Shekhar Deshpande explores the idea of National Geographic’s photography and the influence it has on its readers. National Geographic magazines are commonly seen as a source of reliable information and culture from around the world. Deshpande goes into detail about the image seen on the cover of the special issue “India: Turning Fifty.” Deshpande’s main message is that the photos of different culture are played to the standards of “Western” civilization to either make images “digestible” or spark interest or curiosity in Americans.
Deshpande has many claims about the National Geographic magazine, two of which I will elaborate on. The first claim I chose is, “It is slick, it is technically flawless or even adventurous, and it attempts to sanitize and universalize the uncomfortable as well as different elements of other cultures.” Deshpande is describing the ways in which American photographers use different techniques to portray certain messages and even emotions through the images. The picture is usually edited or set up to create a sort of perfection to best fit their marketing needs. Even if the photo doesn’t give the entirely truthful message it doesn’t matter because it spurs interest in the Western mind. Photographers can even make an extremely grotesque situation presentable to the public.
Another interesting claim comes later when Deshpande is explaining how the magazine can change the way something looks. “This power to transform the most repulsive results of human actions around the world into images that are digestible is what makes for the culture of National Geographic.” In essence, National Geographic’s photographers and editors can take images from a horrible situation and down play it to make it something to look at without much emotion or thought about the circumstances of the photo. The photographs depict images with lots of content that is not relevant to the situation at hand. For example, the boy was painted red as part of a joyous celebration, but through National Geographic, the photo gave the impression of violence and suffering, which is completely untrue.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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