American Idol is not an obsession that I have taken up like much of the country has. I watched most of the second season and part of whatever season Chris Daughtry was in up until he got voted off of the show (really, being voted off was the best thing to ever happen to the man), but that is all. I actually find all of the talk about the show to be the start of a headache, especially with all of the changes that that have been making lately in desperate attempts to save or continue on with the show. However, despite the decline of the show, they still know what they are doing. The show is still hugely successful, due in large part to the fact that the producers know how to market the show effectively to their ideal audience. The audience that watches the show the most, and thus those who the producers create the show around, are those who wish that they could sing but cannot, those who crave the stardom but do not possess the skills or talent to achieve that stardom. Audience members are able to live vicariously through the contestants, from their very first audition all the way through the process. After an entire season, it is almost as if that audience member has also gone through the whole process, without leaving the comfort of their own couch. This is why the largest audience that American Idol ever has is in the first few weeks when they broadcast the initial auditions from each city. Audience members are able to see the great singers at their first step to stardom, but they are also able to watch those who try and fail miserably. They get to experience this audition of a person, like them, who can’t sing but who wants to the stardom crash and burn, but they do not have to personally feel the humiliation of themselves crashing and burning. We like to watch people fail. I am not really sure why, and it would take much more analysis to figure that out, but the simple fact is that we do like to watch people fail. We find it entertaining. It may be a type of relief comedy, where we find it funny because we are so glad that it isn’t us who is being humiliated or failing.

Foucault’s idea of the panopticon is all about self-governance. Very simply put, criminals are put in separate cells set in a circular building with a tower in the middle. The cells have no doors. The tower is so tall or at such an angle to the cells (depending on which version of the theory you read) that the prisoners cannot see the top. The prisoners are told that they are always being watched from that tower and that if they leave their cells and try to escape, they will be shot. Foucault’s theory states that no guard actually needs to be in the top of that tower. All that the prisoners need to behave is to be told of what will happen to them. Occasionally making an example out of someone will provide the negative reinforcement that the prisoners need to stay in their cells. This theory was Foucault’s commentary on how we self-govern in society. Rules do not actually need to be constantly reinforced and we do not constantly need someone their telling us what to do. According to Foucault, as long as we are told what could happen should be break the rules and are provided with the occasional negative reinforcement, then we will stay in line.

The image implies that this person is rugged and outdoorsy, with a passion for adventure and challenge, splashing through all obstacles. The image of the continents shows that the Hummer is everywhere (supposedly) and that the driver of a Hummer can go anywhere, do anything, that there are no limits. These are the kinds of things that are associated with Hummers, never mind the fact that most Hummers are seen being driven by rap stars and business executives who have probably only seen a mountain range from an airplane. This does not matter though. It is only the idea that matters. These are the things that actually sell a vehicle like the Hummer. If this were a homepage for the Volvo, then it would be more focused on safety and less on conquering the rugged terrain.

What I found interesting was the lack of discussion of the multicultural audience. Some Asian countries have recently begun to orient their text from left to right instead of top to bottom, but for the most part Asian readers read top to bottom. This factor must be taken into consideration when designing a document for the first time or redesigning a document for a translation. This factor affects the entire design and placement of the text and graphics. In documents and a book that put a lot of emphasis on the importance of considering audience—and their individual cultures—I found it extremely disheartening that such a lapse was made.

The one that we have for class, which is the first edition of the book:

The cover of the second edition of the book:

I thought it was odd that there are already two editions of this book when the first edition was released just over a year ago in February of 2009. However, the second edition of Practices of Looking contains information on the recent increase in the use of new media that is not in the first edition. I feel like this is the reason that the second cover is so drastically different than the first.

The first edition cover is rather boring, especially in comparison with the second edition cover. When considering content, the first edition cover appears to reflect issues of document design, color, typeface, white space, and multiculturalism that are discussed within the book. The second edition cover is much more visually appealing. It looks more like a product of graphic design than a product of a document design program like InDesign. It appears to reflect the emphasis that the content of the newer edition places on the use of new media.

In terms of rhetorical situations, I see ultrasound images and machines in a couple of ways. The first concerns an expecting mother and/or father. The machine and the image on the machine’s screen is one that provides joy (depending on the situation that the pregnancy has occurred in) and hope and a way to bond with the growing child. It also provides proof of the child’s existence. Many people do not believe that the child exists or refuse to hope that it exists until they see the little black and white image on the screen. It is amazing that we put so much stock into something like this, especially considering the fact that most of us have no idea how to read an ultrasound image and can’t actually see the child in the image until it is four or five months along. The fact that we put so much trust and truth into this image is amazing. There was a time before ultrasounds that the only solid proof a woman had that she was pregnant was a growing baby bump, which is much more substantial proof than a grainy image that not many people can read.

This leads to the second way that I see ultrasound images and machines: as devices of power for doctors. Because not many people know how to read an ultrasound, we expecting parents rely on the doctor to tell them what they are seeing. When a doctor points to a spot and says, “See? There’s the head, and over is a foot,” the parent/parents are have to trust the doctor completely. The doctor could be pointing to the umbilical cord and calling it the baby’s head and the parents wouldn’t know the difference. This gives the doctor a lot of power.

Thinking about this reminds me of an episode of Glee. Prior to this episode, a woman had an hysterical pregnancy but decided to continue pretending to her husband that she is pregnant. In this episode, the husband insists on going to the wife’s obstetrician appointment to see the ultrasound. He wants to see the ultrasound image so that he can feel like he is a part of this pregnancy, further proving the value that we place on these images. Of course, an ultrasound would show that the wife is not really pregnant, so the wife blackmails the obstetrician into using the ultrasound video of one of his other patients. The husband watches what he thinks is the ultrasound of his child, never knowing the difference. He gets very emotional thinking that he is bonding with his child, but it is not his child. Culturally through these images, so much trust has been placed in the doctor that the husband does not question that this is not his child. He trusts that what the doctor is showing him is real and that this image is really one of his child.

The Stuart Hall video brought up something that I had not thought of before, a connection that I had not made. This was the difference and similarities between represent and re-present. I had never really thought about the fact that represent can be said like re-present. Also, a representation is a re-presenting of information, an object, etc. This connection seems fairly basic and I felt a little foolish that I had not made it before. A representation is something that stands in for the real, something that you are re-presenting, which in itself means that the representation can never be the real. The representation is never a full re-presenting of the real either. We are limited by our language and our own views of what about the real was important. These limitations change the way that we re-present the real to another person. For some reason, talking about this as re-present rather than represent makes this meaning more obvious.

I also thought that it was interesting that the flashing, ever-changing pictures on the video stopped on an image of Michael Jackson exactly as Hall said “distortion of what it really means.” Hall was talking about the distinction between media representations of a celebrity or an even involving a celebrity and what actually happened. Jackson’s whole life—and death for that matter—is a good example of how the truth of actual events is so skewed by the media’s representation of those events that the public does not know what really went on. Jackson is also a good example of how the public’s opinions of a person can be shaped by media representations.

Interestingly, these things did occur to me a little later on, but they were not the first thoughts that popped in my head when the flashing pictures stopped on Jackson’s image. The image on the screen at that point was one of Jackson midway through his life, when many people would not know simply by looking at that picture that he was actually an African-American man. The whitening of Jackson’s skin and the reconstruction of his nose had by this time taken away the physical features that Americans stereotypically associate with African-Americans. So when the pictures stopped and Hall said “distortion of what it really means,” the first thing that I thought of was how Jackson’s physical appearance provides a jumping off point for a discussion of what is really means to be African-American or White or Asian or American Indian and so on.

I thought it was fairly interesting to see the way that the design has changed. I don’t remember a time when the box looked like the first design, but I vaguely remember a simpler box than the second design that is shown here. The obvious thing here is that in the time between the two different designs there was a move to have the boxes be more appealing to the consumers of the product than to those who actually buy the product.

By this I mean several things. The older design is simplistic puts the focus of the box on the cereal itself. It seems to imply that this cereal is tasty (the smiling rabbit who might also be licking his lips) and that it would be a good breakfast option. The box has color, but there are no real frills. The picture of the cereal even makes it look like a different product than the sugar-filled cereal that we now know Trix to be. This is appealing to the buyers of the product, which are the parents.

The newer design is flashy and bold and the focus is definately not on the cereal. The bright colors and the dramatic sweepeing of the rabbit’s arms make the box more interesting. These are things that draw the eye of the consumer, which a child. The prize offer in the lower right-hand corner also goes a long way in attracting the attention of a child. The bold blue “whole grain” stripe at the top that General Mills is now putting on all of their products is placed there to ease the mind of the parents who might be turned off by the rabbit who looks as if he is on a sugar high. Companies know that parents are much more indulgent to their children now than they used to be, which means that parents are more likely to buy something simply because their child asks (or begs) for it. Knowing this, changing the design of the box to attract children was a great idea on the part of General Mills. Kudos.

Each August the freshmen stick out like sore thumbs, mainly because of their inexperience.  A lot of students come into their first year of college with preconceived notions about what it will be like and about their own abilities, notions that will more than likely be ripped to shreds within the first two weeks.  Braun’s article is an encouraging piece, one that tells of how great college can be, even if it is not what was expected.  Braun keeps the tone of the article upbeat and hopeful.  The way she does this is very clever in that it completely distracts that reader from the fact that she skirts around the less than pleasant aspects of college.
Roughly halfway though the article, Braun tells the reader that she has only one semester left at Illinois State, so it can be assumed that she will be graduating in December of the year that this article was written.  By establishing that, she shows that she has been in college for many years now and has experienced all of the things that the freshman class will go through.  This proves her credibility.

The target audience for this article is the freshman class that had just recently started their college experience, evidenced by the fact that Braun speaks directly to the freshmen throughout the entire article, although this article can apply to each new freshman class each year.  Beyond that though is the audience of the rest of campus.  This article has an underlying message to everyone, even if they have only one more year or one more semester here, to get as much as they can out of the time they have left.

Braun appeals to the emotional side of the student body, the side that cares about making as many memories as possible, taking too many pictures, and looking back on these years as the best they ever had.  As a graduating senior, my time is running out. However, prior to now, after each reread of this article, I realized that there were more things that I could do, more memories that I could make before I graduated. And I feel like I did try to make the most out of each year and each semester.

It was a good strategy for the author to appeal to emotions rather than reason.  The reasonable side of a student tells them to stay in and study all of the time, which would make the article pointless and not effective.  By tapping in to that emotional side in us all, Braun makes her point.  She drives home the fact that four years is not as long of a time as it seems.

The printing of this article in the college newspaper, a paper that thousands of students read every day, Braun and the editors of the Vidette were sharing their belief that the healthy college experience is more than just reading and homework, that to get the most out of their time here, Illinois State students can and should enjoy themselves along the way and not take any of it for granted.

The first quiz was called The Aura Test. It is a lot of “would you rather” questions that, based on your responses, tells you what color your aura is. The first time I took this quiz it said that my aura is purple, but the second and third times that I took it, it said that my aura is magenta. These two colors are fairly closely related, so that lent a little credibility to the quiz. You have to pay to get any information beyond the name of the color, which I was not going to do, so I have no idea what having either of those colors for my aura means about me. However, I have noticed that purple comes up a lot for me in my choices of clothing, accessories, paint, fabric, etc, even though I always say that I don’t like purple. When I think about, I actually don’t like the color, but for some reason I keep buying things that are purple. Maybe this means something.

The second quiz that I took was the Pratt & Lambert Color Personality Test. This quiz consists of a series of questions about which traits you like best in yourself and which ones you would like your future children to have. There are also questions about design choices and colors. It limits your to one response per question. This was tough because each trait question had about 15 or so potential responses. It is difficult to choose only one trait that you value most when there are that many to choose from.

My first and second attempts at this quiz resulted in the response that I am shades of pale. This means that I respond best to and am most comfortable with colors that are shades of pale and that I would decorate my home in these colors. This is totally wrong, Seriously. It could not be more wrong. I hate pastels. Pastels would be my last choice, and I am definitely not most comfortable around pastels because they actually make me uncomfortable. The quiz said that favoring shades of pale means that I prefer versatility, modernity, and calming and inviting atmospheres. This part is true. I do like these things, but pastels are a definite no-go for me. My third attempt said that I prefer sun-kissed colors. This isn’t really correct, but it is much more so than pastels. It says that sun-kissed colors “covey energy, friendliness, and ease…a warm and cozy environment.” It also says that I want my home to ne welcoming and friendly with comfortable and casual furniture that shows my “desire to entertain and spend more time home with family and friends.” I would say that this is accurate. These are the things that I would most want my home to be like.

The third quiz that I took was simple called The Color Quiz. This quiz required the user to select each of eight colors in order or favor. Then the user had to wait one minute and repeat the process with the same colors in order of favor and not based necessarily on the order in which the user had first chosen the colors. This quiz freaked me out. It actually really creeped me out because of how accurate it was. It gives you feedback about your personality in six sections: your current life situation, your stress sources, your restrained characteristics, your desired objective, and two primary sources of problems in your life. The response that you get from taking this quiz is very in depth and specific, which is part of what makes it so creepy. I’m not going to give my answers because that would give an insight into my personality that the internet community does not need, but it was as if the quiz read my mind.