Rough Draft

Artifact: Instagram post by Matt McGorry.
Summary: Matt Mcgorry is an actor and an activist who uses social media as a way to get his ideas out. He often times post books on his Instagram that he has just reviewed and gives his 1.8 million followers a glimpse of his thoughts regarding them and what the book is about. This specific post is about “Are Prisons Obsolete” by Angela Davis. Within this post he briefly explains how prisons are thriving with cheap labor and some of the cost that it takes to make prisons. In this post he not only talks about the economic aspects of prisons but also the cultural aspects of it as well.
Textual Analysis (Rhetorical strategies)
~Appeals used in this Instagram post would be using Logos to appeal to the audience. Matt first credit the author the of book Angela Davis, by writing a short paragraph of some of her beliefs and what she has gone through. He strays from an emotional approach because with a topic like this one, to convey a serious message there needs to facts to back up opinions and not just completely emotion driven.
~Diction: Very formal diction for an Instagram post. Uses words ‘abolitionist’, ‘incentivized’, and ‘oppression’ to get across the severity of the situation.
~Delivery: Instagram Post. Gets thousands of people’s attention on an important topic.
~Organization: Breaks up points into smaller paragraphs instead of one long continuous stream of consciousness. Breaks the thoughts of the post into an introduction to the author, his opinion, and then an example for the text. Almost essay style.
Overall organization of the post and writing style suggest that Matt takes this book/issue seriously and urges his followers to do the same.
Contextual Analysis:
~Lanham: Stuff and Fluff. In this Instagram post the stuff is the book and the fluff is the awareness of the issues that come with prisons
~Bourdieu:
• Cultural Capital: Matt uses his position as an actor on a popular show and his followers to get this point across. He directly names the book and the author to his 1.8 million followers in order to get the book to gain traction, if it already hasn’t. He uses he platform and cultural of social media status to promote important issues, because he has the ability and capital to do so.
• Social Capital: Matt uses Angela Davis because he shares similar beliefs as her and knows many other people do as well. Although he has a large following from his acting jobs, he has also done a lot of activism work and has made connections in that world as well. From this, he shares his message with other people who has the same opinions as him. Also, his Instagram feed is majority of his activism work and books he recommends in relation to that so by now mostly all his followers know his opinions and views on topics such as this.