Writing, Research, and Technology Blog Post 10: Thinking Critically About Tweets

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This tweet is a response to a report that a woman had to remove a Blue Lives Matter flag to comply with her home owners association.
1. Who benefits from this tweet would be anyone who believes that the Black Lives Matter movement is a “terrorist group” with anti-police goals and who support the Blue Lives Matter movement. This tweet also affects supporters of the Black lives movement as they are addressed through the author’s use of “#BlackLivesMatter.”

2. What- A counter-argument for this tweet would be that it is hypocritical to treat Black Lives Matter one way for not following the law, while treating a Blue Lives Matter activist differently when they break a rule.

3. Where- In real life this statement might be found in conversation with police supporters, their families, retired officers, or people who dislike Black Live Matter.

4. When- We can expect this to change when there is a consensus between police departments and the American people on how much force is appropriate for a police officer to use in self-defense when the threat they face is unknown. Also we will solve when we determine when it is appropriate to limit free speech. Should the woman be allowed to fly the flag as long as athletes can protest during the “Star Spangled Banner”?

5. Why- People should know about this because, while there is a need to address police violence, there appears to be a need to address the freedom of speech and concerns of those who view police violence a means to defending a “Blue Life.”

6. How- This harms others by taking a movement aimed at protecting lives and characterizing it as a terrorist organization solely by isolating it in the context of how it may have influenced the home owners association to have the flag removed. Rather than simply advocating for lawlessness and harming cops, in the tweeter’s eyes, Black Lives Matter has elevated to impinging upon free speech.

Writing, Research, and Technology Blog Post One: Digital Literacies

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In chapter one of Situated Literacies (Routledge, 2000) “Literacy Practices” David Barton and Mary Hamilton lay out a structure for a theory of literacy, defining literacy, literacy events, and literacy domains.

One literacy practice where Rhinegold’s crap detector would come in handy is researching for problems that require immediate solutions. I am composing some of this blog stuck in a café while I wait for someone to come jumpstart my car. When I first tried to start my car, the dashboard lights flickered rapidly and I didn’t realize immediately that I needed a jump. My first instinct was to take out my phone and google the symptoms. When the first few results I checked did not produce answers, I realized more intensive research was necessary and I took out my laptop, which I always keep close at hand as I must use every spare moment to get some writing done. I connected to the internet with a feature that lets me access WiFi through the internet routers of other customers of my home internet service provider. “Surely,” I thought to myself, “I must be on the brink of finding a solution to my problem now that I have all the information of the internet available to me through the ergonomic interface of my laptop internet browser.” I read a few threads on niche message boards for Subaru owners, but none of the owners had precisely the same problem that I was experiencing. Eventually, I followed a search result to a site called justanswer.com where someone had a posted a similar question to mine. Just after the site loaded a chat box opened in which Kevin, an “experienced Subaru mechanic,” asked me what my problem was. In the chat box I typed my problem, hit send, and over the next five minutes he asked me some leading questions, such as the model year of my car and what have I already tried to fix the

Redirected to CC capture on justanswer.com

problem. Then he said “okay, I know what’s wrong.” Then I was automatically redirected to a page asking for my credit card info. I was disappointed in myself because in all the time I was interacting with him, I had thought that Kevin was a good samaritan merely trying to better the world by participating in an online community and helping people for free, but I was wrong. Fortunately tough, before I resumed my research, I recalled that the flickering had occurred before and jumpstarting my car resolved it. In retrospect, I realized that the “conversation” I had was most likely with a chat bot software programmed to ask leading questions.

Another literacy practice I wish I were more adept at is social media policies. Facebook initially rejected my name stating, “We require everyone to use their authentic name on Facebook.” I was rather flabbergasted because, to the best of my knowledge, Fine is my authentic last name.

Mark Zuckerberg’s baby thinks my name is too cool to be true.