A Call To Rhetorical Action (Group 1)

There have been many great advancements in technology over the years and it has all lead up to where we stand today with such wonderful improvements in technology. The technology that we come face to face with on a daily basis has proved beneficial for us in many ways and our society would not be the same without it. One way that today's technology can help us build a new inclusive social norm is by fulfilling tasks in our day that would prove to be much more difficult and time-consuming without the use of technology. For instance, the use of automobiles is a normal presence in our lives, but we don't take into consideration how much technology has gone into automatic transmissions and the motor of a vehicle. Without the invention of automobiles and vehicles, we would not be able to get around the city as fast as if we were walking or cycling, which is one way that technology in this era can help build a new social norm. Although technology has offered us a lot of great assistance, it also has given others the potential to lie to the world and make them believe certain things that may not always be true. For example, the media falsifies or ignores our movements and actions most of the time; now that a lot of people own a television or have access to  radio--the media has much more power than it used to have in the early 1900s. But, the media is ruled by the government and if the government tells them to inform us about a certain issue then they can, but if the government tells them to obscure an issue from the public then we have a big limitation to where and how we may find out what is really going on in the world and our country. So in the book, "Rhetoric for Radicals" by Jason Del Gandio, he makes it clear to his readers that we must change this form of leadership to better ourselves and to better the world around us. Del Gandio tells us that activists face five contemporary challenges in today's generation which are, "creating decentered movements, developing new forms of leadership, learning to communicate across contexts, building transnational alliances and dealing with the media juggernaut." (p. 29) The technology provided to us today can help us overcome these five  challenges by allowing us to better understand each other and granting us the opportunity to become one voice that can be heard all around the world. Although, some people may oppose one another's beliefs-- there will most likely always be a majority of people who rule in favor of a democracy where everyone has a say in their society and dictatorships will fall. Technology allows us to express what we feel and communicate across different types of contexts and overcome the lies the media provides us with.