Forensics Fun

I’m a member of the Forensics team here at North Central, and this year, I’ve been able to work on a Critical Analysis speech event.  

The parts of the speech include an introduction, presentation of a rhetorical artifact, a discussion of a communication theory or model, application of the communication theory to the artifact, implications of that analysis, and a conclusion.  The artifact just has to be anything with rhetorical significance.

The day in class when we discuss the utopian views of the internet, I immediately thought about my speech topic!  

Basically, this speech is about the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, and how a soldier dealt with this in his own way.  He created an account on YouTube and posted videos of himself from the neck down to preserve his anonymity while discussing his views on the military’s policy.  After the policy was repealed though, he posted a video showing his entire body, face included.  In this video, he called his father, and came out as gay.  My speech examines this speech act and its implications for society.  

Here is a link to the video!

This relates to the utopian views we discussed in class because it shows a perfect example of how a form of communication online was able to help change a young man’s life.  Because he was able to do so, he then was also able to inspire so many other people to take similar steps in their own lives.  I thought that this topic was very important to society in general, but now with an even better understanding of the varying views of the internet, I’m happy to see that some people are making use of it in a positive way.  Yay speeches!

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