Proposal Summary

For public sphere week I have decided to talk about sexual assault. More specifically, I am going to focus on the college demographic and focus on the party scene and acquaintance rape amongst college students. I will be giving out fact sheets with statistics about date/acquaintance rape, and prevention tips on another sheet, and possibly brochures/pamphlets of some sort with other information from my research. I plan to post flyers up around the campus as far as advertising goes. My ultimate goal for this project is to make college students more aware about date rape and have them know ways of prevention. I feel that my way may be simple, but effective to getting my point across. I am open to suggestions.

Content Analysis: Statistics

In 2007, the Evansville population was 349,717, a 6,902 increase from 342,815 in 2000. 91% of the people were white, 5.9 % black, .2 % American Indian, .9 % Asian, 0 percent Pacific islanders, 1.1 % of two or more races, and 1.3 % of Hispanic/Latin-American. The unemployment rate from 2005-2007 is 8.1%, 62.6 % of Evansville citizens are working and 12.6% are living under the poverty level. 82.3 % of people from Evansville have obtained their high school diploma and only 16.7 % have a bachelor's degree or higher. The total male population in Evansville is 54,266 male (47.8%) and 59,361 female (52.2%), with the median age being 36.6 years old.

At USI, 10.021 students are enrolled and 82% of people are accepted into the University.

Autoethnography

Growing up, I did not care for a lot of issues. Even after I began to form my own opinions about issues, I did not really participate in any events, write any letters, or put my opinions out into the public forum, and I still have not. My shyness has rendered me from being able to speak my mind properly. However, since being in college, I have discovered that I'm not as shy as I used to be, and I'm moving towards putting myself, along with my opinions out into the world. There have been many instances where I was able to put my opinions out, but chose not to. Here is one of them.

It was around the time of the fall festival, that my friends and I noticed this sign on the pro-life booth. I cannot remember what it said fully but, it had something to the effect of "Life Chain, Sunday October 12." Now, my friends and I are all pro-choice and my friend Joseph thought about maybe getting people together and protesting the life chain. Now, I know abortion is probably the most cliche thing to protest over, but I personally felt that with this, we could possibly get our opinions known. We wanted to show people that women had a choice and it was their body. In my mind, I felt that we wanted to get people to see the other side of the coin before they fully made up their minds.

However, we did not go through with the protest. We felt that it was a little late to get people organized and it would seem that we couldn't make a real impact with the little group, I felt a little disappointed that we couldn't go on with it, but at the same time I felt relieved because it would be nerve racking to have to stand in front of all those pro-lifers. I also felt a little let down with myself because I still could not express my own personal beliefs to other people. I believe that being shy and the fact that not many people would be there to back my friends and I up are what ultimately prevented me from making my opinions known.

Looking back on the whole situation, I feel that now I could protest them, even if I was just one person. I believe that even if I were the only one to protest the pro-lifers, I could have still made an impact on at least one person with my views. I believe that I am ready to do things that I need/want to make my thoughts public.

1.Do I stay on topic or do I go off?
2.Any grammar errors?
3.If anything sounds weird, point that out to me.
4.Any other mistakes you catch, you should point those out to me as well.

My Political Results

After taking the test, these are the results that I came up with. Overall, I feel that the results of the test definitely leaned towards my Political beliefs. I am a liberal, so it came as no surprise that I fell into the left libertarian position.

I do feel that the test was not the best because there were some questions that I did not understand, and some of the questions were a little more close-ended.I do feel that the test really did not bring out many values, nor did it test the values that I hold dear. However, I feel that everyone should take this test, for it is a decent way to show where you are in the chart and you learn more about contemporary politics as a result.

For the most part, I am not a hardcore political person, but I do pay attention to politics and I feel that everyone, including myself to get more involved in them.

Analyzing a tech blog

Thesis: I don't directly state a thesis but it is How Matt Parnell is appealing and why his blog is good.
Today, there are hundreds upon thousands of blogs taking up space on the internet. If it exists, more than likely is it blogged about. Topics range from technology to personal information, music to cooking, science to religion, and whatever else you can think of. I, myself, tend to be into all things technology and, when searching for a blog to do my analysis, I came across a web-blog that seemed rather interesting. It was named “Matt Parnell’s Brain: Plugged In!” and after careful analysis, I can concur that this truly is a good blog for internet techies everywhere.First things first, the moment you go to the website you are greeted with a welcome message towards the top of the webpage. The welcome message gets right to the point and says this, “Welcome to my site. I usually write about technology, such as>satellite television descrambling, comparing Linux and Windows, and I also talk about other things when they fit my fancy. I currently have two past articles in 2600, regarding Internet Archeology, as well as Blackhat SEO. I also am interested in collecting SURGE merchandise, and enjoy all things Power Rangers and Super Sentai” (Parnell). The statement alone defines him, what he usually writes about, and what his whole purpose is for running that website. However, he defines himself even more by the style he has setup for the website. It all looks very neat and organized, as well as the color scheme seems to make everything look perfect, which could give off the impression that maybe he is a bit OCD or is just a perfectionist. Next, is how does he appeal to a certain demographic? He does it in a few ways. The first is with his welcome statement. By already stating what he usually talks about, he is getting rid of all people who are either not interest in technology, or just do not care what his website has to say. The second is by reading his about section. In it he states, “I am a devout Evangelical Christian, first, and foremost. I enjoy anything to do with hacking, cracking, modding, cooking, technical stuff, music, dumpster diving, etc. I may post some vocal music samples sometime, just for kicks”(Parnell) By showing all the things that enjoys, the reader can then compare that to their own likes and dislikes, then decide if they want to continue to browse the website or not. The final thing that gets a certain demographic in is the fact that he is some what knowledgeable in internet culture. In his about section there is a picture of him wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and you can link that to a certain internet group whom will not be named. Also he wrote a blog about Guy Fawkes Day, which was the 5th of November. With all three of those techniques, he is able to bring in a fairly mixed group of visitors to his website. However, what is the point of his website? Matt stated in his about section, “I created this site with the intention of just letting it be an extension of my brain. It isn't as much a blog as it is my brain in a very organized detail.” (Parnell) That statement shows his whole purpose, which is to blog about whatever he feels like. I believe the message he is trying to bring to the masses is to just see what kind of technology Matt Parnell is going to write about today or, what other random thing is he going to do. He must be writing about the right things because he has been around since 2006. Overall, Matt Parnell is just one example of what a good, organized blog should look and be like. He has managed to stay up to date for the most part for the past three years, and he continues to deliver his technological messages in a very timely manner. Hopefully, one day we can all follow in Mr. Parnell’s blogging foot steps.
1. Do I see like I'm rambling on and if so, what can I do to fix that?
2. If something makes no sense, what is it and how can I change it, so that it does?
3. What, if anything, stood out for you as a reader in the analysis?