In this blog post I'll take three acts of public speech by members of the computer science field and evaluate them. I'll look specifically at the text's speaker, audience, and context and evaluate these aspects of the text in detail.
Stuart Russell on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS)
Stuart Russell is the speaker of this public interview/article. From the article, we're informed that Russell is an expert on artificial intelligence, specifically the field of LAWS. We know Russell is a credible source based on his status (professor) at the University of California, Berkeley. Whatever Russell has to say on the subject should carry great weight.
The audience of this piece is those concerned with our nation's safety. Perhaps the piece, given it is on the internet, is more specifically aimed at those below the age of 40 or so. There are no dead-giveaway signs for who the piece is intended for, but it is reasonable to assume Russell is primarily addressing younger Americans concerned with technology and the country's safety.
To provide some context on the article, the piece was published on May 27, 2015 in Nature, a weekly science journal. This piece is informational and is aimed at informing the audience of the most current information and opinions on LAWS. One reason this article is relevant is due to the constant concern for international safety. The United Nations has taken up a key role in determining the fate of LAWS and their international status. Some events that have shaped this event are conflicts like the Cold War and World War II.
Hadi Partovi on computer science education
Hadi Partovi is the speaker in this TEDx talk posted to YouTube. At the beginning of the talk, we learn that Partovi is from the Middle East and is a successful leader in today's tech industry. Partovi began his education in computer science at a young age, and wants others to have the same opportunity he had. Partovi is absolutely qualified to be speaking about computer science education.
The audience of this talk is anybody concerned with public education. Specifically, Partovi is talking to those with an ability to influence our public education. There are no instances where Partovi explicitly states his audience, but it is reasonable to assume he is targeting influential people involved in public education.
To provide some context, computer science is a rapidly expanding field. Even though the number of computer science students is increasing rapidly, the demand for computer scientists is growing even faster. To compensate, Partovi is advocating the implication of computer science education at all levels of education. This piece is informational, persuasive, and very opinionated. Partovi is heavily involved in a program called "one hour of coding" where students are given the opportunity to learn computer science for just one hour. This program is going around the country and fueling the desire for more education in computer science.
Robert Morris on internet privacy
Robert Morris is the speaker in this blog post. In the "about me" section of the blog, we learn that Morris is a computer science graduate student at Penn State, researching aspects of internet privacy. Morris may not be the most credible source, given he is still just a student. However, since his focus is on internet privacy, it is reasonable to assign him a fair amount of credibility on that subject specifically.
The audience of this blog is anybody who owns any form of social media. This is fairly obvious considering Morris directly addresses our use of phones and forms of social media like Google and Facebook. The audience is more targeted at a young demographic since more young people will have social media than older people will.
To provide some context, several internet privacy scandals have arisen in recent history. Edward Snowden's reveal of NSA activity has caused great concern in American citizens. Many are concerned with maintaining privacy, and it seems to be becoming more and more difficult to do that. Morris's piece is mostly his opinion on the subject. Morris believes the lack of privacy is extremely concerning and needs to be addressed further by government agencies like the NSA. This issue is relatively new, given the rise of technology in the past half a century.
EDIT:
After reading Swati's and Elliot's posts, I learned a few things. One is that my own evaluation was on par with my classmates'. I also learned that an effective rhetorical analysis can only be done on pieces with at least some level of complexity. If the piece you're trying to analyze is straightforward with its rhetoric, there is no point in analyzing the piece.
For my project, I'm going to make sure the piece I analyze has significant depth and complexity, otherwise I might struggle to write a complete rhetorical analysis.
The most compelling rhetorical situations examined here, in my opinion, were that of Stuart Russel on LAWS and Robert Morris on internet privacy. I thought they had a good depth and could be explored much further. The talk by Hadi Partovi did not seem like the best speech act to analyze, as the speaker did not seem too opinionated on a specific controversy, but rather wanted to call attention to a problem he saw in society.
ReplyDeleteI think that your first article has the best rhetorical situation due to the fact that there is some opinions that are present within the article. I also think that the ted x video is not a very strong example of rhetorical situation because it is more informative than rhetorical.
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