COVID-19 and the UMass Lowell College Student Experience

In the spring 2020 semester, undergraduates enrolled in Professor Vinson’s Visual Rhetoric course maintained a blog all semester devoted to discussing theories of how visuals work as means of communication. We had lively and engaging conversations in the comment thread, ranging from debates over copyright infringement and representations of women to passionate reflections on the ethics of quantitative claims and racialized binaries reproduced in everyday media.

In this concluding blog post, we are showcasing our final projects of the course. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the series of closures and other physical distancing measures that developed to combat it, Professor Vinson asked students to use a platform called Adobe Spark to create multimodal Web pages that document and communicate something about the college student experience in this uncertain time. 

Figure 1: Screenshot of Professor Vinson's Adobe Spark page announcing final assignment

Students were challenged to use everything they learned this semester—about color, typography, photo composition, photo editing, copyright, captions, connotative meanings, and the varied relationships between words and images—to create a coherent and engaging message.

I encourage you, dear reader, to take the time to review these pages and glean what you can from the smart, creative, and deeply critical thinkers that are the students of UMass Lowell’s Visual Rhetoric course:

• Evelis Cruz’s “Two Worlds Colliding in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Academy and Family Responsibilities” https://spark.adobe.com/page/qjmPVqO0uBKYq/ 
• Genevieve Burke’s “COVID-19 and College Students Dealing with Mental Illness” https://spark.adobe.com/page/TOG6dcnn6dMcv/ 
• Tyler White’s “Staying Positive During a Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/FfbeborF39Cto/ 
• Mariella Mendez’s “Death through my Eyes What I Learned as a Funeral Director’s Daughter” https://spark.adobe.com/page/0XA2y9aiS0TwP/ 
• Deanna Darah’s “Can't Spell ‘Pandemic’ Without ‘Panic’” https://spark.adobe.com/page/oHv2K2eTE473i/ 
• Julia Ashley’s “Finding Balance in the Midst of a Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/ozRrst98fo4Ye/ 
• Abigail Dwyer’s “Coping Methods: An Exploration of My mental Health During Quarantine” https://spark.adobe.com/page/4Gh05C71w87Y1/ 
• Michael Parke’s “My Journey through COVID-19” https://spark.adobe.com/page/BPpAJAiOA2irm/ 
• Kacey Corbett’s “Staying Connected to Ourselves During a Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/wzDTU3Rx0uwKM/ 
• Rebecca Primak’s “Shelter-in-Place: One College Senior's Experience as Coronavirus Took Hold of the World” https://spark.adobe.com/page/dJUM36w30YuxZ/ 
• Jontrell Murray’s “GO BEYOND:Plus Ultra!” https://spark.adobe.com/page/5G2oJ7IcsCS4H/  
• Lauren McLean’s “The ‘New Normal’ Finding a New State of Calm Amidst a Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/val7k5j4ZnhHf/
• Cyle Hairston’s “COVID-19 VS Education: Life as a Student During a Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/5fBmX7zTKstBf/
• Emily Teague’s “Creativity, Connection, and Control: Emily's Search for Control in the Coronavirus Pandemic” https://spark.adobe.com/page/OSjO63mxwAggB/

• Peter Lavina’s "...in these Uncertain Times..." A Perspective on Recent Changes” https://spark.adobe.com/page/arqtUZWysheQv/

Copyright or Copy-wrong?

Hi Everyone,

This week we were blessed with the opportunity to learn more about copyright and its origins. From the reading we learned that “copyright grants legal protection to the ‘expression of an idea’,” and not to the work as an object or the “idea itself. The fixed expression is deemed to belong uniquely to someone—the photographer, writer, or painter—who created it” and is not transferred when a work is sold (Sturken and Cartwright 204).

Our textbook authors explain, “Copyright, taken literally, it means ‘the right to copy.’ The term refers to not one but a bundle of rights. This bundle includes the rights to distribute, produce, copy, display, perform, create, and control derivative works based on the original” (Sturken and Cartwright 204).

 For this blog assignment I think a great discussion would be the idea of fair use.

 YOUR TASK

 Find an example of a picture or a piece of art that was based on someone else’s original. It doesn’t have to be an exact 1:1 look alike. Then once you find the two try to decide if you think it violates copyright infringement or if it was a harmless recreation (i.e., fair use).

 Fair use is usually the legal basis on which art copyright cases have been argued. “A major factor in determining fair use is the question of whether the copy promotes or adds something new— whether it is transformative rather than simply derivative of the original”(Sturken and Cartwright 208).

 For example, this poster for the Hangover 3 got inspiration from the poster from the Harry Potter movie. I would go on to say that in my opinion I see this as a harmless recreation of the harry potter poster due to fair use. While the two posters look very similar the hangover poster is a parody of the original and very transformative in nature. The theme of the posters is the same, but the representation of the theme is very different.

Movie Poster for Hangover 3

 https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/short-hangover-part-iii-plays-harry-potter-poster-article-1.1281438

You don’t have to, but it would be nice if you could mention any of the following things in your responses:

Is fair use actually fair? When does inspiration become mimicry?

Stay safe everyone. Stay home, wash your hands, and avoid touching your face. Maybe try to learn a new skill from home or something. We all have an insurmountable amount of free time now. I plan on using it to catch up on anime. Take care everybody,