Anne Wysocki and Johndan Johnson-Eilola
Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola begin by surveying our culture's understandings of the definitions and functions of literacy. After giving examples from movie stars, politicians, and scholars, Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola explain that “literacy” has been co-opted into a movement to remove people who are illiterate from adverse political, economic, and social conditions. This literacy campaign purports that having basic reading and writing skills is necessary to succeed in a culture inundated by visual and technological media.
An example of a campaign to fight illiteracy:
However, Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola assert that literacy is much more complex than this: “literacy alone—some set of basic skills is not what improves people’s lives” (353). Referencing Graff and Finnegan’s concept of the “literacy myth,” they assert that thinking of literacy as a “basic, neutral, contextless set of skills” enforces misconceptions that “there could be an easy cure for economic and social and political pain, that only a lack of literacy keeps people poor and oppressed” (355). This notion leads those who are literate to blame those who are not for their condition—to wonder why someone would not learn to read if it is the only obstacle between her and achieving her dreams. It seems to me that Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola suggest that this conception of literacy—which is used to gain power and maintain social and economic disparity—is that of white capitalist patriarchal society.
Who benefits from using illiteracy as a diversion from social, political, and economic situations?
Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola refer to a more traditional definition of literacy, highlighting the reader’s relationship to books: “To the book, then, the writers we have quoted attribute our sense of self, our memories, our possibilities, the specific linear forms of analysis we use, our attitude towards knowledge, our belief in authority of certain kinds of knowledge, our sense of the world” (359). This romanticized understanding of literacy, describes my own (and hopefully your) love affair with books but it does not describe my on-and-off relationship with technology. Why is “literacy” used to label our relationship to computers and technology? Wysocki and Johnson- Eilola suggest that literacy is a stand-in for “everything we think is worthy of our consideration: the term automatically upgrades its prefix” (360). Using “literacy” to explain one’s use of technology enforces the expectation that everyone should be proficient in computers and technology.
Do you see anything problematic about attaching “literacy” to computers and technology?
Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola ultimately identify three ways in which we generally define literacy:
- as a set of basic skills necessary in a civilized world
- as an ability that will aid the socially and economically disadvantaged
- as a means to help us understand ourselves (360)
If literacy is offered as a remedy for people in disadvantaged positions, what kind of literacy (e.g. technological, academic) it being promoted?
In the advent of postmodernism, Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola suggest that “literacy” changes as we privilege space over time. Information is available instantly; rather than sending and receiving information, we find ourselves in spaces of information (363). Existing in a technological world that is governed by space instead of time causes us to “rely on our ability to construct ourselves at some nexus between past and future, to have faith in the present as the point where past and future meet (exactly like) a reader progressing through a linear text, uniting what has gone before with what is now and with what will come” (364). A precursor to Johnson-Eilola’s chapter in Writing New Media, they hint at the postmodern dislodging of the solitary subject.
A postmodern view of literacy removes the reader from a linear historical context, away from a personal relationship with a text, toward “the possibility of remaking cultural meanings and identities,” and toward living “among (and within) sign systems” (365). Rather than seeing literacy as something to remedy the socially or economically disadvantaged, literacy becomes a way in which one can create, edit, and react to information (366). Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola write: “Literacy can be seen as not a skill but a process of situating and resituating representations in social spaces” (367). They attach “literacy” here to what they think is worthy of our consideration—to articulating the ever-changing social, political, and intellectual contexts of the reader, writer, and text.
Is the authors’ use of "literacy" any more functional than the other definitions they give us?
“The Database and the Essay Understanding Composition as Articulation”
Johndan Johnson-Eilola
Johnson-Eilola continues his study of postmodernism in “The Database and the Essay.” He explains that while scholars in rhetoric and composition have welcomed theories of postmodernism (as they apply to the roles of the reader, writer, and text), we still “teach writing much as we have long taught it: the creative production of original words in linear streams that some reader receives and understands” (200). Johnson-Eilola suggests that in our postmodern culture—in which we see writing as social and texts as interdependent—we use the methods of symbolic-analysis and articulation theory to understand textuality.
In an economy that values intellectual work more and more, “symbolic-analytic workers are regarded for their ability to understand both users and technologies, bringing together multiple, fragmented contexts in an attempt to broker solutions” (Johnson-Eilola 201). Meanwhile, to view writing as articulation is to see the writing process less as a purging of creative genius and more as a “process of arrangement and connection” across multiple social and textual contexts (202).
How might we promote the “process of arrangement and connection” in our classes?
While postmodernism and the death of the author has lead to a more flexible definition of authorship as applied to intellectual property (IP), Johnson-Eilola asserts that “textual content has become commodified, put into motion in the capitalist system” (203). He goes on to highlight changes in IP law that indicate there has been a shift in how we view text and communication. The Bender v. West Publishing ruling “signals the start of a trend away from valuing creativity in intellectual property and one valuing fragmentation and arrangement” (207). What this leads to, according to Johnson-Eilola, is a culture in which “texts no longer function as discrete objects, but as contingent, fragmented objects in circulation, as elements within constantly configured and shifting networks” (208). Similarly, legislation on databases has redefined texts as compilations of information from various sources rather than as cohesive wholes.
Do you agree that our understanding of and appreciation for creativity has changed?
It seems to me that Johnson-Eilola is suggesting that postmodernism has caused two main shifts in our conceptions of writing and textuality: the demise of the subject as capable of producing original text and ideas (reflecting social construction theory); and the commidification of text as intellectual capital. Both of these shifts are integral to IP law debates. In the face of these changes, Johnson-Eilola argues that “We cannot just give ourselves over to maximizing capital or completely fragmenting the self […] what we have to do is understand this system better, to participate in it, but critically” (212).
How does the commodification of knowledge affect our work?
Johnson-Eilola shares several ways that we can introduce postmodern understandings of writing and textuality to our students—in utilizing blogs, database design and search engines, nonlinear media editing, and web architectures. While Johnson-Eilola admits that blogs can appear to be a trivial genre, he claims that the way in which they compile bits of information appeals to a symbolic-analytic form of writing. Although rhetoric and composition teachers may not associate database design and search engines with writing, they embody the collaborative postmodernist sense of textuality and can be used to interrogate our understandings of what a text is. According to Johnson-Eilola, nonlinear media editing can evoke a new kind of composing process that encourages, “experimentation, arrangement, filtering, rehearsal and reversal” (224).
A new kind of composing process:
Do you think Johnson-Eilola presents the effects of postmodernism on rhetoric and composition accurately?
Ultimately, Johnson-Eilola calls for rhetoric and composition scholars/teachers to embrace postmodern definitions of writing and textuality; to critique how these new definitions affect our teaching, scholarly work, and culture; and to incorporate articulation theory and symbolic-analytic work into our classrooms.
Johnson-Eilola writes, “I’m trying to get to an understanding of writing more properly suited to the role writing plays in our culture” (205). Do you think he is successful in this?
Making Connections
Postmodernism has brought about new definitions of literacy, texutality, materiality, form, subjectivity, and writing. As we attempt to integrate these developments into our classrooms, I must admit that I sometimes have headaches and pedagogical crises that I blame on postmodernism. Teaching writing in open space and in nonlinear time can be daunting. However, I offer you several unconventional and amusing examples of form, textuality, and literacy.
Have you ever wondered who decided how we got stuck with Times New Roman? Check out the following Font Conference:
If you've never been one to take font too seriously, take a look at the effects of bad font on relationships:
http://squidandbeer.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/write-me-a-love-letter-with-a-heading-in-mrs-eaves-ligatures/
Check out 102-year-old Ed Rothander's take on English literacy:
14 comments:
I plan on commenting again in the morning when I can formulate something important to say. In the meantime, I love all the links/videos you included, Jules. I also liked the format of discussing certain points and then posing a question. Very fun and thought provoking read. Well done. I can tell by my typos that I must sleep and continue in the am.
I too am up way too late for my own good, but I had a good time reading this and, like Lydia, I plan to post a more substantial comment in the morning. One thing I will say before I venture off to sleepy-land is that I really like how the blog permits us to incorporate several different kinds of media in one place. The embedded videos really add something to the post.
That old guy was awesome... sweet add.
I want to focus my comment on the idea of information and access, since I have some interest and it was clearly a significant part of the Writing New Media essay. I recall a professor one time telling me that it won't be the information that is the issue, it will be the access to it. In essence, she meant that those that know how to find and access data or information will be the ones that have the power to allow access or to deny it.
As I ponder my research abilities and sit dumbfounded at all the databases we have access to here on campus, I wonder where we as students would be without such resources--without having the keys to these doors. I consider how previous generations of students who did not have access to these resources found material to write papers and create presentations.
Nevertheless, the concern of literacy, intellectual property, and commodification of knowledge (and damn near everything else) continues to intervene into the academy because they carry such gravity and ramifications.
To answer (at least partly) one of the questions posed about the impact of the commidification of knowledge, I think we will have to deal with massive changes in our educational process. Consider the possibility if the current trend of IP continues (as suggested in the text with hyperlinking and citation). Can you imagine an academy that cites single words?
For me, that is nightmarish! It is quite possible at this stage of our academic career we merely adapt other scholar's work and massage it into a updated form. As elementary as that sounds, one could argue that few people have truly "new" ideas. I look to various texts such as Susan Jarrett's Rereading the Sophists as an example. Another look at a dismissed set of scholars. I'm curious when or if (proper) citation will ever be dismissed and make a comeback, since the Internet clearly has changed how knowledge is acquired and transferred, even to those that appear to be illiterate.
First, I'll respond to Rock: the point about access is a good one. Access is always a problem. However, it does not sound that far removed from the video add about literacy in which certain children did not have books in their homes...access. I have conflicting feelings here. Access won't solve everything, just as illiteracy is not the root of poverty (as the video might lead us to believe) but access to information and literacy are both important tools. I certainly want everyone to have access to information and the ability to find and use the information to which they have access. This is an important pursuit. I suppose the issue is how we present this pursuit. Does literacy itself empower? No, not alone. Does access itself empower? No, it more likely implies a power that already exists. So the power structure is what needs to be addressed, and "literacy" will follow? Maybe.
I'm also feeling that we need to avoid the word anymore because of the cultural weight that is placed on it. I'm teaching my son to read. I never say I'm teaching him to be literate. We teach critical reading, thinking, and writing...must it be literacy at all? When we as rhet/compers extend the term literacy to things like "media", "technology" etc., do we do it in an attempt to justify our interest in it as scholars and teachers located in English departments (often) which are tied to the "book" as Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola describe it?
Jules writes:
They attach “literacy” here to what they think is worthy of our consideration—to articulating the ever-changing social, political, and intellectual contexts of the reader, writer, and text.
Is the authors’ use of "literacy" any more functional than the other definitions they give us?
I like Jules's analysis of the way the authors use the contested term (the term formerly known as literacy, %*%)and her insightful question. They say: “Literacy can be seen as not a skill but a process of situating and resituating representations in social spaces.” The definition is interesting, but I do wonder why stick to the term? I don't think redefining it will solve the problem, since it's definition is constantly expanding, yet constantly carrying the same cultural baggage. But, here I think they are attempting to help us see literacy differently. The sentence before the one quoted is, "Under this understanding of relationships, then, we could describe literacy not as a monolithic term but as a cloud of sometimes contradictory nexus points among different positions." Seeing literacy this way, as a kind of articulation may help us (as potential dealers of "literacy") understand our own positions...maybe? Still, as Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola say, "No single term--such as 'literacy'--can support the weight of shifting, contingent activities we have been describing" (366). I say we stop dealing in the term.
Before I can move on to "The Database and the Essay" and begin to think about pomo this early in the morning, I wanted to put my 2 cents in on the whole literacy/illiteracy question. I have spent time in support and administrative positions for literacy programs working with underprivileged K-5th grade students, and I have seen a number of parents refuse to get involved with their child’s education (not because they don’t want to) but because, according to shifting definitions of literacy and the focus on the “book”---which, in my childhood, I saw as something used by the upper-class for leisure, like golf clubs---or traditional reading of texts as “literate”, they identify themselves as illiterate and therefore think of themselves as “unworthy” to contribute to their child’s education. This also results in a general avoidance of the teachers and school administration because they do not want to make their supposed “ignorance” known. They come off as uncaring parents to the teachers, and the teachers become critical, angry, and disaffected. The parents, usually having been failed in one way or another by horrible school systems or biased educators often turn the blame on themselves: "I’m not a good father. I’m not a good person." There do seem to be smaller literacy movements that have pulled away from the book, promoting any kind of literacy as literacy that can be honed and used at home to help children see the value of reading/communication in a variety of forms; however, these programs seem few and far between. PBS promotes using children’s television, at the very least, to promote an educational environment at home, but I wonder if there are any truly substantial (effectively "arranged") web-based programs out there that are interactive and not so much warehouses or storage bins for activities/lessons such as the Florida Center for Reading Research, which is a great site…if you have access to a printer. I don’t know. Maybe my resistance to “New Media” and technology has something to do with my (now) deep connections to books. Perhaps I feel privileged and have a sense of having “moved-up” when I glance at the rows of books on my shelf. What are we holding on to personally and academically by resisting New Media as teachers and community members? What are we afraid of?
Julie et al,
Brilliant font video--well-done.
I like how you all so far are using the formatting capabilities of the web through blogger to vary your posts.
[puts on language police cap]:
"Ahem, the word is 'commodification' not 'commidification'!" [tosses cap in corner]
So far, the comments touch on two questions: 1) access to databases and the 'literacies' of that; and 2) the question of the further usefulness of the term, 'literacy.'
I can foresee a time when in certain academic fields and subfields the term will always be qualified with a footnote stating that "literacy here is not meant as the mythical unified, official kind based on the increasingly outmoded cultural capital of single-authored books but rather is an articulation (a la Hall) of the capabilities needed to be critical users of discourse, technology, and choice of fonts necessary in avoiding the ignorant buffoonery of our knuckle dragging ancestors in the 1990s . . ."
Perhaps we could all recognize that any use of "literacy" will tend to lead to exclusion. Even so, some formulations (like W & JJE's) attempt to avoid some of the most heinously uncritical applications.
I am increasingly impressed with the potential of Hall's articulation theory (less so with symbolic analysts) because, like JJE points out, it accepts the reality of postmodernity (the merely contingent unity of discourses and ideology, e.g.) while offering a way of appropriating elements of discourse for new, oppositional purposes.
What y'all think?
All for now.
Thanks, Rebecca, for your comment. Makes sense to me that the parents positioned by "literacy" as illiterate would behave that way. I have often heard it said that if only those parents read to their children from books, the problem would almost go away.
I wonder if we want to place books and new media in stark opposition. English departments reify that division, so being acculturated in English studies tends to push us to decide--are you a book person or a media person? I want us to consider the discourse/ideology formation of that from the standpoint of articulation theory/practice.
Any thoughts?
Bravo, Jules! Excellent analysis and questions, and I liked your use of color to highlight your questions. Your videos add depth to your discussion; I especially liked the font conference video. It really situates the context and culture-specific, value-laden groundings of font design and the ubiquitous, unquestioned hegemony of Times New Roman and reminds me of some of Wysocki's points about the dominance of form and why we value certain visual representations over others. In my graphic design training, we were taught to choose certain fonts for certain applications--serif for thick copy blocks (because the serifs connect the letters in words, leading the eyes through and making it easier to read), sans serif for heads and subheads. Until recently I never thought about how that repeated a linear pattern or way of thinking. More later . . . looking forward to your discussion in class.
Regarding Albertoid's question: I'm sold on articulation theory, especially as a sequencer of music and samples (http://www.myspace.com/subpoise2003 - see "twin cocoon 4"). Selection and connection has always been creative to me, it brings new angle of light or meaning upon already established information. For example, in "Twin Cocoon 4" Bush certainly did not mean to say "the average person doesn't really care" about the state of the economy, but he is in an ivory tower that is buffered by the shifts of flex and relaxation of our economic strength that have recently accelerated. I have interjected my perspective (influenced by many other sources of info of course) to create new meaning surrounding Bush's npr address to soothe US citizen's anxiety about the economy.
So I have, from this perspective implied I am a media person, but this carries over to printed text as well. There is so much potential to say even more when combining sources of info to a point that it is perhaps distinguishable, but certainly a whole new animal. Go and tell identical twins that they are the same! Have they not experienced time and space in so many different combinations that they create a whole new meaning of their genetic make-up? What about two clones being raised in the same conditions? A new perspective is inevitable.
I'd like to bring up the activity on p. 230 and search engines. Given that sponsored sites pay Google, Lycos, etc. to show up on search lists, what is the implication of information being sold into the mainstream collective of composing as social act (199,220)? Has anyone been on Scroogle? This is something to check out given it works to present information without capital interests in mind, as well as prevent the abuse of sharing your queries with advertising, etc.
--I'll have to add more later
Okay, now that I have revealed my sub-par computer literacy skills to the class ... here are my random thoughts concerning today's discussion. First, I would like to continue our conversation regarding the term "literacy" and its potential limitations. Perhaps we should do away with this term altogether. It's binary term "illiteracy" does seem to suggest that literate individuals have obtained literacy itself (we know there are, of course, many literacies). Perhaps this is where articulation theory comes into play. Rather than doing away with the term, we should look to redefine what it means to be literate. In doing so, we must be aware of our own privileged positions in the meaning-making process. There are, as we all know, actual illiterate individuals among us (in the traditional sense - they cannot read or write). As Mel pointed out in class today, there are real consequences tied to being forced to adopt the appropriate or accepted form of literacy.
In labeling computer proficiency as computer literacy, are we adding yet another barrier to individuals already jaded by the trappings of traditional illiteracy? I think the barrier already exists and calling it computer literacy doesn't change the barrier any more than when it was established by the advent of the information superhighway and expanded computing power (Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, 352). I think replacing "proficiency" with "literacy" just emphasizes that the public add computer proficiency to their toolkits.
MODALITIES OF BOOKS AND COMPUTERS
BOOKS: t - i(f)
COMPUTERS: t - i(f)- a - v
How does communication between books and communication between computers differ?
With computers the response time is much quicker and you don't have to be published to add to the conversation.
Hey Bookworms! Thanks for all of your comments.
Lydia, you make a good point when you suggest that we may attach “literacy” to “media” and “technology” in order to justify our using it, and I think this corresponds with Rebecca’s question about why some people are resistant to new media. One way JJE addresses this is by asserting that IP laws and debates have lead to a change in our thinking about creativity--novels are defined as creative and databases as noncreative. However, JJE writes, “Dissolving this boundary would undo the notion that ideas develop out of the ‘genius’ of the lone individual and that the whole notion of creativity is contingent (and shifting)” (209-10). It seems to me that people who see new media as lacking creativity may be fearful that our classrooms and culture are becoming places in which creativity is no longer valued in its traditional, romanticized sense.
JJE suggests that articulation theory can help us navigate through creativity in connective writing: “[articulation theory] moves the idea of database construction—or any sort of connective writing, like hypertext—away from technical/functional skills only and toward the sense that making decisions about how to arrange ‘facts’ is a very important process, on that involves ethical responsibilities on the part of the writer/designer” (226). Articulation theory allows us to see writers and designers as equally important, though I wonder how to employ this in class.
Russ, I dig “Twin Cocoon 4.” You made this? Also, I’m interested in your question about the activity on page 230, though I don’t fully understand how search engines work. What do you think the implications are?
Jules! I'm back!
I want to return to a point Dave made in class last Thursday during your discussion, about the (bugle sound) literary canon, specifically that (I believe this was phrased as a question) we can understand why it exists, or why it has (perhaps until just very recently) dominated our literary thinking and been required reading, etc., etc. Yes, I can see why: I fell in love with English lit and earned my MA in it because of Shakespeare, Coleridge, Yeats. I think those brilliant and timeless examples enrich our and our students' thinking. I also think that Others (who seemed to have had a much harder time getting themselves added to the canon) can do that, and I wonder why it took me so long to discover authors like Aphra Behn (SP?) or works like Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth?
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