Working for the Florida State Parks system, we are required to obtain written consent and photo release forms from any and all recognizable persons if we plan to use it on any social media site or publication. This directly relates to the term, appropriation, used in Ridolfo and Rife's article, "Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery. Simply put, the term, appropriation, can be described as the act of taking something (such as Maggie's photo) for one's own use (i.e., the school publication), without the owner's permission. This is borderline copyrighting.
Copyright is the legal right to use artistic material, and gives the owner the right to authorize who can do the same. In regards to Maggie's photo being used on publications throughout the school, Michigan State University can be directly in breech of copyright laws. Although Maggie is not the person who took the photo, she is the subject matter and therefore is the owner of herself, who must be the one to give authorization of who can use her image as a means of promotion.
Rhetorical velocity belongs to the person who is using the subject matter for their own goals. On page 229 of Ridolfo and Rife's article, they mention that "rhetorical velocity is a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how he anticipates how the text might late be used." It is up to the "creator" to have the proper knowledge of where, when, and how their media will be used in the future, but what this sentence does not mention is the most important term in the article; appropriation. Without appropriation, the photographer and publisher are merely stealing Maggie's image without her permission and using it for their own personal gang.
Deconstructed, the above quote simply says that media can only be delivered once the artist has understood the possibilities of recomposition, or what can become of the media which he created.
When dealing with Miller's term of genre, she explains it as a social action. The most I can grab from this is that colleges, such as Michigan State University where Maggie attends, are some of the most social places ever inhabited. You can honestly never know when your photo is being taken and you may never see it in a publication, even if it is used without your permission.
This is unfortunately the culture we live in. Our identities are stolen physically, mentally, and hypothetically and it's getting more and more difficult to stop the unwanted spread of ourselves amongst society.
Koral, has the parks system had that policy of consent forms for social media for a long time? (I'm just curious). I agree that colleges are the most social environments possible but I think that Miller meant a little more than just be aware that we're on camera. She discusses that genre is an aspect of our culture and shapes interpretation, which in turn effects author and audience.
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