Digital Rhetorics 2: Electric Boogaloo

The chapter "Digital School" offered a wonderful set of examples of "the centaur" at work in classrooms. I remember that I used to see stickers/posters etc saying things like "100 computers can never replace one good teacher." Maybe a better way of thinking about computers in the classroom is that a good teacher knows how digital technology can help them make better use of their teaching abilities or fill gaps that they always wished they could fill in their teaching practice. I would add that the flip side of this shows up when Thompson says that a lot of technology in schools is being used for tasks that can be done just fine by analog means. It seems to stem from this logic that, because technology is omnipresent outside of school, it should be omnipresent within as well, as if the act of using a higher tech platform has some educational value in and of itself. Which, in turn reveals a high degree of confusion about why certain activities are valuable...

"It's real to us, at least," writes Manjoo, "and that's as real as it gets" (58). This has been a running thread throughout this book, and I argue that it undermines the value of analyzing how the confluence of cognitive bias and media fragmentation have affected public discourse. The value of writing something like this is that it can let us see our errors and do better. If we sincerely believe that reality is only what we perceive and can't be more than what we perceive, then there is no better  to be pursued. Think about what it means to say "Love the truth." Love has to be aimed at something outside of us, something that is other than us, free to be as it is regardless of what we want it to be. "Real to us" is none of those things. When what is in my mind is the only standard for what is real, then our two options are certainty or helplessness. Certainty would spring from ignoring the flaws in our own perception, helplessness fr...

The idea behind this infographic is that the independent label at one point represented a specific identity and sprang out of a local scene, but that technological change has made it possible to have that same shared identity across a broad geographic range. Rhymesayers, for example, built a sound and identity around the Twin Cities. Today, they work with acts in California and New York as well. Mello Music Group was born entirely out of the possibility of making music remotely, rather than out of a central studio. It's founder continues to be based out of Tucson, but key players and musicians work as far away as DC. There are multiple ways that this change has been occurring in hip hop, as the ways listeners encounter new music and build community around it are less and less centered on a local scene. What I wanted to represent was the way that hip hop has begun to develop a national or non-geographic underground scene. A map seemed the most appropriate way to show this dynami...

Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself-- that is to say, risking oneself.     -- James Baldwin, "Letter From a Region in my Mind" So, why are our worldviews so precious to us that we'll engage in all the mental hijinks that Manjoo discusses, selectively engaging with information and molding perception of sensory evidence to what is most comfortable with our sense of the world? Ideally, our ways of identifying ourselves politically and socially are simply handy labels that indicate what we see as the pressing issues and how we think they should be addressed, an umbrella term that indicates what opinions we hold. Ideally, we form them in service of trying to apprehend what's true and good, and s...

I’ll start with chapter 6, since that was my favorite. It touched on the comic inhumanity that I see with some of these developers’ attempts to improve the world: But systematizing inevitably involves a tradeoff-- rules give you some sense of control, but you lose nuance and texture, a sense of deeper connection. And when a strict systematizing sensibility entirely shapes social space (as it often does online), the results aren’t always pretty. (173) I’d extend his argument to say that this outlook also risks seeing human beings and our social worlds strictly in terms of their instrumental value, which means their value as means to an end. One example that sticks out in my mind is the startup “ Bodega ”: The latest unwanted tech “innovation” aims to make the bodega obsolete, and Twitter is not having it. A startup, boldly called Bodega, has invented a vending machine that would house non-perishable convenience items, which sounds fine . But, the two ex-Google employees behind...