First and foremost, select a genre as a "case" on/through which you will respond to your prompts. For your genre/case, I'll ask you to select one of the "Resolutions" from our Bb folder (in "Cases and Genres"), or Nakasa's "Writing in South Africa," or Alexander's "The New Jim Crow," or Bouie's "Criminal Justice Racism," or Jason Parham's "It's Time We Treat Police Brutality ..." (identified as "gawker blog" in Bb "Case Study #2").
Next, write in response to two (2) of the prompts below, by composing a post to your own blog that responds to them, weaving them together if you so desire. Then, please respond to two (2) of your classmates' posts (which you'll find on their blogs).
- Of all the terms that Lazere introduces and illustrates, which 3 or 4 most closely align with Corbett and Eberly's discussion of citizen criticism, and then, how do you see them at work in your selected genre/case? Note that I'm not only asking you to explain and unpack the connections, but to infer them somewhat, since they may not be explicit.
- According to Corbett and Eberly, what could spectator culture (or consumer culture) have to do with our ability to argue well in the public sphere when those arguments are partially mediated as/through blogs? What are the most compelling reasons that Corbett and Eberly give for why this is important, why it might succeed, and how it could fail -- and how do those reasons align with Rettberg's discussion? Note that your best way through this may be to focus your response on one of Rettberg's key arguments about "blog/ging," "community," "networks," "engagement,"and even "citizen bloggers" (if you want to revisit what we read previously from her book). In other words, you're extending Corbett/Eberly's theory towards blogging in particular based on the alignments and disalignments you see between their arguments and Rettberg's.
- Obviously, today's readings are setting us up to think more about citizen criticism. Do the two authors you read for today in any way take up, build on, forward, complicate, or disrupt anyone's notion of citizen criticism from earlier in the semester? (I'm thinking specifically about Miller/Shepherd, Kaufer, McDonald, or Jones, but you are welcome to consider other authors we have read). As you think about how to create your intertext between today's authors and other authors we have read, you might think about how to use your selected genre/case in order to demonstrate what can go right or wrong in citizen criticism.
-Prof. Graban
