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Showing posts from March, 2023

Social Semiotics

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Social Semiotics is stated as an approach to communication that seeks to understand how people communicate by a variety of means in social situations. (MultiModal Terms Glossary). To help you understand it, let me explain further. Social semiotics, as far as my understanding, means understanding meaning based on context and conflict in an interpersonal interaction instead of "codes of  language" like in Structural Semiotics, (Vannini, pg. 116).  Michael Halliday introduced Social Semiotics in 1978 and has developed it ever since. It is important because it shapes social relations and society as whole. It studies modes of communication which is important in all of our lives whether we like it or not! If I'm being honest, I found this concept hard to understand. Therefore, in regards to the rules I found this image to be more informative: Let me provide you with an example:  This is an ad on instagram for Dior. The color red that we see means "passion" and "l

Online Arguing

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Hi everyone! This week, I analyzed a comment section of a post on twitter that caused for a lot of disagreement. Here is the link:  https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1504608440219582471 I chose this online argument because I have seen this argument pop up on all of my social medias and it is very prevalent at the moment.  The first concern I have with this argument is that the individuals taking part in the argument did not ever include evidence or proof behind their words. They only based their words on opinion.  Another negative example is the disrespect that individuals have in the comment section. There is a time and place for bad words to be used and it is not in the comments section of an online post.  The last concern I have with this argument is that it very much appears that individuals are not open minded as they read comments in the argument. People go into the comment section with a need to say their opinion, but do not have an open mind when it comes to reading other

The Toulmin Method

Hi everyone! This week, our topic is the Toulmin Method. The Toulmin Method is described in Communicating Online by Julia Green as a method of breaking arguments into different elements in order to completely support a claim, (pg. 286). This method includes a claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, and backing.  An example of this online is a news article I came across on U.S. News called "Should the U.S. Adopt a 4-Day Workweek?" by Lindsay Lyon. Her claim stands that "office work has been overdue for a rewrite" and she includes writing from a writer named Brent Orrell. Here is a break-down of the Toulmin Method in this writing: Claim: " If we want to honor the desire for greater job flexibility, then the shortest path to reaching that goal is to let the market work, gradually adjusting the workweek as technology and productivity improvements allow rather than using the harsh gavel of a federal law". Grounds: " Data from a recent   American Ente