Basketball and Jazz, and Plagiarism

In June 2011 Jonah Lehrer wrote an article for his blog at Wired.Com, Frontal Cortex.  When his reputation came under fire for questionable journalism, several of his articles were analyzed for possible misuse, misrepresentation, illegitimacy, and plagiarism. Specifically, his article Basketball and Jazz received scrutiny for alleged plagiarism, recycling of previous material, and quotation issues. In fact, an entire paragraph in this article was taken from a previously published Newsweek article. Lehrer’s uncomplicated language and ability to incorporate scientific studies to unusual subjects made his work easy to believe by a younger, wider audience. In this article Lehrer reaches out to the sports audience, music enthusiasts, as well as his previously established followers. He reaches out to these audiences in this article by focusing on the stasis of value regarding the ability to play jazz and play basketball. The levels of stasis outlined by Fahnestock and Secor paired with Rettberg's definition of a blog allow a reader to understand how Lehrer misrepresented his article.

Researchers Fahnestock and Secor define stases as points that constitute an order in an argument (Fahnestock and Secor, page 428). They claim that stases in scientific arguments occupy in the lower stases, Lehrer creates his argument to show the reader how a particular set of skills honed by both jazz musicians and basketball players is of great value in their respective fields. He functions to get to this argument by defining the exigence. Lehrer begins by defining the historical parallels between jazz and basketball. By making interesting observations, Lehrer brings in the reader and introduces his topic slowly. Fahnestock and Secor’s notion of how stases can become a sensitive tool of audience analysis is evident in the transitioning of this essay. Lehrer eases his way into the scientific component of his article, to appeal to a wide audience. By starting with two different, culturally appealing topics he is creating interest in the reader to find out what the true connections are between jazz and basketball.  By defining the historical situation first, Lehrer is anticipating the reactions of his audience who may have been confused by the title of the article in the first place. In this article Lehrer does not quote a prior value argument, because he assumes the audience is fully aware of the two primary subjects (jazz and basketball).

According to Rettberg’s classification of blogs, Lehrer’s blog is considered a topic driven one due to its focus on the role of science in social, every day perspectives. In this article he accomplishes this role by shifting his view to a sports topic and music topic, while keeping the heart of the story about the role science plays in it. Although Lehrer does cite a couple different studies to supposedly give credit to his article, the main purpose of the article is not to report on something new or provide breaking news to the public. Lehrer is an example of what Rettberg defines as a “citizen journalist” because in this article and his blog overall he blurs the line between journalism and blogging by acting as a gatewatcher. Lehrer takes news on the studies he finds about rebounding, jazz, and coordination and filters them according to his interests. What conflicts about Rettberg’s analysis of bloggers though is how she throws away the claim that bloggers are not as qualified or experienced as professional journalists. She claims that in today’s society a reader is more likely to find their information from online sites and blogs than a newspaper, so people trust these bloggers already. However, just because society has learned to believe what they read on the Internet does not mean it is true. Since bloggers do not usually have editors to read over or ensure they are abiding by journalistic standards, they have more leeway with what they write. Lehrer is guilty of this. His editors at Wired.Com said his articles were not subject to the typical fact-checking process (like his magazine articles were, for example) and therefore his misrepresented article was published digitally.

In this article, Lehrer was found to have copied an entire paragraph of his article from a previous article of Newsweek, which summarized the rebounding experiment that substantiates his thesis that basketball players make accurate predictions based on their speed of judgment and coordination. This plagiarism can be examined using Galin’s fair use four-factor analysis. The purpose of using this copyrighted work from Newsweek was not strictly for educational purposes, since his blog is a featured of Wired.Com. The nature of the amount he copied was factual, and his major claims and theories are not cited to have come from the Newsweek article, just the summation of the experiment. Out of the entire article, he outwardly plagiarized about 4% of the article. However, after an investigative analysis conducted by Charles Seife, an associate professor at NYU, showed that in this article Lehrer had also been guilty of recycling copyrighted information and quotation issues in addition the plagiarism. The effect of the misuse of journalistic integrity on the market or the copyrighted work in this article can be said to be minimal. As a whole Lehrer was caught doing this in several articles which may be difficult to ignore. However, you may ask, since Rettberg says bloggers are not aiming to be professional journalists, why are they held to these journalistic standards? Wired.Net issued a statement that Lehrer had failed to meet to their editorial standards.

This is an example of how a blogging is becoming more of an issue when it comes to copyright and misuse of the written word. Perhaps this is an example that implies the consistent issues that we will face in the upcoming digital future. Since Lehrer was able to pull off these types of journalistic inaccuracies in more than one article, this may be an implication that it will be tougher in the digital age to stop plagiarism and violations of copyrighted work.

Works Cited:


Fahnestock, Jeanne and Marie Secor. “The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument.” Written Communication 5.4 (Oct 1988): 427-443.

Rettberg, Jill Walker. Blogging. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2008. Excerpts from “What Is a Blog?”, “Citizen Journalists,” and “Blogging as Narrative.” 4-30, 84-110, 111-126. 

The Blogosphere Buzz

Image: Blogging Cage provides tips on how to make your blog a successful, thriving business here.

The blog has become a trend so popular that it is almost safe to say that it has taken over the Internet. Millions of people post on blogs daily whether using social media sites or specialized blogging services. Pinterest has aided the dissemination of these blogs by fostering an environment where users "pin" an image, most normally that is linked to a blog. The Internet has become a blogosphere, a world where anyone with a laptop and computer can have their voice heard on any and every topic. Rettberg and Miller/Shepherd decode the nature of blogs and help debunk the nuances of this new mode of communication.

Rettberg makes an important distinction between a medium and a genre, a concept that has been challenged by the Internet. A medium once thought to be the mode of communicating, such as the broad differences between print, broadcast, and electronic mediums now can be further classified by the different types of communications on the Internet. Social media, blogs, chatrooms are all different genres of the Internet medium where messages are being disseminated. Rettberg says that within this genre however, there are sub-genres which classify the types of blogs that are being written based on the genre's selective limitations. Although both authors agree that most blogs are similar in basic functions, such as posts, comments, frequent updates, links, etc. there is a clear difference in the purposes of some blogs and others. Rettberg says the main sub-genres of blogs are diary style, filter blogs, and topic driven blogs. Miller and Shepherd say these sub-genres preform two social actions: self-expression and community development.

Miller and Shepherd asses the bog as a genre with a rhetorical focus in mind. They discuss the popularization of the word blog for this deliberative function of communicating as the reason it can be considered a genre. Miller and Shepherd's entire article focuses on the genre analysis of the blog, especially in relation to kairos. They define kairos as "socially perceived space time." This can be understood as how the blog's function is fitting to the constantly changing environment of the Internet. Miller and Shepherd inherently touch on Rettberg's classification of the genre of diary style blogs to show how the genre invites both public and private dynamics. Rettberg says a diary style blog is one that is open to the public, "deliberately written to be shared." But Miller and Shepherd include the contradicting tension of privacy, citing examples of how bloggers create these types of diary style blogs and wish for more privacy, not realizing that their creating a blog is a public act on the Internet. However this can also be seen as a response to the voyeuristic nature of the Internet and its users. They also describe how the earliest of blogs are what Rettberg defines as filter blogs, a way to share the constantly changing interests of the blogger. This can be a list of links chronologically organized with little or no commentary.

Rettberg complicates her argument for blogs when she discusses the topics of bloggers as "citizen journalists" and symbiosis. She clarifies that most bloggers do not see themselves as journalists, but these bloggers have started to blur the line between journalism and blogging. She argues that blogs intersect with journalism in three ways: by giving first hand reports from ongoing events, by telling stories that might as well have been told by journalists, and as "filterbloggers." In her first two points, Rettberg applies perspective as the comparable factor between a blogger and a journalist. Since a blogger can easily be given access to a news-worthy event, they are also given the same perspective as a journalist reporting on that event. In this way her second point comes naturally. Bloggers are now setting out to tell stories that would be usually reported from mainstream media journalists. The concept of a citizen journalist implies that they are not a journalist by profession nor are they pretending to be. Instead, bloggers act as citizens who report on the Internet. However, as Rettberg tries to argue that bloggers are just as qualified to report the news as journalists although they don't claim to, Miller and Shepherd describe the generic exigence that tests this assertion. They say that bloggers blog to validate the self, not to inform. This lacks the objectivity that journalists are known for in news writing.

Rettberg questionably insists that this notion is not a negative one. She describes symbiosis as the relationship that bloggers have as journalists of the internet. Rettberg says bloggers are acting as the gatewatchers of the internet, paralleling the theory to gatekeepers of traditional media. By acting as gatewatchers, bloggers are creating media instead of consuming it. However, Rettberg claims that bloggers due this as amateurs- although she insists this is not a negative notion. She compares the use of the word amateurs to an Olympic athlete in the sense that they are not being paid for their contribution. This refers back to the notion of citizen journalist, contrasted with professional journalists. However, Rettberg fails to address that Olympic athletes had to train and compete to reach the Olympics. These athletes had to prove their talent and skills against others and prove they were the most skilled for the competition. Although they are not receiving compensation, their skills are evaluated. The same cannot be said for bloggers, who can be reporting falsities as well as truths. This is a tricky generalization that Rettberg makes in her case for citizen journalists and fails in her aim to prove that bloggers are not inexperienced.

Although Rettberg does her argument justice by citing some modern examples of blogs, her argument fails by touting that the blogger is akin to the journalist. Miller and Shepherd provide a more objective view of the genre of the blog, analyzing its rhetorical functions and environment.

Works Cited:


Miller, Carolyn R., and Dawn Shepherd. “Blogging As Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog.” Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. Available online at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html


Rettberg, Jill Walker. Blogging. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2008. Excerpts from “What Is a Blog?”, “Citizen Journalists,” and “Blogging as Narrative.” 4-30, 84-110, 111-126.

The Big Apple Takes a Bite out of Climate Change

David Biello’s article is a combination of complex interactions of discourse on the growing controversy on climate change. Specifically, Biello’s article is a collection of the current discourse from experts and organizations on how the growing threat of climate change will affect New York City and what the city is doing to adapt to these possibilities. Keith Grant-Davie would consider this text a compound rhetorical situation since it addresses the exigence of how climate change will affect NYC and the city’s preparedness for that event, while including information from multiple rhetors that can be applied to multiple audiences. This text is an example of a compound rhetorical situation created by Biello using a variety of both implicit and explicit forms and techniques of intertextuality to create an intertextual collection representing the case of New York City’s climate crisis.

Biello establishes the exigence of this rhetorical situation in the first paragraph of the article by describing how New York City has already faced a disaster that parallels the kind that results from effects of climate change. He does this by employing Grant-Davie’s sequence of exigence. He establishes the fact of the 2007 thunderstorm that shut down the subway, then defines how the thunderstorm did that for the unaware audience. The rest of his article examines the cause of this event, how climate change can cause such a disaster and then reports how the city is working to adapt to these changes, which is the value to the readers.  Biello’s text can be of value to multiple audiences including the scientific community, New Yorkers, and other city officials. The scientific community can observe how their research is being portrayed to the public while also evaluating a text that brings together a variety of scientific research that may spark further discourse within their community. New Yorkers can help solve this exigence by learning from this text and urging their city officials to do more to help NYC adapt to the climate change and incite a change within their local government. This text also serves as an example to other large cities as a model for how they can begin to adapt to the threats of global warming and provide ideas for how to do so. Biello attracts all of these audiences through direct factual information, concrete sources and examples, and uncomplicated language. His use of language allows for the text to be applied for multiple audiences.

In this article Biello cites information from 10 different organizations located in New York City. This highlights Biello’s focus to express specifically the issues surrounding climate change in New York City. The fact that Grant-Davie only cites sources local to New York emphasizes this purpose. He cites these experts using both direct and indirect quotations, two explicit techniques of intertextual representation. For example, Biello cites Steven Cohen, the executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, who said, “you’re looking at a city that could have its infrastructure compromised for periods of time by these climate changes.” This demonstrates Biello’s use of direct quotation while also highlighting the biggest risk that NYC faces in the wake of climate change.  Biello uses this intertextual technique to establish himself as an authoritative figure on climate change by bringing together a variety of credible sources.

Biello also uses indirect quotation in the second paragraph of the article to site statistics that are pertinent to the shaping of the rhetorical situation. Biello states that the New York City Panel on Climate Change predicted a 5-10% increase in precipitation by 2080.  This shows how Bielo uses multiple rhetors in his own text as background to frame the situation. By citing these sources the reader implies that climate change will increase the precipitation in NYC and test the infrastructure of the entire city, which is the biggest danger the city currently faces. Biello uses these types of intertextual techniques repeatedly in his article as a source of meaning to be used at face value. This level of intertextuality aids Biello in giving the most well rounded depiction of the rhetorical situation by citing multiple authoritative texts to analyze the climate crisis NYC faces.

Biello also addresses a variety of other challenges that the city must address with the ongoing threat of climate change. He juxtaposes these threats with progress the city has already made in paragraphs 3 and 4. In paragraph 3 Biello reports how an expected significant drop in temperature renders the need for open grates in the subways which in turn increases the risk of the subway flooding during extreme precipitation. Immediately following, he reports how the city has already taken other steps forward by planting thousands of trees, converting a quarter of the city’s taxi fleet to hybrids, and reserving watershed land. This is an intertextual technique of drawing a social drama, positioning the threat of climate change with the city’s progress side by side. Biello does this to show the audience how this metropolis is not oblivious to the consequences of global warming and that it is already making positive changes. Biello then continues to cite other efforts made by New York to combat the onset of climate change. He reports that the Mayor established the creation of solar empowerment zones to convert areas in New York with large rooftop acreage to solar power in addition to the aforementioned efforts are part of PlaNYC. This plan aims to have the city adapted to the realities of global warming by 2030.

The rhetor continues to build on this social drama in the third section of this text, presenting the audiences with potential solutions to problems, but also adding their constraints. For example, Biello addresses the issues of gas emissions, distributed generation, and building weathering and their potential solutions, but also adds drawbacks to these solutions. The purpose of this may be to highlight the controversy on climate change due to all the possible consequences. However, Biello transitions to the last section where he positions the information to the reader as the potential for them to solve the exigence of this rhetorical situation. He reflects the scientific information to the reader to encourage them to think positively on the changes the city is making to address the effects of climate change locally.  In the last paragraph he mentions the first draft of PlaNYC is due a more than a year following the publication of his text, possibly to encourage members of his audience to vote in favor of the plan, or to encourage community moral for the plan, or for scientists to research more for this plan. He leaves on this note to leave the audience with the striking notion that they can help solve this situation.

Sources used in the article:

New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC)

Adam Freed, NYC Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability

MillionTreesNYC

Government and City Officials

Mayor Bloomberg

PlaNYC

A NY Times Report

The New York Academy of Sciences

Steven Cohen, executive director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University

Electrical engineer Reza Ghafurian of Consolidated Edison, the city's power utility