Looking To The Future Notes

Quotes

• “Because of the fundamental differences between print and electronic texts, many literary critics, communication researchers, and media scholars now maintain that critical approaches based on theories of print-based criticism do not always apply well to new media because there are many dimensions of hypertext, Web-based media, visual communication, interactive environments, and adventure games that print-based critical tools simply miss. The purpose of this essay will be to identify and describe some of those dimensions and to indicate what rhetoricians of technology might do to enlarge the range of critical practice so as to include more of the elements we find in electronic texts.” Why still interested in texts at all? Isn’t rhetoric of technology broader?
• “The seeming familiarity of these screen-based interfaces is beguiling and deceptive; it encourages critics to treat online texts as objects. It also encourages many users to think of what they see on screen as a surface to be read rather than as a portal for user-system interaction.”
• “The ability to interact with others and manipulate physical reality in real time at a distance converts the surface of the screen into a site for social and material action.” talking about action at a distance: isn’t this one of the more mundane claims one could make based on these technologies?
• “While there is no immediate prospect for the disappearance of electronic text as we know it, producers and critics of online rhetoric should continue to think about how changes in online communication and action might affect how they do their work. In the remainder of this essay, I will discuss four trends in online discourse and the critical methods applied to it. These are: (1) shifts in the nature of persuasive strategies used in online discourse; (2) individuation of content tailored to users’ interests; (3) increased use of all forms of interactivity; and (4) changes in our conceptions of text and authorship.”
• “Recent theory and textual study of online texts, then, implies a number of directions and practices that could be fruitfully pursued by those interested in the rhetoric of technology.” Is rhetoric of technology just rhetoric of hypertext?