Reading + Discussion: “Twelve Million Phones, One Data Set, Zero Privacy”
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Today’s reading is a hybrid of opinion writing and investigative journalism, “Twelve Million Phones, One Data Set, Zero Privacy,” (Links: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html) from the New York Times’ “Privacy Project.”
Our primary focus will be on the authors’ use of multimodal evidence. Multimodal writing employs various modes of perception: spatial (the layout of elements on the page or screen), visual, gestural (involving physical expression, such as facial expressions or body language), aural (sound), and linguistic (the content of language). Multimodal writing draws upon evidence that communicates using some combination of these modalities. For example, an infographic like a bar graph uses the visual mode to make data easy to understand in a way that “plain” linguistic writing cannot. Or a photograph might employ visual and gestural modes to create pathos as we look at the image of a person related to your problem. The main thing to keep in mind is that multimodal evidence–images, infographics, tables, charts, pull-quotes, embedded video, etc.–is not merely decorative; it should contribute substance to your argument.
For this discussion, please record a 1-2 minute video(just write the text for me) in which you assess a piece of multimodal evidence from today’s reading, explaining what you think it contributes to the argument
