Hannah's 1st Blog Post
- Hannah Taylor
- Apr 30, 2020
- 1 min read
The topic I chose was the misinformation coming from the president. I intend to take a sort of archival approach to this topic as in archiving and analyzing speeches he has made.
I want people to get interested in my project and keep reading even though I can’t see my project having any interactive parts.
My grandmother lives with my family and she is always watching CNN. CNN streams a lot of President Trump’s conferences so I hear the “misinformation” that comes from him so I want to “expose” him. I’ve been interested in proving that the president is a “liar” since he became president so this interest of mine is not new.
The problem of countering dis/misinformation is as pressing as it's ever been, given our circumstances right now. I would caution you to make sure you are challenging statements in a way that give as much benefit of the doubt as possible -- this will only serve to strengthen your claims. Can't wait to see what you make!
Hannah! I think its great that you are approaching the project with a topic you already have previous thoughts and interest in. Misinformation is an interesting political (and academic) concept: selecting information to call right or wrong is a big ole power move.
Especially when you intend to call "the most powerful man in the world" wrong.
So, advice I would have - especially if you are intending your piece for people who lean to support the present administration and the president. Be specific. Primary sources should be words that come from his own mouth. When you find yourself satisfied with undermining those specific instances with relevant response, I think you will find that you have created a strong argument…
I think a problem area is that it's not entirely new to "prove" Trump is a liar. Since his election, neutral and left-leaning news sites have been working to document the misinformation that he provides, down to the frequency with which he does so per rally, per presidential speech, etc. as well as comparing him to previous presidents, and so on. Is there a way to narrow your goal even further in relation to the corona virus? I think that's where you'll find room for interpretation and interactivity.
To expand on that--you're going to be looking at something that will be much more of a gray area than it seems from the outside. Are you going to be documenting every…
It'll be cool if you use a timeline tool to visualize his statements and the development of covid-19 in the US, may or may not find some correlations there :')
And I think it might also be interesting to consider his motives behind the statements, which would probably tie into a larger political picture.
I think that is a wonderful idea! Speeches sound very interesting and will keep people more focused on the topic!