Philosophy of Education 

Throughout history, rhetorical studies have guided the effective users of communication in their quests to understand the means by which language may effectively ensnare the minds, hearts, and souls of the masses and manipulate them to reach a desired conclusion.  In my media-centric classrooms, I have made it my mission to guide students through the analysis of media and how the tools of persuasion are repurposed, reformatted, and remediated into the rhetorical tools of the modern age.  As such, my classes are designed around establishing a rhetorical foundation to analyze the effects of media and culture on participants and engaging with the media to enjoy these effects as a consumer of media.

Part I: A Rhetorical Foundation
 
To begin the process of identifying and understanding the effect of rhetorical persuasion, I believe that students must have a firm understanding of the methods by which an individual may be persuaded. Aristotle, in Rhetoric, clearly defines three appeals of rhetorical persuasion, which I feel each student should be made aware and urged to master. These three appeals are integral in the students’ success as critics and creators of media and their success as productive members of society, for the three represent the gateways to the essence of the intended audience.

Therefore, throughout the duration of my courses, students are continually guided to focus on the following three appeals and their influence on the designated audiences:

Ethos – An appeal to the ethical/ moral knowledge of the audience. Students must consider the media designer’s audience morals and belief.  Once aware of these elements of the target audience, students can study the effects of attuning media element in support or opposition of these foundational beliefs for effect.
Pathos – An appeal to the emotional nature of the audience. Students learn a wise rhetorician and writer will use the emotional connections of the audience to their advantage. By effectively manipulating the audience’s feelings regarding the situation at hand, a media designer will be able to prey upon the audience’s emotional vulnerabilities as they endeavor to persuade the participant to follow a certain course of action.
Logos- An appeal to the factual knowledge of the audience. All scholars of media must learn to identify and analyze how the designers of media draw the connective bonds between their argument and their sources in order to ensure that their audience connects clearly to the art they are producing.  Through streams of logic, the participant becomes accepting of the actions of the creator and more likely to continue engagement through the duration of the mediated event.

My experience has shown that scholars, who are aware of the three rhetorical appeals, are more likely to successfully identify the art of persuasion as it is being used because they understand how the nature of one’s audience may be subtly manipulated and controlled to elicit a desired response. Moreover, as a direct result of their ability to identify and understand how rhetorical manipulation is occurring, they are able to produce far superior rhetorical acts and are far more successful in their own mediated endeavors.


Part II: Participatory Cultures
 
In addition to teaching students how to identify the rhetorical appeals and utilize them for their own goals, my philosophy of education also maintains students must also have a developed understanding of how media is remediated and repurposed for utilization in new mediums. In Remediation, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin expand upon the concept of repurposing and remediation as a tool for developing new mediums. Newer technologies incorporate successful tools from earlier technologies in an effort to evolve the tool into something even more effective. Additionally, Henry Jenkins argues in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide fans of popular media engage in participatory cultures creating transmediated works that incorporate the work of the original creator to generate unique products of their own.  Because remediation and participatory cultures are best experienced first-hand, students in my courses are continually engaged in play.

Whether a student is taking a course focused on interactive narratives and community collaborations, taught within the World of Warcraft game, engaging in the study of heroics in Japanese anime, writing a work of fan fiction, or donning a costume to attend a Comic Con to observe participatory fandom first-hand for an ethnographic-styled paper, students in my classes are engaging the elements we are studying.  Media scholarship must be more than staring at a work of art for a few moments, writing a paper, and getting a grade, it must also include elements of participation, for only through engaging media can a person truly understand it.  By incorporating play into my courses, when my students write, publish, and talk about media, they are doing so not merely as academics, they are doing so from the perspective of an ACA-Fan (Academic Fan).  They are active participants in the consumption of media, and in that way, they exit my courses ready to engage media as critic, crafter, and supporter.

Since these engagements necessitate proof of relevance to the materials being covered, students log and document their experiences using a media form of their choosing.  Whether blog, vlog, game, or paper, students chronicle their interactions with the medium and produce their own rhetorically empowered pieces to help promote their own research and learning agendas.