snap

Things are starting to come together; we have an audience, we've begun to think about the message, we have a few ideas for how to frame our message, now we need to think about how to get it out there.

Today, let's meditate on how we can best make our argument(s). What types of appeals will work best for our audience? Do the categories of ethos (authority), pathos (emotion), or logos (logic) help us think about which appeals might be most effective? How can we best get this message out there? Through which media?

I stumbled on this article in my online research, and thought you all might find it interesting:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2956

Don't forget, also, to work on your rough "best practices" document; we'll try to refine those in class tonight, preparing for a weekend writing retreat in which we consolidate these into a single document.

Until this evening,

kevin

Framing the Message, Developing a Thesis

So we've got an audience (the UAS Community), we've started to attempt to understand this audience, and we agree that we need to communicate some of the scientific detail to facilitate social change in response to climate change.

Now we need a message or a way to frame the issue for our audience. So, what do you think,
can we articulate our message in a catchy sentence or a simple image? Do we need a couple of messages?

List a few potential ideas here--and bring a few to class, too.

Wednesday: Putting Audience and Facts Together: Determining the Details

Thanks for two great discussions to get the course rolling.

Now that we've identified our audience as, broadly speaking, the UAS community, we want to begin to think about framing our message. This will entail thinking more carefully about what we know about this audience, and, moreover, thinking carefully about what elements of the science might be most important for this audience. So, what do you think: how can we best persuade the UAS community to not only understand the problem of climate change, but to change behavior in response to it, too?

How detailed do we need to be? Upon what criteria would you make these decisions?

Until tonight,

kevin

Tuesday: Arriving at a Sense of Audience

After spending a few minutes listing the various communities you belong to, try to evaluate how interested members of each of these communities might be in making personal changes or commitments to address the problems of climate change.

Thinking about these matters should help us address the questions we want to discuss in class tonight; namely, where should we, as a group, focus our energy if we want to effect the most social change? Where can we have the most impact?