Cultural Commonplace: The modern cell phone

This speech will be about the modern cell phone. How it connects us and allows us to be more productive and more efficient while keeping us safe. Detailed instructions below:

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The object you analyze should be well known or easily shown to your audience. Your analysis should focus on claims made by the artifact on the audience in terms of the issue of public identity (race/gender/orientation, citizenship, or public memory). Additionally, your speech should inform us about the context of the artifact by presenting sufficient historical and cultural background for the audience in class. Ultimately, you should be presenting a clear and thoughtful argument about the object as something that can be understood as a material instance of rhetoric. This argument should not be limited to whether the object was merely aesthetic, functional, or in conversation with community standards, but should judge it according to the criteria of how it—intentionally or not—persuades someone to think, to act, or to believe in specific ways. Were the purposes of the object (assuming it had an intended purpose) fulfilled by its persuasive stance or contradicted? What were the consequences or potential impact of the artifact? Were the principles behind it valid?

This assignment will rely on logos. Logos is one of the rhetorical proofs that lead to judgment by the audience. Logos is based on evidence and reasoning, language, and structure. Your analysis, given in a speech, will demonstrate how you use criticism as a form of civic engagement. What you believe to be the persuasive dimensions of the cultural artifact will demonstrate that you know how to be a critic involved in public life, that you know how to do criticism that is engaged in civic matters, and that this functions in ways that are important for the good of the public.

Provide support for your speech by drawing on what others say about the artifact or about artifacts like it: include a minimum of six published sources cited orally in the speech, cited in the outline for your speech where you use them, and listed in the outline bibliography / Works Cited page. Four of the six sources must be scholarly (edited, peer-reviewed) publications. Journalistic sources, news-aggregators, and general web pages are not scholarly sources, but they can be used to provide factual information, historical background, or pertinent cultural characteristics and uses. The artifact you analyze is not a source: it is the object of your analysis. The textbook for this course is not a source: it is your guide for preparing your speech. Your instructor can be an invaluable resource in developing your perspective: ask your instructor for suggested scholarly readings that will help you conduct your analysis. Remember, your purpose is not merely to provide facts in an informative speech, but to use these facts to argue persuasively for the perspective that you are taking.