SA4: Network Construction
Due: 2:00 p.m. (to Canvas and in class) on Thursday 2/15
Purpose & Ultimate Goal
In this unit we will be considering questions about interpretive networks and delivery: How do cross-cultural spectacles get delivered through "text"? What delivery mechanisms are involved in representation? What economic, social, cultural, and political forces influence our communication and understanding? What kinds of signs, symbols, and identifications get entangled within networked events? These questions just the beginning. So, in preparation for reading Rebecca Dingo's "Networking Arguments," I'd like you to identify and illustrate a network that puts some of these questions to work.
Please note that I have changed this from a "Network Analysis" to a "Network Construction." You need only create the network and bring it to class in some form (hard/physical copy or digital on a thumb drive) as well as submitting it to Canvas. We'll do some analysis of your networks in class.
Identifying the Network
For SA4, I invite you to locate a transnational policy or “event” that you think could be usefully illustrated as a network and identify as many agents and influences as you can. In their most elemental sense, "rhetorical networks" construct relationships between people, powers, discourses, and things. By identifying "agents" and "influences," I mean paying special attention to people, places, locations, times, origins, persuasions, transmissions, or forces (whether these are creative, economic, political, or cultural) that you think contributed to this event and that need to be more clearly seen. How can you help us see the typically unseen factors? How could you use your network to complicate the view we might typically take on that event?
Ideally, the policy or event you identify should reflect what some theorists call “transnational or transcultural” flow, i.e., it should reflect some necessary moving across or between cultures or nations. Feel free to use our course links to locate some interesting news sources, or to draw on news sources of your own. Or, feel free to draw on some of the cases we have already considered, or events mentioned as cases in some of the texts we have read. You might even select a policy or “event” that is somewhat historical, so long as you cite your sources and offer an original interpretation.
Illustrating the Network
Yes, you will need to illustrate(!) all of those agents and influences mentioned above, and you can do this using either physical or digital tools. You can map, sketch, connect, or create, but whatever you do, I'll ask you to create the network in an authentic fashion, rather than reproduce a network that already exists, even if the event is well-known. Your goal in illustrating this network is to try to reveal its nuances, so you should expect it to be very detailed. You have absolute creative license in terms of how you will illustrate (including using freeshare tools such as Prezi, draw.io, SmartDraw, etc.), and you may make it as layered as you would like. [Good opportunity to get to the Digital Studio if you have not been there before!]
If you use a digital program to illustrate the network, please save it as a stable file (.jpg, .pdf, or .png) so that you have something to upload into Canvas. If you illustrate it by hand, please submit the hard copy to class and also scan or photograph an image of the network to upload to Canvas.
Format
Have fun with this! But, of course, start early and send questions my way in advance!
Purpose & Ultimate Goal
In this unit we will be considering questions about interpretive networks and delivery: How do cross-cultural spectacles get delivered through "text"? What delivery mechanisms are involved in representation? What economic, social, cultural, and political forces influence our communication and understanding? What kinds of signs, symbols, and identifications get entangled within networked events? These questions just the beginning. So, in preparation for reading Rebecca Dingo's "Networking Arguments," I'd like you to identify and illustrate a network that puts some of these questions to work.
Please note that I have changed this from a "Network Analysis" to a "Network Construction." You need only create the network and bring it to class in some form (hard/physical copy or digital on a thumb drive) as well as submitting it to Canvas. We'll do some analysis of your networks in class.
Identifying the Network
For SA4, I invite you to locate a transnational policy or “event” that you think could be usefully illustrated as a network and identify as many agents and influences as you can. In their most elemental sense, "rhetorical networks" construct relationships between people, powers, discourses, and things. By identifying "agents" and "influences," I mean paying special attention to people, places, locations, times, origins, persuasions, transmissions, or forces (whether these are creative, economic, political, or cultural) that you think contributed to this event and that need to be more clearly seen. How can you help us see the typically unseen factors? How could you use your network to complicate the view we might typically take on that event?
Ideally, the policy or event you identify should reflect what some theorists call “transnational or transcultural” flow, i.e., it should reflect some necessary moving across or between cultures or nations. Feel free to use our course links to locate some interesting news sources, or to draw on news sources of your own. Or, feel free to draw on some of the cases we have already considered, or events mentioned as cases in some of the texts we have read. You might even select a policy or “event” that is somewhat historical, so long as you cite your sources and offer an original interpretation.
Illustrating the Network
Yes, you will need to illustrate(!) all of those agents and influences mentioned above, and you can do this using either physical or digital tools. You can map, sketch, connect, or create, but whatever you do, I'll ask you to create the network in an authentic fashion, rather than reproduce a network that already exists, even if the event is well-known. Your goal in illustrating this network is to try to reveal its nuances, so you should expect it to be very detailed. You have absolute creative license in terms of how you will illustrate (including using freeshare tools such as Prezi, draw.io, SmartDraw, etc.), and you may make it as layered as you would like. [Good opportunity to get to the Digital Studio if you have not been there before!]
If you use a digital program to illustrate the network, please save it as a stable file (.jpg, .pdf, or .png) so that you have something to upload into Canvas. If you illustrate it by hand, please submit the hard copy to class and also scan or photograph an image of the network to upload to Canvas.
Format
- Variable formats accepted for the network; the best networks are highly detailed and robust.
- Submitted to Canvas by beginning of class time, with some version accessible in class.
- Upload a short “Works Cited” list reflecting any source(s) you use to construct your network.
Have fun with this! But, of course, start early and send questions my way in advance!