Welcome!
​Hello! I am Vanessa a sister of Delta Phi Epsilon, the Alpha Gamma chapter here at Florida International University. Welcome to my site where you can explore all the different modes used in Greek life to influence our school and community to do better and be better! Visually you can see the pictures of sisters from all the chapters underneath the Panhellenic council under the "PC" tab at the top of the screen. These pictures show sisterhood, loving images of girls and philanthropy showing the brand image of the sorority, setting an example of what it is like to be as student leader on campus. With visual modes such as these pictures and videos, this image is also displayed in these organizations tweets, and Instagram posts found in different parts of my website. You can also see videos and how sororities represent themselves gestural, aurally and visually under the "Media" tab. I arranged my site spaciously and aesthetically pleasing to fit sorority themes so that views will understand how visual modes affect the perception of organizations. Under the “Research” tab my audience, the Greek community members and people interested in joining Greek life can see how this image of Greek life is important in these organizations and can teach you lessons for life. With these organizations they can stay connected for life. The last page of my website is the sources I used to do my research! As you explore my page you will understand how these modes are used by these organizations every day and affect the quality of Greek life here in our FIU Panhellenic council.
Sisterhood
Google Images
The main motivation I had to explore this particular community has been my recent involvement in joining Greek life. This past spring was when I decided I wanted to join a sorority. I had experienced my first semester in college not a part of Greek life, I saw all of these organizations from a far. Any nonmember of the community, like I was, sees it from an outsider perspective. It can be difficult to understand the importance or the meaning of social organizations to nonaffiliated members. It was not until I joined where I truly saw the importance of how these organizations are perceived. The image and the letters we represent not only have a deeper meaning to sisters but to a whole community of people. We all share these letters and each action of every member reflects on to Greek life. The way the media views Greek life as destructive and non-productive is an inaccurate portal of what it really. In my research Greek life us shown to improve communities through philanthropic events, improve members through the process and improve schools through involvement. My sorority falls underneath an advising governing body, the Panhellenic council. Each sorority underneath this body must abide by its guidelines of rules for their organization and for a big part of Greek life, recruitment. The modes used in sororities like visual social media play a big role in how they recruit and who joins. These modes affect me, my sorority and my school so seeing how we utilize them and can better improve the image of my organization in my school is a topic close to my heart.
Design
The road to reach the end product of my DMRP, this website, was an interesting process. I had my research topic and my idea and the steps to put them together was the challenge. I really like how each assignment was a part of the homework that we could use to build on to the final product. It gave me room to grow from the last one and the peer review to be able to perfect my research. The steps taken to make my website the way it is now is because of the process that let me reflect on why I was using these modes. As social media is one of the biggest influencers of this generation, especially sororities utilize these tools, using it in my research helped prove my research on how these organizations are perceived and importance of the relevant news. I actually prefer using twitter as a medium of research as is shows current and recent news relating to the topic. Twitter was an unconventional source for research, but it worked out the best for me.Choosing the design for my DMRP, I wanted to reflect the image of sororities using the multi modalities from social media. I also wanted to show the clean image of Greek life represented in my simple layout and designs I chose. I used a ton of visual modes from the pictures on each page and tweets on each as well to emphasize the use of social media in these organizations and how present they make the image of them. I specifically chose recent and colorful photos to show the happiness and joy of joining, as that is the message sororities want to send to their members as well. I kept my linguistic modes to specific pages. The home page, research and works cited are the only pages I made sure to include text because I wanted the viewer to see and experience the modes first had instead of me explaining how they are used. I wanted my site to be fun, easy to view and interactive and I think my end product reflects all of my goals. The design is clean and spacious for a reason, to attract a more welcoming and clean look.
To contrast the simplicity of the design, I added pictures on each page to shift the attention back to the visual modes on the page. The organization also added to my goal of making the website easy to navigate as I grouped together information and grouped together media. Not only did this project teach me how important modes are used but it also dug a deeper connection in me to my community and let me appreciate everything my organization does. This project let me analyze how much these organizations and the girls within them work to keep our community growing and shining. The work put in through social media and events is a lot and researching each individual mode that makes up the whole, showed me the steps sororities need to take to uphold Greek life.
I N S T A G R A M @fiupanhellenic
