Matt Scinto's Blog

This article “Tear Down This Wall” (2007), written by Robert A. Di leso, Jr. of the website Good.is, composed an infographic displaying walls throughout the world, all used for different ways in order to keep people apart or out of a space. The website Good.is displays blogs from a variety of different people, ranging from graphic designers to composers. The “Transparency” area of the website displays many graphical/pictorial organizations of data, in order to prove a point or show an issue. It is quite effective in fact, as we are drawn to the images and the text within, since they explore many different issues in creative ways. For this example, the author, who is in fact a designer who has worked for such companies as the New York Times and Time Inc, is able to draw the reader to the text by using pictures, such as the “amount of chopsticks” to relate to the size of the wall. This image-text was published on a website that covers a variety of topics; the issues of walls wasn’t something that fit the overall genre of topics, as they range from politics, day to day life, and economics. The viewer is most likely one who is current with issues, and enjoys gathering interpretations from some creative infographics, as they are found all over this website. The overall tone of this piece follows one that is concerned, or even intrigued perhaps, with the way humans wall themselves off from each other. Each of these different walls, such as the Great Wall of China, used to keep invaders out of China, or the wall on the border of the United States, used to stop people from illegally entering, all have different connotations, but one goal; stop people. Readers should be knowledgeable about the topics at hand, in order to deeply understand the issues, or even to catch errors in the image-text.

In terms of the claims outlined in this image-text, I did agree with most of it. I did find errors however, such as the author saying the Berlin wall was taken down in 1980, when it was in fact 1989. Also, I felt that the author misinterpreted the part about the Gaza Strip and West Bank walls, as they were constructed not really to divide Palestinian territories, but rather to keep suicide bombers from easily crossing the line. It was a response to stop terrorist attacks in Israel, not so much to mark territory lines. In my opinion, the author is biased towards the way we “keep ourselves apart.” I feel as if he is approaching his writing as negative; that these barriers are a bad thing, when in fact many of them do serve actually purposes. Of course, such monstrosities such as the DMZ between the Koreas, or the Berlin Wall which he mentions are obviously “negative” barriers, but I don’t think the Great Wall is so much “keeping people apart” as it is from stopping invasions. The title of this piece makes it seem as if all of these barriers are bad, when in fact, many of them serve effective purposes.