In the theme of our blog discussion on Occupy Wall Street today, I wanted to post this link to a list of charts titled "What Wall Street Protesters are so Angry About". These charts and graphs display trends in wealth distribution, employment, taxation, etc that the protesters are responding to. I thought that this may be useful information to understand the protests, and also an opportunity to analyze the rhetoric of diagrams such as these and how they communicate a message differently than, say, protest signs, news articles, blog posts, etc.
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-reasons-why-income-inequality-is-a-myth--and-occupy-wall-street-is-wrong-2011-10
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting some contrasting evidence, Zach. Since it's not in my job description as a writing instructor to weigh in on either side, I want to point to how looking at these articles in comparison shows how studies and statistics are used by both sides of the cause to give a certain ethos to their arguments.
ReplyDeleteThat is, sometimes with studies that could have conflicting methodologies or different results, it seems that statistics don't lend factual credibility to an article so much as they are used to lend a sense of credibility (much like "natural" adds a sense of health to foods without them actually being any healthier). The Wall Street debate is a complicated subject and its interesting to see how studies, data, and statistics are utilized by all sides to create the impression that a given side's demands are based on careful research and facts (the question of factual credibility, I will gladly leave to people who understand more about economics than I do!).