Mallari, Margaret C.

03 Dec 2019

1. Watch the video of a public talk between Jack Ma and Elon Musk, both of whom are known
as credible icons in their respective fields.
a. Briefly analyze the rhetoric of each speaker IN THE VIDEO ALONE.
Jack Ma:
With the way that Jack Ma was speaking in their debate, it was as if he was
more focused on trying to impress the audience with his knowledge rather than trying
to make sense of what Elon Musk is saying because he is already firm with his stand
about AI, and hearing others’ thoughts about it do not really matter to him anyway. In
the video, it was as if Ma was not really listening to Musk’s arguments and just says
something completely unrelated to the latter’s points. However, he is very confident
with the things that he is saying that is why if you don’t really listen to what he is
saying, he sounds really credible.
Elon Musk:
Elon Musk on the other hand was very relaxed the entire debate which also
showed how he is firm with his stand, and that he knows what he is talking about.
His points were mostly logic and facts and he sounded persuasive and credible. With
the way Musk is speaking, it was as if he was trying to actually debate and have a
proper discourse with Ma, rather then focusing on impressing the people who are
watching the video.
b. Who do you find more credible and why?
In their debate, I found Elon Musk’s statements more credible. As stated above
in the above question, to me, it was as if Jack Ma was making arguments in order to
impress the people who are watching even if what he is saying is totally unrelated;
and on the other hand, Musk was stating things that were based on logic and facts
and he was trying to have an actual conversation with Ma rather than trying to seem
impressive.
2. Twitter has been known to be the social media platform in which consistent random rants
and dramatic utterances are acceptable, at least compared to its counterpart platforms.
a. Briefly analyze the Twitter culture using CA and/or ES.
Conversation Analysis:
Conversations on Twitter are often in the form of turn-taking. When someone
tweets about anything under the sun, most especially if the topic is actually relevant,
replies are expected. Replies are often either the person is agreeing with the
statement they replied to, or disagreeing — where sometimes ‘call outs’ or
‘cancelling’ happens; these are the norm of twitter nowadays. In contrast, Twitter
before was just a simple social media site where one can tweet just about anything
without striking conversation because nobody cared too much before even if one’s
tweet is problematic. With turn-taking, discourse occurs where one speaker at a time
states or tweets their argument. Sometimes, however, there will be other Twitter users
who join in on the conversation.
Ethnography of Speaking:
• Situation: There is no physical setting for conversations done in Twitter
because it is a social media platform.
• Participants: Everyone who has a Twitter account are free to tweet whatever
they want, directly or indirectly to any other twitter user; users may also reply
and strike up conversation with other users.
• Ends: One’s tweet, if informative, may be a source of information — whether
real or fake news. One can also make new ‘social media friends’ through
twitter when they share common interests.
• Acts: It begins with one’s tweet, directed or not to any one. Tweet then gets
replies from the user mentioned (if any), but users who were not mentioned
may also reply. Turn-taking in the replies will then occur and the
conversation ends when one decides not to reply any more, concede in the
argument, users agree to disagree, etc.
 • Keys: Tone of tweets vary depend on what kind of tweet it is, or depending on
the user tweeting. Tones can go from one end of the spectrum to the other i.e.
serious, humorous, playful, formal, informal, flirty, etc.
• Instrumentalities: This cannot be determined because Twitter is a social
media platform.
• Norms: It is a norm on Twitter to tweet about something even if it is not
directed to anyone; it is also a norm to get replies from people you do not
know.
• Genre: All types of speech events occur on Twitter i.e. joking, informing,
interviewing, gossiping, etc.

b. What features of this platform led to the normalization of the Twitter culture?
Twitter is a social media platform that is fast-paced, and it is the go-to of
the people who wants to get updated with current events immediately. Twitter
has all sorts of stuff in it — breaking news, jokes and memes, informative
threads, photos, live videos, etc.
In this social media platform, when you refresh, you can see tweets that
are tweeted as early as 1 second ago — that’s how immediate it is; that every
one can become a ‘reporter’ on what is currently happening whenever and
wherever. The limited character limit also gave birth to either threads, or a
good summary of what is happening in one tweet. Threads are done if more
information are needed to support one’s statement, or sometimes for other
purposes as well.

3. The less stringent gatekeeping observed in social media paved way to the publication of
counterculture ideas. However, it can be argued that there is still a consistent propagation of
the ideas of the ruling class. Through what methods is this being carried out in social media?
The people who belong in the ruling class are powerful people. With this power
that they have, they tend to see that their ideas have more play or acceptance than
 those of other people’s. Their ideas spread not only because they have more means
and network to do that, but it is also because they have more time to invest and think
about these ideas, and ways to carry them out through social media or not.
In social media, ideas spread if one has the right amount of ‘following’; this are
those who interact with one’s posts and give the posts engagements and impressions.
The more people engage with one’s posts, the more impressions it will get. So, if you
are a person of power who belong in the ruling class, you sure have a fair amount of
following that would help boost your posts and spread your ideas.

4. With good rhetoric, almost anything is possible. Contemporary rhetoric is defined as the use
of ANY method of persuasion. If you were asked to sell a completely useless and ugly item,
how would you sell it? For argument’s sake you may provide a specific hypothetical item.
Personally, I honestly believe that all items that are made and sold are made
and sold for a purpose; and that no product is actually completely useless. With
advertising and selling things, you don’t really need the entire world to think that
what you are selling is cool or extremely helpful, you just need a good part of it — if
not, maybe a niche market. Selling useless and ugly things may be difficult, but not
everyone will find that your product is useless and ugly. Again, I truly believe that
there is always a potential market or buyer for every product.
When selling a useless and ugly, the best that one can do is just be honest with
advertising it. Advertising and honesty does not usually go together, but when selling
a useless and ugly product, you may find a way to turn things around and this may
actually be the thing’s major selling points. First of all, think about all the good
things about the product if there are any — these are automatic selling points
anyway. Then, think about why consumers should not buy your product where in this
situation, it is useless and ugly. With these flaws, find a way of turning or looking at
these in a positive way. However, if things just don’t work out, as a last resort or a
Hail Mary, hire someone famous and influential to advertise your product. Offer
 them a huge sum of cash they can never say no to and with their fans and following,
some will surely buy what their ‘idol’ is advertising.

5. Watch the trailer in the link provided. In this movie, it is apparent that our Filipino ancestors
were represented. React on that representation.
Well, first of all, when Filipinos go into battle, we never say “atake” where in
the trailer it was pronounced as ‘ah-tah-ki’; instead, we use the word “sugod” that is
“attack” or “charge” in English. So with that, we can already say that there are so
many things that are wrong and inaccurate in this trailer. Because, really? If they
cannot even get that one basic thing right, how can we really say that they got
everything else right? The film, based on the trailer not only lacked historical
inaccuracy, it lacked research as to what the Philippines looked like, and what sort of
trees and birds exist in the Philippines as well.
This movie is one where the colonisers are portrayed in a good light like they
are the heroes when Magellan brought suffering to the Filipinos for more than 300
years, and our ancestors and Lapu-Lapu, one of the country’s national heroes, are the
villains. This movie, or at least the trailer shows historical inaccuracy with how they
depicted what actually happened. This is the event that sparked more than 300 years
of slavery under the Spaniards here in the Philippines — it was not just “an
adventure that will change the course of human history.”
The point is, this movie’s depiction of true to life events is like historical
revisionism. You cannot really make a film out of something that really happened
and affected an entire nation, and then proceed to make what happened lean towards
your favour where in this case, they portrayed the colonisers as the good guys, and
the natives as the bad guys. Films affect how people think and his film is animated,
and animated films are most of the time catered to children. If the Filipino children
watches this, it will be dangerous because who is going to explain to them what
really happened?