Reactions to Readings for Second Week

Multiple Forms of Rhetoric

In last week’s class, Mabrito brought to light the study of rhetoric’s shift in focus from speech to writing. This point suggested that the study of rhetoric was able to successfully expand from spoken rhetoric alone to spoken rhetoric and written rhetoric. Now that other forms of rhetoric are available, such as digital rhetoric, image rhetoric and video rhetoric, the argument is made that these new forms of rhetoric should also be included. I agree with all of this, but my confusion lies in the fact that the study of spoken rhetoric has migrated to the discipline of Communication, while written rhetoric is covered in Rhetoric and Composition disciplines. While spoken rhetoric is used in Rhetoric and Composition courses, these courses have primarily focused on written rhetoric. Therefore, shouldn’t digital rhetoric have its own separate discipline? Should there be a department of Digital Rhetoric and a major in Digital Rhetoric? Or should there be a discipline that fully encompasses all forms of rhetoric? Chapter 2 of Multimodal Composition mentioned that many of the processes used in writing—such as planning, brainstorming and thinking about audience—are similar across written, spoken and digital rhetoric. I tried to Google “Digital Rhetoric” as a department and found a doctoral program at North Carolina State University in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media. 

Core Technology Skills

On page 17 of Multimodal Composition, Selfe mentioned that students had to be prepared by professors to create multimodal texts, since they have not been prepared in the same way that they have been prepared to write traditional text. Since technology advances at a quick pace and the tools used to communicate and disseminate ideas are continually changing, students and professors have to continually race to keep up with ongoing changes. Fortunately, those designing new technologies try to make these technologies increasingly more accessible, so the learning curve keeps getting smaller. Still, in order to shorten the amount of time we have to spend providing “affordances” so that we can get down to the business of creating multimodal texts, are there any core skills that students can be taught that allow them to quickly learn new technologies? I have no idea, since I tend to plunge into new technology I don’t understand and I only consult instruction manuals when I get stuck. There are some basic skills that students should become proficient with, such as being able to sign into the Internet and use a search engine. Choosing highly appropriate search engine key words can help students find incredible amounts of instructional information that can aid students in acclimating to new technologies. For instance, students unfamiliar to using Twitter can type into Google “how to use twitter” or “twitter guide.”

I agree with the assertion on page 30 that instructors should not expect students to perfectly compose digital texts, since seamless video editing and ideal graphic choices are more the realm of Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) courses. Maybe a Composition and CGT course could be team-taught if it hasn’t been already. Multimodal courses should be more about the rhetoric. Students can master video editing over time--if they become interested in creating Youtube videos for example--but composition classes have the opportunity to give students skills that will allow them to create videos that are not only high-quality but also have deep meaning and powerful rhetoric behind them.

Divorce of Entertainment and Knowledge

On page 31, Mickey Hess stated that “Western society associates the modalities of video and audio primarily with efforts to entertain an audience rather than with efforts to inform. In contrast, we associate the modality of alphabetic writing primarily with the purpose of informing readers.” Hess pointed out that creators of multimodal composition must take these considerations into mind. Well, videos are mostly watched on television and in the movie theater as a form of entertainment so this bias is understandable. Other digital mediums are similar.

I wish that there wasn’t such an effort to separate education from entertainment. Students are used to being highly stimulated by sophisticated multimedia. Abandoning all efforts to entertain students in the classroom will likely lead to boredom as a result. But while some teachers make no effort entertain, the entertainment industry rarely makes much of an effort to inform. Even educational programs found on the Discovery channel keep learning to a minimum by narrating authoritative statements very slowly while placing greater emphasis on visuals. Rarely is reflection or analysis encouraged, possibly because these programs fear that viewers will be too distracted by their own thoughts to pay attention to the commercials.

Internet Trolls

Hess mentioned on page 34 that multimodal composition has the potential to encourage students to react to multiple audiences instead of simply responding to writing prompts in an “artificial, inauthentic, or forced” manner. However, I am concerned over how some students might react to negative criticism from the web. Unfortunately, there are a high number of verbally aggressive individuals (colloquially called “web trolls”) who might post very rude or inflammatory comments that can discourage some students from creative expression. I wonder if there are any ways that students can be prepared for such comments so that they are able to take them into context and understand that many Internet comments are not personal.