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.

FYI

Just in case you're looking for my introductory video, I posted it on the "About Me" page.

The Way Things Are

“…Two kinds of language: on the one hand, language that faithfully reflects or reports on matters of fact uncolored by any personal or partisan agenda or desire; and on the other hand, language that is infected by partisan agendas and desires, and therefore  colors and distorts the facts which it purports to reflect. It is use of the second kind of language that makes one a rhetorician, while adherence to the first kind makes one a seeker after truth and an objective observer of the way things are” (Fish 124).

 Sometimes when I read articles, certain words or phrases catch my eye and remain on my mind throughout the duration of my reading. From the above quote, can anyone guess which words or word phrase piqued my interest? Sadly for my academic ego, my attention rested not on profound, meaning-laden words such as “rhetorician” or “truth,” but on the simple phrase, “the way things are.” Even more humbling is the fact that upon reading the phrase, my thoughts turned immediately to the 1995 film “Babe.”

{Hopefully everyone has seen this movie, but in a nutshell, the entire plot centers around a pig learning how to herd sheep like his master’s sheepdogs. The other farm animals are skeptical at first because they have accepted the way things are (a phrase repeated often), and Babe the pig is drastically challenging the standards of normalcy.}

I encountered the "way things are" phrase early on in the reading, which resulted in my divided focus on the topic at hand and childhood memories watching “Babe.” Hence, I’ve decided to indulge in my odd fancy of drawing incongruous parallels between two subjects by incorporating “Babe” into my discussion about rhetoric.

 According to Fish, some people view rhetoric as “the art of fine speaking…all show, grounded in nothing but its own empty pretensions, unsupported by any relation to truth” (123). Fish also quotes Socrates saying, “There is no need for rhetoric to know the facts at all, for it has hit upon a means of persuasion that enables it to appear in the eyes of the ignorant to know more than those who really know” (123). I tried to read past the negative (and later, sometimes positive) connotations of rhetoric in Fish’s article to arrive at my own working definition of rhetoric: a means of persuasion—whether written, spoken, or visual—based partly on the skill of the one employing it, and partly on the opinion of the audience receiving it. Of course, the concept of rhetoric delves much deeper and eventually leads to questions concerning ethics, truth, God, and reality. Such a discussion is too overwhelming for a single blog post and its author. Rather, I’d like to focus on the two pillars, so to speak, of rhetoric: presenter and audience.

 The Socratic view evaluates rhetoric in terms of style and appearance. We’ve all met people who use clever or sophisticated language to appear intelligent, whether on a test, in an interview, or in company of elitist erudita. Why do people do this (and why would I pop off an uncommon vocabulary word)?  Answer: we trust intelligence. If an orator were to convince us of his superior IQ, we would give more credence to his words, and therefore become easy subjects for persuasion. The presenter of rhetoric must find a way to earn the audience’s trust, and one technique is condescending snobbery. For example, in the movie “Babe,” Duchess the house cat nurses a grudge against Babe, so she tries to dishearten Babe by persuading him of his vulgar existence. Duchess is a cruel, soft-spoken know-it-all who skillfully wields rhetoric toward her own malicious purposes. Babe is at once taken in by the cat’s lofty speech and deceptively sweet demeanor.

 The success of rhetoric may be due in large part to the skill of the rhetorician, and yet that rhetoric’s effectiveness also heavily depends upon audience perspective, as I’ve mentioned earlier. This statement may sound redundant, but consider a situation where the presenter may have very little eloquence or skill. For example, one scene in “Babe” depicts Fly the sheepdog persuading Babe to use more aggression when herding the sheep. At first, Babe protests because the sheep are his friends. Fly replies to the effect that sheep are “stupid” and “inferior.” The dog is blatantly straightforward with her prejudice, and yet Babe eventually complies anyway. In this case, the effectiveness of Fly’s rhetoric (for that is what it is—language “infected by partisan agendas and desires”) was due not to high-brow speech but to Babe’s perception of Fly’s authority and knowledge.

 At the end of the day, my line of thinking left me pondering a metaphoric chicken-or-egg question: Who really makes rhetoric so effective—the presenter or the audience? I suppose one’s opinions on this might be directly related to the topic of who should take more responsibility for perception (the perceived or the perceiver).