Anne Frances Wysocki defines new media texts as “those that have been made by composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight the materiality: such composers design texts that help readers/comsumers/viewers stay alert to how any text—like its composers and readers—don’t function independently of how it is made and in what contexts. Such composers design texts that make as overtly visible as possible the values they embody. . . . Under this definition, new media texts do not have to be digital” (15).
I was genuinely surprised by Wysocki’s definition, and found myself rereading it several times to be sure that I was understanding what she was saying. If her definition is accepted as true and accurate, and if new media texts do not have to be digital, as she asserts, then, I wonder, how are new media texts new? If it does not have to be digital, does it still have to be technology-based? In my reading of the text, it does not, and so are all new media texts really new? Have there been no composers who were “aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight[ed] the materiality” until recently?
Perhaps this would be clearer to me if Wysocki had unpacked her definition more, with some specific concrete examples of what she sees as “new media texts.” Perhaps someone can help me sort out her definition? Does anyone have some specific examples that would make her definition clearer? I pondered through the activities at the end of the chapter and was still a bit uncertain. (I also had a very difficult time imagining that I woke up one morning and found myself “and everyone else in the world—with the body of a giant cockroach.” No, I do not know how to design a computer desktop so that cockroach bodies could use it.) (See page 28).
So, despite my initial adverse and confused reaction to Wysocki’s definition, I am also intrigued by the idea that new media texts do not have to be digital. (I’ll ignore, for now, my inclination to think that if it’s not digital or technologically based, it might not really be all that new). The idea of the composition classroom going all digital seems overwhelming to me now, and so something that is not digital sounds more doable, inasmuch as I might not have to become a technological expert, which I am still working at. Of course, I wonder, having not yet read extensively on the topic, how many others also believe that new media texts do not have to be digital.
I agree that she is probably straining the meaningfulness of "new media," but I understand where she is coming from. The digital age has made people think more about the materiality of texts (how they look, feel, are shaped, arranged) which have always been features of texts but have only recently become something we are paying more attention to because computers have 1) provided new materialities, and 2) made manipulating old materialities easier.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really intriguing and ingenious move on her part because it makes new media more than just learning to make digital texts and instead makes it an avenue for exploring a larger issue of texts: their material realities and how those material realities are composed and in turn compose us through how they position us as writers, readers, designers as we compose through them.
Nice cat.
I agree with both of you. I think she emphasizes the importance of being aware/ alert to the structures that make us who we are and the contexts that shape our experiences. But I think that the real challenge comes back to practice, how whatever understanding we might generate from Wysocki’s definition of new media, technology, and pedagogy might impact our actions as writing teachers.
ReplyDeleteCat under book.
ReplyDeleteThe cat would probably love it if the book had fish scales.
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ReplyDeleteIn one sense, Wysocki is very much working with generalizations. The emergence of the printing press and the huge ramifications of that technology did create a kind of de facto vehicle for communication / thought / rhetoric. It's certainly possible that a 19th century thinker could be aware of the range of materialities available to him and choose to use the printed book, (a circumstance which would satisfy Wysocki's definition); however, his decision would not have been informed by the multiple hybrid possibilities modern society allows.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the fact that her definition allows for non-digital texts to be considered new media; however, I'm concerned with her apparent resistance to some of the genre conventions that many of our students will identify with new media. Much of what they consume on the internet probably lacks the kind of self-awareness that her definition calls for; and while I'm all for challenging their assumptions, I also think that her cultural materialist approach could turn away some of our students before we've even had a chance to challenge them. In other words, I'm all about questioning the hegemony, but I also think that genre conventions are important and have pedagogical value.
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