Digital Rhetorics 2: Electric Boogaloo

I think what I wanted to do most with this project was create something that was useful in addition to being insightful. I often find myself feeling that even those writers who are clued in to the ways that platform design and personalization shape discourse (and, as the most recent  Facebook controversy revealed, that’s not everybody) struggle to see themselves and their own work from within that discourse. Without the structure that warranted the ethical commitment of the old editorial boards, what new ethical concerns are emerging that writers have immediate contact with in their own work. That’s how I fell into language. Because it’s so culturally marked, it answered some of the dissatisfaction I felt while reading Pariser and Manjoo as far as the image of democratic discourse that they appealed to. Plus, writers work with words, so maybe talking about words can help writers discover their own cultural commitments in the sentences that they write. This piece, for me, falls ...

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...