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Bibliography by Jonathan Pelleg

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 1 month ago

Bibliography by Jonathan Pelleg

 

By Jonathan Pelleg, Heart of Darkness Project

 

1. Argenti, Paul.  Corporate Communication.  Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

 

   

This is a book featuring the rhetoric of corporate communication.  It is a training guide in the multiple forms of communication to be created including memos, press releases, etc.  Corporate Communication focuses on the ideas of corporate identity and professional communication as it helps young entrepreneurs and writers create works which fit the common conventions of corporate communication which our web project seeks to mock.  This book teaches readers how to write like a true executive, complete with political correctness and corporate double-speak in order to promote a high morale and successful business.  Sections include company advertising, corporate identity, media relations, investor relations, etc.  An inexperienced author is taught how to manage the multiple communications which a business needs to succeed, communications which obviously need to be a part of the web project and which are going to be mimicked in order to properly satirize big business.  By training like actual executives, the group members will be able to better analyze corporate community relations and make a truly poignant and entertaining website.

 

 


2. BP p.i.c. "BP.com." 2008.  Retreived Feb. 13 2008. <http://www.bp.com/home.do?categoryId=1>

 

   

One of the largest corporations in the world, BP obviously has a department focused on corporate image.  This web site is a prime example of what the web project will try to emulate: a very shiny and positive representation of an industry, in this case oil, which allegedly harms the environment and squanders natural resources.  BP is not an evil-hearted corporation like the Corporation in Heart of Darkness but does its best to deflect controversy with a constantly active public relations department.  Since public relations and big business are what the web project intends to satirize, it becomes clear that a model is needed which represents both big business and public relations.  BP will be the main model, featuring "clean" and "environmental" themed colors and content despite being part of the most criticized industry in terms of green living.  The web page goes so far as to have articles focusing on Africa, and numerous pictures of very happy people using their products.  This is perfect for the project. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and BP.com is perfect for imitation because it adheres to the conventions of corporate communication and a shiny web site which covers a literally dirty and oily business.  (A note: BP is in no way an evil corporation, but rather is a perfect example of almost cliché public relations despite being mired in controversy)

 

 


 

3. Conrad, Joseph. Ed. Kimbrough, Robert.  Heart of Darkness Third Edition.  New York: Norton and Company, 1988.

 

The book on which the web project will be based is hardly a part of this edition.  It is, of course, the titular story and the main source of the project but this particular version makes the tiny novella 417 pages with the addition of information on Congo, of Conrad, of literary criticisms, etc. which prove to be the horn of plenty for Heart of Darkness research.  Racism, art, and dozens of other subjects are tackled in the multitude of critical essays while Congo history, maps, and biographical information on Conrad provide a firm backbone of objective information.  One can read the novella, then immediately flip to any number of interpretations including Chinua Achebe’s very famous “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” and Ian Watts’ “Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness.”  With this plethora of interpretations housed in the same tome as the novella itself, Robert Kimbrough’s third edition of Heart of Darkness will be an important source for both the reading and rereading of the story as well as a broad range of interpretations to insure a truly analytical and academic web project.

 

 


4. Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics. "Wal-Mart Watch" 2005.  Retreived Feb. 13 2008. <http://walmartwatch.com/>

 

    This is the counter-point to the corporate web site which allows for a truly accurate analysis of the alleged big-business greed and spin which the web project hopes to satirize and criticize.  The web site analyzes Wal-Mart's actions but instead of the positive outlook portrayed on the Wal-Mart web site itself, it is written from a dissenter's point of view.  If the purpose of corporate public relations is to create a clean and community-driven image, the goal of this dissenting site and sites like it are to dirty and condemn the company's reputation.  By reading and analyzing both points of view, the Heart of Darkness web project can better analyze the potency of public relations and see how one-sided articles on corporate web sites can be.  The Corporation would obviously create a web site which furthers its own interests and presents the idea that this ivory company is a boon to economics, environmentalism, and culture.  The novella itself could be said to be the Wal-Mart Watch, or a gritty version of the alleged truth behind the propaganda.  Wal-Mart watch is necessary to compare with the corporate web sites off which the project will be based, presenting a different side to the big business "spin machine" which will ultimately give birth to an entertaining and analytical web-based corporate project.

 


5. Williams, Robin.  Non-Designer’s Design Book. Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 2004.

 

The Non-Designer’s Design Book is an educational book created to give design know-how to those who lack this knowledge.  A product’s success and importance is based at least as much on aesthetic design as it is on substance.  In order to incorporate the idea that a glossy exterior hides a dark interior in the Heart of Darkness web project, the web site will obviously have to employ the conventions of design which English majors and by and large never taught.  This book, which features numerous pointers for web design, will help in the creation of a web page which is visually pleasing despite a most displeasing message of violence and racism.  The book focuses purely on aesthetic design to be visually appealing, explaining it in an easy-to-understand language for those who are used to focusing more on content and less on appearance.  Focusing on ideas such as proximity, font, alignment, contrast, etc., the book goes through the basics of visual design and creates an easy-to-navigate manual for creating a professional and aesthetically looking web page.  On its back cover the book itself claims to be perfect for when “you want to learn more about design, but don’t have the time or desire to actually study it.”  It is a casual look at the tip of an iceberg far too deep to fully grasp for those who prefer words to colors.

 

 


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