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.

Technology Narrative

We’re always immersed in technology, since every tool we’ve used in daily life, from a spoon to a search engine, is a form of technology. However, when technology comes to mind, I usually think of cell phones and satellites and that computer that mechanics say is inside my car. Not the car itself but the computer inside it. Strange.

My first memorable experience with technology was with video games. For one of my first birthdays, I received the Nintendo. I remember thinking that the monsters in the video game could actually jump out of the screen and that I’d have to stomp my feet on them.

As I got older, books and video games competed for my attention. I remember my mom getting mad all the time that I spent playing video games and tried to get me out playing and reading. Video games started to become really repetitive and I always felt this desire to create for some reason, so reading and writing fiction took up more and more of my time and I mostly abandoned technology.

Eventually my family bought a computer that was fast enough that I felt motivated to log on to it. It was a novelty at first. I played around with the programs a little to see how they worked. I learned to type well enough that started writing stories in Microsoft Word. But I remember how hard it was to be creative on a computer as opposed to using a notebook. So I ended up transcribing what I wrote from a notebook to a computer.

The Internet seemed boring. At first, the dialup took too long until we hooked up DSL and the Google search engine and other search engines weren’t as accurate as they are now. I was into Karate at the time and wasn’t able to find the information I wanted to learn about Karate, so I didn’t pay attention to the Internet until late high school.

Like a lot of people, I got sucked into the Internet by peer pressure. Friends would say, “what’s your screenname/email address/Myspace,” and were annoyed when I didn’t have one. I was reluctant to spend any time on the Internet until I discovered a website called DeviantArt that specialized in sharing artwork and writing. In short time, I became addicted to uploading writing and artwork, looking at the works of other users and communicating with like-minded art lovers.

At that point I realized two things:

1. The Internet is constantly in the process of developing
2. There’s something on the Internet for everyone and it’s only a matter of time before you stumble upon it.

Since then, the Internet has served as tool for social interaction, research (on scholarly databases of course… and some Wikipedia), and Entertainment.

Well, it’s been more than that. The Internet has helped me go to school. A few years ago I was trying to pay for school at Panera, a restaurant. Such a task is difficult with today’s high cost of living. I was burning through my savings very quickly and I started taking more hours at the restaurant. Taking more hours made it difficult to also put enough time into schoolwork and the balancing act was very challenging at times.

Then suddenly it dawned on me. Most of my life I had worked on my writing skills and the Internet was overloaded with text. There had to be some professional writers creating these texts. While I could have searched for a professional writing position at a local newspaper, finding writing work on the Internet seemed so much easier. I discovered that very often, behind much of the content on the web were armies of writers hired by web developers to write content that would attract readership and get their websites highly ranked on Google, thus increasing traffic to their websites. Since then, I have been attending school and paying tuition by writing a lot of content for the Internet. I’ve become pretty plugged in.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered more and more stimulating sources on the web. I’ve found podcasts that I listen to regularly, such a psychology-oriented podcast by Dr. David Van Nuys of Sonoma State University. I not only read articles from websites such as ScienceDaily for stimulating news but I also spend my breaks often reading humorous websites. These diversions were once a problem while also trying to keep up with school and work, but I’ve developed will power that has allowed me to resist distractions when I need to work.

Overall, I have developed a technocrat bias. I see that technology has dramatically increased efficiency and freed up computer users from many time consuming tasks such as filing away information in a filing cabinet and digging it up again at a later date. But a part of me also understands some of the consequences that technology can hold, such as increasing anger in day-to-day communications. For myself, I wonder if there are any consequences to spending so much time on the Internet. Since becoming 100% financially independent, moving into an apartment and paying all bills through the creation of web content, my time on the Internet has become unavoidably long every day. Despite sometimes feeling burned out by technology, I still have strong and growing optimism about the various innovations that help keep life stimulating and that unlock new potential.