TOW #25-Visual: Lint Roller

       This advertisement is by the company 3M which sells various technological innovations around the world. The particular product being promoted here is a lint roller. The focus of this advertisement is on the image of the lint roller itself, made striking by the image itself as well as its background. These two visual considerations together, the lint roller with the image of a cat on it and its neutral resting space, work together to create an intriguing, striking advertisement that is meant to catch people's attention and make them want to buy the product.
       In this advertisement, the consumer's eye is immediately drawn to the white lint roller. However, in this case you cannot actually see that part of the tool itself. Instead what is shown is the image of a white cat rolled up on the lint roller. The detailing on this part of the image is done quite well, including minute details such as the pads of the cat's feet and individual strands of hair that make the image more realistic. The message is obvious: this lint roller is so powerful and effective that it can easily catch enough hair from a surface to make up an entire cat, all without a new sheet needing to be used. The picture of the cat rolled up on the roller catches the viewer's immediate attention, since it is an innovative and intriguing way to advertise such a product. It is also a testament to how efficient the lint roller is, fulfilling 3M's ultimate goal: to persuade people to buy the roller.
      The second important thing to consider regarding the visual effectiveness of this advertisement is the background/resting place of the roller. It is obviously some type of fabric (likely a suit of some kind), based on the wrinkles and the apparent texture. This is more effective than having the roller rest on a table or hard surface, since the primary purpose of the lint roller is to remove hair/lint from clothing. The color of the background is also important. It is a neutral color that ensures that people's eyes go immediately to the bright contrasting color: the white cat/lint roller. The thin white stripes on the background are also significant because, while still allowing for the rolled-up-cat to be the primary focus of the viewer, they make it easier to see the handle of the lint roller as well, so people can see the entire product. If the background were a solid dark color, the handle of the lint roller might not be seen. Then the product would simply look like a rolled up cat resting on a blanket; a confusing image.
       The appeal of this advertisement is mainly in its visual aids: the cat rolled up on the lint roller and the neutral yet complimentary background. The only text appearing on the advertisement is the name of the company (to give the advertisement ethos) and the name of the product ("Lint Roller") in case anyone should be confused as to what the image is or does not understand what the product is supposed to be. Overall, the combination of striking imagery and mostly lack of textual advertising makes the advertisement more successful, striking, and persuasive to its audience: consumers (esp. consumers with pets who shed pet hair and fur on the furniture, clothing, etc...)

TOW #24-Digital Wild West

Goals: Reading-Identify most prominent rhetorical devices

          Writing: Clearly, persuasively analyze devices/relevance to author's purpose

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/opinion/taming-the-digital-wild-west.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

      The primary use of the internet when it was first introduced was mainly to provide information for people who sought factual answers. However, that is not the case anymore. The Internet has evolved. It's purpose is no longer solely to inform, but now encompasses creating and dealing with changes in everyday life, especially for consumers since many companies have online sites. In this article, Eric Schneiderman uses clear examples and personal experiences to show how online companies should be subject to/cooperate with government regulations and the regulators themselves.

      The bulk of this article is devoted to examples both of companies that have opposed regulation, and those that have cooperated, and how the companies that cooperated were better off in the long run. Schneider calls to attention the hotel-apartment company Airbnb and the cab company Uber. The purpose of Airbnb is to allow users in nearly 200 different companies to turn their homes into rentable apartments. "In 2010, the state of New York passed a law confirming that short-stay rentals were generally illegal in apartment buildings....Airbnb “hosts” rent out apartments every day in violation of this law." When regulators attempted to step in, they were fought by the Airbnb law team. A subpoena on the company was obtained, but the day before the court date, Airbnb removed nearly 2,000 listings from New York, implying that the regulators were right to be concerned. This act, according to Schneider, lowered the confidence users felt toward the site from that point on. As for Uber, during bad weather this last year, they charged New Yorkers nearly 8x the regular price, violating New York laws against price gouging. Uber has already attempted to defend its prices, and will likely not work quietly with regulators. In both cases, battling against regulations would only result in legal actions being taken and the company losing consumer confidence and its reputation.
      Schneider also gives example of a company that has cooperated with regulations, and therefore suffered no ill effects. In 2013, Yelp cooperated with law enforcement on an investigation that resulted in fines against 19 companies that had been hired to fraudulently inflate rankings for clients (other companies), as well as hurt their clients' competitors. "This furthered the public interest, but also burnished Yelp’s reputation for reliability." By working with government regulators, Yelp kept itself out of legal difficulties, was able to eliminate illegal companies from its website, became viewed as the "good guy" by the public, and managed to bolster its reputation and good standing as a company. Had Yelp fought against investigations, it may have been labeled as an accomplice to the fraudulent companies and faced possible consequences for obstruction of justice (an investigation).
      The author also gives descriptions of his personal experiences as a regulator to establish himself as someone qualified to speak about this topic, as well as make the article itself more persuasive towards his overall purpose. He says that, "The cold shoulder that regulators like me get from self-proclaimed cyberlibertarians deprives us of powerful partners in protecting the public interest online. While this may shield companies in the short run, authorities will ultimately be forced to use the blunt tools of traditional law enforcement. Cooperation is a better path." Companies that oppose government regulations will only be injuring themselves in the long-haul, when more pressing methods are used against them (e.g. the subpoena brought against Aibnb). Cooperation would be both quicker, easier, and avoid any legal troubles or loss of consumer interest/confidence. He goes on at the end of his article to say, " we are now living in an online world, one that offers great promise but is also becoming one of the primary crime scenes of the 21st century." It is up to regulators like him to manage these new online companies to ensure they dont step out of line at the expense of their clients, or treat this new online-oriented world as a "digital Wild West."
      Through clear-cut examples and his own experiences as a government regulator of online companies, Schreidner attempts to show how cooperation with regulations is actually beneficial for online companies in the long-haul. Battling with regulators will only lead to negative consequences such as legal troubles and loss of client usage. In the blooming digital age, regulations are even more necessary to protect consumers and ensure that no online companies exploits others or its consumers through illegal methods.

IRB Intro #4

For my fourth IRB I hve chosen The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived The Holocaust. In this book, the author, Edith Hahn tells of how she survived the Holocaust as the wife of a Nazi party member in Munich. She was sent to a ghetto and then a labor camp by the Gestapo when she was a young woman. She managed to return home after a few months, but was forced underground for fear of being hunted. She created a new identity, Grete Denner, and moved to Munich where a Nazi Party member named Werner Vetter fell in love with her and kept her secret that she was Jewish. Edith tells of the suspician she and her family faced, how her husband was captured by Soviets and her house was bombed. However, despite all the dangers, she kept all records (including this partial autobiography) of her life and events which are now kept at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.