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| Photo Courtesy of Liz Meyer, New York Times |
New Media in the
Composition Classroom: Concerns and Complications
In 2004, members of the Conference
on College Composition and Communications (CCCC) met to discuss the emerging
role of technology in writing instruction, and to create a statement that
addressed teaching, learning, and assessing writing in digital
environments. In it, they assert that, “The
focus of writing instruction is expanding: the curriculum of composition is
widening to include not one but two literacies: a literacy of print and a
literacy of the screen. In addition, work in one medium is used to enhance
learning in the other” (CCCC 2009). At its
most fundamental level, the statement acts as a recognition of the ever
deepening relationship between technology and writing pedagogy, as well as of
the mutual ways in which these areas have the potential to enhance one another’s
utility in the writing classroom. On a
deeper level, the CCCC statement alludes to some of the eminent concerns
surrounding the impact/s of new media on teaching, learning, and writing in
increasingly digitized 21st century classrooms.
Perhaps the most prominent concern surrounding
new medias’ implementation in the composition classroom has to do with, “[…] Those
teachers who fear using any form of technology apart from those which they are
very comfortable (e.g., chalk/chalkboard and printed page)” (Duhaney 2000). Although these teachers are often criticized
for their inability to “get with the times” and modernize their classrooms and
teaching strategies to better suit the needs of an increasingly technologically
driven society, their concerns are often valid and worthy of consideration. Not surprisingly, a significant underlying
concern for these teachers is their lack of knowledge regarding how to use
specific facets of technology and/or new media, as well as a lack of
supplementary training and support from their respective administrations and/or
institutions. Another prominent concern that Duhaney’s
statement alludes to is the fear that, “[S]chools are spending billions on
technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof
that this approach is improving basic learning” (Richtel 1). This concern is particularly resonant among
composition instructors, who find themselves worried that; “The negative
impacts [of new media] include… decreasing the quality of student writing” (Russellet al. 2003). The concern that Russell
et. al. point to is that while technological innovations in new media may expand
the focus of writing, their efficacy in improving students’ fundamental writing
abilities is still questionable.
Despite these concerns, significant scholarship
regarding the use of new media in composition instruction suggests numerous
benefits associated with writing for and in (new) multiple media (See:
Kerawalla et. al. (2009), Magnifico (2010), McGloughlin & Lee (2008),
Marwick & boyd (2010)). The work of
these authors and indeed and great deal more support the effectiveness of new
media in enhancing student learning, and suggests that new media technologies
themselves may not be the cause of poor student performance, but rather that instructors
are often ill equipped to effectively and purposefully integrate new media into
their specific teaching strategies. This
lack of constructive application in the classroom resonates with anxieties
about how to approach using new media in general and the cycle continues,
keeping reluctant and non-proficient instructors at bay, and depriving their
students of advantageous tools that can support their learning. For advocates of new media in the composition
classroom, the emerging imperative seems then to be aiding instructors in
accessing and engaging with new media technologies while maintaining the
academic standards of college-level writing.
While a number of scholars have suggested approaches to dealing with
these apprehensions individually, Bolter and Grusin’s theory of remediation
offers a compelling precedence in addressing them simultaneously.
(Re)mediating Composition Pedagogy
In their book Remediation: Understanding New Media, Jay D. Bolter and Richard
Grusin argue that, “What is new about new media comes from the particular ways
in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion
themselves to answer the challenges of new media” (Bolter & Grusin 15). The act of “refashioning” is regarded as a
cornerstone of new media, and is exercised through a practice that the authors
refer to as remediation, “[A] more complex kind of borrowing in which one
medium is itself incorporated or represented in another medium” (45). In this definition, Bolter and Grusin specifically
emphasize the borrowing of mediums as an essential characteristic of
remediation and, “[…] a defining characteristic of new media” (45). The authors are careful to point out,
however, that while new media technologies build upon, borrow from, and
refashion prior mediums for the purpose of innovation, their basic functions
fundamentally relate to and derive from basic human activities. They write, for
example that, “The [computer] mouse and the pen-based interface allow the user
the immediacy of touching, dragging, and manipulating visually attractive
ideograms” (23). Here, Bolter and Grusin
highlight the ways in which the sophisticated technology of a computer mouse
and a pen-based interface more or less replicate (and to a further degree,
remediate) the sensation of touching, moving, and manipulating objects. The authors draw similar parallels throughout
the early chapters of the book, highlighting the ways in which new technologies
(cameras, word processors, televisions) remediate the essential characteristics
of basic activities (drawing, writing, acting) through ever developing
successive mediums.
The process of remediation does not
happen at random, but rather occurs over “[A] spectrum of different ways in
which digital media remediate their predecessors, a spectrum [that depends] on
the degree of perceived complexity or rivalry between the new media and the
old” (45). This rivalry refers to our
cultures ever present desire, “[T]o multiply its media and to erase all traces
of mediation: ideally, [to] erase its media in the very act of multiplying
them” (5). The disparity between these
two goals highlights the inherent binary opposition that exists within
remediation, calling attention to two distinct categories of mediums: immediate
and hypermediate. While immediacy refers
to, “[…] ignoring or denying the presence of the medium and the act of
mediation” (11), hypermediacy is defined as, “[M]ultiple acts of representation
made visible by explicitly referencing the [multiple] medium[s] involved [within
them]” (33-34); essentially the opposite of immediacy. Though the authors argue that new media
technologies inherently move towards immediacy in an attempt to immerse users within
the “authentic” experience of the medium, they acknowledge that the multiplicity
of the mediums utilized within hypermediacy create their own form of hybridized
authenticity, and therefore has an equally significant relationship with
remediation (53, 48). Ultimately, Bolter
and Grusin argue that, “Hypermedia and transparent media are opposite
manifestations of the same desire: the desire to get past the limits of
representation and to achieve the real” (53), by either erasing or emphasizing
the medium of communication. While the
authors discuss remediation primarily in the context of aesthetics and
technology, their theory has potential application within the field of
composition as well.
In the same way that remediation can
be seen borrowing basic characteristics of certain human activities for the
purpose of aesthetic and technological innovation, so too can it be seen as borrowing
from existing social and institutional ideologies in an effort to utilize them
within a particular medium. In other
words, a new media technology like Moodle, a classroom management tool used by
secondary and higher education instructors alike, remediates the
notion/ideology that students benefit from having their instructors directly
engage with their work outside of a classroom setting, and (re)mediates that
ideology through a (new) technological medium.
This deconstructed approach to using new media has significant potential
to intervene in aiding writing instructors who are reluctant to or skeptical of
integrating new media technologies into their existing pedagogies. For the former, it provides a point of access
at which reluctant instructors can identify specific pedagogical elements that
they are familiar (peer-response, audience awareness, genre, etc.) and examine how
they operate within the expanded medium of new media for the purpose developing
a mutually inclusive pedagogy. For the
latter, and especially those writing instructors who question new media’s
ability to meaningfully improve student writing, this approach illustrates the
fundamental pedagogical elements that are present in new media technologies,
and draws direct parallels between these elements and their (new) mediums. To further explore the potential benefits of applying
remediation theory to the development of new media based pedagogies, I will
examine two emerging new media tools within composition pedagogy: Twitter (immediate)
and blogging (hypermediate). In doing
so, I will highlight the traditional pedagogical elements that are remediated
within each medium and explore the various ways in which these (new)
technologies can be purposefully applied within composition pedagogy.
Twitter: A Dialogue of Immediacy
Twitter is a microblogging website
designed to let users communicate with a network of friends/”followers” in
short, 140-character “tweets” or posts that answer an initial prompt reading,
‘What are you doing?’ As a whole,
Twitter remediates the act of conversation, as it enables users to engage in an
extended dialogue that occurs in real time and can include various numbers of
participants. The real time aspect of
Twitter highlights the immediacy of the medium, as it seeks to efface the time
lapse more keenly felt by e-mail and its remediated predecessor, letter
writing. While Twitter strives for
immediacy, it is hindered by “The common feature of numerous forms [of immediacy]…
the belief in some necessary contact point between the medium and what it
represents” (Bolter & Grusin 30). In
the case of Twitter, the contact point between the medium (Twitter’s interface)
and the message (point of communication) exists in physical act of composing a
tweet. Here, the author must actively
engage in an act of physically and verbally expressing their thoughts within
the added constraint of a 140-character space.
It is at this point of contact that the pedagogical benefits of Twitter
in composition studies are rooted.
Although Twitter was not originally
created for classroom use, it has gained prominence as a communicative tool
between teachers and students, as well as between students and their fellow
classmates (Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009).
It is through these successive, often rapid communicative acts that users/students
are able to engage in a dialogue with a live audience that can immediately respond
to and engage with the content of the their tweet/s. As result, “Twitter users negotiate multiple,
overlapping audiences by strategically concealing information, targeting tweets
to different audiences and attempting to portray both an authentic self and an
interesting personality” (boyd & Marwick 2010). By engaging in and with multiple, overlapping
audiences, users are positioned to gain an awareness of classic rhetorical
conventions like logos, ethos and pathos, which in turn enable them construct tweets
that are aware of and directed towards specific audiences, their needs, expectations,
and how to fulfill them. Another,
perhaps more subtle advantage of audience awareness via Twitter is a generally increased
recognition of diverse discourse communities and the specific and various
discursive conventions that are necessary to communicate effectively within a given
community. In doing so, Twitter
highlights the (remediated) pedagogical notion that audience awareness helps to
improve student writing (Lunsford & Ede 1984), and suggests further
application/s for this new media technology within composition pedagogy.
While Twitter remediates the seemingly
simple activity of communication through a written medium, its position within
the larger space of the information society (web) calls attention to the “new”
(and implicitly improved) aspects of this technology. As Sachu and Gilly note Twitter users, “[Think]
of their work [writing] as constructed for the public; even if they focus on
friends or family, users ‘acknowledge the potential for [their] audience to be
unlimited and unified’” (boyd & Marwick 2010). The existence of this unlimited and unified
audience is made exponentially possible within the space of the internet, where
users publically assemble and engage in a variety of activities including social
interaction, discourse, and debate (Habermas, 27). It is within this (new) media spaces that
users are again positioned to experience the discursive interplay between
themselves and other users as immediate, on going, and “real”. Through this positioning, students are better
situated to follow Twitter’s imperative to “Join the conversation!” and
contribute to the joint-public discourse of the Twitter-verse. With relation to composition studies, this
imperative can help students to conceptualize themselves as members of an ongoing
academic discourse that is directly impacted and altered by their participation
within it. This conceptualization has
the potential to ascribe meaning and purpose (exigency) to student writing, as
users are able to quickly recognize why their writing “matters” through its
impact on their audience and their collaborative discourse. Furthermore, increased social interaction among
classmates and student-lead communal learning are two significant additional
benefits to using Twitter in the classroom, as they help to engage students
socially and mentally. An increased
sense of audience awareness, the dynamics of public writing, and the “purpose”
of academically related discourse are only some of the benefits of using
Twitter within composition pedagogy.
Blogging Towards Hybridity and Hypermediacy
Blogging Towards Hybridity and Hypermediacy
While Twitter acts as a microblog,
enabling users to post their thoughts in short, character limited bursts,
traditional blog platforms such as Blogger and Tumblr allow users to compose in
an extended form that can incorporate other external media. As Lisa Gerrard points out, “Blogs are
asynchronous—that is, the conversation does not need to take place in real
time” (Gerrard 418). The “conversation”
that Gerrard mentions refers to the exchange that occurs between the writer and
their readers, who are able to comment on and critique the blog’s content and
engage in a dialogue with its author/s.
Here, we are able to see the long-established pedagogical tool of peer
review at work, except that it has been remediated to occur outside of the
classroom in a more informal digital medium, where students are free to read
and comment on one another’s work at their leisure, without the constraints of
class time and other external distractions.
The application of peer review via blog feedback is doubly beneficial
for writing instructors, as the act of blogging, “[Makes] for more formal
writing than chat..” while the comment feature enables students to, “[…] write
responses to articles, create brief arguments, and post links and images to
support those arguments” (418). In this
way, blogs engage with the remediated pedagogical practice of peer review, as
well as the remediated medium of the “traditional” extended college essay.
Although blogs possess an inherent
potential to closely replicate the medium of traditional (that is to say single
media, text on page) essay writing, the “new” feature of this technology allows
users to combine multiple mediums within a unified space. Unlike Twitter, whose interface seeks to
achieve immediacy through real time communication between users, blogs are
hybrid spaces that actively acknowledge and engage with the multiple mediums
(image, video, text, audio, etc.) at work within them. As Bolter and Grusin point out, “In digital
media today, the practice of hypermediacy is most evident in the heterogeneous
‘windowed style’ of World Wide Wed pages… [This] visual style ‘privileges
fragmentation, indeterminacy, and heterogeneity and… emphasizes process or
performance rather than the finished art object’” (31). The authors’ description of the
characteristics of hypermediacy resonates with the features of blogs, and
illustrates the ways in which they are a hypermediate new media technology. It is by way of this hypermediacy, however,
that composition instructors are positioned to engage with aspects of rhetoric
and the writing process, including visual rhetoric, genre, cohesion and style.
In their collaborative essay on the
future of literacy, DeVoss et. al. offer a number of student commentaries on
their experiences using various forms of new media in the classroom. One such commentary regarding the experience
of blogging came from a student named Joseph, who wrote that the more he
blogged, the more he, “[C]ontinued to focus on visual literacy, recognizing the
culture’s increasing dependence on reading, understanding, and composing texts
in which meaning is communicated through the visual elements of still
photographs, video, animated images, graphics, and charts..” (DeVoss et. al.2003). Here, Joseph highlights various
remediated mediums (photography, video, animation) that he engaged with during
the act of composing for his blog, which he affirms helped to contribute to his
overall sense of visual literacy.
Furthermore, Joseph directly references the act of composing meaning and
communicating cohesively through the
interplay of various mediums, rather than a singular, often immediate
medium. The end result is a hybrid,
multi-media text that remediates the traditional essay largely through its medium,
while utilizing and supporting the same long established pedagogical
ideologies. In this was, blogging has
the capacity to meaningfully intervene in and support composition pedagogy.
Conclusion
As Webster argues, “New technologies
are one of the most visible indicators of new times, and accordingly are
frequently taken to signal the coming of an information society… The suggestion
is, simply, that such a volume of technological innovations must lead to a
reconstitution of the social world because its impact is so profound (Webster 9). The rise of new media technologies
through the process of remediation indeed indicate a shift towards an
information society, in which digital and new media writing plays a prominent
role. For writing instructors, the
challenge lies in purposefully engaging with new media into their classrooms,
as well as in integrating new media into existing pedagogical practices in a
way that is thought provoking and effective for students. In doing so, writing instructors will better
position their students to be active and informed contributors to the public
sphere of digital writing, as well as the ongoing conversation of academic discourse.
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