activity description

Introduction

Every day, users post an uncountable amount of content online ranging from Facebook status updates, posts on YikYak, fleeting images on SnapChat, short loops on Vine, blog posts, and many other texts. Yet in spite of the mass of user-generated content, only a few of these productions become massively popular outside of the individual user and their immediate connections. Are these viral videos of cats dressed as sharks on roombas merely flukes, or is there something more complicated going on? For this extended in-class activity, we will think about rhetoric can help us to understand about the design, production, and distribution of viral texts and also what these viral productions can teach us about rhetoric(s) in digital culture(s).

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this assignment, students will be able to:

Analyze and assess contemporary texts (viral productions) from a rhetorical perspective
Incorporate rhetorical concepts in order to design, produce, and deliver multimodal texts
Employ methods of social media analysis using basic tools for data analytics

Production Details

In small groups (3-4 students), you will work together to design, produce, and distribute your viral text based on what you know about rhetoric and virality. Your group will need to consider the rhetorical situation while designing your text: what is your rhetorical purpose (To inform? To educate? To entertain?), who is your intended audience, what genre and modes will meet your rhetorical goals, how will you appeal to this audience given the constraints, and how will you reach this audience? Your group will then produce and deliver your text using classroom resources.

Additionally, you will be responsible for tracking your production’s online presence. Decide how you will assess how viral your production goes, whether this is through the number of views, shares, favorites, retweets, etc. We will discuss methods of tracking virality for different types of productions in class.

Production Timeline

February 10, 12, 17, 19: studio time in-class to work with group
February 22: productions must be live online and shared on Twitter with class hashtag
March 3: final discussion of virality assessment

Resources

All of the free audio sites including:
Creative Commons Search, Wikimedia Commons, SpinExpress, Jamendo, Freeplay Music, Flickr, Internet Archive Search, UbuWeb, Free Music Archive, Freesound, SoundDogs, Public Radio Exchange, NoiseTrade, Copyright Friendly Wiki of Sound Effects and Music