Invention Work:Initial Invention
The first crucial decision you have tomake as you begin Project 2 is to select a social media account to analyze. Before you make this selection, it is helpful to first think about the concept of digital communities. Do you use Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? YouTube? Other social media sites/apps? Do you post on message boards or comment on internet articles? Do you use the internet to socialize or meet people who share your interests? If youdo one or more of these things, you are a member of one or more digital communities. This is the concept we will be exploring for Project 2.These digital communities can be large or small. Facebook, for example, can count its membership in the billions. But within Facebook are many smaller digital sub-communities: local neighborhood groups, fan pages for celebrities, groups based around hobbies or interests. The same goes for other social media sites/apps: Black Twitter, Instagram celebrities and their followers, YouTube channels, etc. These groups are linked together by social media account holders, theirfollowers, and the various posts of both.So: There are digital communities and sub-communities of varying sizes and memberships. You may be part of these, or you may not; they may be relevant to your life and interests, or they may not. Your task for this Project 2 Initial “Invention”Assignment is to identify as many relevant well-known public figuresas you can with the goal of eventually selecting a suitable social media account to analyze for your Project 2 rhetorical analysis.Please follow these steps:First:Review the Project 2 assignment sheet and the accompanying grading rubric. Both can be found in our Canvascourse shell in the “Multimodal Projects1 &2” content area. Internalize to the best of your ability what Project 2 asks you to do. Read the entireProject 2assignment sheet and grading rubric. Think hard. Take your time. This is a crucial first step; do not skip or rush through it.Second:Listfivewell-known public figures related to your local community.Third:Listfivewell-known public figures related to your academic or professional goals.Spend at least 10-15 minutesthinking carefully, reflecting, and listing.Fourth:When you have finished thinking about the possibilities and have compiled your two lists, freewrite for at least 15 straight minutes, thinking specifically in terms of the projected identitiesof the public figures in your two lists. Who do these figures want to be, publicly? How do they want to be “seen”?oThink also about the social media accountsthat follow these public figures: How are these accountsrhetorically constructed? How do such accountspersuade community members to care, to stay, and to participate? Who are the members of these communities? (Think in terms of demographics: age, gender, race, occupation, etc.) What characteristics or values do these sub-communities share? Do you share these values? What messages are targeted at these sub-communities? Does the fact that these sub-communities are digital affect the audience and/or message? Why or why not? These questions are just suggestions to help you begin thinking critically; feel free to deviate from them as you freewrite. o”Freewriting” means writing withoutstopping, just getting the ideas out onto the screen. Don’t worry about perfect spelling or perfect sentences. Just get your critical thinking on this topic of how digital identities are constructedout of your head. By doing so, your ability to do the analysis needed for this project increases.Fifth:Now that you’ve done some critical thinking, listing, and composing, venture online and identify potential social media accounts you could analyze for Project 2: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube. These accounts must be for a public figureand relevantto either your local community or your academic/professional goals and well knownper the guidelines in the overall Project 2 assignment instructions. oYou will need to identify two potential choices of accountsto analyze. Provide the URL (web address) or username of the two accountsat the end of your submission (i.e., twitter.com/tim_cook or Instagram @beyonce). Make sure the specific social media site/app is included. Include an explanation(at least one paragraphof 150 words for each choice) of how they are relevant to your local community or academic/professional interests and why you selected them as your top two choices for rhetorical analysis, given our Project 2 parameters.The goal of this invention assignment: once you’ve done this critical thinking, composed this written material, and identified potential social media accounts, you’ll be better prepared to understand what these accounts/communities are trying to communicate to their target audience in a more critical light with an eye toward the rhetorical analysis Project 2 calls for.While all the Habits of Mindare involved in all work for this course, this initial Project 2 invention assignment privileges Curiosity, Openness, Creativity, and Metacognitionas you try to “see” digital identities and how the digital communities that revolve around them are rhetorically constructedin interesting or and/contradictory ways.Please submit (either attached as a Word-accessible document or pasted into the submission text box of the assignment) your lists, freewriting, chosen social media accounts, and written explanationsof your final two choices.
