A lot of times I get handed an assignment that I’m not so thrilled about. Either it’ll take up too much time or it’s boring or I just simply don’t like it. To be honest, I thought this one was going to be a time-consumer (working with technology always is) and I would feel unhappy doing it. In the end, it did turn out to take a lot of my time—that is for sure—but it didn’t make me unhappy. I learned more about my topic and became more immersed into it, trying to find different ways to get people to agree with me by using rhetorical devices.

Coming into this project, I vaguely had an idea about what I wanted to do. I wanted to create a video with my own written spoken word. I wanted to do this because I felt it would be more authentic and provide an extra boost for the person listening in. I also have done a couple of spoken words before (for longer times, though, so I was able to get more involved in the subject—something I struggled with in this project). So even though this spoken word had to be a little shorter than my usual time, I took up the challenge. Writing the spoken word was easier than I thought. I put my ideas on paper and when I successfully recorded myself performing the spoken word, it came to life. Using the rhetorical device of connecting with my audience by asking them what they see as I talk about the media and what they don’t see as I talk about the truth really worked in my favor, I believe. By presenting the dual sides, I think my audience will think more critically.

When I first recorded my spoken word, I had to do it all over again a couple of times. I finished recording it, but then heard too much static in between my lines. I did it several times more and finally I recorded again in a quiet room (pretty impossible to find these days!). Now, the static problem was gone, and my audio was ready to use.

The video I have made contains my spoken word, with some parts containing pictures and others contain words. I framed my project to kind of show the audience what “media” I am describing in the beginning of the video. The pictures are commonly found on the Internet about the stereotype. They actually gave me a lot of trouble. I know working with Creative Commons is a good practice, but it is so hard to find relevant pictures! However, I tackled this problem, extensively looking through Flickr and came up with some images I could use. I also created some of my own. I then turned to Google—don’t worry, I didn’t use the normal searches! I used the search tool of “labeled for use with modification.” From here I found a few more relevant pictures. The pictures I used from Flickr and Google Commons needed editing as well, so I did that. As I neared the end of the video, I couldn’t really find pictures on what I was speaking about. I then realized it would be more effective to highlight the key words and phrases I was saying rather than use pictures. This is why, as I neared the end, I created my own pictures with text and used pre-set Title Slides on iMovie to reinforce my point.

After all this hassle and tech problems, I came up with something I am proud of. By remediating my paper, I believe I was able to connect with my audience more. When things are written on paper, it is easy to disregard the words. However, in my spoken word I made it so that my words couldn’t be ignored, and people would be interested in finding out more about what I was talking about. In my spoken word itself I used a lot of pathos, I believe, connecting my topic to the hurt people feel and the repercussions of the depictions in the media. With my project, I decided not to do just a simple voice recording of facts and figures for this reason because I believe my audience will be more willing to connect to me when I talk about my feelings and experiences rather than a voice repeating statistics over and over again.

In order to connect with my audience, I used rhetorical devices in my video as well. I decided to use some shows my audience will no doubt be familiar with such as Disney’s Aladdin. By using a movie almost everyone knows and showing pictures of the characters and places in that movie, connections to my topic will be drawn more quickly and in effect, the audience will say, “Ahh” in their minds quickly as well. I believe this is a rhetorical device because by connecting with the examples I bring up, my audience will think deeper about the argument I make.

So I have mentioned my audience a lot, but who exactly is part of my audience? My intended audience is vey broad because everyone who is at the age to understand an article in the newspaper is part of my “audience.” Basically when I was making this I had the picture of a person subject to Islamophobia. I was thinking about finding any way at all to connect with them, rather than have them succumb to this horrible idea. This is why my audience is anyone who has the capacity to listen to Islamophobic comments and might be subjected to believing the lies being told about Muslims and Arabs in the media. This can mean someone in high school or someone in my English 2150H class, or professors and teachers all over. I wanted to make my video accessible and understandable by everyone.

I created this video for everyone so I believe the realistic setting for it is anywhere. I know it’s broad and it probably sounds like I didn’t think of an answer so I put it, but it’s the truth. People all over the world are subjected to the idea of Islamophobia. In fact, Islamophobia has become so big that it is a movement—perpetuated by the likes of Pamela Geller and others. As a result of all of this hate, I think my video will be relevant anywhere outside of the classroom. It is important for people to realize that the media is not the truth and not everything shown in the news is true. If college students know what rhetoric is, the big people dictating what should be on the news definitely do as well. Everyone should realize this truth and I think my video goes a small way to providing that insight.

By remediating my paper into this video, I captured the essence of my argument in a 3-minute video people would be willing to watch—instead of reading a five-page paper. I think this video makes my point stronger and the specific parts of my paper that I decided to use for the web text also highlight my argument. All in all, this was a really fun challenge that I accepted and—hopefully—did well in. As my video highlights, it’s the efforts an individual put into learning about a group of people that will make or break the single story.