Rebecca C. Serrano

ERH-221W

November 13, 2014

 

Digital media is the primary form of social interaction in this era, helping with jobs, and meeting new people who live halfway across the world. Because so many people can see what you put on social media, even with privacy settings, it is important to be aware of what is posted and how it reflects the individuals image to others looking at the profiles. I am a consultant to my client, Grant Morgan, a freshman at VMI, who has limited access to the online world due to the strictness of the school within the first year.

To begin with, I interviewed Grant to find out what he wants his social media to present about himself. The biggest topics and positions that he wanted to make sure were evident were his faith and beliefs in God, sports specifically wrestling, and he want to pick up an Army contract. Grant wants to remain himself on social media yet he wants to avoid seeming narcissistic and self centered (Morgan).

Looking at Grant’s social media usage, he uses twitter the most, then his Instagram, and his Facebook looks as if it hasn’t been touched in years. His activity on all three has stopped since arriving at VMI, due to this unordinary situation, I have evaluated his use from before he matriculated at VMI.

He uses his twitter the most so I decided to analyze that specific media. Twitter is a multimodal sight, meaning that is uses multiple modes to communicate. One of the modes is the Linguistic mode. The linguistic mode is how words are written or spoke, the use of language (Arola, 5). The way words are paired have an intense effect. Visual mode refers to images used. The visual mode uses “color, layout, style, size, and perspective” (Arola, 8). This directly applies to the pictures he chooses to post, the color, if applicable, he choses to use, such as on twitter you can change the twitter blue. Spatial mode is another of the modes that is applicable to Grant’s social media. This addresses how information is displayed and arranged. This includes the order and how close a set of information is to another (Arola, 10). All of these modes I describe with using the specific pictures he posts and what he retweets. When it comes to spatial, Grant doesn’t have much of a choice because there is a set format.

The image used as his cover photo on twitter uses position and color from the top of a mountain looking over peaks with the contrasting greens, blues and white tops, with arms spread out, ready for anything that comes his way giving the viewer a sense of adventure showing that the outdoors are a great sense of adventure. This image emphasizes that he enjoys the outdoors and adventures, that he enjoys a challenge, small or big. In his bio, he says that he lives for God and he used to be a wrestler, which gives the viewer a small idea on where he stands politically and that he enjoys athletics.  He retweeted a post by The Gospel Daily, @the_gospels, which said “Praise God even when you don’t understand what He’s doing.” This here, along with many other retweets from this account helps to enforce what he said about himself in his bio, that he lives for God. The amount of retweets he has on his feed with a variety of accounts such as John Piper, @johnpiper, Christian Athleats, @AthForGod, and Bible time, @Bible_Time, show that he is serious about his beliefs and proud of them by retweeting for really the entire internet to see.

The next item in his bio is his love for wrestling. If someone includes a sport in their bio, it is assumed they like sports in general. This is also supported with the amount of sports related tweets he has on his feed. He has retweeted from Sports Center, @SportsCenter, Wrestler Nation, @wrestler_sweg, and Dicks Sporting Goods, @DICKS. These tweets seem to take up of Grants Feed.

Looking back at what Grant wants to achieve with his social media, he achieves two aspects within his twitter. HE achieves his representation of God, and his love for sports with his use of retweeting. The one aspect he does not address is his desire to join the Army. This aspiration could be new when he matriculated at VMI, and has yet to post anything due to his inability to use social media. If this is the case, when he gets the opportunity to do so, he needs to include some tweets about the Army, to show his interest in the branch.

Looking at what Grant uses for his online identity, for his benefit, he needs to reactivate his Facebook. Facebook is one of the leading social media sights and is often looked at if an employer wants to find out more about the person they are thinking of hiring. I say Facebook because he does have one, yet the profile picture is at least two years old and has no other information on his Facebook, not even a cover photo. When an employer looks and this inactivity, they may question what type of person they are if they don’t use the typical social media offered. Grant has expressed concern with appearing narcissistic and only want to update personal information for family and friends (Morgan). My suggestions are to update profile and cover photos, and follow army on Facebook to be able to share posts he thinks are interesting and maybe something he may want to so in the army in the future.  The following is a mock up of a Facebook profile I think would be helpful to Grant:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Arola, Kristin L., and Jennifer Sheppard. Writer/designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Print.

 

Morgan, Grant. “Digital Rhetorics.” Message to Grant Morgan. 12 October 2015. Email.

 

 

Help Received: MAJ Garriott; Manny Bloch, Bibme.com