ENGL 821: Roundtable Handout

Somewhere in the Middle:

The Gap Between a Digital Rhetorical Theory and Practical Application

 

NCTE Framework for 21st Century Literacies

Requirementsfor successful participation in the global society:

1. Developing proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;
2. Building intentional, cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;
3.  Designing and sharing information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;
4.  Managing, analyzing, and synthesizing multiple streams of simultaneous information;
5. Creating, critiquing, analyzing, and evaluating multimedia texts; and
6. Attending to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments. 

WPA Learning Outcomes for First Year Writing 

Electronic Environments 

1. Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts;
2. Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources; and
3. Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts.

References

Carnegie, T.A.M. (2009). Interface as exordium: The rhetoric of interface. Computers and 
         Composition, 26, 164-173. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.05.005

Clark, J.E. (2010). The digital imperative: Making a case for a 21^st-century pedagogy. Computers 
         and Composition, 27, 27-35. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.12.004

Porter, J. E. (2009). Recovering delivery for digital rhetoric. Computers and composition, 26, 

          207-224. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.09.004

Prior, P. et al. (2007). Re-situating and re-mediating the canons: A cultural-historical remapping of
          rhetorical activity. Kairos, 11(3). Retrieved from
          http://www.technorhetoric.net/11.3/binder.html?topoi/prior-et-al/index.html

Rice, J.E. (Dec. 2008). Rhetoric’s mechanics: Retooling the equipment of writing production.
          College Composition and Communication, 60(2), 366-387. Retrieved from 
          http://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/edbauer-rice-video-ccc-2008.pdf
 

Zappen, J.P. (2005). Digital rhetoric: Toward an integrated theory. Technical Communication 
          Quarterly, 14(3): 319-325. Retrieved from
          http://homepages.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/DigitalRhetoric2005.pdf

ENGL 801: Entry #2

Interface as Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interface

 

Carnegie, T.A.M. (2009). Interface as exordium: The rhetoric of interface. Computers and Composition, 26, 164-173. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.05.005

In this article, Carnegie responds to Manovich’s concerns for the decline of rhetoric in the face of new media and addresses questions regarding the relationship between rhetoric, composition, and new media. Carnegie uses these concerns as a rhetorical technique to introduce the concept of exordium—“a rhetorical means for ensuring the audience becomes and remains susceptible to persuasion” (p. 165). Carnegie argues that the interface in new media serves a rhetorical purpose and considering interface as the exordium of new media rhetoric and proposes three modes of interactivity as an approach to talking about and analyzing interface.

Before explaining the modes, Carnegie offers varied definitions of interface that range from physical arrangement to user interaction (p. 165). Broadly defined, “The interface facilitates and defines interaction, and it takes both concrete and abstract form” (p. 165). To illustrate this interaction, Carnegie offers the example of the printed text wherein the page acts as the point of contact.

In computer-mediated communication, however, the interface has become more pervasive and, therefore, more complicated. Carnegie defines interface “as the place of interaction whether the interactions are between user and computer, user and software, computer and software, user and content, software and content, user and culture, and the user and other users” (p. 165). The interface as the common meeting point for technological, human, cultural, and social aspects, Carnegie argues, situates it as the exordium of new media and foregrounds a need for identifying and discussing the interactivity of new media and its rhetorical implications.

 This need, Carnegie proposes, can be addressed by the “rhetorical modes” of the interface in new media: multidirectionality, manipulability, and presence.

Multidirectionality: Often associated with hypertextuality, multidirectionality is the extent to which a user can exploit the direction of communication. It refers to the various roles that a user can play in a network (receiver, sender, or both receiver and sender) and the messages used to communicate. The two primary characteristics of multidirectionality that create interactivity are 1) the permitted roles of the receiver in the network, and 2) the referential and intertextual nature of the messages (p. 167).

Manipulability: Carnegie explains that in new media, the media can be dematerialized and subject to “algorithmic manipulation” that frees the interface from fixity. The level of interactivity is the degree to which the user can change, or manipulate, the interface. On the lowest level of interactivity, users cannot change the form or create content. At the highest level of interactivity, users request information and customize the interface (p. 168-169).

Presence: Carnegie cites McMillan’s definition of presence to explain it as a mode of interactivity that illustrates the degree to which users perceive being connected both socially and spatially. On a continuum of interactivity, immersion represents the lowest level of presence while engagement represents the highest level. Flow, Carnegie explains, “constitutes an intermediary state” between immersion and engagement wherein an individual “loses a sense of self and time and becomes intensely focused on the task at hand” (p. 170).

Carnegie reasserts that the modes of interactivity are not modes of argumentation—they are modes of the exordium. In new media, however, the exordium of the communication is the interface; it is ever-present and works to continuously engage the user in interaction. She concludes by arguing that increased interactivity increases attentiveness, empowerment, and control and therefore succeeds in making the user susceptible to persuasion.

Carnegie’s article furthers our class’s attempts to define how texts function in a digital environment. While we have not explicitly discussed rhetorical theory in relation to digital texts, Carnegie offers a way for us to examine how the interface functions rhetorically. Additionally, the modes of interactivity, especially multidirectionality, could offer an interesting approach to discussing authorship.

Finally, Carnegie’s article has been especially helpful for my own research project on Black Board. The modes help me understand not only how the interface of the discussion board might encourage or constrain the interactivity to make the forum more or less appealing to teachers and students but they also help me consider Selfe and Selfe and Feenberg’s arguments of democracy through a more concrete approach.

ENGL 821: Entry #4

The Digital Imperative: 

Making a Case for a 21st-Century Pedagogy

Clark, J.E. (2010). The digital imperative: Making a case for a 21^st-century pedagogy. Computers and Composition, 27, 27-35. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.12.004

In this article, Clark presents a reshaping of composition pedagogy that considers new uses of technology to address the “digital imperative” (p. 28) outlined by scholars such as Yancey and Vaidjyanathan. Reshaping our pedagogy, she argues, requires understanding the flux of technology and that the current go-tos (e.g., ePortfolios, wikis, social networking) are “not the final development of in composition pedagogy” (p. 28).  Furthermore, this reshaping should immerse composition students in digital media—analysis, exploration, and creation of digital personae and civic literacy (p. 28).

To frame her argument, Clark compares the impact of the technological shift to that of the invention of the printing press. Developments in communicative technology foreground questions of authorship and authority. Citing Yancey, Balkin, Vaidhyanathan, Lanham, and Gee, Clark explains how she has reconfigured her composition classroom “as an emerging space for digital rhetoric” (p. 29).

To illustrate this reconfiguration, Clark describes various Web 2.0 technologies that she has incorporated into the classroom and their different rhetorical considerations. ePortfolios, for example, allow students to “experiment with the malleability and hyperactivity of text as they revise and alter their writing over time” (p. 29). Additionally, ePortfolios provoke questions of authorship, ownership, and private/public artifacts. 

Clark also shares experiences with digital stories as an approach to visual rhetoric and political freedom, Second Life as a site of interaction and activism, and blogs as “quick and dirty argumentation in action” (p.p. 32-34). These approaches, she claims, acknowledge the public domain of digital writing and invite students to participate in generating public content.

Clark’s article provides a practical approach to integrating technology in the classroom. Including specific examples of student products and realizations helps to demonstrate the impact of reconfiguring composition pedagogy. Composition instructors interested in incorporating Web 2.0 technologies would benefit from Clark’s article. Because Clark argues for a shift in pedagogical paradigm, she does not address many of the practical challenges, such as technical skill for manipulating technology or grading these digital texts.

One of the most useful aspects of this article was its citation of digirhet.org which led me to this Zappen's bibliography for rhetorical studies.

ENGL 821: Entry #3

Rhetoric’s Mechanics: Retooling the Equipment of Writing Production

Rice, J.E. (Dec. 2008). Rhetoric’s mechanics: Retooling the equipment of writing production. College Composition and Communication, 60(2), 366-387. Retrieved from http://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/edbauer-rice-video-ccc-2008.pdf

In this article, Rice argues that reconceptualizing rhetorical producers as “logomechanics, or creators who can imagine, improvise, and enact the material deployments of meaning and its operation” (p. 372) will help us address questions regarding the role of mechanical knowledge of technology in rhetoric and composition (p. 368). 

These questions, Rice explains, arise from the need to reconcile the mechanics of digital communication with our resistance to grammar and mechanics in the composition classroom. To illustrate this resistance, Rice traces the history of grammar in writing instruction: from early concern for correctness to its role in the rhetorical situation of self-expression to anti-mechanic sentiment. The shift in pedagogy resulted from the influence of social constructivist theory and concerns regarding disciplinary professionalization.

Rice posits that this anti-mechanics attitude has influenced our approach to technology and its proximity to writing instruction. As “the digital age has altered the demands and possibilities of rhetorical deliver” (p. 372), it has also created new opportunities for invention and enactment. These opportunities, however, have been dismissed because of the mechanical knowledge necessary for imagination and improvisation because, as Rice explains, “part of the production and circulation of meaning depends upon a rhetorician’s ability to imagine possibilities for those meaning’s deployment” (p. 373). 

She argues, then for a shift in mindset to a “pedagogy of writing mechanics” that emphasizes rhetorical production (p. 374). To illustrate this pedagogy, Rice cites examples of the Youth Document Durham project in which participants leant skills of film production, narration, and interviewing. The project culminates in a sharing of ideas with the community. The focus on mechanical knowledge for production, Rice argues, is similar to the teaching of narration in a writing class but leaves “participants with a greater potential set of tools for rhetorical production” (p. 374). This expanded toolbox is necessary for the enactment or delivery of ideas conceived in the invention process. A lack of mechanical knowledge and practice, in contrast, has the potential to limit the invention of a rhetorical production: “the potential for production lies in the ability for writer-users to imagine what can be done with these tools” (p.378). 

Rice concludes by pointing out the responsibility of “rhetorical producers and teachers” to be able to produce texts in various media. She calls for a “retooling” of our own production by enacting “personal pedagogies” that encourage exploratory learning (pp. 379-380). By exploring and experimenting with existing experiences and technologies, teachers will gain the mechanical knowledge necessary for invention.

While many articles on digital composition focus on the affordances and challenges of delivery, Rice’s article addresses the limitations we impose on invention by shying away from mechanical knowledge. This article is helpful for those interested in incorporating more digital composition elements in their classroom but are scared of or have dismissed the mechanical components of production. Rice’s personal and secondary examples of mechanical pedagogy in action foreground the relationship mechanical skill and enactment for rhetorical impact.

Texts and Technologies

Post #1

Feenberg, A.(2009). Critical theory of communication technology: Introduction to the special section. The Information Society, 25: 1-7. doi: 10.1080/01972240802701535

Critical Theory of Communication Technology

In this introduction to the special section of The Information Society, Feenberg addresses the question of to what extent (if any) do communication technologies contribute to democracy. He begins by explaining the tendency of technologies to stabilize “after an initial period during which many differing configurations compete” after which their “social and political implications finally become clear” (p. 1). The implications of the internet, however, are still unclear despite decades of development and debates over, Feenberg argues, illustrate that the Internet is not a finished work.

Before framing his methodological approach, Feenberg provides an historical overview of the debates surrounding the Internet. Early excitement over the potential benefits of the Internet foreshadowed it as a generator of gender and social equality and promoter of democracy. Early optimism was followed by “widespread skepticism” (p. 2) in the 1990s as a detractor of democracy. According to Feenberg, criticism has focused on the digital divide, further separation of the classes, and social segregation that reinforces prejudices. Others point to the market nature that situates the Internet as little more than an online mall, while still others foreground surveillance and data tracking.

The most significant of critiques, according to Feenberg, “challenges the ability of the Internet to support real human communication and therefore human community” (p. 2). This view supposes that computer-mediated discourse lacks depth and wit, leaving people disoriented and disconnected from “reality as human beings have always known it” (p.2).

Feenberg argues that these arguments are unproductive as they dismiss possibilities for online community that contribute to increased democracy. To illustrate the potential of the Internet, Feenberg establishes its uniqueness by contrasting it with other communication technologies—primarily the TV. The main difference, he explains, is that technology is a method of broadcasting wherein only one perspective is afforded. The Internet, however, is the first technology to mediate small-group activity that allows for all group members to participate, and criticisms of the Internet’s ability to support human communication unfairly compare the trivial, everyday discussions to polished face-to-face interactions. 

To support his argument that “political usages of the Internet are instances of a much broader phenomenon” that has value for democracy (p. 4), Feenberg applies a constructivist approach by identifying different versions of the Internet’s identity (e.g., education, business, and entertainment) and choosing the one that seems most appropriate: a communicative space. The Internet, he argues “is dominated not by business but by users whose free communication prevails in cyberspace” (p. 5). According to him, communities form around spaces of “virtual social interaction” where this free communication happens. 

Feenberg concludes that these online communities are indicative of a larger democratic Internet phenomenon, the implications of which are only beginning to emerge as the technology remains in flux. These implications, he further explains, are changing the sphere of traditional politics, enabling communities of users to develop adequate representation and open discussion. The networks created in these communities challenge previous geographical boundaries  and use the Internet to coordinate their demands for representation. In this way, “agency in the technical sphere is on the rise” (p. 6) and creating a medium for democracy that overcomes the passivity of broadcasting.

Feenberg’s argument is interesting in light of our conversations regarding technological advancements that allow for mass and self-production of texts and the value we assign to those texts. While some in class have argued that the urbanity of text generated on the internet has little to offer, Feenberg counters that these are representative of discussions that would have previously occurred face to face in coffee houses and of which we have no record. The primary difference is that these discussions enable more and diverse participants to become involved in such discussions.

This article not only contributes a new perspective for our class discussions on the value of everyday texts but it also helps situate my research on online discussion boards. Considering discussion boards as a place that should promote community building and thereby contribute to democracy gives me an initial approach for my project.