Saturday, November 10, 2012

Genre Analysis: The Art Of Chinese Propaganda



The audio essay has specific features to make it one, just like an annotated map has features. For example; the audio essays have different speakers to supply the topic with evidence. They have different interviewees to contribute different points of views to the speaker’s perspective. The audio essay that I listened to was about a hidden museum in China that contained old propaganda posters that was hard for visitors to find. It was hidden in a basement without any signs to get to it (Frank Langfitt). The speaker, Frank Langfitt, interviews a woman visiting the museum and he explains her history of where she has lived (Born in Hong Kong, but now lives in New York) and he relates her story to the topic. He does this by speaking to her and asking her what her favorite posters are and why that is, so that he can explain why this museum is such a neat find and what it means to certain people. "It is a good opportunity for me to understand more about my country," says Ruby Lung, the Hong Kong native. This quote is important to the interview and essay because it relates a visitor to the museum to a personal interest, which makes her perspective unique to the others that were interviewed. To create supporting evidence of the value and historic importance of the materials in the museum Yang Peiming, the owner of the museum, is interviewed about his findings. "The propaganda poster is very, very unique," says Yang. "They describe the history with so many detailed pictures. This is interesting, because it is art plus politics." Yang is interviewed because he contributes a different perspective on the posters than Ruby which provides the essay with more facts to make it more convincing. Frank Langfitt, starts off his essay by introducing it as a broad topic of the museum itself then narrows it all the way down to a specific poster collection from the Mao Era in China. Just like an academic essay, this audio essay includes a short introduction about the topic and narrows it down with evidence from multiple sources.  The supporting evidence links to the history of China, which is what the museum and its propaganda posters are primarily about. For example the collection of posters Ruby points at as her favorite compares them with a poem “Ten Little Indians” which is vital information provided for anyone who is not familiar with Chinese history. From the beginning, the audio essay explained the importance of the hidden museum and used reliable sources (visitors/owner) to interest the audience in the history of China’s propaganda. The essay summarizes the museum in a fast and short summary followed with a little music chime to fade out of the podcast.


Project 3:
My topic for this project will be the ASU women’s volleyball games this weekend against Colorado and Utah as their last home weekend besides the game against U of Arizona. But since that game is too late for this project, I will be analyzing the women’s volleyball team and their season by using this weekend’s games as evidence.

3 comments:

  1. I think this is a really good topic! I hate to admit that I did not even know that ASU has a women’s volleyball team. Generally, when I think about college sports, the first thing that comes to mind is football. You could argue for this topic that the women’s volleyball team is an important part of ASU. I would recommend starting off with some facts that give perspective on how big the team really is. How many people are on the team? Do a lot of people usually come to the games? Answering these questions will help argue that the team is an integral part of the university.

    To help argue your point further, you could start by interviewing random people throughout campus, to find out exactly how popular the team is. You could then interview people who are both on the team, and who attend the games to find out their opinion about it, compared to people who are not involved in the sport. If you wanted, you could even talk to the teams couch to get their input about the teams social status. Once you have all of your interviews recorded, take that information and craft your essay around it. Good luck! I am sure you will do a great job!

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  2. I feel that this will will be an interesting topic. In this circumstance i think that having a lot of interviews either with actually volleyball players, coaches, or even fans would add a lot to your audio essay. They would provide many cut-away sound bites that you can use as evidence to support your statements and make them all the more compelling to the listener. Your project may also benefit from hearing from the opposite side, for example, interviewing a Colorado fan and using there responses to present an impartial and unbiased argument to add even more strength to your projects argument. This is a great idea and you will do a great job.

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  3. I think that you're topic for project three will be a good one, a bit challenging, but a good choice. I feel that since the games and the season will be over with by the time the project is due, you'll get better opinions on the subject. You will have people that are for and against the volleyball team, therefore you'll receive useful interviews, opinions, topics, and like you mentioned, the games outcomes will be useful too. My only piece of advice is to not limit yourself to interviewing or talking to one group of people. Let your project expand throughout the large group of people that can recognize with volleyball. The fans, the players, the coaches, maybe even how the teachers feel about the sport or just general student athletes.

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