Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read and interact with my multimodal project. The goal of my multimodal is to
a.) Talk about the importance of queer media (even bad ones)
b.) Talk about a couple common trauma narratives and give a brief explanation for why
we need these narratives
I picked these goals because I found that it created an interesting discourse with room to provide enough context. There are a lot of existing conversations surrounding queer media and why we need them, however many sources I have read, and cited, reference older pieces. Which is fine, however, I feel like there are newer artifacts that emphasize the points made better. In addition, few people have been making my argument in general. I found few to no sources making the same arguments as I am, which is great for me, but was also difficult to write about. I believe I am adding something new to the argument here, especially with a relevant and current artifact.
In a past homework assignment, I wrote that my intended audience was a mix between people who are queer and consume queer media, but I would also like to add people who want to know more about this topic. I think the addition of this audience allows me to broaden my horizons and ensures that I fully explain each topic to the best of my abilities.
I made a lot of rhetorical choices in this essay to help bridge my ideas to my intended audience. Here are some major choices I made to convey my ideas!
Website formatting
I found that a website format allows readers to be able to follow my thinking and clearly separate my ideas from each other with separate pages. I especially love the page where I have a click and explore section because it feels like a ‘choose your own adventure’ activity. In the future, I would like to have more topics there, however, with the word count restraints, I feel as though I conveyed my ideas well with the two topics rather than a lot of topics with little explanations.
The theme called Diplomat
This was a premade theme by Google. I felt like it provided a clean looking interface, which drew more attention to the words and images rather than the heading or the background. I also chose to not have images or a colorful header because I wanted the reader to feel as though they were reading this piece from a reputable source like the New York Times or the Washington Post. Something classy was extremely important to me.
The use of Heartstopper, both the comic and the show
I know I probably should have picked one… however, I felt like both were necessary. While they both seem to go in the same direction, the comic and the show portray emotions differently and emphasize certain aspects of the plotline differently. I also thought using both could make my website more visually appealing, especially because the comic is only in black and white where the TV show uses many bright colors.
I also chose to only use Heartstopper because I felt I could make better analysis with one artifact (technically two) rather than two artifacts. Originally, I was also going to write about Young Royals as well, however, with word count and time restraints, I found Heartstopper to be more versatile in my argument. I found myself majorly pulling from Heartstopper and decided to pull Young Royals entirely.
Key words section
I used a key words section in my literature review and received great feedback. I feel like having definitions for terms that will be common in your argument is helpful because you can then proceed with assurance that your reader understands what you are talking about. I also used a term, queer, that has multiple meanings and is very hard to define in one way. By adding clarity to what I mean, I felt it added clarity to my argument.
My choice of videos and pictures
In my peer reviews, the addition of trailers in my introduction of artifacts was very controversial. I feel like my addition of videos, not only in my introduction of artifacts, help provide clips of what I am talking about. I feel like in this project I was also able to add pictures directly from the comic, with definitely helped with my inclusion of videos, as the comics portray the situation described perfectly.
All in all, I am happy with the result of this project and I hope you enjoy your experience with it!