of the fest, history, and location.  Underneath this heading are links to more information such as media (pictures, video, articles) and a blog link. There is also an option of a pdf download of this last year’s festival program of which we will discuss later. 

Next section down is all of the organization’s social media links: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as well as an email signup field. This area of the webpage is congruent throughout the website. I interpret this convention of the “about” page to be the open hand of the festival toward its fans to allow them to become more than just a participant, but an advocate and possibly a volunteer or member of the organization.

Finally I get to the writing of the “about” section, where we discover why New Noise is what it is. The beginning explains what is the primary function of New Noise, where it is hosted and for how long. It also addresses its audience upfront with a “who?” section. This is a great tactic because it will immediately set the tone for the intended audience or it will detour uninterested readers from continuing and possibly becoming frustrated with the provided information. This section talks about how New Noise brings like-minded people in one beautiful place to celebrate music and it’s industry. This convention is appealing the audience’s pathos or emotion to become connected with like-minded people. It says to me that if I go, I’m going to make friends, network with inspiring and knowledgeable people, and have a lot of fun. The Next section is a historical reference that is labeled “ Past Performances” and “Past Speakers”. This section speaks to the ethos or credibility of the festival. The reader who sees this section will note all of the recognizable names of artist and weigh those into consideration when contemplating attending this festival this coming year.  

In conjunction with these performances and speakers a list of all the sponsored business for the festival also speaks to the reader’s logos or logic that this festival is backed by large and local companies which means it must be legitimate and a large scale event to have the trust the business to repeatedly sponsor the festival. These conventions are all apart of the “about” page genre to pursued the festival’s intended audience that it is a legitimate, emotionally satisfying experience and has been this way for the festival’s history.

My Second Artifact is a chain of emails between a few bands, He, myself, and the venue owner for a show from last year’s New Noise Music Festival. This Email Genre I will call the “Show Details and Confirmation” artifact. These emails are an essential part to event planning of live shows and are carried out in different ways depending upon the formality of the audience and the writer.

My Interviewee begins the conversation and genre by thanking the headlining band for their return to New Noise Fest. By doing so sets the tone of the email as a familiar and friendly conversation among the participants. Following his display of gratitude the email contains the name, location of the venue, itinerary for the evening and participants involved. The itinerary is broken down into chronological bullet points so that the information is interpreted easily and is laid out in a chronological order for the intended audience. This section is concluded with a list of volunteers and personnel who will be present to help perform and carry out all the details of the itinerary as well as a check for understanding of the email’s content and an invitation to any questions or concerns of any of the participants. 

The Kairos (timing) of this artifact is very important and is sent out as soon as all the pieces are in place so that if there is any objection or complication arises to the itinerary it can be corrected in a timely manner. An example that arose from this necessary karios was a response from the Headlining band who mentioned that they would not be able to make the scheduled load in time because their travel time between cities would not be manageable on that time table. In this instance, the “Show Details and Confirmation” genre does what it then intended to do, make an available and documented chain of communication between all parties involved in the planning and execution of the event.  Another example would be questions that arose from the other artists considering the sharing of equipment on stage so that they would not have load and unload everything. This artifact’s tone and conventions are an informal discussion piece where participants can be informed, get their concerns addressed and contribute feedback and intentions on the event they are all apart of.

The previously mentioned artifact, The Festival’s Program Guide, is it’s own genre its self. It intended use is to inform people the daily itinerary for the festival’s happenings. This Guide is a rhetorical tool to appeal to an audience’s “kairos” or aim and timing. When a participant or reader looks at their program guide they are provided with options based around the timing of specific events in the festival. There is also a demonstration of Logos or persuasive facts all over the guide – show times, speaker and forum descriptions, locations and sponsorships – for people to be enticed by. The Tone of this Artifact is extremely formal and instills high level of professionalism in its organization, easy to follow information, branding and theme. The intended audience is all current participants and potential ones.  Finally the historical notes about the festival being around for 6 years and it prestigious performances and speakers as well as it’s large sponsorship speaks to the audience’s ethos and creates a legitimacy around the event and organization. 

SUP!

Reading for Class Week 4!

This week’s reading is an examination of how companies or political and social campaigns go about making arguments for or against their products, beliefs, policies or services. The chapter starts off by comparing Lady GaGa, Kanye West and Bob Dylan. Their connection is that they are all personas and the faces of corporate brands. The chapter uses them as the archetypes for examining the essence of why and how they are being used in an argument for their respected brands.

Bob Dylan’s was a shock to me. Bob Dylan’s song was the soundtrack for a Victoria’s Secret launch where he was apart of the commercial. This “out-of-left-field” approach to their marketing and image startled a lot of people. The Argument that wasn’t apparent was stemming from a deeply hidden ironic twist where Dylan had been on record saying that if his songs were to be used in advertising he would want to sell women’s undergarments.

Despite the obvious shock value that one gets from a commercial like that there are other reasons businesses make arguments about their products or services. Often policy makers will try and persuade you with pathos: a emotional reaction towards visual, auditory stimulation. Like policy against drunk driving where you have a picture of a empty chair at a family gathering and say there words: “Drunk Driving during the holidays kills 30,000 people every year.” The image says that that empty seat would be filled with a person if they hadn’t or if someone hadn’t drank and drove.

Organizations will also use ethos – someone who is of authority on the matter being discussed – as a method of persuasion. When you see the doctors at the end of the skin care adds, they are a supposed licenses physician who approves the product for consumer use.  There are a millions of situations where these techniques are used to argue.

The analysis of the reading can be broken down to two things. What we are observing in an arguments and how we can understand how they relate to the situation. I think that I really enjoyed these chapters because it makes you second-guess what is being funneled into our eyes and hears and mouth. We are being exposed to it all the time and we seldom ever ask why things are the way they are. Why my coke is red. Why Barak Obama says what he says. Why I am wearing my shoes. How we got here is a series of arguments and we aligned with and now we are the physical embodiment.

Thoughts?

SENT LETTER

Here is my first draft for my Interview Assignment! 

Email Rough Draft. Recipient is left anonymous for their confidentiality. 

Blog 2

This weeks reading was awesome! I learned and was refreshed on a lot of the material. The texts were about how to use digital and media and crafting electronic messages for intended audiences. The texts explained how they are used and why we should use them in professional and informal circumstances. It covered emails, Instant Messages, Short Messages, blogs, and podcasts. I have used most of these mediums in my previous businesses, but I was enlightened to the formal etiquette of emails and social media. In the past, I have often used Social Media like Facebook and Instagram to plug many of my events and promotions to my followers, but never had an overwhelming response. I think it was an “aha” moment for me when I read that social media post should incite more of a conversation than advertising blast of information. With this insight I plan on rethinking my social media posts for my business ventures in the future and look forward to tracking its effects on my followers. I think that I have also been a naive promoter of quantity is better than quality in my electronic media. The reading shed light on the steps a lot of professionals go through when posting or sending any writing on electronic media.  They use a simple 3 steps of planning, writing the subject matter for a particular audience, and ending with a review of the writing and a fond farewell. These examples of the professional writing process were supplemented by the understanding rhetoric reading, which addressed the writing identity an author of any writing should assume given their audience and the issues that they are writing about. For instance: I am writing a blog. My audience is my professor and my classmates and even though it’s a public blog the writing I am posting is intended to speak to the criteria of the group or audience I am writing for.  I am in effect wearing my insightful and introspective student hat for these postings.

How do some of you readers and classmates see how our reading this last week relates directly with our blogs?

Let me know!

Thanks,

-Kyran  

Me and the Reading!~

FIRST BLOG!!!

So, My Name is Kyran Million. I anticipated that this first blog would be about my reading for my academic writing class so I will include my response to my reading after my introduction.

I am 26 years old. I was born in Santa Barbara and am the 6^th Generation of Santa Barbarians in my family. I was just recently engaged to my fiancé Clancy! She is amazing and beautiful and she is my very best friend. I have two cats and dog that take up a lot of my free time and I enjoy playing music. I play in a band called Young Million. I’ve been signed to record label and played music in Europe and the United States. My favorite meal is always a great salad, Buffalo wings and a tall beer. I play beach volleyball and am quite a fan of board games. If you have any more questions about who I am and what I’m about I love people and getting to know more about all of you so please ask me when you see me in Class.

That was a Cool read! I thoroughly enjoyed the graphic text portion of “Understanding Rhetoric” reading. I thought that it was an engaging spin on applying the concepts of Rhetoric in a range of different learning styles. The reading brought back a lot of fundament concepts that I had forgotten such as Aristotle’s Pathos, Ethos, and Logos concepts of Rhetoric. Moving forward, I can see how applying these concepts will make me a more effective writer and help me appeal to my intended audiences. I also loved how they began with encouraging exploring your own mind and physical spaces where writing takes place as sources of inspiration. I think this helped me make conclusions about how I would like to go about my personal writing processes for future projects and subjects.

“Everything is an Argument” was a good read and used a lot of the same concepts and tools that were mentioned in the Rhetoric readings. I like discovering the differences between how arguments are used, when they are being used and why. Understanding why certain arguments are used and how makes all the difference when you are either convincing or persuading your audience. I never really thought about it before, but the reading highlighted the three occasions for arguments and what details in the conversation should be highlighted and presented for a good argument. Arguments about the past should rely on “forensic” or facts that have already occurred. Present or “epideictic” focus on praise or blame of a thing or individual and future, “Deliberative” will deal with what opposing opinions should do about a theoretical occurrence or events to come.  These types of arguments are not with out witness or scrutiny however, and all of the different instances where an argument can take place must be placed in context and have an audience. The text also takes these two factors into consideration and explains that not only must an argument have the rhetoric to be compelling, but the audience and context of the arguments creation will also determine the outcome of which argument will enact change or influence.

-Kyran