Paulina Alvarez

Paulina Alvarez is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. She is majoring in Advertising and Public Relations and double minoring in Digital Media and Psychology. She wrote this essay for her ENC 1102 class during her freshman year. Paulina wishes to continue learning how visual and written components influence human behavior in order to one day create her own effective advertising campaigns as an art director.

Contents

Introduction

Literature Review

Methods

Results & Discussion

Conclusion

Works Cited

Appendix A

Introduction

Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” was ranked as the number one most influential advertisement of our century according to Ad Age. People described it as “groundbreaking, brave, bold, insightful, transparent and authentic” (Neff, n.d.). The campaign’s purpose was not only to sell personal care products but to also try and change societal notions about beauty. As explained by Ad Age, the idea originated in 2003 in the United Kingdom and Canada when Dove decided to launch a series of billboard advertisements featuring regular women instead of professional models. These billboards (Figure 1) asked motorists to vote on whether the women pictured were, for example, “fat or fit” or “withered or wonderful.” The results sparked a conversation about society’s beauty standards for women, allowing Dove to refocus their marketing and advertising strategies around the idea of spreading positive messages about women’s beauty.

The company was determined to create “a new definition of beauty [that] will free women from self-doubt and encourage them to embrace their real beauty” (Pace, 2009, p. 45). This new idea received significant media coverage from multiple talk shows and women’s magazines, generating an estimated media exposure worth 30 times more than the paid-for advertising (Pace, 2009, pp. 44-45). Figuring they were on to something, Dove decided to delve into television commercials and social media to further expand the campaign. Through these channels, the company was able to build successful brand identity, loyalty, and recognition over the years. It fueled a conversation about changing the stereotypical standards of beauty for women, which people appreciated, and even influenced other brands such as Nike, CoverGirl, Pantene, and Always to mimic the marketing and advertising approach.

This article examines how Dove was able to accomplish all of this. To do so, I designed and conducted an IRB-approved study that addressed the following research question: how do the rhetorical elements surrounding Dove’s commercials and social media play a role in creating the company’s successful campaign? I focused on word choices and the pathos and ethos utilized in creating certain themes for the commercials and social media posts that ultimately helped persuade, motivate, and educate Dove’s audience. I analyzed 160 Instagram posts and Tweets and issued a survey asking participants to answer a few questions about their history with Dove and their opinions on three commercials.

There has been some research done in the past directly about Dove and its tactics, but the majority of studies specializing in advertising and digital media focus on the areas surrounding the tools a company like Dove uses, such as commercials and social media. For this reason, I will be further expanding the research available directly relating to Dove and how it uses these specific tools in relation to rhetorical elements.

About the Authors

Polly Card is Senior Video Producer at San Diego State University. She is currently working towards a Ph.D in Education with SDSU/CGU focusing on visual research, race and gender. Pollycard.com

Michelle Ruiz is an instructional designer at the University of California Berkeley. Currently, she is focused on the UC-Mexico Initiative: she designs binational  online courses with faculty from University of California and the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her research interests include issues of equity and binational collaboration in online higher education. Her personal website can be found at mixelle.net.

Contents

Introduction

Context

Positionality & Rationale

Experiencing the World From A New Perspective

The Film

The Film Cont.

Works Cited

Introduction

“Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way.”

--Dead Poets Society, 1989

In this scene from Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character invites his students to climb onto his desk to view the classroom from a new perspective.

The text on the following pages (use navigation at bottom or to the left) and the YouTube film included on this page all intent to invoke this "new perspective."  The film, entitled The Ideological Clarity Machine (ICM), is a short 360 film that follows the day in the life of a transborder student attending community college. It was produced to elicit greater empathy and commitment to supporting men of color in community college.

The film dramatises the experience of transborder students. We interviewed a number of transborder students, including Demitri (see Image 1), and synthesize their experiences into a singular cohesive narrative featuring a singular protagonist. The film’s narrative follows a male Latino student from his home in Tijuana, over the border crossing into California, to community college, then to his place of work and back across the border to Tijuana. The film is multimodal: we see the student’s journey, hear his thoughts through narrative voice over, and use graphics to explore the ideology depicted in the scenes.

For best results use Google Cardboard and view in the YouTube app. 

 Gordon Byrd

Gordon Byrd is a rhetorically conscious writer with a long career of reading/writing emails. Periodically, he writes articles for magazines as a hobby. Currently, he is enrolled as a doctoral student in ECU's Rhetoric, Writing, and Technical Communication program.

Contents

A Theory of Scams Email Genres

Genre, Authority, & Uptake

The Scam Email Genre

Conclusion

Works Cited

A Theory of Scams Email Genres

Information Security has become a hot-button issue in the age of the internet. Every business that has a web-based presence is guarded by digital sentinels. Their virtual vigil is scrutinized by the media and consumers. Equifax felt the painful backlash when an information security patch on their software went un-updated for two months. Countless articles about the leak and countless consumers affected illustrates the necessity of hacker-proof barriers, but even the strongest barrier needs to be updated and even the firmest firewall has a human link that will more-often-than-not be the root cause of the breach. A constant barrage of attacks will eventually find a weak-point and that point is exploited until it takes months of forensics to find the breach and assess the damage.

A different security breach, both limited and pervasive, is the common scam email. Scam emails are a common barrage attack in the information age. People tightly guard their information, such as passwords, Social Security Numbers, and Bank account numbers, and yet it has become increasingly easy for criminals to steal this information and access private information. Recent stories of breaches of privacy have shown the magnitude of this problem. In the fall of 2014, hackers managed to gain access through phishing to celebrity accounts in the Apple Inc. iCloud (Chang and Winton, 2014). The situation resulted in multiple lawsuits and many embarrassing moments. Privacy and security are generally recognized as illusions now (Sanchez, 2015). Typically, security problems are blamed on out-dated software that hackers are able to easily slip by, but all too often the weakest link in the security chain is the human link (Mitnick, 2002, p. 3).

Somehow a stranger can make an appeal through an email and this is enough to render our tightly woven security nets useless. Kevin Mitnick, a security consultant, says, “[p]eople have a tendency to comply when a request is made by a person in authority. When someone effectively poses as an authority, they will be able to persuade their target 95% of the time" (Mitnick, 2002, 247). The email, much more conveniently than a paper letter mailed through the post, can invade an unsuspecting victim’s home or office and have the victim surrender sensitive information by simply asking. Of course, the victim is not knowingly handing the information over to someone who will perpetrate identify theft. There is a front story and then a request that seems reasonable and necessary. The request comes from someone in desperate need and appeals to our pathos, say a Nigerian princess whose evil uncle wants to arrest her and take her inheritance.

Or, the request is a response from someone selling the car you’ve inquired about on Craigslist, and the appeal is to our logos, because the only reasonable way for him to pay to deliver the car is for you to send a check beforehand.

Another form of scam comes from a supposed authority figure, like the Information Technology department on the university campus. Ethos is used to persuade you to follow the link to update your personal information and change your password, since it has expired. Scammers have provided a plethora of examples of a scam email genre. Using one email, I would like to put forth a theory of scam genres, specifically the scam email. For this brief introduction to the scam genre, I will use genre criticism and analyze a scam email invoking ethos. I would like to demonstrate the elements of a scam email and the use of uptake.

Harry Lewis

Harry Lewis is earning his degree in the Masters in Technical and Professional Communication program at Auburn University. His interests include visual rhetoric, typography, and the intersections of marketing and tech comm. Before attending Auburn, he received his BA from Saginaw Valley State University (MI). He is currently searching for jobs in marketing or UX, and enjoys dogs, hockey, and bad jokes.

Contents

Introduction

The State of Location in Composition

Typography as Rhetorical Argumentation

Typography as Expression

Design Perspective

Design Inspiration & Methodology

The Typeface & Design

Design Parameters

Conclusion

Works Cited

Introduction

My perception of letters and the alphabet harkens back to distant memories of grade school. My backpack loaded with new pencils (colored or otherwise), crayons and markers; my new shoes for the year squeaking beneath me. As my mom whisked me into the classroom for my first day of the year, I always noticed one specific element of adolescent academia that carried over from each new classroom to the next: the alphabet.

The same string of “Aa  Bb  Cc…” and on would be placed high upon the wall, hanging above the whiteboard or the window (sometimes both). Writing and letters hold a prominent place in both academia and industry, and we find them practically everywhere in our day-to-day lives. Whether communicating via conference paper, presenting a technical report, or advertising a brand on a billboard, letters surround us.

So why is there not more focus outside of technical communication on why typefaces[1] are designed the way they are, and how they can be unique, versatile artifacts for rhetorical analysis and discovery? Or, as I will later demonstrate, identifying the situatedness of a composer within an environment? This paper explores the possibility and importance of typography influenced by spatial rhetoric as a practice and rhetorical argument for locating a composer within their place of composition. I then put my findings into use to create a typeface representative of Auburn University, my current place of composition.

To answer this question, I had to consider how typography (the designing of typefaces) can be used as a unique opportunity for rhetorical argumentation and analysis, as well as a means for a designer or rhetor to locate the influences of their place of composition upon their own work. In my analysis I will be using Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualization of space as socially produced through lived, perceived, and imagined representations of a location. To Lefebvre, the classification of a place is a result of the topological nature of the people and things within a designated observable area and their interactions upon one another. The lived, perceived, and imagined representations of observed place can be largely subjective, resulting in spatial representations that are unique to the observer.

This social phenomenon is notably demonstrated in places with transient populations (such as colleges), where a stream of different ideologies are continually occupying a site before leaving and allowing entry for the next group of occupants. A perceived demarcation of academic places from the “real world” environment outside of academia results in the need for a liberal perspective when setting boundaries for analyzing campus environments.

My academic journey has taken me from an undergraduate institution of roughly 8,000 students, flanked by soybean and sugar beet fields in mid-Michigan, to a charming southern school of 27,000, surrounded by a town that thrives off the culture and prosperity of the University. This academic culture shock plays a significant role in how my surroundings influence my composition process, which will be explored further.

Throughout this paper, I will be presenting frameworks and theories for interpreting spaces rhetorically. I will then take my interpretation of Auburn University’s campus and synthesize it into letterforms. Following the creation and analysis of the typeface and design choices, I will present an example of how this exercise may be introduced into undergraduate composition classes.

 ___________________________________________________________________

[1] Typeface is the proper name for letter forms – what most people refer to as a “font.” However, font is the measurement of the scalable sizing of letters in a typeface.

 Ellen M. Street

Ellen Street is a Ph.D. student in Nutrition at Oregon State University. Her graduate research is
devoted to the beneficial effects of whole foods and plant-based diets with an emphasis on
empowering individuals, through community engagement approaches, to make healthy lifestyle
choices. Ellen earned her B.S. in Clinical Nutrition in 2016 and is an alumnus of the Ronald E.
McNair Scholars Program at the University of Davis where she completed this analysis under the
mentorship of Dr. Sarah Tinker Perrault.

Contents 

Abstract

Literature Review

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Appendix

Works Cited

Abstract

As nutrition research advances, our dietary recommendations and health guidelines must evolve to reflect the discovery of new knowledge. The vast sea of current nutrition research must be carefully considered and examined. The integrity and repeatability of clinical trials remains paramount to establishing objective, evidence-based recommendations. This article examines the use of boosters and hedges to indicate levels of epistemic certainty in a variety of documents relating to recommendations regarding red and processed meat consumption.

The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans serve as the primary document of interest, compared with a variety of reputable public health recommendations and peer-reviewed literature from journals including The Lancet Oncology, the Archives of Internal Medicine, and the American Journal of Epidemiology. The focus of analysis includes the discussion and results sections of research articles as well as relevant meat and protein sections in the DGA, AHA/ACC and AICR/WCRF recommendations. Analysis reveals an overall lack of hedges amongst the selected literature. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans used no boosters and one hedge in the selected sections of analysis. Boosters and other markers of modality, such as indicative present and directives, were used frequently to express certainty in both public health and research publications. Hedging was used predominantly in research publications and in the DGA which reflected decreased certainty through repetitive use of a single hedge marker. Overall, the results of this analysis revealed a need for alignment of government claims with research findings including objective discussion of health risks connected to meat consumption and justification for the lean meat, full-fat, and processed meat recommendations in the DGA.

Despite evidence from epidemiological studies and public health reports evaluating the physiologic effects of red and processed meat consumption, the recent 2015-2020 government health recommendations, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), do not reflect prevailing research. Cardiovascular disease (CVD), type II diabetes, and cancer continue to reign as prevalent causes of mortality in the United States. Evidence presented in current research indicates red and processed meats, sources of saturated fat, trans-saturated fat and carcinogenic compounds, such as nitrites, nitrates and heterocyclic amines, as possible culprits for the high incidences of mortality linked to CVD, type II diabetes and cancer (Pan, 2012). My intent in this analysis is to explore and identify presence of epistemic certainty markers in various government, public health, and scholarly publications. I will compare the explicit or implicit recommendations to the current scientific knowledge regarding red and processed meat consumption.

The Dietary Guidelines are published every five years by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. These guidelines are used by policy makers to develop federal food and nutrition programs and policies which strongly influence the food industry. The guidelines are also heavily influenced by political agendas and shareholders, namely the North American Meat Institute (NAMI or AMI), which remains the most significant institution controlling meat processing and production in the U.S. Throughout the processes of updating the guidelines, the North American Meat Institute submitted testimony and commentary to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, begging the case for red and processed meat as part of a balanced diet, complete with a menu model analysis showing that processed meat can fit within daily nutrient and calorie requirements (Backus, 2014a). The DGA's ultimate juxtaposition of promoting healthy dietary patterns for the unique individual with an important omission of detrimental health outcomes sparked challenge among nutrition professionals and major representatives of the meat industry. ^[1]

Currently, scientific literature and public health organization (PHO) publications strongly support the causal link between colorectal cancer and processed meats. However, this information is not communicated in the 2015-2020 DGA—there is no mention of a direct correlation between colorectal cancer and red and processed meat consumption. The Dietary Guidelines contain three chapters addressing healthy eating patterns, shifts needed to align with healthy eating patterns, and contextual factors that influence lifestyle choices. The first section of the Guidelines, "Key Elements of Healthy Eating Patterns," includes a sub-section titled "The Science Behind Healthy Eating Patterns." Under “Associations Between Eating Patterns and Health,” the first of two paragraphs reference the existence of evidence linking healthy eating patterns to disease reduction for conditions like CVD, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancers, including colorectal and breast. The second paragraph mentions evidence demonstrating the feasibility of lean meat as part of a healthy eating pattern. There are no citations or references included. Instead of discussing why full-fat and processed meats may not be included in this pattern, the sentence segues into referencing the second chapter, highlighting average intakes of meat, poultry, and eggs as above average for teen boys and adult men.

____________________________________________________________________

^[1] I noticed the 2015-2020 DGA contain intentional, manipulative silence (Huckin, 2002) due to conflicts of interest from the U.S. meat industry. While this information is relevant and would make for incredibly interesting future research, it reaches beyond the scope of my paper.