Research Project Update

Hey everyone! If you want to check out what I'm working on for my research project, go to http://multimodalrhetoric.blogspot.com/. Most of it is still under construction, so be sure to check back later.

Live on the Coke Side of Life

I should probably explain my reasons for posting a Coca Cola advertisement. Well, here’s the story: after I finished watching the four videos due for Tuesday, I realized they all heavily emphasized global networking and connectedness…or to sum up, “we’re all in this together.” In the back of my mind, I remembered there was a song titled “We’re All in this Together.” However, when I searched for it on YouTube, all these videos popped up for High School Musical. I’ve never even seen that film before! From what I’ve heard about it though, I was reluctant to post the height of teenage sappiness on my blog. I then searched for other songs with the same title, and I found the above video. It is still super-cheesy, but 1) it is one minute in length vs. five minutes 2) how could you not laugh at the absurdity of it all? 3) I figured I could “interpret” it in ways to match this week’s discussion.

 

First of all, notice that the people in the video are surrounded by translucent bubbles. If the film-makers had added a nice purple border to those bubbles, what we’d have then is a perfect reference to Anil Dash’s talk about networking. According to Dash, because we have new tools and better networks, we have the ability to transform institutions. These “tools” include the highway, twitter, and the internet, which have served to streamline our networking process with other people.

At fifteen seconds in the Coke ad, the viewers are given a bird’s eye-view of people in their bubbles navigating the network of roadways. In the center of all these roads and “networking” is a large building, symbolizing institutions. Dash proposed, “If you have the right network, things become transparent, and you could sort of peer through the wall into an institution and think about the ways it can be changed.” However, the institution in the Coke ad is obviously very solid and not at all transparent. Directly following the image of the institution is a scene where a police officer approaches some teens and gleefully accepts the coca cola they offer him. These two scenes in combination reflect another one of Dash’s critical questions: if networking is so powerful, why aren’t (nontransparent) government officials striving more to network with us?

Suppose you saw that same scene with the police officer in real life. In your mind, would his casualness undermine his credibility or authoritative power over you? Or would you trust him more because you could better relate to him? The coke symbolizes more “casual” networking mediums such as blogs or Facebook. How many of you knew that as a politician, Barack Obama is unprecedented in his use of social networking? (Check out the article here.) And yet, in light of the Snowden leaks from this summer show, does networking really make an institution more transparent? Or is it dangerous for a government institution to be more transparent, whereas for commercial institutions, transparency is more to their advantage (as proposed by Clive Thompson)?

Okay, moving on to another analysis: at thirty-three seconds in the Coke advertisement, a massive crowd forms, and people are laughing, dancing, chugging their colas, and having a good time. The scene is very bright and sunny—it’s summertime on the beach. This part of the ad reminded me of Chris Anderson’s speech titled “How web video powers global innovation.” Again, the coke represents a networking mode, but this time, the mode is specifically web video. The conglomeration of people on the beach represents Anderson’s idea of crowd accelerated innovation. Individual innovation can be accelerated by the crowd—or millions of people watching web videos—because the crowd itself “shines light [on the idea] and fuels the desire” of the innovator. For the most part, I whole-heartedly agree with this theory of crowd accelerated innovation; a group of people collaborating together present all sorts of differing perspectives and ideas that one person can’t necessarily come up with on his own. However, as Thompson also mentioned in last week’s reading: “Several [people] pointed out that secrecy can be necessary - CEOs are often required by law to keep mum, and many creative endeavors benefit from being closed: Steve Jobs came up with a terrific iPhone precisely because he acts like an artist and doesn't consult everyone.” I think I can safely say, though, that Steve Jobs is an outlier to the trend and that isolated innovation is rare indeed.

The Coca Cola advertisement ends with the world in a coke drop and the slogan, “Live on the Coke Side of Life.” This portion of the ad speaks both to Seth Priebatsch’s “The game layer on top of the world” and Jane McGonigal’s “Gaming can make a better world.” Just as the world in the ad is immersed in the coke drop, so is our world inundated by games. According to Priebatsch, the game layer is “all about influencing behavior.” When people play games, they are influenced by certain “gaming dynamics” such as appointment, influence and status, progression, and communal discovery. Because so many people play games, these gaming dynamics could actually be used to affect our physical world. For example, McGonigal revealed three different games—“World Without Oil,” “Superstruct,” and “Evoke”—that encouraged people to solve real-world problems in a virtual setting. Obviously if the game was designed to reflect the world as we know it, solving the problems in the game would theoretically present solutions to real-world problems we face today. (I didn’t buy the majority of McGonigal’s speech—gaming “brings out the best in people,” really?—but I found her proposal at the end quite fascinating.) The Coke slogan could be revised to read, “Live on the Gaming Side of Life.” Live in a virtual world, and perhaps by doing so, you could make the actual world a better place. Does this sound like a feasible idea? Or is it just another futile attempt at utopia?

Beautiful Transparency

After reading Anne Wysocki’s article, The Sticky Embrace of Beauty, and at first being thoroughly confused at what seemed to be her shifting stance on the topic of beauty, I believe I can now safely say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” To summarize twenty-seven pages of Wysocki’s discourse about what makes an image or design beautiful, I would readily point to the afore-mentioned cliché. Or, I could sum up the main idea in Wysocki’s own words: “If we see beauty as a quality we build, rather than one we expect to discover, then we can potentially see beauty—and other aesthetic qualities like coherence or unity or balance—as shared values we can both celebrate and question” (169). In other words, beauty is subjective and not an inherent property of an object.

As part of her attempt to define beauty, Wysocki sought to understand why the Peek ad should elicit feelings of “pleasure and anger” in her.  She therefore drew upon and analyzed the theories of Robin Williams, Rudolf Arnheim, Molly Bang, and Joel Kant (to name a few) to formulate her own thesis about the association between beauty and pleasure. I don’t want to re-write the entire article; I only mention this because it would be interesting to apply some of these theories to the topic of “pleasing, effeminate discourse” described in Kathleen Jamieson’s paper, Eloquence in an Electronic Age. Jamieson stated, “Where manly discourse persuades, effeminate discourse pleases” (803). She commented on several of the perceived differences between the written and spoken discourse of men and women, and one of those perceived differences is the “ornamental” or “flowery” style common to women. Well, I think even those adjectives of “ornamental” and “flowery” insinuate something of beauty. So, what makes a woman’s speech or prose beautiful? Could we apply the same principles of imagery proposed by Wysocki to this specific area as well?

On a new tangent, Jamieson expressed her idea that the “self-disclosive, narrative, personal, ‘womanly’ style” is to the benefit of modern-day politicians (811). This very idea is also espoused (although not in terms of feminism) by Clive Thomson, who wrote a blog post titled The See-Through CEO about the importance of companies building up their reputation and boosting their revenue by being completely transparent on blogs and other online sites. He predicted, “One can imagine how the twin engines of reputation and transparency will warp every corner of life in years to come, for good and ill.”

Speaking of transparency, I usually take forever writing up a blog post for this class. However, because of the mothering instincts of my roommate, I’ve made a pinky-promise to write this in an hour, so I can dedicate the rest of my night and early morning to writing an essay due in another class. Therefore, I realize my writing is a little disjointed this time around, but feel free to start a conversation about any of the ideas I briefly mentioned! (If I had more time, it would’ve been fun to pursue some of them more in depth). Or wait…maybe that’s a sigh of relief I hear coming from you: “Yes! Not another freakishly-long post!” Haha; well, the timer just went off. Until next time.

Connecting the Dots between Knowledge and Creativity

I believe that the Kohl et al. paper, History Now: MediaDevelopment and Textual Genesis of Wikipedia, addressed several fascinating concepts, but one of the biggest ideas appeared only briefly in the very last paragraph: “The basis of a culture of knowledge then, which is not only constituted with media, is fundamentally based on linguistic interaction, formed by the controversial process of text genesis. This way writing becomes a practice of knowledge construction” (178). This claim immediately caught my attention; after all, humans pride themselves on being “knowledgeable.” We want to be “in the know.” For example, our hatred of not knowing is blaringly implied in these everyday clichés:

·         Leave no stone unturned.

·         Live and learn.

·         You’ll never know unless you try.

·         A penny for your thoughts.

·         A little birdie told me.

Perhaps knowledge isn’t the focus of these sayings, but it certainly drives them along. This isn’t surprising—the words people say reflect the people, and people are driven by a thirst for knowledge. Why do you suppose we find religion and science in communities all across the globe? Because people want to know, and perhaps by knowing, they’ll find meaning.

But what exactly is knowledge? At first, I thought knowledge must refer to our internal “reservoir” of information and data. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel that knowledge must be something more than just a collection of facts. According to a quoted work in a website I found:

Knowledge is derived from information but it is richer and more meaningful than information. It includes familiarity, awareness and understanding gained through experience or study, and results from making comparisons, identifying consequences, and making connections. Some experts include wisdom and insight in their definitions of knowledge. In organisational terms, knowledge is generally thought of as being “know how”, “applied information”, “information with judgement” or “the capacity for effective action” (Te Kete Ipurangi, emphasis added)  

Okay, this definition of knowledge seems to support the thesis that “writing becomes a specific means of knowledge construction” (Kohl et al. 177). One particular phrase in this description that I want to concentrate on is “making connections.” Kohl, Liebert, and Metten devoted their paper to the discussion of “connections” found in Wikis: the connection (to the point of dissolution) of the roles of author and recipient and the connection of multiple web pages through hyperlinks. In The Database andthe Essay: Understanding Composition as Articulation, Johndan Johnson-Eilola wrote that articulation theory can help us understand “writing as a process of arrangement and connection rather than simply one of isolated creative utterance” (202). One dictionary definition of articulation is “the state of being jointed,” or “hinged.” Basically, the articulation theory proposes that words make sense only in context of other words—the meaning of one word hinges on the meaning of another word. “[O]bjects “mean” not because they inherently, automatically mean something, but because of what other objects they’re connected to” (Johnson-Eilola 202). According to the principle of articulation, all writing can pretty much be described as a series of connections. And in order to write, one would have to have some sort of knowledge to make those connections. Even something many people wouldn’t consider “writing”—that is, paginating books—demonstrates articulation and thus, a requirement for knowledge because the pagination is linear, connected, and purposefully-placed.

 

Interestingly, Johnson-Eilola mentioned pagination in reference to a court case called Bender v. West Publishing: “On first glance, the Bender v. West Publishing ruling seems to uphold our common ideas about what counts as creativity. As the judges point out, we traditionally require an intentionality going beyond arbitrary pagination” (206). Hm. In one sense, yes, pagination is arbitrary because there is seemingly no connection between the written number and the quantitative value we have in mind. However, just as Johnson-Eilola himself pointed out earlier, the very words we write and speak are also arbitrary—that’s why some brainiac came up with the articulation theory to explain how language even works. We understand words because we’ve intentionally assigned a meaning to them. Likewise, we also shouldn’t consider pagination “arbitrary” or random because we’ve intentionally assigned a meaning and order to those numbers. Doug had written in the margin of Johnson-Eilola’s paper, “This case suggests arrangement is creative,” and I agree. I also want to point out that knowledge is what enables us to make the connection from arbitrary numbers or letters to communicative meaning.

Is it just me, or can you see a relationship between knowledge and creativity? Isn’t creativity all about making different connections and variations with known material? (And I’d rather not delve again into the nuances of the word, “creativity”; if you’d like, check out my earlier blog posts on the subject titled Defining Our Perceptions and My Very “Unoriginal” Post.) If knowledge is more than “information” and includes the ability to make connections, then surely creativity requires different forms of knowledge. Or, perhaps we could postulate that the formation of knowledge requires creative thinking to make those connections and “fill in the gaps.” At any rate, knowledge and creativity seem to be intricately linked. I therefore take great issue with the statement, “the more factual something is, the less creative it is” (Johnson-Eilola 206). Information doesn’t do us any good unless we can understand it, and to understand it, we must have knowledge (or way of knowing)! At the beginning of our lives as infants, information may very well form the basis of our knowledge, but as we grow older, I think we process information through our “knowledge-filters,” that mechanism that allows us to make connections and apply the information. So really, how can we measure the creativity of a “factual” text against a “fictional” text if both fact and fiction are based on the intertwining of knowledge and creativity?

Infographic

Another Tool for the Toolbox

The article titled The Power of Punctuation by Martin Solomon is yet another work that discusses the rhetorical effect of imagery. In one of our previous readings, Anne Wysocki examined the possible meanings behind different typefaces; similarly, Solomon also reviewed the possible messages presented by a design change in punctuation marks. His examples included:

·         A dramatic stop, conveyed by a larger, bolded period following a sentence of lighter typeface.

·         The importance of a quote, suggested by exaggerated quotation marks.

·         A strong direction telling the reader to reference something, implied by an enlarged asterisk.

Solomon quickly cautioned, however, that “Exaggerated punctuation should not be used with all messages. The indiscriminate display of punctuation for the sake of design turns these marks into devices unrelated to concept; punctuation used out of context can diminish the effect of a message” (285-286). I tried to find examples of this on the internet, and these were some of the results:

Take a look at the first photo. Perhaps Dennis believed that quotation marks would add emphasis to the word, or perhaps he meant to merely decorate the word. Either way, his “design” confused the message and left the reader wondering if “vehicle” is to be taken literally or metaphorically for something else. The second image also presents a confusing message. How is one expected to interpret “Oh! Boy syrup”? Does this syrup exclude girls from using it? Or is “boy” supposed to modify “syrup,” in which case you’re left speculating what sort of muddy concoction is in the jar? Upon closer inspection, “oh!” and “boy” are outlined in a different color, whereas “syrup” lacks a shadow. We would be safe to say that the label should properly read, “Oh boy! Syrup,” noting that “Oh boy!” is just the brand name for this particular syrup.  Perhaps the designer meant to balance the smaller-typeface “oh” with the weight of the word “boy” by adding an exclamation mark after the former. In both examples, the effect of the message was diminished because the punctuation (meant only for design) was used out of context, just as Solomon had warned.

Solomon also briefly mentioned the rhetorical effect of punctuation through spacing and positioning, and he used a telephone listing as a primary example. He was at the cusp of discussing punctuation in and of itself (without exaggeration in design) as a rhetorical tool, but he didn’t venture further. Therefore, I searched online for another article that delved into the subject a little bit deeper and found a great paper called Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool by John Dawkins. Dawkins proposed that certain types of punctuation marks create different amounts of “separation”—or emphasis—between and within independent clauses. The table below illustrates the “hierarchy” of punctuation according to Dawkins:

Table I

Hierarchy of Functional Punctuation Marks

MARK                        DEGREE OF SEPARATION

sentence final (.? !)     maximum

semicolon (;)               medium

colon (:)                      medium (anticipatory)

dash (—)                     medium (emphatic)

comma (,)                   minimum

zero (0)                       none (that is, connection)  (pg. 535)

Dawkins explained that writers could gain emphasis by “raising” the current punctuation of the sentence to the punctuation above it in the table; writers could also gain connectedness by “lowering” the punctuation of the sentence to the punctuation below it in the table (536). For example (and I’m using the example Dawkins provided), consider how the meaning of these sentences changes just based on differences in punctuation:

1.      John asked for a date when he got the nerve.

2.      John asked for a date, when he got the nerve.

3.      John asked for a date—when he got the nerve.

4.      John asked for a date. When he got the nerve. (pg. 538)

Solomon stated that because of the flexibility with which we use punctuation, “punctuation is often taken for granted” (282). I agree that we probably take punctuation for granted; however, I would argue that we don’t use punctuation flexibly enough. How many times do we write a sentence without considering how to redirect the emphasis by changing punctuation? How many times do we fail to experiment with punctuation so as to garner the most force for our statement? As Solomon and Dawkins demonstrated, punctuation can serve as a useful rhetorical tool—and we’re letting it sit in the toolbox collecting dust.  

"A Modest Proposal"

The “umbrella” question overshadowing my critical photo-essay project is “How do readers encounter and handle texts?” As a way to formulate a thesis for this question, I plan to research how reader’s eyes are guided throughout the text, what effect imagery and icons have on the reading process, and how might reading techniques such as “skimming” affect a reader’s comprehension of a text. I’m also considering looking into how the presentation of certain genres influences a reader’s interpretation of a text. We’ve encountered many of these topics in class already, but I believe supplementary research will yield even greater insight into these areas. Although each subject could itself provide enough material for an extensive research paper, I hope to glean the core concepts offered by each and combine them into a cohesive project that would address several aspects of reader behavior.

I’m mainly interested in this research question for the applications it could present to me as a reader and writer. The question of how readers see and respond to texts ultimately leads to the discussion of how much choice and control readers have over a text. As a reader, I’m concerned with how much of the writer’s message I’m actually absorbing and understanding versus how much I’m actually inventing. As a writer, I’m interested in how my writing style or presentation may affect the fidelity of my message or increase the opportunity for reader interpretation. However, I’m also fascinated by how giving the reader a sense of “choice” could be a powerful tool of rhetoric. The most successful rhetoric appears not to be “my” idea, but “your” idea, right? If the idea was “yours,” this implies you had choice in the matter. So by utilizing the patterns of reader behavior, couldn’t a writer “manipulate” a text to give a reader a sense of choice and control, while in fact, it is the writer who controls most of the discourse? I have no idea if this is actually possible, and I hope my research project would reveal the plausibility or implausibility of this idea.

I anticipate that much of my research will be based on class readings, additional works by Kress and Wysocki, and whatever other scholarly articles I may come across online that pertain to the project. I’m also debating whether I should interview some graphic design professors (I think J. Conger and S. Newman hold these positions at MSU) in order to discuss the rhetorical influence of design. Yet another aspect of my research may take place in my mode of presentation. Because underlying my project is my interest in reader choice as a rhetorical tool, I’m playing with the idea of presenting my project as sort of a “simulation” (not sure if this is the correct word, vocabulary fails me). For example, consider educational computer games for little kids. The kids have the choice where to “travel” to in the game, and so they encounter different aspects of the game at different times. However, at each section or “stage” of the game, there’s some sort of pre-programmed lesson or “trial” presented to the gamer. Therefore, if I could figure out how to set up my project in similar fashion, I and my readers could see if the conclusions drawn by my research are true or false. In other words, my presentation should reflect the concepts addressed by the research. Does this make sense? (And if this type of presentation is possible, my computer-nerd cousin will certainly enlighten me). If I can’t create this simulation thing, I hope to still strive for somewhat of the same effect by creating a webpage that is basically a monstrous infographic.

Just as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal suggests outrageous ideas, so too might my “modest proposal” seem outrageous. I’m wondering if this project is too ambitious and too much to tackle on, or if it meets the Goldilocks standard of “just right.” I’m very excited by the prospects of this project, so I’m kind of hoping that if my proposal really does submit too much, the alternative wouldn’t be too watered-down. Do you have any suggestions?

Abacadabra

 

The funny aspect about this trick is that there’s really no “trick”—it’s just based on mathematics. Even the person perpetuating the card trick may not understand the “how” behind it all. Yet to an uninformed (and naïve) observer, the trick gives the illusion that “magic” actually is involved. True to my little quirkiness, I thought this card trick was similar to the topics addressed in Stephen Bernhardt’s Seeing the Text, Anne Wysocki’s The Multiple Media of Texts:How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporated Words, Images, and Other Media, and Gunther Kress’ Multimodality, Multimedia,and Genre.

All three writers mention, in varying degrees, the rhetorical function of a text’s appearance. In fact, one of the assumptions underlying Wysocki’s argument was that “the visual elements and arrangements of a text perform persuasive work” (124). I know that we’ve discussed different aspects of rhetoric all throughout this semester, but when I think of rhetoric, the words finesse and persuasion still dominantly come to my mind. If we view rhetoric in a very vulgar light, we might even say it is a form of “trickery.” But on the other hand, can we really say that visual rhetoric is a “trick”? I guess it depends on your opinion of whether a trick (as in a magic trick) is mostly done in full sight of the observer or during the “preparation” stages before the “performance.” In other words, does a trick hinge more on (manipulated) audience perception or the craft of the magician? How you answer these questions might influence you how view the concept of visual rhetoric. For example, do you think visual rhetoric is mostly based on details such as type font/size, images, white space, page layout, and the like? If your answer is “yes,” this correlates to the perception gimmick that is “in full sight of the observer.” Or do you think there is something else to visual rhetoric, something that might correspond to the unseen, “preparation” part of a magic trick? In regards to this “unseen” aspect of visual rhetoric, I would like to posit that the effectiveness of visual rhetoric is due in part to the constraints of the rhetorical discourse.

If I remember correctly, we’ve defined the constraints of a rhetorical discourse as persons, events, or objects that have the power to limit the decision/action needed to modify the rhetorical exigence. In light of this, couldn’t a reader’s expectations be a type of constraint? As writers, we oftentimes write to the expectations of our intended audience. “These multiple considerations of audience and purpose functionally constrain the text, influencing its shape and structure” (Bernhardt 71). Wysocki also stated, “Precisely because you come to an academic page bringing expectations about how that page should look means that the page has had to be visually designed to fit your expectations” (124). For example, a scientific paper may be more rhetorically effective if it appears to be a scientific, peer-reviewed paper rather than a high school research project. Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter what a text appears like if its content is reliable, but realistically, we all “judge a book by its cover”!

Therefore, if the appearance of a text can work rhetorically in the text’s favor, then the concept of genre becomes all the more important to consider. Kress wrote, “[T]he category of genre is essential in all attempts to understand text, whatever its modal composition. The point is to develop a theory and terms adequate to that” (39).  In one respect, understanding and categorizing different genres can be useful; as demonstrated in Wysocki, Bernhadt, and Kress’ analyses of visual aspects of text, different displays could carry entirely different meanings. A true “master” of magic knows the “ins and outs” of the trade, unlike someone like me, who may utilize mathematical card tricks without actually taking the time to understand what makes them work. Similarly, someone who composes a text with full awareness as to its visual implications would probably make a better rhetorician than someone who is ignorant of the rhetorical, visual tools at their disposal. However, the issue with so closely defining different genres is that, as Kress pointed out, we don’t know what to do with those “generic mixes.” Kress proposed,

A newer way of thinking may be that within a general awareness of the range of genres…speakers and writers newly make the generic forms out of available resources. This is a much more “generative” notion of genre: not one where you learn the shapes of existing kinds of text alone, in order to replicate them, but where you learn the generative rules of the constitution of generic form within the power structures of a society…In such a theory all acts of representation are innovative, and creativity is the normal process of representation for all. (53-54)

Maybe we are so consumed with the little details that we forget to step back and view the entire picture, so to speak, about the notion of genres. Returning to the subject of magic tricks, this summer my siblings and I watched the movie, “Now You See Me.” One of the main themes was, “The closer you look, the less you’ll really see.” So what do you see? “The physical fact of the text, with its spatial appearance on the page, requires visual apprehension: a text can be seen, must be seen…” (Bernhadt 66).  

Writing with Audio/Video

Creating my A/V short project really opened my eyes to the opportunities writers have through digital rhetorics. I discovered that the passing of time was easier to convey in film rather than in mono-modal composition. For example, if I'm writing a short story or some account of history, I must be explicitly clear that I'm jumping days, hours, or centuries from one given point to the next. This not only takes up more of my time, but also text dedicated to explaining this transition. In contrast, I think video eliminates an extra "explanatory" step because the viewers can see (figuratively speaking) the passage of time. The character Rachel in my video matures from a young girl to a young adult in a matter of seconds. I think this transition is clear to the viewer because not only do the two girls look alike, but it fits the natural progression of the storyline.

With mono-modal composition, the writer can bring several themes and topics to the attention of the audience, but the audience can only perceive this through the written text on the page. With multi-modal composition, the focus can shift between text, visual, and audio. In my piece, all three components played lead roles at certain points in the video. I also realized by watching my classmates' videos that video allows the writer to bring focus to something in ways that mono-modal composition can't. For example, I really enjoyed Kayt's video with her close-up, artistic shots of the hands playing the piano, guitar strings, rain falling on the leaf, etc.

Lastly, my experience with this project really demonstrated the unique aspect of having to learn and compose at the same time. It was this learning aspect that I think challenged to explore the limits of my creativity; in mono-modal composition, I've become so used to the technology that sometimes my ambivalence is reflected in the creativity and "originality" of the piece.

You know what assuming does...

Mark Wolf focused his essay, Subjunctive Documentary: Computer Imaging and Simulation, on the subjunctive nature of documentation specifically in computer simulation. In grammar, the subjunctive tense refers to the conditional, such as could be, would be, and might have been. A subjunctive document then would contain elements of these conditionals. Computer simulations are based on certain data which dictate the outcome of the simulation. According to Wolf,

The computer allows not only physical indices like visual resemblance but conceptual indices (like gravity or the laws of physics) to govern simulated events…In many cases, actual experiments and events are represented as measurements and relationships; these are abstracted into a set of laws governing the phenomena, and these laws become the basis for creating the potential events of the simulation. (423)

In other words, computer simulations run on assumptions. Of course, some assumptions are more scientifically sound than others, but this doesn’t diminish the fact that if the data underlying a computer simulation is faulty, then the resulting image is also false. I know this is common sense, but consider how much trust people put into computer simulations. Wolf mentioned that because of computer simulations, pilots can earn their license without ever leaving the ground, surgeons can operate on people without having practiced on cadavers, and automobile designers can test-drive cars without ever actually running a physical test (was I the only one disturbed by all of this?). Computer simulations are even considered as evidence and proof in a courtroom setting (Wolf 424-427). Wolf wrote, “[P]eople’s unquestioning faith in both the documentary quality of the presentations and the scientific and mathematical means of producing them make it necessary for judges to remind jurors of the unreal and speculator nature of such simulations” (427, emphasis added).

Punyashloke Mishra also alluded to assumptions in his paper, The Role of Abstraction in Scientific Illustration: Implications for Pedagogy: “Thus the conventions of representation are thus more than artistic devices, they take their authority from previous experience and the state of the scientific field to competently build on a body of assumptions about the represented structures” (150). In the view of sociologists of science, this statement actually lends credence to diagrams. “Within the context of a given scientific discourse, a photograph is an imperfect representation, while a diagram represents it more faithfully” (Mishra 150). Notice that in order to interpret the diagram, which is built on assumptions, one must also be acquainted with the context in which the image is displayed. According to psychologists of art, “[S]ome pictorial conventions need more learning than others and some illustrations pose difficulties because they make greater use of conventions than others” (Mishra 144). When people aren’t familiar with the theories underlying the image, they form misconceptions. For example, “Many people believe that Earth is closer to the Sun in the summer and that is why it is hotter. And, likewise, they think Earth is farthest from the Sun in the winter…However, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are having winter when Earth is closest to the Sun and summer when it is farthest away!” (NASA Space Place). The real reason for the seasons has to do with the tilt of Earth’s axis. Mishra noted that perhaps this common misconception is due to the illustration of earth’s orbit around the sun found in many textbooks. Sociologists of science readily admit that “one cannot remove the context (speaking of the context in very general terms) from the image. The context is part of the illustration itself” (Mishra 152).

I came across a website dedicated to Richard L. Gregory that added more insight to the topic of image and perception. One particular section I liked stated that, “Philosophy and science have traditionally separated intelligence from perception, vision being seen as a passive window on the world and intelligence as active problem-solving. It is a quite recent idea that perception, especially vision, requires intelligent problem-solving based on knowledge” (Knowledge in perception and illusion). The article then differentiates knowledge from intelligence. We usually think that knowledgeable people are intelligent, and vice versa, but the two aren’t necessarily interdependent. Intelligence is an active processing of information, whereas knowledge is more passive in the sense that it can be described as “stored-up answers” (Knowledge in perception and illusion). So in reference to a scientific diagram, the more knowledge a person has of the context of the image, the less intelligence they require to interpret it. (Ha, I found this hilariously ironic). Anyway, scientific diagrams/images require—and they assume—people to have knowledge about the context surrounding the image in order to perceive it correctly.

I jump now from Mishra’s article and the emphasis on context to an excerpt from Wolf’s paper on computer simulations:

The data used in simulations are often much more selective and abstract than the images and sound of conventional film documentary, which take in background scenery and sound, recording the subject’s milieu along with the subject. Thus a lack of context may occur in some simulations, limiting the means of cross-checking data and limiting the data to only what was thought to be important at the time—or, worse, what could be afforded. (431, emphasis added)

Hm. If context is important in understanding an image, and some computer simulations may lack context, then….

Basically, here is what I’ve learned: Computer simulations and scientific illustrations are not only based on assumptions, but they are designed by people who assume viewers are cognizant of the context in which the image is present. Viewers assume that the simulations or illustration depict reality, and as a result, they may form misconceptions. I guess we must be careful not to assume too much in what we see, lest we make an a** out of you and me.

A/V Short Video

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

Supposedly a picture is worth a thousand words. Literally speaking, yes, I suppose a writer might use a thousand words to adequately describe a scene. In a metaphorical sense, the cliché points to pictures as perhaps a more effective way to communicate than language; a single picture could quickly convey a very complex idea. Human language has its limits, and so we resort to icons. According to McCloud in his book, Understanding Comics, an icon is “any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea” (pg 27). He then discussed the differences between non-pictorial icons and pictures. Basically, non-pictorial icons such as numbers represent invisible ideas, so their meaning is fixed and absolute regardless of their appearance. For example, you could still understand the number “5” whether it is printed in Times New Roman font or graffitied upon a wall. On the other hand, pictures are “designed to actually resemble their subjects” (pg 27). Consequently, the meaning derived from pictures is fluid and variable because of appearance. For instance, faces could be pictured in numerous ways, such as male or female, young or old, happy or sad, detailed or abstract—all of which affects how you interpret or derive meaning from a particular face (pg 28). The pictorial icons can be further subdivided into categories such as “realistic” images and more abstract images we know as “cartoons.” McCloud theorized that people respond to cartoons “as much or more” than a realistic image because 1) cartoons are simplified in such a way as to emphasize particular details and messages 2) cartoons are universal, so that a simple smiley face could “describe” billions of people (pg 31).

I want to focus on the “universality” aspect of cartoons. The more we “see ourselves” in cartoons, the more closely we identify with them—and ultimately, the more likely we could be persuaded by them. During class, Dr. Downs said that identification is not a mindset of “we are similar,” but rather, “I see myself in you.” A mirror effect.  Obviously, when we look in a mirror, we see ourselves; we don’t expect the mirror to project an image contrary to who we are. Identification is somewhat like a magical “trick mirror” in that we see an image we believe to be ourselves, but that image is actually manipulated by someone else holding the mirror. If the best form of persuasion is making someone believe your idea was his or her idea, then identification is surely the means to do so. This concept elevates comics (the combination of pictures and non-pictorial icons) above “childish play” into the realm of potent rhetoric. So why don’t we see cartoons as the main medium of rhetoric? Well, one possibility is that people simply don’t have the time or talent for composing comics to persuade the reader of a particular position or idea. The second possibility is that non-pictorial icons of language are superior tools of rhetoric; since the word “face” is a further abstraction than a cartoon smiley-face, anyone and everyone could identify with that word. “Meaning retained. Resemblance gone. Words are the ultimate abstraction” (pg 47).

And yet, just as soon as I mentioned the second possibility, I noticed several flaws with that line of reasoning. First of all, not “everyone” could identify with the written word because not everyone can read (and read the same language). Deciphering non-pictorial icons is an acquired skill. McCloud described this as perceiving information. On the flip side, McCloud expressed “getting the message” from pictures as receiving information (pg 49). Common sense would dictate that receiving information is bound to be easier (however slight) than perceiving information. Besides, people are such visual creatures anyway. I remember my basketball coach saying, “Visualize what the perfect shot looks like. Look at how you’re supposed to hold the ball, follow-through, and release. Now go do it.” That was the goal anyway—by “visualizing” yourself doing something correctly, you were supposed to be able to do it. Now consider why kids enjoy reading books; if you ask them why they like reading, their common response might be, “I can picture it in my head.” I’ve noticed that when I read, I oftentimes convert whatever I’m reading into some sort of mental image, which helps me better understand what I’m reading. The more technical or theoretical an article, the harder it becomes for me to construct an accompanying image, and thus wrap my mind around the proposed ideas.

As I was searching for articles online about visual rhetoric, I discovered a really neat excerpt from Paul Messaris’ book, Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising. He immediately addressed the topic icons and how pictures can trigger such strong responses from people. According to Messaris:

[R]eal-world vision is intimately connected with emotion, which, in turn, is tied to our functional needs as biological and social creatures. When we look at the world, we are strongly predisposed to attend to certain kinds of objects or situations and to react in certain kinds of ways…Consequently, to the extent that a picture can reproduce the significant visual features of real-world experience, it may also be able to exploit the response tendencies that are associated with those features. (pg 4)

I guess the question that keeps nagging me is this: Why don’t we use pictures (keep in mind McCloud’s definition) more often in rhetorical discourse? If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” then why doesn’t the average piece of writing reflect this?

The "Meaningless" Hypertext

 

I thought this comic was not only amusing, but fit perfectly with something that James Sosnoski mentioned in Hyper-readers and Their Reading Engines: “Because readers characteristically navigate textual landscapes by searching them for key words and thus often omitting passages that do not “match,” hyper-reading will be labeled “subjective,” “superficial,” and “de-contextualized’” (164). Of course, Sosnoski didn’t take this particular stance in his paper; he was merely pointing out a common perception of hypertext. In fact, Sosnoski asserted, “[I]n my account, hyper-reading is a rewarding experience because it extends my ability to read” (165). I am intrigued though, by this concept of “meaning-depraved information overload.”

 

On one hand, I am tempted, like the boy in the cartoon, to discount all the “visual extras” available through technology, as if anything other than text is somehow less authoritative or meaninful.  On the other hand, I also remember that Eva-Maria Jakobs (author of The Evolution of Web-Site Genres) wrote, “What exactly does the term hypertext refer to?...The content of a mode can also be presented in a variety of ways (as text, graphics, animation, video, audio). The choice of content is dependent on the author’s intentions—hypertext nodes can, for example, consist solely of technical drawings” (357). I think one of the big issues many people have with hyper-text is the result of hyper-reading, which Sosnoski said is characterized by filtering, skimming, pecking, imposing, filming, traspassing, de-authorizing, and fragmenting (163). When I first read that list, I immediately associated it with phrases like “diminished meaning” and “compromised integrity.” Like Sosnoski admitted, I also feel guilty about skimming text in order to get the general idea; I hold the idea that in order to really know the material, one should read the entire text. I try to tell myself that I’m maintaining authorial “integrity” on research papers and critical essays if I am able to understand and properly cite—in context—the work of another writer. However, I have since realized that no matter how hard I try, my interpretation will, at some point or another, deviate from author intent. Sosnoski pointed out, “[R]eaders can raid the texts uncovered by their search results in order to assemble their details as ANOTHER text which is, so to speak, re-authored by the reader” (166). The meaning will inadvertedly change from writer to reader, and reader to writer, as both are involved in the composition/invention process.

In my earlier prejudice about the “meaninglessness” of hypertext, I forgot that it is indeed similar to the reading conventions I take for granted. For example, according to Jakobs:

This approach views hypertext as a principle of presentation that over time has emerged from the experimental stage and has led to a broad range of conventional pragmatic patterns, most of which have been the focus of linguistic research. On the other hand, these patterns represent a considerable proportion of everyday communicative strategies. We use them in dealing with the Internet: in looking for information, doing one’s banking, ordering books from Amazon, looking up items in Wikipedia, reading online newspapers, booking vacations or putting resources for students online. (356)

Sosnoski also compared a search engine to reading the index or table of contents of an encyclopedia to find a specific, desired topic. Despite my initial denial, I do employ certain selective reading skills whether I’m searching for a library book or browsing on the internet. My point is, I shouldn’t discount hypertext as being “meaningless” just because its appearance is different—especially since meaning in large part has to do with the reader, the one interpreting a work. “By framing texts, readers assimilate them to their interests and hence render them significant in the context of their concerns,” observed Sosnoski. His words are something I should do well to remember as I navigate through hypertext as a new outlet for writing.

Defining Our Perceptions

During the past couple weeks in Digital Rhetoric and Writing class, we’ve discussed the topics of originality and literacy. Much of the debate seemed to center on 1) how people perceive these concepts and 2) how the nuances of the words themselves affect those perceptions. I enjoy “playing” with words, so I immediately became interested how language can influence a person’s belief about something.

One example of this was my recent post on originality. Several of my peers pointed out the material may not be “new,” but certainly the varying combinations of that material should be counted as “original.” Really, disagreements about this concept go back to how we define “original” versus “creative.” Superficially, these two words are very simple, but they carry so much weight! Shaun Tan, a professional author and illustrator of children’s books, wrote:

Each work contains many thousands of ingredients, experiments, discoveries and transforming decisions executed over several months, compressed into a very small space, 32 pages of words and pictures. Everything can be explained in terms of process, influences, developmental elaboration and reduction. What is original is not the ideas themselves, but the way they are put together. The fact that we recognize anything at all would seem to indicate that this is the case—a truly original idea would probably be so unfamiliar as to be unreadable, an impenetrably alien artifact. (4)

Tan then discussed in further detail the myriad of sources that influenced The Rabbits, a popular book of his. I discovered that many of my thoughts about originality and creativity align with what Tan wrote in his paper. Tan also stated, “For me, that's what creativity is—playing with found objects, reconstructing things that already exist, transforming ideas or stories I already know” (9).

A person’s actions are influenced by his perception, so consider how a person’s perception about originality would affect his actions. Well, depending on the extremity of his views, he could become either a blatant plagiarist or a paranoid citationist (yeah, I just made that word up).  Or, perceptions about originality and creativity could play major roles in court cases determining copyright laws, such as the 1991 case of Feist Publications, Inc., vs Rural Telephone Service Company. Part of the court rulings read as follows:

Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. (II A)

Those were some effects of people’s perceptions of originality and creativity. Now consider the implications of other words, such as “writing” and “communication.” According to an article titled, “Writing, Technology and Teens”:

The main reason teens use the internet and cell phones is to exploit their communication features. Yet despite the nearly ubiquitous use of these tools by teens, they see an important distinction between the “writing” they do for school and outside of school for personal reasons, and the “communication” they enjoy via instant messaging, phone text messaging, email and social networking sites. (2)

This excerpt, as well as the rest of the report, made me think about writing and what constitutes as “writing.” What makes a person a “writer”? I thought this would make for some interesting discussion. What were your perceptions of writing five years ago compared to now? How are your views changing, and who—or what—contributed to those changes?

 

 

Literacy: It's Not What You Think

Looking at Dennis Baron’s article, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies, and Anne Wysocki and Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s essay, Blinded by the Letter: Why Are We Using Literacy as a Metaphor for Everything Else? juxtaposed on my computer screen, I just have to laugh at the incongruity of it all. Even people who haven’t read these particular texts can guess how they might present opposing ideas about literacy. Eventually I came to agree with much of the thesis presented by Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola, and so it is from their perspective that I base the discussion of this post.

Right from the onset of the paper, Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola questioned the word “literacy” and what “bundles,” or connotations/nuances/messages, this word carries. They pointed out that for many people, literacy means “basic, neutral, context-less set of skills whose acquisition will bring the bearer economic and social goods and privilege” (352). Grounded on this assumption is our cultural expectation that literacy would revolutionize political, social, or economic systems. At least this much is evident even in the first paragraph of Baron’s article: “The computer is also touted as a gateway to literacy. The Speaker of the House of Representatives suggested that inner-city school children should try laptops to improve their performance. The Governor of Illinois thinks that hooking up every school classroom to the Web will eliminate illiteracy” (15). In context, Baron’s primary focus is on the computer as the latest tool in writing technology. However, take a look at what this excerpt says about literacy. Why were these government officials interested in incorporating computers and the Internet into educational settings? They aimed to “eliminate illiteracy.” Now think about, at one of the most basic levels, what we hope education offers to kids and later, young adults: a chance to further their career options, make money, discover happiness, and lead “the good life.” If you assume that illiteracy blocks a person’s potential for leading the so-called good life, then on the same token, you might also believe that literacy is the precursor for the good life. And yet, Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola asserted that, “[L]iteracy alone—some set of basic skills—is not what improves people’s lives” (353).

If literacy promises of political, social, or economic improvement, then, as Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola argue, books are the physical representation of that promise. Or in these writers’ own words, “[D]ream and value and self and culture and world seem to be fully enclosed within literacy, objectified in—and not separable from—the book” (357-358). Baron described the tools for writing as “literacy technologies”—which included books, pencils, and even writing itself. In his essay, Baron emphasized that computers should be included among the list of literacy technologies: “My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies” (17). But remember, the word “literacy” implies the attainment of the good life. If computers are part of the tools leading toward that attainment of the good life, how will that affect the way we view computers?

Baron mentioned that new technologies are often met with resistance. “As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new” (31). Well, if those technologies are framed as the tools for literacy, we shouldn't be surprised at such strong reactions from people. On one hand, some people may cling to the belief that the current, particular “literacy tool” would help them find the good life; the advent of a new tool would signify the need for adjustment and further learning—the good life wouldn't come as quickly as they thought. On the other hand, some people may realize the current literacy tool isn't helping them attain the good life, and a new literacy tool would offer renewed hope toward that end.  Perhaps this is why the rise of new technology fosters such controversy: it forces people to evaluate what they consider the good life to be, and “how’s that going” for them.

My Very "Unoriginal" Post

“Originality” is the impossible requirement and expectation of writers, musicians, and artists of this age. During my junior high and high school years, I tried my hand at a number of writing and art competitions, and every single one listed “originality” as a criterion for the participants. Needless to say, I grew up believing (and I’m sure many other people do as well) that originality meant a plagiarism-free, fresh, unprecedented idea or work. After all, we understand related words such as “origin” and “original”. However, I propose that originality simply cannot be achieved in any piece of writing.

In his article, “Intertexuality and the Discourse Community,” James Porter declared that, “Not infrequently, and perhaps ever and always, texts refer to other texts and in fact rely on them for their meaning. All texts are interdependent: We understand a text only insofar as we understand its precursors” (34). He went on to illustrate this idea with the example of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. Although Jefferson is credited with the authorship of the Declaration, researchers have discovered that much of his writing was borrowed from other texts in his culture. Porter thereafter asserted, “The creative writer is the creative borrower, in other words” (37).

The concept of intertextuality—the reliance of text upon other text—isn’t simply the negligence of citation. Rather, written discourse is built upon the ideas of previous writers. If we examine the basic plotlines of books, we encounter the same themes over and over again. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” wasn’t the first, and certainly not the last, tale of tragic love. Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” was but a blip in a long line of stories dealing with identity and family. Scores of sagas like Homer’s “Iliad” concerning feats of power, pursuits of glory, and dark twists of deception and betrayal abound in literature today. The veneer of writing may change over the ages, but the basic content doesn’t. I’m reminded of the biblical verses from Ecclesiastes 1:9-10: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”

 I think people write more extensively and in-depth about topics they know very well. And what subject do we know more about than ourselves? C.S. Lewis stated, “There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know” (Mere Christianity, 23). As humans, we can’t escape ourselves—we can’t observe, report, or write anything untainted by our human perspective. According to Walter Fisher, a person’s life is “a story that participates in the stories of those who have lived, who live now, and who will live in the future” (Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument, 381). Perhaps this is why it seems that everyone is writing about the same things: we know nothing else to write.

It is rather laughable then, how strongly we emphasize “originality” in this country. In order to be “original” in the true sense of the word, someone would have to somehow transcend human experience to discover maybe new senses, new colors, and new shapes never seen or imagined by mankind (because of course, even imagination derives its ideas from what already exists. But then, even to use the words, “senses, colors, and shapes” is quite limiting because those are concepts we already understand). And THEN, not only would this privileged someone need to disconnect himself from humanity to discover some new “thing,” but he would also need to come back and attempt to describe and explain his revelation to other people. However, the unfortunate business of it all is, if the said person succeeds in his task, his work still couldn’t be purely labeled as “original,” because he would’ve had to resort to ideas, words, and images his audience could understand—an act in itself very unoriginal.

In the above example, the person with a shot at originality was cheated of the title because of his audience. My example is pretty extreme, but I think it’s related to what Walter Fisher said in his article about the role of audience in the process of writing:

Any story, any form of rhetorical communication, not only says something about the world, it also implies an audience, persons who conceive of themselves in very specific ways. If a story denies a person’s self-conception, it does not matter what it says about the world…The only way to bridge this gap, if it can be bridged through discourse, is by telling stories that do not negate the self-conceptions people hold of themselves. (391-2)

Writers may search for that golden fleece called “originality,” but let’s face it—if they don’t meet the expectations of the readers, their material will be rejected. From personal experience, I always try to keep my intended audience in mind as I write certain papers. As a result, my writing styles and word choice change depending on the discourse community I’m appealing to. James Porter delved into this subject in greater detail, but two sentences seemed to sum it all: “We might then say that the audience of each of these texts is as responsible for its production as the writer. That, in essence, readers, not writers, create discourse” (38).

If our goal as writers is to be “original,” we have several unavoidable factors to contend with that frankly, are insurmountable. Therefore, let us settle for the status of “creative borrowers,” and throw our pennies in the well, to join with the lot of wishful writers from ages past.