ENGL 505B

Hi all. In preparation for the visual rhetoric assignment, I had my students choose three different presidential candidate websites to look over and then choose one to analyze regarding visual strategies. Coincidentally after I gave the assignment, The New Yorker ran an essay in which they discussed some of the election symbols used on ballots in Pakistan to represent parties so people could vote although many are illiterate. The symbols included a lion, a ceiling fan (my favorite), and an AK-47. We had a really interesting class discussion on why parties might choose these particular symbols.

Then this morning I came across this article in the New York Times in which there is an analysis of Obama and Clinton's websites and what the design of the sites might say about each of the candidates. Cool, eh? Unfortunately, there is no analysis of the Republican websites, but maybe that could be a homework assignment?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/technology/04link.html?bl&ex=120244680...

Anyway, I think this will all tie in really nicely with the Sarah Vowell essay "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" and the analysis of the war posters in the visual rhetoric chapter.

Cheers,

Cris.