Tag: Bogost

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Bogost Rhetorical Moves

In Bogust’s, The Problem of Diversity in Computing, he uses many rhetorical moves to make his point. He starts with hug attention grabber for his audience with this quote: “When Amy Webb broke her ankle, she was forced to hobble around on a walking boot.” This is an alarming way to start an article but it grabs the attention of the audience. This introduction leads to a story about the women mentioned and her difficulties with metal scanners.

He uses this story to detail a problem to the audience that is with under-representation in the tech industry. He does this by relating her problem to others, and making it bigger; “Webb’s experience is among the more innocuous consequences of computer systems that don’t anticipate all the types of people who might use them.” By setting up a problem to the audience and making them aware of it, he makes them eager to listen to him for the answer.

After going into the issues of diversity, he brings up a counterpoint to further his own point’s credibility. To this counter-argument he says, “That idea echoes a popular suggestion to remedy computers’ ignorance of different sorts of people: Increase the diversity of representation among the people who make these systems, and they will serve the population better.” He follows this by saying, while this has merit, it is essentially wrong, and explains to his audience why. This again, helps with his credibility, by comparing and taking apart an argument opposite to his.

He does this again in his conclusion, relating all he’s talked about to a counterpoint that suggests all of this doesn’t relate to simply tech diversity, saying, “for years, companies and educators in the tech sector have framed diversity as a “pipeline” problem.” He moves into his conclusion strongly by showing how even his own points are sometimes attributed to some other cause. However he uses this as momentum to explain why that isn’t so, and why the real reason is the tech diversity.

At the very end he dials his point down to end the article in a way that brings up new questions. He says, “if she’s right, then the problem with computing isn’t just that it doesn’t represent a diverse public’s needs. Instead, the problem with computing is computing. By doing this he expands on his own points by suggesting the diversity might be deeper than just surface-level.

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Bogost assignment, Benjamin Fisch

1.) “I’m looking at the screen,” she says of the image that appeared from her scan, “and my cast, head, and breasts were big blocks of yellow.” This quote is an example of Bogost using rhetorical language to catch the reader’s attention and make them aware of what he is trying to communicate. He does this by using carefully put together, descriptive language to give the reader a real image of what he is trying to say.

2.) “She’s had other problems with the machines, too, including that her mop of thick, curly hair sometimes confuses them. (My colleague Hannah Giorgis, who also has a lot of curly hair, confirms that she, too, suffers a cranial pat-down every time she goes to the airport.)” Here is another example of Bogost using rhetorical language.

3.) “That idea echoes a popular suggestion to remedy computers’ ignorance of different sorts of people: Increase the diversity of representation among the people who make these systems, and they will serve the population better.”

4.) “But their impact might be a drop in the bucket, given the size and composition of the tech industry.”

5.) “But there’s a risk of tokenization; inviting a black man or a curly-haired woman into the room could make a difference in the design of the systems that produced Webb’s experience at airport security.”