(Re)Defining Rhetoric: De-Scribing the Privileged Narrative with Digital New Media

(Re)Defining Rhetoric: De-Scribing the Privileged Narrative with Digital New Media

Our 15-minute iMovie questions traditional definitions of text and ways of reading, redefines digital text as auditory, visual, and intercultural, offers a new rhetoric through which to read new texts, and argues that rhetoric and composition pedagogy that disrupts privileged, linear narratives and requires digital, new media work benefits students by emphasizing critical thinking and multiculturalism.

Melanie will focus on intersections of auditory and visual rhetoric represented by Joan Osborne’s Spider Web and selected images and quotes, introduce Spider Web rhetoric as a way to read and compose digital new media texts. What distinguishes Spider Web rhetoric from other rhetorical theories is its ideological grounding: it originates from a pre-"historic" Pagan system of beliefs that value feminine and masculine principles equally and questions the origins of text.

Russ will focus on the importance of teaching critical thinking of new media and new media literacy because of the cultural emphasis upon it, how it shapes our identities, and the growing volume of communication within the associated domains. Furthermore, Teaching new media literacy leads to connections between affinity groups by encouraging the appreciation of their internal language and understanding their cultural/professional significance because of its ability to convey meaning in a more detailed, multi-modal way. Also, this opens the door to transfer problem solving methods from one affinity group to the next.

Todd will begin by focusing on traditional definitions of concepts such as rhetoric and text. After doing so, he will then move on to discuss how emerging technologies complicate our understandings of these concepts. In an age where digital media plays such an important part in so many of our lives, we, as rhetorical thinkers, must become aware of how and why certain rhetorics and texts maintain a privileged position in our society. The goal of his portion of the Imovie will be to demonstrate how we bring our own unique cultural backgrounds to texts. Through a brief exploration of hip-hop culture’s influence on American culture, Todd will explore how factors such as race, gender, and class play a part in our understanding of the rhetorical aspects of these texts.

PROJECT OUTLINE

"(Re)Defining Rhetoric: De-Scribing the Privileged Narrative with Digital New Media"

3 min

The Value of Text and its Origins

Montage: The thinking man, Aristotle (Orator MP3 too), quill, pen, pencil, press, Word Processing, web page, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, mayan alphabet, ogham script.

Make a distinction between traditional next and new media texts

Rhetoric = Text = Literacy (images of definitions)

• The Essay, its importance, its impact on ourselves as writers and our audiences.

3 min

But Technology Had Other Plans for Text...

Define: New Media Domain and Multi-Modal Discourse.

Montage(New Media Domains): Web pages (extensive list to be generated), video (extensive list to be generated), Power Point, etc.

• Volume of communication in New Media domains to be reckoned with. Also shows how text is at the foundations of these domains. Because text is at the foundation of these domains then English Studies cannot ethically turn away from educating students to think critically of New Media domains.

3 min

Now we have a question to ask ourselves. Are we ready to teach our English students (Digital) literacy in New Media domains?

• Resistance within English Studies to expanding New Media use and lessons. Irrational fear it will replace text? (McDavid quote – text will take on new purposes, “build recursively on its predecessor”)

Quote from C Selfe -

We have to embrace the technology and find out what it has to teach us.

Quote from Alexander -

Our youth are shaping their identities not so much in the classroom, but in the popular domains such as the internet and its various media.

Quotes from Sirc and Wysocki -

7-8 min

Implications (and where we get to stretch our legs a bit as individual group members).

• If we do expand teaching digital literacy in New Media domains...

1. This is where Todd will discuss how hip-hop culture can allow composers to redefine concepts of rhetoric, literacy, and textuality through new media.

2. This is where Melanie will discuss spider-web rhetoric as a vehicle for composers to redefine concepts of rhetoric, literacy, and image (as text) through new media.

3. This is where Russ will discuss how new media literacy leads to new uses and applications for traditional text. Furthermore, teaching new media literacy leads to connections between affinity groups by encouraging the appreciation of their internal language and understanding their cultural/professional significance because of its ability to convey meaning in a more detailed, multi-modal way.

• If we don't expand teaching in new literacy domains...

Ø We will have a society of inactive thinkers and media will shape us rather than we will shape media.

MATERIALS (MEDIA) LIST

Collection

Montages –
The chronology of writing instruments shows not just evolution of writing, but a strong dependence on the foundation of it all, text: (thought to oration?) quill to pen, to press, pencil, type writer, word processor, web page (power point, video, audio recording?)

Images to accompany Hip-Hop rhetoric: instruments, bard, orator, (folklore, storytelling?), MC, Hip-Hop culture

Buzz words, military, law, politics, plumber, stocks, music, art


REMAINING DEVELOPMENTS

Interview shots? – Should each contributing author state some of their arguments grounded in an interview shot, maybe interspersed with montage and reference clips?
*-this is effective in how it humanizes the argument (can also be done with just a photo too)