The Theory of Visual Argument

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Birdsell and Groarke quote David Fleming's claims that "visual images ('pictures') cannot, he claims, be arguments" (309). My first reaction: Really?! Someone actually believes this?!!! (Exclamation points just for Frances) Secondly, I remembered the cartoon that Jeanne brought into class recently--an expression of her disbelief that some still consider the visual as unable to argue.

Of course, Birdsell and Groarke also disbelieve this notion and come to the conclusion that any discussion of visual argumentation must do the following:

1. identify the internal elements of a visual image
2. understand the contexts of the image
3. establish a consistency of an interpretation of the image
4. indicate the changes in visual perspectives over time (318).

The above example meets this criteria in the same that the "hooked" fish does in the chapter--through a mixture of verbal and visual rhetoric that depend on each other equally for effect.

Selfe's "Toward New Media Texts"

"If our profession continues to focus solely on teaching alphabetic composition--either online or in print--we run the risk of making composition studies increasingly irrelevant to students engaging in contemporary practices of communication."

--Cynthia Selfe

Here, for me, Selfe verbalizes the "thesis" of ENG 658. Instead of degrading visual texts "as the less-important and less-intellectual sidekicks of alphabetic texts," composition instructors need to recognize visual text as equal to "conventional" text (70). As composition courses continue solely to devote instruction to the "essay," students will increasingly wonder how this type of writing will help them in the "real world."

While I think many reasons exist for traditional compositionists to clutch to alphabetic texts and devalue new media, Selfe asserts that much of this stems from our own fears. Fears of being discovered as ignorant in a particular area. Fears of being deemed irrelevant.

The remainder of Selfe's chapter provides guidelines for teachers to integrate the study of visual rhetoric into their classrooms and specific assignments which reach that aim. I especially gravitated toward Activity 2 "Visual Argument Assignment," since much of what we read in Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World for this week discussed the validity of the visual as argumentation.

Seeing the Text: Selfe's "Students Who Teach Us"

Bernhardt's "Seeing the Text" acts as a "visual rhetoric"al analysis of two documents. He writes, "The manner in which visually informative texts achieve rhetorical control differs in important ways from that in the non-visually informative text, at all levels of organization: in the whole discourse, in the paragraph, and in the sentence" (95). To understand how an author achieves rhetorical control, he discusses how the work's intended audience and purpose dictate its visual look.

As I read Selfe's "Students Who Teach Us: A Case Study of a New Media Text Designer" directly after reading Bernhardt's essay, I found myself analyzing her visual rhetorical moves. Each chapter's title in the book is accompanied by a picture (already a melding of two genres). This chapter has surfboards, conjuring up images of both the California that her case study resides in and the "surfing" of the internet. Although this picture grounds the chapter since it is related to its content, it also appeals to the reader. Most readers of this text are, or will be, teachers. Let's face it, many of these kinds of texts have no pictures or graphics at all. Hence, any incorporation of visual imagery is appealing to this audience.

Selfe makes use of various font sizes and elements to set both her headings and some of her statements apart. The title of the piece is the largest font and in all capital letters. But it is also in gray-scale, allowing it to be part of the picture decribed above and less jarring. Her subtitle is in black bold type, drawing the reader's eye towards the subtitle instead of the actual title itself. Since the subtitle is a more descriptive phrase of the chapter's contents, this allows the busy reader to decide quickly if the chapter is worth reading.

Self makes quite a few moves to enable her audience to read the chapter quickly (as a grad student, as Rhodes would say). She numbers the important points of the chapter at the beginning. She also bold types the phrase "This chapter argues...." The combination of these two design elements allows the audience to read just these sections and "get the gist" of the entire argument. After reading these sections, a reader can then decide to finish the article with a slower eye.

Selfe also bold-types particular statements throughout the article, but only sparingly. The reader understands that these statements are particularly important, and in fact, usually contain the conclusions she made based on her observations.

The last technique she uses is the outlined box (I don't know the real term for this). Self creates a box around two of the sections from her article. They are not set apart from the rest of the text, but they stand out in a somewhat jarring manner. If she had boldfaced these sections, they would have seemed as if they were on an equal footing as the other boldfaced statements. By implementing a new visual element, Selfe highlights these two statements, which are actually the lead-in to the next sections of the chapter.

I was just thinking. :l>2
You know how once you learn or discover something, you start seeing it everywhere? Well, I won't say that I was ignorant of how visual rhetoric impacts the reader before, but there is something about recently reading an article on a topic that makes it so that I CAN'T stop noticing it. I guess instead of this being an "ear worm," it would be an "eye worm." Ewww!

Deep Thoughts by Sarah Antinora

Mark, does this help answer your question as to how

early our children should be using the internet?

Thoughts Regarding Last Week's Discussions

Many of us expressed our distrust of the internet during Thursday's class discussion. Yes, there is much to be explored and learned from the internet, but we also understand that images and information are much too easy to manipulate. While we, as children of books, find the internet suspect, our students often have not developed the skill of reading with a critical eye. The below picture, for me, exemplifies the suspect nature of the internet and visual media in general. This photo has been disproven as valid by many sources, and yet it is still quite easy to not only find on the internet, but found on fairly "credible" sights.

If you're not familiar with this photo, the airliner

in the background is supposed to be one of the

hijacked planes on 9/11. The man is assumed to be

a visitor to the WTC.

Although the above example disgusts me due to the emotions it plays on, I have to admit the ability to create such a believable image is pretty intriguing. While this example supports our natural inclinations to distrust multi-media (especially from the internet), these types of "hoaxes" are not new or restricted to new media.

Traditional written texts are just as susceptible to fooling the public with intentionally inaccurate information. Has anyone ever read Letter from a Nut? Hysterically true letters to corporations, but its author doesn't exist. Sure, this book is intended as entertainment. So how about mistruths delivered by the medical community? Several medical conferences have had presenters mention the "fact" that Jamie Lee Curtis is an hermaphrodite. Any proof for this? Nope--it's an urban legend.

The fact that information comes from print media or respectable sources does not excuse us from reading critically. So my point is this: One of our responsibilities as teachers is to provide students with the tools to think and read critically. That skill and the strategies used are no different for new media than they are for print text.

Greg Niemeyer's Podcasts

These two podcasts are actually the first two class sessions for Niemeyer's course at UC Berkley. The first forty-five minute session acts as an introduction to the course, which Niemeyer states will focus on "new media," and in particular the ways in which race/gender/diversity inform or are informed by media. The second class session traces some of the beginnings of media and transmission of information, starting with the connection of the continental railroads and telegraph wiring in Utah. The class then begins looking at how media and technology is portrayed in film.

Since the podcasts total an hour and a half, I took notes on points of Niemeyer's that either surprised me or provoked thoughts. Here is a sampling:

• I did not realize that "media" derives from in media res. The etymology here allows for the definition of media to include so much more than what we commonly envision (such as the computer). It also made the notion of "media" a lot less daunting for me personally.
• During the discussion of the students' homework assignments, Niemeyer explains that their work will be anonymous, through a use of personal ID numbers instead of names, due to legalities in making homework public. This issue reminded me of the discussion from Tuesday's class when Rhodes pointed out that our methods of controlling media and new technology always begin with the constructs and expectations that governed earlier technology. Should legalities concerning "homework" still apply when the work is intended to be in the public sphere, such as with the homepage assignment from Niemeyer's class?
• The "love story" between the two telegraph operators was interesting to me since it emphasizes how our ability to "read" applies even without a traditional text. Similarly, I found myself "reading" the music from the movie clips that were played towards the end of the second podcast. Since I was not familiar with the some of the movies, and one had no dialogue (only music), I read the music to hypothesize as to what the visuals might be. That this music accompanied a visual that feminized technology was not surprising to me.

Week One's Readings

Lanham's "The Implications of Electronic Information for the Sociology of Knowledge"

Lanham's essay details the implications of moving from book to screen--word to media--linear to hypertextual. Our conventional ideas of authorship are based on the permanency of the written word, and, yet, with current technology the reader can easily become an author (456). A recurrent theme of this essay is the way in which technology has allowed for the democratization of publishing (459). With the basic programs that come with many of our computers upon purchase, we now each have the ability to create our own text, and that text can now take many forms other than just ink and page. Lantham contends that the creation of this mixture of voice, written word, image, and movies is a new form of "writing." In example, he discusses the use of computer programs to create digital music, claiming that musicianship no longer requires true physical talent. Instead, it rests on the ability to "collage" sounds together (462). The process of writing and performing music has changed. He then extends this example to discuss how the process of writing in general has changed and how that must alter what and how we teach our students to write. Similarly, we must teach our students to read differently, since literacy now is not restricted to making meaning from words on a page. Our classrooms, textbooks, and curriculum will all change.

I don't dispute any of Lanham's conclusions. Our "digital world" requires that we not only learn to interpret the visual, auditory, and traditional rhetoric of texts but to be aware of how our own choices influence how others will read the texts we create. However, Lanham's example of digital music production set off a little alarm bell in my head. While it may seem that the average, musically-unlearned person can produce music alongside gifted musicians using this technology, I don't believe it to be so. My husband has been a musician for over thirty years. He was trained in brass instruments, bass guitar, and music composition. He also plays drums, electric guitar, and keyboards. His knowledge and background in how music works allow him to create much better music on Cakewalk than I ever could. Although the program provides everything I would need, it doesn't provide talent or musical sensibility. While this probably sounds like I've gone off on a tangent, I think this "sensibility" translates to the writing process also. Our students will come to class with a knowledge of texting, internet surfing, web design, etc. Programs exist that will allow writers to blend all types of text in one document with the click of a button. But without the sensibility of what creates "good writing," they will never reach the potential that those programs allow.

Question: If we "reinvent" composition studies in the way Lanham advocates in his article, are we not ignoring the core of writing?

Introduction

Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly.
--William Ernest Henley 1888

Welcome to my first ever blog. While I have kept a journal off and on for my entire life, it has never occurred to me that others would want to read daily updates of my life or current ramblings of my brain. However, I am currently enrolled in ENG 658 Computers & Composition at CSUSB, which requires each of us to respond to weekly readings in a blog.

First, about me. My hope is to graduate this quarter with an MA in English Composition: Dual Concentration and begin a PhD program in the fall. Although I taught middle school for twelve years, I am now a full-time graduate student. My loves are reading, my cats, and my husband (not sure of the order here, though).

I am fairly adept at using the technology required of me, but I am not adventurous in trying new things. Word processing, e-mailing, internet surfing, photo imaging, creating home movies, iPod usage, and playing with my husband's Cakewalk program (for music) are all second-nature now. But if I am put in front of a different program, it can throw me for a loop. As I loathe the cell phone, I don't engage in texting, and people attempting to IM me while I am having fun on the computer are just a nuisance. I guess I like the solitary nature of much of our technology.