Today, we’ll:

1) Go over the [1] weekly agenda.

2) Discuss what you’ve learned so far about your collaborative/community analysis topics.

3) Discuss ways of analyzing and evaluating Web writing.

Web writing samples: [2] LiveJournal search

Audience analysis

• Who visits this site? Is it a specific group or more than one group of people?
• What are their demographic details? (age, gender, social class, locations, religions, languages, etc.)
• How familiar are they with the Internet? How long have they had Internet access? Where are they in the digital divide? Are they digital natives or digital immigrants?
• What do they want from the site?
• With whom do they identify?
• How does who they are impact how they use the site and what they do with it?
• How often do certain types of people post (or not post)? Why?

Rhetorical analysis

• How do people make arguments?
• What do they use (words, images, media) and how do they shape it to be convincing?
• How do they convince other people?
• How do they persuade, inform, advocate, argue, explain, or educate? How does the construction of their discourse (tone, language, choices) shape what they create and how people perceive it?

Context:

• Purpose
• Genres
• Stance/Tone
• Media/Design

How do these impact how people use the Web or a specific Web site?
Appeals:

• Logos (logical/fact-based)
• Ethos (character/credibility based)
• Pathos: emotion-based

5) Work on your analysis projects.

Assignments for Next Class

Read:

• “[3] Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace“
• “[4] Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs“
• “[5] An Argumentation Analysis of Weblog Conversations“

Post a comment on the [6] discussion post.