Digital Rhetoric, September 9th, 2014

September 9, 2014

Today:1)Icebreaker (one mo’ time!)2)Meme: submission3)The readings4)Group work5)If we have time– reporting back6)Next time!

Icebreaker:

Going with today’s theme, please give your name and tell us the very first thing you remember downloading online.

Memes:Your meme submissions are due tonight, in the Niihka drop-box. You need to include the following: 1)Your 3 meme images2)Screencaps or links to where they are posted online3)Your reflective memo

Quick FAQs:1)Yes, you need to upload to Niihka 2)Yes, you need proof you posted3)Yes, you need a memo

With today’s readings (and calling back to the Porter piece from last week), I want to sort of track the key ideas. Then we’re going to do something similar with other material.

“The first problem that we need to address is technological instrumentalism, a binary view that separates technology from humans, that sees them as separate entities.”

WHAT?

Porter is telling us that it is a miscalculation to think of technology itself as dramatically changing how we compose and communicate.

For example: texting. None of you text, right?

I kid, I kid. But does your phone text?

What I mean is that many people would say that texting happens because of smart phones.

But no. It’s not JUST that. Texting happens because you, as people, use your smart phones to do it. If you chose instead to send short emails, short emails would be the next texting.

Porter reminds us that the technology doesn’t define its own use. It can try (video game systems, for example, can prescribe that you play with them), but without a person executing what the technology “does,” a piece of technology is just a thing.

Gunther Kress

Kress tells us:

“The approach from Social Semiotics not only draws attention to the many kinds of meanings which are at issue in design, but the “social” in “Social Semiotics” draws attention to the fact that meanings always relate to specific societies and their cultures, and to the meanings of the members of those cultures.”

Like…

These images have meaning…

…because we know them.They emerge from our culture and are reinforced by our culture.

Recognize this?

That isn’t this, is it? = SOr is it?

Walter Benjamin

Benjamin reminds us:

“In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain.”

Anne Wysocki

Wysocki reminds us:

“Because we have all grown up in densely visually constructed environments, usually with little overt instruction or awareness of how the construction takes place, it is easy to think of the visual elements of texts as simply happening or appearing…as though… television sitcoms were the result of a camera crew following a typical family through their day.”

The Logo Redesign:For the final submission, you should upload

a completed, colored logo with a written memo of approximately 500 words explaining your

choices. You will also submit with this project a shorter, 200 word or less, cover letter to the

team “selling” your new logo and mascot.

This remind you of your friends sitting around?

And these are just normal people enjoying normal products, right?

What Wysocki would ask us to do is…

..ask why. Think about why those images are chosen.

And maybe more importantly… why don’t people think about it/why isn’t it sort of a big deal to most Americans?

Now it’s your turn

Pair up. Yes, I mean pair up. Not groups of three or four. A pair is two. On the next slide is a list of 12 people who matter to our understanding of rhetoric. I want you to find a key quote from their work and explain it like I have with the readings here.You will, as a pair, email me 2-5 PowerPoint slides about your rhetor following the model here.

The 12

1. Danielle DeVoss2. LuMing Mao3. Lisa Nakamura4. Keith Gilyard5. Adam Banks6. Judith Butler

7. James Paul Gee8. Lev Manovich9. Malea Powell10. Cindy Selfe11. Stuart Selber12. Jean Baudrillard

For your slides…You want:1.A solid, descriptive, important quote from a work2.An explanation of why the quote matters3.Illustrations of it, if possible

You can Google. You should also probably use the library index of journals to find their works. If you make no headway in about 10 minutes, check with me.

For Thursday: Read: it’s actually a “listen.” The link is on the schedule.

In-class we will discuss, look at your slides, and work on another Photoshop activity.