The Digital Age: Internet & Society

Throughout the quarter, we’ve learned about how the Internet has become an all-encompassing outlet for users to share their work, ideas and perspectives. New media, as opposed to traditional media, not only allows but encourages users to interact with the material they find online. Rather than merely reading an article published by the Wall Street Journal and absorbing the information, readers can participate in a conversation with their news articles by commenting on articles or contacting the editor. To some degree, spectators have become players in the game of broadcasting/journalism.

The Internet’s omnipresence and unlimited communication capabilities make physical location irrelevant
Source: http://pixabay.com

Additionally, the expansion of the internet has affected society’s social views and values. Smart phones and WiFi connectivity allow us to jump online at the slightest impulse. The availability and addictiveness of social networking sites and virtual communities ensure that we spend much of our free time using such outlets to converse with friends, family, and even strangers. Our relationships have transcended the limits of physical and emotional–they are now virtual as well. Thanks to instant messaging, email, SNS and online communities, people are constantly able to “talk” to one another, despite the physical distance between them. As more and more people use the internet to connect, I can’t help but wonder what kind of impact this changed sense of community has had on us as a society and as individuals.

In one of my other courses, we read about the prevalence of virtual communities and social networking sites. One particular study, “The Internet and America’s Changing Sense of Community,” published by Wayne McIntosh and Paul Harwood, examined the most active users of the Internet as a social outlet. The study found that young people, in the age group 18-24, lead the most digital lives and are most likely to find a sense of community through digital interactions. I was not surprised to learn this information, because being part of that age group myself, I know how connected my generation is via the web and mobile technology. However, I was surprised by what the research showed regarding other characteristics of heavy internet users. When they set aside the age factor and examined the most actively engaged online community users, Harwood and McIntosh found that the people who are most well-integrated into their physical communities and who report finding a sense of community offline are also the most likely to use the internet for digital bonding. I was surprised by this finding because I would expect that participating in online communities would draw users away from their real-world interactions. However, the study produced a much more utopian view of technology as a social supplement, rather than a detractor. In other words, the internet provides a convenient way for the hyper-social to continue community engagement anytime  that they are physically alone.

Individuals stay socially connected via countless media outlets
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinjllewellyn/6235070321/

I thought this study tied nicely into our Digital Writing class, which has been so internet-based. With information sharing, business development, and both journalistic and creative writing going so strongly in the direction of the web, and our social lives following suit, it leaves us to wonder how much more technologically-integrated our lives can possibly become.

The following video produced by Social Media Energy, a social media firm dedicated to company image management via effective communications strategies, provides some straightforward but astounding facts about the growing use of social media.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqUVm5UJa0k

For this week, our English 16 class read N. Katherine Hayles’ publication, “Electronic Literature: What is it?”

N. Katherine Hayles is an expert on the subject of electronic literature
Source: www.rit.edu/alumni

I want to start by providing a little information on the author, as I found myself somewhat surprised after doing some background research. N. Katherine Hayles is a postmodern literary critic who currently teaches in  and directs the Graduate Studies Program in Literature at Duke University.  Actually, to be honest, I was surprised mainly by her age. Hayles’ current work focuses on American and electronic literature. Interestingly enough, her career did not begin in those realms. Rather, she received her Bachelors degree in Chemistry from the Rochester Institute of technology, and her Masters in the same subject from the California Institute of Technology, before working as a research chemist for a number of years. Eventually, Hayles returned to school to earn her Master’s in English Literature from Michigan State, and a later Ph.D from the University of Rochester. In addition to her drastic change of anemic/career interest and extensive schooling in two diverse subjects, I was surprised to learn Ms. Hayles’ age. With all due respect, after reading her study on literature in its electronic form, I expected the author of such an article to be younger. N. Katherine Hayles is in fact 69 years old, which I find impressive due to her expertise on the  progressive realm of digital literature, especially given the technological generation gap that pervades society today. Nonetheless, Hayles’ considerable research and teaching experience make her a valuable source on the links between technology and literature. She has taught at Duke University, UCLA, Dartmouth, and the University of Iowa, has published many recent books and essays (such as “How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis” in 2012, and Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary in 2008), and has received several awards, including the GreaterThanGames Humanities Lab Grant from the Franklin Humanities Institute, and the NEH Fellowship from the University of Southern California.

Just as the history of print literature is deeply bound up with the evolution of book technology as it built on wave after wave of technical innovations, so the history of electronic literature is entwined with the evolution of digital computers as they shrank from the room-sized IBM 1401 machine on which I first learned to program (sporting all of 4K memory) to the networked machine on my desktop, thousands of times more powerful and able to access massive amounts of information from around the globe. The questions that troubled the Scriptorium are remarkably similar to issues debated today within literary communities. Is electronic literature really literature at all? Will the dissemination mechanisms of the Internet and World Wide Web, by opening publication to everyone, result in a flood of worthless drivel? Is literary quality possible in digital media, or is electronic literature demonstrably inferior to the print canon? What large-scale social and cultural changes are bound up with the spread of digital culture, and what do they portend for the future of writing?

Hayles’ essay that we read for class today defines what electronic literature is (“digital born” and created/read on the computer), tracks the growth of the developing genre of electronic literature,  discusses its problematic overlap with print versions, and emphasizes the strengths of electronic lit, as well as the necessary adoption of new approaches in working with and analyzing it. I was fascinated by the genre’s broad scale and variety of forms of digital literature. Never before have I heard of hypertext fiction or interactive fiction, and the idea of “alternating game play with novelistic components” and three-dimensional literary publications like “The Possession of Christian Shaw” are foreign concepts to me. The creation of the CAVE and the ability of technology to “integrate real-world locations with virtual narratives” is another example of how literature is expanding to an entire new media form. Hayles explains how, similar to the twentieth century “explosion of interest in the book as a medium,” the expansion of electronic literature has created the demand and opportunity for programmers and writers to develop this art form. Furthermore, she calls for a consequent society-wide adoption of cognitive shifts, analytical approaches, and creative imagination growth.

Print Literature: A thing of the past?
Source: www.fotopedia.com

Hayles’ article contained many more ideas and important pieces of information, but what I mainly took away from it was this: literature is no longer restricted to print form. Like nearly everything else in our world, it has transcended to the rapidly-growing virtual realm; it has reached new technological heights. As a student, I see this on a daily basis. Most of my assignments involve literary or research publications that are intended to be consumed and interpreted online. Most of the work I compose is written on my laptop, and published or shared via email or a virtual database. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel a bit nostalgic for the days of paperback novels. I still buy my recreational reading in paper form, and I refuse to ever buy a Kindle (at least, I say that now). But this article summed up the purpose of this course in a nutshell, because the majority of writing today is done so digitally. Regardless of how I personally feel about that change, it is a fact of our society, and we all need to adjust our perspectives accordingly.

Dr. Ian Bogost, a proponent of educational gaming

This week’s reading was an article by Dr. Ian Bogost, an award-winning designer and media philosopher who specializes in gaming media. Bogost earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, and his Ph.D in Comparative Literature from UCLA. According to his personal website, Bogost is currently a Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and also a founding partner at Persuasive Games LLC. He has published several books on the subject of video gaming, including Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, and Newsgames: Journalism at Play.  In his work, he tends to view video games as an “expressive medium” and is particularly interested in gaming in the spheres of art and politics.

Animal Crossing teaches players real world financial concepts

In his article, “The Rhetoric of Video Games,” Bogost discusses how the popular Nintendo video game Animal Crossing possesses educational merit. Like many seemingly entertainment-only games, Animal Crossing is not just for playing–rather, it is for learning as well. Through certain tasks, such as fishing, players can earn money with which they can purchase items and increase the size of their home. However, players also have a third spending option: to put their earned money towards paying off their house. This introduces the principle of debt into the equation. Just like in “the real world,” the game isn’t all about making money to buy the things you want. There is an added element of responsibility for more basic necessities (i.e., a house). Animal Crossing and similar video games are able to plant this idea into the impressionable minds of their young players, who subconsciously learn the lesson of longterm debt merely by playing a game. Bogost discusses other ways in which the game parallels real life: the character of Tom Nook, a real estate tycoon, is “a condensation of the corporate bourgeoisie,” and players feel the pressure to keep up with the growing material goods of their neighbors. Bogost makes the important claim that:

[…] video games are not just stages that facilitate cultural, social, or political practices; they are also media where cultural values themselves can be represented—for critique, satire, education, or commentary. When understood in this way, we can learn to read games as deliberate expressions of particular perspectives. In other words, video games make claims about the world, which players can understand, evaluate, and deliberate. Game developers can learn to create games that make deliberate expressions about the world. Players can learn to read and critique these models, deliberating the implications of such claims. Teachers can learn to help students address real-world issues by playing and critiquing the video games they play. And educators can also help students imagine and design games based on their own opinions of the world. When games are used in this fashion, they can become part of a whole range of subjects.

Bogost’s article calls for a reevaluation of an entire medium. In our society, I think video games are often brushed off as merely a source of entertainment for teenage boys. People tend to lob genres of video games together and label the entire category as violent or intellectually irrelevant. However, many video games do have educational value. There is more to video gaming than shooting characters in a jungle or racing cars down a track. Games like Animal Crossing offer a chance to experience real-world problems/situations and experiment with varying solutions.

Gaming: time-consuming, addictive, educational?

I found this week’s article to be highly relevant to a recent discussion in my Communication and Media Studies course. Just yesterday, my class engaged in a debate about the legitimacy and appropriateness of popular video games in society. Interestingly enough, our conversation centered around games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden sports games. Many of these games are violent, while others contain profanity, aggressive behavior, and offensive/explicit background music. However, what makes all of them attractive and so successful is their entertainment value. Players don’t buy these games to learn a lesson about the real world. Rather, they purchase them for their recreational quality. Everyone has their own way of relaxing during their free time, and I don’t find issue with that. However, what my class was concerned with was the ability video games have to withdraw players from the real world. Many can become addictive, and players often spend hours at a time sitting in front of their television screens or computer monitors playing these games. At the end of our discussion, our class deemed video gaming as a general unproductive activity due to their ability to absorb so much of a player’s time and energy.

However, after reading Bogost’s article, I see a whole new side to the argument that went unmentioned in my communications course. Not all video games are purely recreational. Rather, many of them contain important and valuable life lessons, whether their players realize it or not. It’s easy to get lost in the game, but when educational messages are being transmitted (even subconsciously), this could turn out to be not such a bad thing.

I really enjoyed this week’s reading, “Writing in the Wild: A Paradigm for Mobile Composition” by John Pedro Schwartz and Professor Bjork (and I promise, I’m not just saying that!). The article begins by introducing the concept of in situ writing, or researching a topic on location and then composing and publishing a written report while still present in that environment. Bjork and Schwartz encourage this journalistic approach for its informational value (some things you can’t learn from secondary sources), and also for the way it levels the field for writers of different backgrounds. I really appreciated the following statement and corresponding example:

“Similarly, instructors who teach writing as a cultural, situated act often craft assignments that presuppose a clean, well-lighted writing space such as the library or dorm room. The problem is that these spaces homogenize the sample material differences that instructors are trying to underscore. For example, an African American student writing at home is far more disembodied than if she were writing in the visible, public space of an art museum. Similarly, an affluent female student writing at a working-class, male-dominated bowling alley feels her status more acutely than she would feel it writing in the library or the dorm room. We argue that students can better perceive–and learn to challenge–their social, cultural, and historical locations when they research, write, and even publish on location […]This insight may lead to further realization that the material conditions shaping what students write and who they become through writing are fluid and changeable (225).”

This quote really made me understand how great an impact the writing environment has on the writing produced. To go into unfamiliar territory and expose yourself to novel situations and ideas through conversations, research, and observation is to be a good journalist. However, stepping away from this self-immersion to conduct the written report of what you saw and experienced can be a huge roadblock to becoming a great journalist. I like how early on, this article calls its readers to go above and beyond the norms of writing and to challenge the convenient habit of drafting publications in the comfort of home or work, away from outside distractions, or tangible reminders of what was observed, seen, or felt on location.

The article is then divided into three sections. The first discusses the ideas of “laboratory/classrooms” in which students are often given access to a computer and therefore are able to compose works while also being instructed by a teacher. There are also classrooms that follow a wired “cart model,” in which wireless laptops are distributed to students during class time and within classroom walls, but because they must remain there when students leave, they are essentially still “wired.” Finally, the “student-owned model,” in which students bring their personal laptops to class but also have the option of working on them outside the classroom walls, gives students both responsibility and the potential for inequality. Makes, models, and updated versions of laptops may create an unlevel playing field of technology in the classroom. The next section discusses methods of mobilizing composition for students. It explains that oftentimes the most mobile technologies are not necessarily the best for taking notes or composing pieces of writing (i.e. the iPod). However, laptops can be unwieldy and inconvenient in some research settings. For this reason, tablets are an attractive technology, allowing for both mobility and compositional ability. Other educational aspects of writing have also become mobilized in some ways, via WiFi connections, social networks, online journalism, and email. While advanced technologies may be most ideal for efficient onsite writing, Schwartz and Bjork stress that students without access to such tools can simply use a pencil and paper. Again, the writers emphasize the importance of mobile composition in order to “foster awareness of their social, cultural, and historical locations” (231). Finally, the third section investigates three types of mobile composition: discourse via smartphones, “sound-seeing” (essentially podcasts of visual events), and moblogs, or text/audio/video posted to blogs via a mobile device. Through these three types of mobile compositions, instructors are able to assign students a variety of approaches to “writing in the wild.”

One thing about this article that really resonated with me was the discussion of wired and wireless classrooms. I attended a “paperless” high school, where each student was given the same HP tablet PC at the start of their freshman year. This tablet replaced notebooks, textbooks, novels, pens, pencils–any “old school” learning tool. I read literary novels on my tablet screen and did my math homework using the monitor and stylus. I carried my tablet with me on field trips to the zoo and used it to conduct chemistry experiments. For the four years of high school, my tablet PC was my educational lifeline.

There are pros and cons to the paperless approach to learning. On one hand, the tablets facilitated learning by making us organized and accountable. Losing our notes or forgetting our homework wasn’t an issue–the only thing we had to bring to school every morning was our tablet. My backpack was never too heavy, and I was comfortable navigating internet tools and computer programs that my friends from other schools had never even heard of. In many ways, I think the paperless program prepared me for many aspects of college learning and my interests in working in journalism in the future.

On the other hand, depending on technology so heavily has its risks. Laptops are fragile, and many girls I knew accidentally damaged their tablets by dropping them, spilling on them, or even losing them. Furthermore, technology can be temperamental, and every student had her share of technological difficulties. These issues could create delays in learning and were very frustrating. Working solely on computers also made me nostalgic for past learning tools, like paperback books and felt-tip pens. However, on the whole, I really enjoyed my paperless high school experience. There were days when I wanted to throw my uncooperative tablet out the window, but for the most part, it served me well.

This week’s reading, Chapter 7: “Introduction to Data Displays,” begins with a brief overview of data displays and how they are used. The chapter highlights three main reasons why data displays are useful rhetorical tools. First, readers often find visual representations more appealing and attention-grabbing than abstract numbers. Next, data displays have the ability to make complex information much more accessible and understandable to readers than text format. Finally, tables and other data displays are effective at providing a “top-down perspective” through which we may compare trends and relationships among data.

The chapter goes on to discuss the freedom and confusion of creating data displays. There are so many ways to adjust graphs and tables to portray certain features of a body of information, but the variety of spatial, graphic and textual design elements can also become overwhelming.  The authors suggest using the rhetorical situation to guide the process of designing a data display that is clear and understandable. They describe the scenario of a nonprofit worker whose task is to present data for a monthly meeting. Ed must organize the ages of members into a display that demonstrates trends in membership development. The chapter analyzes the considerations Ed must make before creating an effective graph: audience, purpose, and context. Then, he must employ his sense of creativity to determine which kind of graph will most effectively display the information. Through his revision process, he is able to work out the kinks in his design to make it more clear, credible, concise and precise. Next, through visually editing his line graph, Ed increases its emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone and ethos. His final touches include adding color to make the graph more visually appealing.

The chapter continues by explaining the lexicons of visual language that are often used by computer graphing programs and dividing them into three categories: textual, spatial and graphic. Textual elements of a graph play a subordinate yet critical role, as supportive description of the data. Spatial elements of a data display such as size, shape and orientation often dictate how effectively the information is communicated. This section describes the positive and negative features of several data display options, from the simple pie chart to the more complex Gantt charts. The third category, graphic elements, encompasses a wide variety of a display’s features. These features are divided as those that represent the data (such as a bar on a bar graph) and those that help define it (such as a gridline).

The reading encourages us to assess the rhetorical situation to combine all of the aforementioned elements into an illustrative, clear and useful data display. Defining an audience, purpose and use for the display is crucial to developing it. Then, the authors discuss more deeply the importance of arrangement, emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone, and ethos. Using these cognate strategies interdependently is also paramount to designing an effective data display.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAAYvm6ZlY 

Applying this reading to real life situations, the advertising industry regularly faces the sometimes-intimidating task of creating visual displays of their products to appeal to consumers. Companies are always creating and improving products, and communicating this to the public is crucial to increasing sales and maintaining their reputation as successful manufacturers. Advertisements play a huge role in how a company or its products are portrayed to buyers, and a questionable advertisement can easily injure the face of a brand or manufacturer. Take, for instance, the damage Carl’s, Jr. had to contend with after airing their provocative and highly controversial commercial featuring a scantily-clad Paris Hilton washing a car and eating one of their hamburgers. According to David Kiley’s article on businessweek.com, the racy commercial prompted outcries from organizations like the Parents Television Council,  and earned the disapproval of would-be customers across the country.

At the same time, Carl’s Jr.’s advertising strategy proved effective in some respects, by appealing to another audience and earning publicity for the fast food joint. While children and parents may have been upset by the commercial, young people and men were two groups of viewers who did not object to the ad. After the commercial was first aired, the company’s website was overwhelmed with traffic, and their burger sales temporarily skyrocketed.

It turns out Carl’s Jr. advertisers were quite successful visual designers. They took into account their targeted audience, their purpose in creating the commercial, and how viewers would use it, and the rhetorical situation paid off.

This week’s reading, “The Visual Rhetoric of Data Displays” by Charles Kostelnick, discusses the use of visual rhetoric in conveying research quickly and easily to the reader. Kostelnick is a professor at Iowa State University, where he teaches English courses. His main focuses are on the literature, visual art, cross culture communication, and the history and use of visual aids in professional communication.

In his article concerning data displays, Kostelnick explains how graphs, charts, maps, and other visual data displays have changed in recent history. In his abstract, he explains why the understanding and ability to interpret these tools is so important to readers:

MUVEs allow users to interact via avatar form and communicate with one another through text

After spending so many class periods in the MultiMedia Lab, I have recently noticed the banners along the main wall with graphics from the popular online community, SecondLife. One of my Communication classes has been discussing the growing phenomenon of virtual communities, and I think some of the material we’ve discussed is relevant to the content of this class in terms of the growing participation of users online.

One such article, “Educational Gaming: All the Right MUVEs,” by Mikael Blaisdell, explains how multi-user virtual environments have become an educational tool for learning institutions across the nation and all over the world. Most virtual environments involve the simulation of a geographical area where feature of the environment are represented by computer graphics. MUVEs have been employed by schools in educational settings, such as The River City Project, created by US and Australian professors and students. This program helps students identify a virtual problem (ie contaminated water) and create and test hypotheses to solve it. Through chat features, students can communicate with classmates and teachers and can also interact with other schools’ avatars. Learning institutions across the nation, from Harvard University and UCLA to elementary and high schools, have invested time and money in the implementation of MUVEs in their curriculum.

SecondLife even has a virtual Eiffel Tower for users to sightsee

Another article I have found focuses on the popular virtual environment SecondLife, which is depicted on the banners in the MultiMedia lab. In his article “My So-Called Second Life,” TIME contributor Joel Stein describes his own experience on the site. Not only is he surprised by the strong sexual nature of many user interactions, but he is also shocked by the opportunity for consumerism that SecondLife has created. It has become a mini-empire that has grown in popularity despite its need for considerable downloading time and computer space. Users even pay for virtual goods and services  (clothing, apartments, prostitutes) with actual money, which has driven real world companies to create “virtual branches”—Adidas has a store and Starwood Hotels has resorts on SecondLife, which avatars make use of in exchange for their human counterpart’s real money. Furthermore, users of SecondLife use it as an opportunity to live vicariously through their online identity, experiencing things that they may feel unable to in real life. I find the rise of this and similar communities fascinating—no longer are relationships and experiences achievable in real-time, in everyday actual encounters. Instead, people are “living” their lives in another realm entirely.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irF-V9RUuXo

In this IdeaCity video, SecondLife founder discusses his personal background as well as the creation and possibilities of the site

I think it is particularly interesting that although online communities were originally created for gaming purposes, they have transcended this sphere and achieved greater social educational value. In the same way, blogging may have started as an outlet for personal self-expression and individual entertainment, but it has become a way for students (like our English 16 class) to learn about a variety of topics and viewpoints and to communicate with one another. I can compare this to the way I use blogs: in my own life and for educational purposes. On my own time, I browse a few fashion, cooking and literary blogs. Never before have I looked at them as a tool for my education. But since the start of this class, I have learned so much about the online writing realm. For me, the term literature has always meant paperbound books, novels written and published in print. Essentially, English signified novels. Now, though, I am able to view literature in another framework—in our increasingly technological society, it now means web writing, too. Blogging can be more than entertaining, it can be educational. I think SecondLife and other online communities are part of this developing paradigm through which our society views the world. Virtual experience has begun to blur the lines of reality, and I think its an important issue to take note of.

Again this week, I have had difficulty grasping the technical aspects of Svenja Adolph’s book Introducting Electronic Text Analysis. To be honest, last week’s reading was so difficult for me that I was unable to post about it.

I think I understand the basic premise of Chapters 4, 5 and 6. In chapter 4, Adolph discusses the need for us to use concordance analysis in corpus studies due to issues of co-occurance and association that can complicate language. In the end-of-chapter activity, the word stuff is used in a concordance output. In the output, the node is almost always prefaced by the word and. This co-occurance of the word and in accompaniment of stuff gives an interesting insight as to the context in which the word stuff is used–often as a generally ambiguous filler usually found at the end of a sentence. In chapter 5, Adolph discusses using corpus stylistics to analyze literary material. I enjoyed this chapter more, as I personally prefer literary material over web-based information. In referencing Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, Adolph struck a note in me that helped me comprehend the chapter’s topic more thoroughly. I have read Conrad’s novel and realize the underlying motif of uncertainty, and so the fact that a concordance search of terms such as “something” turned up such results reinforces that theme. I think its fascinating that author’s can set a tone or convey a feeling so strongly, purely by diction. When I think of other novels I have read, I wonder how often I may find that is the case. Does Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin contain in its words the tones of frustration and secrecy? How does the word choice in The Awakening by Kate Chopin express the overall themes of complacent oppression and inevitable freedom? Finally, chapter 6 discusses  the role key words, grammatical structure and ideology can play in analyzing electronic texts. My group for the upcoming project hopes to analyze the blog HelloGiggles, which is moderated by twenty-something young professional women with an interest in maintaining a youthful, exciting and fashionable lifestyle. I am curious  what keywords will be helpful to us in our report, as well as how the grammatical style of the individual writers will affect our findings.

Overall, while I tried my best to understand the reading, I feel a little lost on the idea of electronic text analysis and anticipate clarification in class.

In his article, “The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information,” Richard Lanham discusses the transition of the world from one of “stuff,” or material products, to one of “fluff” or information. Lanham describes how society has begun to focus less on reality and more on what the meaning behind that reality. For instance, he exemplifies the popular television series “Antiques Roadshow,” which attracts curious antique owners who seek information about the value and history of their possessions. Above all, says Lanham, they want to know about their items’ style, for “the hunger for stuff is paralleled by a hunger for style. Modern “materialism” turns out to be an intellectualized, spiritualized affair.”

The article goes on to discuss several other features of new age consumerism. One such feature is the overwhelming amount of information available to internet consumers. Says Lanham, “We’re drowning in it. There is too much information around to make sense of it all. Everywhere we look, we find information overload.” On top of all of the information available through our computers, we are additionally bombarded by print media, television, and every in-person and telephone conversation we have. Our lives have become a product of our constant absorbance of information- whether publicly broadcasted or privately sought out. I find it no surprise that so many people become burnt out, spiraling into depression or midlife crises, when our lives have become packed to the brim with society’s ideas of success and productivity. The need to relax, an element of peace central to a happy life, has dissipated and has been replaced instead by a need to “do.”

This influx of media, notes Lanham, has also created the phenomena of the celebrity persona. We devote so much of our time, energy and attention to individuals who, whether through luck or hard work and talent, have acquired a prime spot in the public sphere. The issue the article raises is that if such a small percentage of the population occupy this media arena, what about the rest of us? While many do achieve their own “fifteen minutes of fame,” what happens to the others who may deserve equal recognition, but never attain it? To this question, I must answer that I personally do not think the world’s perception of celebrity limelight is accurate. I believe the majority of the media to be an illusion, an inaccurate depiction of what glamour and perfection mean. It is crucial to remember that while the life of a celebrity has numerous perks, it comes with a high price, often compromising the dignity, free will happiness, and sometimes even sanity, of those individuals to whom we hold in the highest regard.

Continuing with this idea is the human desire for attention. Lanham states:

This week’s reading discusses the qualities of a skilled orator.

The first reading, Cicero’s De Oratore, sets out on the premise that in order to be a good orator, one must be a good man. He then argues that writing is a prerequisite of an effective speech, because it allows us to more clearly rationalize and organize our thoughts before we attempt to present them to an audience.

Next, Quintilian’s Institute of Oratory: Book 12 is devoted to Cicero’s initial argument that an immoral or evil man cannot be a talented orator for several reasons-namely, that a bad man lacks the wisdom and eloquence necessary to be an effective speaker. 

In Cicero’s Catiline Orations, he addresses the senate of Rome demanding punishment of Catiline, a traitor to the Empire who plotted an attack against Rome. In his first oration, Cicero follows his own advice from De Oratore:

that the case should be clearly stated; then, that the point in controversy should be established; then, that what we maintain should be supported by proof, and that whatever was said on the other side should be refuted; and that, in the conclusion of our speech, whatever was in our favour should be amplified and enforced, and whatever made for our adversaries should be weakened and invalidated

Cicero aptly structures his argument by first calling out Cataline for his ongoing conspiracy. With this initial accusation, Cicero draws attention to the villain’s treacherous acts. Cicero then demands an appropriate sentence for Catiline by laying out his crimes against the Empire and mentioning that criminals in the past have been executed for lesser deeds. He continues his speech by suggesting exile for the felon, and gives a series of reasons for why Catiline deserves this punishment. For one, his infamy and unpopularity throughout Rome, and further, the termination of the uprising which he had started. Finally, Cicero skillfully wraps up his first oration by appealing to his audience by promising the suppression of the conspiracy and the salvation of Rome.

Furthermore, I appreciate how Cicero successfully villainizes the traitor by mentioning and then minimizing his own personal issues with the conspirator, choosing instead to focus on Catiline as a threat to the empire as a whole:

In short, as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed you, and that, too, though I saw that my ruin was connected with great disaster to the republic. [12] But now you are openly attacking the entire republic. You are summoning to destruction and devastation the temples of the immortal gods, the houses of the city, the lives of all the citizens; in short, all Italy.  Wherefore, since I do not yet venture to do that which is the best thing, and which belongs to my office and to the discipline of our ancestors, I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its rigour, and more expedient for the state. For if I order you to be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still remain in the republic; if as I have long been exhorting you, you depart, your companions, those worthless dregs of the republic, will be drawn off from the city too.

Throughout this first oration, Cicero effectively portrays himself as an admirable defendant of the Roman Empire, while villianizing Cataline and turning Rome (rightly so) against him and his fellow conspirators. In this sense, Cicero, according to Quintilian’s Book of Oratory, is a good orator because he is presented as a good man. Book 12 notes that “It is important that an orator should be good because, should the power of speaking be a support to evil, nothing would be more pernicious than eloquence alike to public concerns and private.” In this case, therefore, Cicero’s eloquence in defense of such a public concern is a testament to his goodness. His virtuous plea for his country qualifies him as a noble man, and thus, a good orator.

However, I personally struggle with Quintilian’s Book of Oratory’s claim that all gifted speakers are good men. Throughout history, we have seen otherwise. One infamous example is Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany responsible for the death of millions in the 1940s massacre of Jewish Europeans. Hitler’s crimes against humanity are extensive and indubitable. In no way was he a “good man” in terms of virtue or contribution. And yet, I think it is also undeniable that he was a “good orator.” Firsthand accounts and history books describe the dictator as charismatic and persuasive. If he could convince an entire army to carry out the inhumane actions they did, his arguments must have been well-structured and compelling.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-grtEk9oBAU

While Hitler is an extreme example of an immoral person but an effective speaker, countless other individuals have been a similar combination. Dictators, gang leaders, and even playground bullies often possess strong oratory skills that earn them rings of followers to carry out their malevolent plots. Sadly, our world is full of pain, suffering and brutality, all administered through some sort of organized crime. If all “good orators” were “good men,” I highly doubt this would be the case.

This week, we read excerpts from Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Plato’s Phaedrus. Reading ancient philosophy is always slightly intimidating, but I found both readings to be not only understandable, but surprisingly relevant to modern society.

For instance, in the first chapter of Rhetoric, Aristotle comments on the justice of a judge’s ruling in court and stresses that the verdict should be decided by a judge who is uninfluenced by prejudices, rumors, or the opinions of his colleagues.

It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity — one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it. Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him.

I thought this was an interesting scenario for Aristotle to mention because it is extremely applicable to ourselves as individuals in the progressive society we live in. Everyday, we are faced withcountless decisions- from the mundane “what do I wear” to the more significant ones that encourage us to form our own opinions about difficult topics. For instance, prior to the election, I had several politically-charged discussions with my roommates, who both hold opinions on some issues that are quite different from my own. In these mini-debates, I had to take a stance and defend my position and not allow my roommates’ thoughts to influence my own. Today, largely due to the ubiquity of the media, we are constantly bombarded with society’s views of what we should think, how we should act, and who we should be. But I think Aristotle’s comment is point-on: as individuals, we must take this steady stream of messages and information and employ our creativity, intelligence, and personal values to determine what is valid or invalid, true or false.

Furthermore, in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates and young Phaedrus discuss a speech the young man has recently heard and then debate the use of rhetoric. Phaedrus claims that persuasion is more important than the actual content of a speech. Socrates goes on to claim that:

Every speech must be put together like a living creature, with a body of its own; it must be neither without head nor without legs; and it must have a middle and extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole work.

In other words, he believed rhetoric to be a combination of several factors, an argument not just skillfully presented, but well thought-out. This discussion between the two philosophers reminds me of the famous  debate between Vice President Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate Senator John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election. Americans who listened to the debate on the radio tended to think that Nixon won the debate, while those who viewed the debate on television or in person thought that Kennedy fared better. This goes to show that both Phaedrus and Socrates are correct in their views of rhetoric. John F. Kennedy was known to be an skilled and charismatic orator, capable of persuading audiences through his speech-making abilities. Phaedrus would have appreciated this about the Massachusetts Senator. Meanwhile, Nixon’s argument, while perhaps not as eloquent, contained the structured and thorough argument that Socrates encourages. The philosopher’s distinct views on rhetoric call to mind several more powerful speakers of recent history: from Martin Luther King to President Obama. I believe such talented orators possess a balance of these views: they are at once articulate and knowledgable, persuasive and informative.

For today’s class, we read an article by Danah Boyd entitled “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium.” In the article, Boyd grapples with the question of what exactly. In her research, she studied a vast array of personal weblogs on sites like Xanga and LiveJournal, reading diverse content published by a variety of individuals. Boyd discusses the formal definition of a blog, or lack there of, and examines the novelty of this genre of web-literature.

Beyond the metaphors and structural definitions, practitioners often refer to the sociable
aspects of blogging and blogs. They talk about the conversational qualities of blogging
and the desire to share with others. They talk about community and how blogging helps
them engage with a community of people. Few definitions take the sociable side of
blogging into consideration, but this is essential to the practice of most bloggers.

While “weblogs” have been around for a while, blogging has expanded into an online phenomena, drawing in writers from all backgrounds and walks of life, who then attract like-minded readers. While I have never blogged myself, I do follow a few fashion and literary blogs and can see why this form of media has become so popular in recent years.