Social Citizens Questions

“Social Citizens” by Allison Fine
Respond in writing to the following:
1. What is Fine’s purpose in writing? What goal(s) does she have for this text? Who is her audience? Find a sentence/passage where she communicates the rhetorical situation and paste it below.
a. I believe one of the purposes of her writing is to re-examine certain aspects of culture and society that we believe to be set in stone. Another purpose of her writing is to explain who social citizens are. They are anyone who has three different characteristics; digital fluency, idealism, and immersion in social causes. I’m pretty sure a goal she has for her text was to convince older generations that millenails are not “generation Q”, that is, inactive and lazy, but are actually quite the opposite. They are engaged in social activism using new technology and social networking. A sentence in which she outlines a rhetorical situation would be when she talks about how people of other generations

2. Fine makes many, many assertions about “millennials” in her text. What is one assertion? How does she support it? Is the support effective? In other words, does it build her logos effectively? Explain. Based on your experience as a member of the “millennial” generation, do you agree? Explain.
An assertion that is made in her text is the reference to millenails as “Generation Q” in that they are too laid back and lazy regarding many of the pressing issues

3. How does Fine’s piece clarify some of the observations Spanier made in “Is Campus Activism Dead”? How does she account for millennials’ lack of interest in protesting.
i. It doesn't. She says that the millennials' lack of interest is due to technology and entertainment and their lack of commitment to important issues outside of the realm of entertainment.

4. What are some of the dangers/drawbacks of online activism, according to Fine’s text?
Some of the dangers involved could be the misuse of facts and information that are spun to make the issues sound different than they actually are. Another problem is legitimate sources of the information could not be legitimate at all. Personal research is key but also finding credentials and using proven legitimate databases are helpful as well.

5. Overall, do you think online activism is an effective means to evoke social change? Explain.
i. I do. More people than ever before have access to computers, telephones and the internet.

6. What cause(s) are you considering for your class project? What makes these causes attractive to you?
a. A cause I’m considering would be immigration reform because of all the illegal immigrants trafficking drugs and causing crimes along the border and throughout the U.S. Also, immigration laws need to reconsider whether or not the influx of immigrants is as beneficial as it once was.

A personal discovery

Tomkins and the discovery of WAL-MART
A few days ago I discovered that Mr. Chips greatly overcharges customers for food and other ordinary products. I took a trip to Wal-mart and went on a food shopping spree that involved potato chips, soup, pretzels, and of course, my favorite food, pizza Lunchables. I got back to the dorms and was looking at my mere $21.50 charge for a large assortment of items and decided to test a theory. The next day during my free time, I took the receipt from Wal-mart to Mr. Chips and compared prices on the items that Mr. Chips had in stock that were the same exact products that I purchased from Wal-mart. Mr. Chips didn't even have most of the items I desired and the ones that they did have were just about double in price!
What I learned is that choosing something for availability, such as shopping at a very close convenience store over traveling an extra mile and a half to Walmart, has it's drawbacks. The more things you buy, the more money you waste. From now on, I try to make usual trips to Wal-mart every other weekend to stock up on items I use a lot of because that way I save the most money buying two-weeks worth of items for a cheap cost than having to make regular trips to Mr.Chips to pay an outrageous amount of money for the same products you could get at half the cost. If anyone is up for splitting a fare in the near future, it's a great way to save money in the long run on important groceries one enjoys.

Revisionism Revisited

I feel like Mortimer's article put an entirely new spin on whether or not one should accept what is traditionally accepted as "the past" and past events. At first when I began his piece about the comment made by Bush I thought he was just being bitter about the general opinion of revisionist historians. He drones on and on about how revisionists deserve more respect and how valuable their work is, but I feel that this may be biased due to his own profession as a historian and perhaps himself feels that by writing this article, he himself will gain respect. I feel as though in the beginning of the article, Mortimer takes personal offense to the quote by George W. Bush in which he casts revisionist historians in a negative light. After this passage it seems that Mortimer is set off in a flurry of counterpoints defending what revisionist historians do and why they are so very important. He brings up American examples of revised history such as the stories of George Washington and the cherry tree and JFK's assassination to try and convince readers that most of history has been revised at some point for infinite benefits to society. I can agree that as more facts and information are discovered about a mysterious past event that the story should be slightly altered to represent the truth, but not constantly revised to the point of people having personal opinions about past events and wanting to incorporate their own spin or conspiracy theory to the actual entry in encyclopedias. Major alterations to records that misrepresent the truth seem to be beneficial but constant minor alterations that try to make the event seem favorable or less favorable to readers is just abuse of revisionism. That's my final judgment on the argument he poses but that's my reaction to the points he presented and I understood. I feel like I would have to be a revisionist historian myself to fully understand what it was he was trying to argue exactly.

Said's States

The article "States", by Edward Said, really drew many different emotions from me. I was sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians and guilty that the U.S. is so biased on the side of the Israelis due to political ties. The way he portrays the Palestinians as outcasts who have no identity and live in bad conditions was quite moving. The method in which he showed certain pictures to evoke emotions worked brilliantly for his argument. I believe pathos was the strongest element within his piece. In the picture of the wedding, it is obvious that western values and beliefs have infiltrated the minds of many in the Middle East, while the one person in the background is wearing a traditional headpiece to show how the two cultures are co-existing. This picture is a good example of the political ties that the western world has with the Middle East and how we are influencing their culture. The western world (mostly the U.S.) has such a strong influence that I believe we can decide who may win this conflict by throwing our support behind one faction or the other. I believe we already may have and Said would agree that we strongly support Israelis and condemn Palestinians to their fates. He wants us to see the other side we don’t support and are forced to live a life of homelessness and turmoil. This is portrayed perfectly in the picture of the sad Palestinian boy wearing the dirty western T-shirt. He seems to be homeless, scared and unsure of where to go. I could never imagine being forced out of where I call home and having to live in refugee conditions. This article really made me count my blessings and sympathize with the Palestinian side of the Middle East conflict that I've never really been exposed to. His use of images instead of words made his piece very strong and effective at keeping my attention. It felt like I was watching a Red Cross advertisement for impoverished people. Although in this case, these people are starving for a homeland and an identity that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for.