Category Archives: Response Essays

CTW 3

Posted on by

b80b2e4ac138f32ef8ae02c96dce8ac5

Comics have entered the classroom, and educators have taken notice.

Traditionally viewed in academia as less than, comics had been relegated to the realm of entertainment. Now, however, academics have begun to understand that comics enable a presentation of information in different ways than traditional academic texts allow. Comics are bridging the gap between the public and the academic, and deconstructing complex ideas for general consumption.

The rise of comics within the classroom and the academic realm has inspired discussions on the construction of comics as multimodal texts, the validity of comic arguments, and the challenges this imposes on the traditional academic power structure.

In creative presentations of dissertations, two academics have explored the concepts of the rise and the power within and behind a comic book. Aaron Scott Humphrey wrote the comic/dissertation, Multimodal Authoring and Authority in Educational Comics: Introducing Derrida and Foucault for Beginners, in which he explores the collaborative nature of comic construction, and the struggle for voice and authority that arises within a multiple person creation. Nick Sousanis presented his dissertation in the comic, Unflattening, which he discussed in an interview with Steve Dahlberg and Mary Alice Long on BlogTalkRadio, “Artist Nick Sousanis on the Power of Visuals (& Comics) on Learning & Creativity.” Sousanis’ work explores the challenge comics provide the academic structure, opening content to a broader audience by breaking down complex arguments with visual aids.

Multimodal compositions have grown in number with the rise of technology. But utilizing multiple modes in creating a text of sorts is not confined to a computer. By looking at comics, we can examine multimodal compositions that have been constructed with layers of meaning, enabling visuals and handwriting to express ideas that are closed to a traditionally typed academic paper. It is a way of integrating thoughts and presenting them with a “focus on readability,” using “metaphorical language and visuals to engage people” (Sousanis).

At the heart of Humphrey’s dissertation is authorial voice. Within a written text the voice is apparent through word choice, sentence structure, and organization. However, what happens to that voice when a second of third person becomes involved? How do an author and an artist and/or a designer, when working together, impact the voice and the authority within the text? How do the words and the pictures work together or against each other? And what does that do for, or take away from, the text, and the readers’ experience with the text? This is the basic struggle within all collaboration as people attempt to balance their parts with others, or try to usurp control of the final product altogether. Humphrey provides examples of comics where collaboration works well and examples where there is an obvious power struggle. He exposes that an authorial power struggle exists, but that some are better at balancing it than others. This exhibition shows that when its working it strengthens the text through a cohesive presentation of the argument, and when the conflict is apparent it weakens the argument because it distracts and leaves the reader in unease, unsure as to which elements hold the key to understanding the presented concepts.

What it not addressed is how this struggle in creation ultimately affects the reader’s experience and understanding of the text? Rather than contribute to the spread of ideas, could a comic full of struggles conflate the argument and confuse the reader? Or worse, could it turn a new comic reader off, losing the chance to engage the reader in multifaceted ideas?

In Unflattening, Nick Sousanis explores the potential of a comic to help spread compound ideas to more viewers outside of academia. By presenting complex ideas in a nontraditional way, comics enable a broader audience to participate with the material, expanding educational possibilities. With the aid of visuals and conscious choice of language, comics create potential. Comics enable the deconstruction of a complex idea that is “not dumbing down an argument but letting the audience come up to the argument” (Sousanis). By breaking with the traditional mode of presentation—the typed paper—comics challenge the academic power structure, open doors, and expand possibility.

While I agree that the potential is there and comics could be extremely powerful in regards to information distribution, I wonder how they can be better circulated and dispersed within society in order to achieve their full potential? There is a stigma attached to comics, an assumption that they are frivolous or nerdy. While the embracement of academia will contribute to the breaking of this stigma, I wonder how much it will help and what could be done to improve comics’ reputation within the general population, so that they can be used as effective information disseminators?

Regardless of the main ideas in both Humphrey’s and Sousanis’ dissertations, they both challenged the traditional educational presentation of a wordy, academic term-specific presentation of a thorough research project. Both were able to control the authorial voice through handwriting, and expand the layers of meaning in their texts by using visuals and layout. Humphrey in particular has a very noticeable voice as he drew himself on the bottom of several pages with personal comments. Sousanis sought to create meaning with what was presented as well as what wasn’t presented, using white space for emphasis.

Effective and incredibly interesting, the works of Humphrey and Sousanis contribute to the discussion of multimodal texts and the contribution of presentation to arguments. As Humphrey says on page 20 of Multimodal Authoring and Authority in Educational Comics: Introducing Derrida and Foucault for Beginners, “Comics can show us new ways of thinking about language and power.” I think the real understanding of this has just begun, and as comics are utilized more and more within academia, we will understand more and more how they challenge and change what we known thus far.

 

________________________________________________________

Educational Comic from Comic Relief on Pinterest.

________________________________________________________

Sources:

“Artist Nick Sousanis on the Power of Visuals (& Comics) on Learning & Creativity.” Interview by Steve Dahlberg and Mary Alice Long. BlogTalkRadio. BlogTalkRadio, June 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Humphrey, Aaron Scott. “Multimodal Authoring and Authority in Educational Comics: Introducing Derrida and Foucault for Beginners.” DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly. Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, 4 Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Critical Thinking Through Writing 2

Posted on by
“Assemblage theory . . . emphasizes fluidity, exchangeability, and multiple functionalities. Assemblages appear to be functioning as a whole, but are actually coherent bits of a system whose components can be ‘yanked’ out of one system, ‘plugged’ into another, and still work”

–“Assemblage Theory,” University of Texas

________________________________________________________

5313847516_c10bb0c570

The pieces of the pie.

The parts that are able to combine and make meaning, change, evolve, or exchange and create alternate meanings are assemblages.

This also defines media flow. A flow that is not a linear path, like a river, but is instead a series of things that are linked to one another, connected, and interact (Reeves 316). The flow can move back and forth connecting one idea or bit of information to another.

It is the parts rather than the sum, yet all the parts combine to create meaning of some sort.

________________________________________________________

Media flow is the main idea of Joshua Reeves’ “Temptation and Its Discontents: Digital Rhetoric, Flow, and the Possible.” Reeves explores the “flow” of digital compositions on the World Wide Web, examining how presentation of multimodal compositions impacts audience interaction with the composition, and how the audience is both liberated and constrained by it.

Traditional rhetorical texts possess a linear flow that leads the audience down the author’s intended path. Through the rise of multimodal compositions online, texts now have images, videos, links, and advertisements; there is information everywhere, leading the audience on divergent paths.

Like this…

Having options in a text provides audiences with a sense of autonomy and choice, however Reeves’ thinks that choice is an illusion and that texts are still carefully crafted to provide an audience with specific information.

After reading Reeves’ article I began to look differently at websites. Specific things are linked and embedded to create a structured flow where the options of what you can follow are carefully selected for you. For example, on the University of Texas website, “Assemblage Theory” cited above, the only linked words are “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” Why are other words not linked, such as “Gilles Deleuze” or “Organismic Matter”? Are they any less important? What are the purposes of choosing which words to link and which to not link? By leaving things out, either purposefully or coincidentally, the composer is altering the possibilities.  While we feel like we have control as the audience (we get to chose whether we click or not), the composers purposeful presentation controls our experience and knowledge acquisition (by limiting what we can click).

So, what does this mean for our interactions with texts?  How did the previous video alter the flow of this composition?  How have my linking decisions (to link or not to link) affected your choice to click or not?  How, as the composer have I altered your interaction with this text?

________________________________________________________

Teresa Rizzo in the article “Television Assemblages” uses the assemblage theory also in relation to media, but focuses on the evolution of television into a multiplatform model. She explains how television had been viewed as a single static entity, but it is really just a sum of parts. Those parts have changed and taken new forms into what is now a “network of connections” with the Internet and technology disrupting the television consumption algorithm (Rizzo).

Television is no longer dependent upon a large broadcast network, confined to a set schedule, or stuck in the living room. Shows and movies can now be watched anytime, anywhere, as mobility emerges. Interaction and participation are prevalent as audience members create their own content and comment on what they are watching. This generates all kinds of possibilities. What will be actualized is yet to be seen and depends upon the configuration of assemblages.

This stance on possibility, what could happen and what actually happens, is linked to linearity.  Rizzo thinks that linearity does not exist within assemblages, rather a “linear cause and effect logic” is only in hindsight, once you already know what happened—“it only has determinacy when read retroactively; it could always have happened otherwise” (Rizzo). If assemblages are all about “an infinite number of possibilities” then it leaves no straightforward linear path (Rizzo). While I find this to be interesting, I wonder if anything can be truly linear then? Can the concept of linearity even exist? If not, then has linear composition been a false idea in rhetoric all along?  Perhaps it is the lover of narrative in me, but I have a difficult time believing Rizzo’s point here.

________________________________________________________

Besides debating the concept of linearity, the articles are in conversation with each other concerning customization.  Personalization enables a device to respond to the likes and dislikes of that particular person. While this concept seems like a great filter, I wonder what costs are associated with it.

Personal data collection is everywhere. Rizzo speaks of children using devices to watch television, well then what sort of information is being collected on our kids? Reeves thinks that “[v]irtually every move we make on the Web is being captured and analyzed by strategists who are designing ever more refined ways to govern our lives on and offline” (326).  Composers, producers, and advertisers are purposefully structuring our media flow to achieve their own goals.  Based on the ads that pop up on my computer, I’d agree.

Despite the wealth of information available in the world, both theorist worry that websites and applications will become so personalized that people will not continue to be exposed to new knowledge and differing opinions. Reeves calls this the “echo chamber,” where we only see and hear things that agree with us, stunting our growth and prohibiting ourselves from emerging into our potential.  I believe people do this anyway.  Our environment and our personal choices affect what we see and hear.  Some people chose to tune out what they don’t agree with.  Through the emergence of personalization in technology, I think that the audience still has a legitimate choice, to close things out or to open to possibility.

As media continues to change, reorganizing its assemblages and flowing through the channels of technology, it will be interesting to see how rhetoric in these spaces emerges. I tend to think that much will stay the same, with adaptions here and there to fit the needs of changing technology.  As more and more websites and applications are developed, the way in which we interact with compositions evolves.  By going mobile and breaking with linear tradition, there is no telling where it will go from here.

Oh, the possibilities.

________________________________________________________

Photograph:

The class-distribution of another library’s collection by Mace Ojala, complements of Creative Commons and Flickr.

________________________________________________________

Works Cited:

“Assemblage Theory.” Texas Theory. University of Texas, 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Reeves, Joshua. “Temptation And Its Discontents: Digital Rhetoric, Flow, And The Possible.” Rhetoric Review 32.3 (2013): 314-330. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Rizzo, Teresa. “Television Assemblages.” The Fibreculture Journal 24 (2015): n. pag. The Fibreculture Journal. Open Humanities Press. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Critical Thinking Through Writing

Posted on by

Written centuries apart, one would not automatically connect Plato’s Phaedrus with Liz Lane’s “Feminist Rhetoric in the Digital Sphere: Digital Interventions & the Subversion of Gendered Cultural Scripts.” However far apart they appear in subject, time, and space, they do contain some similar qualities worth noting. Essential to each piece is the definition of rhetoric and rhetoric’s place within society; however, each text focuses on rhetoric in different ways.6770069607_d25621ce65

 

The Works

In Phaedrus, Plato speaks through a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, who discuss the art of rhetoric. This one-scene play incorporates example speeches and discourse to examine the definition of rhetoric, its purpose, and how one uses it. The beginning is filled with a rhetorical challenge in which Socrates refutes the value of a speech by Lysias. The resulting speeches by Socrates create a bit of a cumbersome beginning in which the knowledge that comes later in the text is needed to fully understand and appreciate. Readers are forced to read the text several times in order to comprehend the intricacies presented by Plato. Filled with examples and comparisons, it explains the role of rhetoric in a society, which history tells us, limited participation based upon gender and class.

Liz Lane directly addresses the gender gap of Ancient Greece touching upon the history of rhetoric and how women have been excluded from this realm in her text, “Feminist Rhetoric in the Digital Sphere.” Lane continues into the present day discussing how women are still culturally excluded from rhetoric. When women enter the public debate, they are often threatened and abused. She examines how women are using digital technology to increase feminist rhetoric and open dialogue surrounding women’s struggle for voice. As with Plato’s dialogue, the reader must pay close attention to Lane’s presentation; she jumps around between examples, names, and details, which are relevant to her particular points, but require a diligent reader.

Both authors use the same techniques to make their arguments work. By clearly defining the terms with which they are working, the authors keep their arguments clear, and make sure their audience is with them before moving forward. Throughout each piece, questions are asked and examples are provided.

 

The Conversation

Ancient Greece was the birth place of rhetoric, therefore, Plato’s Phaedrus is a foundation of the rhetorical texts that have come after. While Socrates and Phaedrus never openly exclude women, and Socrates does mention women in his line “Ancient sages, men and women, who have spoken and written of these things…” (Phaedrus by Plato), we know through historical studies that women were typically excluded. Therefore, Liz Lane’s text, while an extension of Plato’s work is taking the argument for rhetoric in a different direction, imploring the access of women to public dialogue.

Lane also explores technologies that Plato could never have imagined. Socrates states in Phaedrus that he thinks writing is detrimental to memory, one of the five canons of rhetoric. I wonder what Socrates would have to say about the internet and cell phones? Apparently, however, Plato did not share Socrates’ opinion, since Plato wrote Phaedrus. Lane examines the use of the written word, but in a modern sense where the written word is accepted and expected, and has gained a new level of audience reach through the Internet. The spoken word also has renewed vigor in this digital age with cameras and video dissemination online. Therefore, I would define “Feminist Rhetoric in the Digital Sphere” as a contemporary extension of Phaedrus, taking the definition of rhetoric and applying it to the standards and struggles of today.

 

The Embodiment

Both authors are concerned with the embodiment of rhetoric. Lane examines this in the context of women, linking body and voice, “Digital representations of the body (profile pictures, usernames, biographies,) cannot be divorced from the speaker’s voice, and even when a speaker’s presence is seemingly neutral, gendered attacks are hurled at an assumed body” (Lane). Rhetoric is the embodiment of voice, and the body is the figure of the voice; therefore, rhetoric represents not just the words but also the person that puts forth those words. Historically the only bodies with the right to speak where male, but Lane addresses the growth of female voice and the rise of feminist rhetoric as “Increasingly, feminist activists have begun to explore disruptive technologies and to assert a powerful voice in commonly exclusive public spheres” (Lane).

Plato, through the character of Socrates, is concerned with truth in rhetoric. He attempts to clarify the use of rhetoric by philosophers (inspired truth seekers, such as Socrates himself) versus Sophists (speech writers for hire who sell lies and sow evil), and the appropriate ability of each to use the art. Socrates states, “who being ignorant of the truth aims at appearances, will only attain an art of rhetoric which is ridiculous and is not an art at all” (Phaedrus by Plato). Those who seek and know the truth can possess the art of rhetoric, and those who peddle words are deemed ridiculous; therefore, it is philosophers who embody rhetoric.

Plato used the term Sophists as an insult in Phaedrus, whereas Lane looks upon the teachers and speechwriters a bit differently.   She sees the Sophists as trying to open up rhetoric and social dialogue, no longer keeping it exclusive to rich men—“The Sophistic movement, for example, was rooted in teaching commoners and those outside of the realm of traditional education how to speak and defend themselves in courts of law” (Lane).

This is one of many differing viewpoints between Lane and Plato. What they do have in common, though, is the desire to understand rhetoric’s place in the society in which they live. Lane has the benefit of knowing about and learning from history, whereas Plato is history.

 

The Conclusion

Whether Ancient Greece or twenty-first century United States, rhetoric is crucial to fostering dialogue, defining terms, establishing common ground, and shaping society. I think both Plato and Lane could agree to that.

__________________________________________________________________

Works Cited

Lane, Liz. “Feminist Rhetoric in the Digital Sphere: Digital Interventions & the Subversion of Gendered Cultural Scripts.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology. University of Oregon Libraries, 2015. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.

Phaedrus by Plato. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive, 2009. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.

Many thanks to Flickr and Tetra Pak for the incredible photo!