Editorial Report 9b

Like in my first editorial report, the form of the project didn't change too dramatically. The text was still written God forsaken Times New Roman and the paragraphs were made longer. Writing these blog posts in Times New Roman slowly kills me inside but I'm too lazy to change the font of every single post.

My content changed significantly between the rough cut and the final version of the project. I chose new genres to examine the day before the rough cut was due, so my information on crisis maps was lacking. As you can see, my fleshed out version is much longer and detailed that the original. I only examined one rhetorical strategy of this genre example in my first draft.


Edited Version

The Crisis Watch map, found on crisisgroup.org, is interactive and constantly updated with links to breaking news stories. It is a simple World Map that is color coded based on the progress of current conflicts within each country. Countries in which conflicts have deteriorated are colored red, those with more neutral updates are yellow, and those that have recently improved are green. As expected by pessimists everywhere, no countries are currently green.  The entire Middle East is yellow or red, with the exception of Jordan and the rich gulf states.

There are two icons that convey conflict progression in addition to the country colors. Potential conflict resolution opportunities are indicated with a blue cartoon dove carrying an olive branch. The only blue dove on the map is in Libya, likely representing the beginning of a new peacekeeping mission in the country. The dove, a Christian symbol of peace and hope, is an appeal to pathos. In the olive branch the bird carries a promise of new beginnings and the blue represents the potential for stability and tranquility (George Ferguson). This symbol encourages more hope than may be appropriate when considering the situation in Libya. The post-Arab Spring leadership, run by one of Qaddafi’s former generals, is at war with multiple militia groups and Daesh has recently claimed land in the country’s South (Alan Kuperman).

The second icon is a cartoon flame that represents a new conflict risk. The only current flame is in Burundi, where protests responding to the President’s run for a third term in office turned violent. The death toll is increasing on both the police and civilian sides. The red color and symbolism of the fire represent danger and increasing energy. The color red invokes physical responses such as increased heart rate and blood pressure (Colour Effects). These responses can affect the human thought process, making us more aware of potential danger.

The Global Conflict Tracker developed by the Council on Foreign Relations shares many similarities with the Crisis Watch map, including its function and use of color to invoke emotional responses (Global Conflict Tracker, Staff). Instead of assigning colors by the status of each conflict, colors are assigned by the supposed impact on US interests. Conflicts deemed “critical” to US interests are red with large circles, those deemed “significant” are orange, and those deemed “limited” are a calming teal. The color choice is rooted in the way humans physically and emotionally respond to certain colors, but the organization very much appeals to logos. The Council on Foreign Relations is an influential think tank located in Washington DC. It has 4900 employees who are constantly formatting global updates into digestible reports for policymakers, and a few who are clearly great graphic designers (Don Pollard). The target audience for this map is made up of professionals with US interests in mind who likely are too busy to read about violence in Central Africa if it doesn’t affect US interests. The severity of these conflicts is clearly not taken into account during sorting because violence in this region has killed more than Daesh has in the same time period (Global Conflict Tracker).

Rough Draft Version

The first Crisis Watch mapconflict map example, found on crisisgroup.orgNobelPrize.org, is interactive and constantly updated with links to breaking news stories. It’s a simple World Map with orange dots representing ongoing conflicts around the world. The dots are color and size coded based on the category of conflict (protest, armed government conflict, guerilla warfare, etc.) and the severity of the most recent updates.  The Middle East is the region with the most frequent updates, but everything from police brutality protests to the Hatian election is covered.