Introduction to New Media/New Methods

1. ElizabethEdwards Introduction to New Media/New Methods

2. The Burning Question: What is New Media??? • Think in terms of “invention.” • “New” media comes from “old” ideas and concepts. • What Bolter and Grusin call “remediation.” • Not the same as “digital media.” • Which Ulmer and Ray define as “encompass[ing] the complex and intersecting paths of rhetoric, technology and film; their overlaps…form an emerging apparatus” (5). • The “emerging apparatus” being electracy.

3. And What is Electracy? • Part of the triumvirate of apparati • Orality • Literacy • Electracy • Ulmer and others at the Florida School want to create new modes of discourse for electracy, instead of forcing adherence to orality and print literacy. • Emphasis on heuretics, not hermeneutics.

4. Terms of Electracy • ABC • Focus on fragmented details which are pleasurable, but do not try to sort them logically or linearly. • Chora • Individual pattern making, recognition, and generation. • Wading through the mud pit, instead of walking on solid ground

5. Terms of Electracy • The Fragment • A “performance of discourses” (10) versus organized arguments leading to a “logical conclusion.” • Collage of inherently impactful images and ideas. • Hypericon • Using visual images to construct language. • “Write with images” (11), not just about them.

6. Terms of Electracy • Legacy • Creating a tradition of a “canon of methods” (12) to expand linguistic forms. • Allowing personal encounters and memories to meet “academic” discourse. • Mapping • Combining geographical “maps” with idea “maps” to create new context. • Example: Ulmer’s analysis of his home town.

7. Terms of Electracy • Remix • Reading a text gives it a new meaning • Texts, media, etc. are fluid, not fixed. • Example: How Rollin’ reads. • Transparency • The medium needs to be “open” and accessible for invention to occur. • Aim for translucence not simplicity.

8. Terms of Electracy • Schizophrenia • Follow all paths, and aim for multiple meanings. • Writing • The hegemony of print stifles media invention. • Embrace “non-clear” and “non-coherent” channels” (17).

9. Theory in Practice: What Others Say • Jeff Rice’s “Networks and New Media” • Narrows new media to the concept of networks. • Everyone in society interacts daily with networks. • Example: every time you log onto Facebook or buy a product off of Amazon.com, you engage in a relationship with a network. • These networks also greatly influence how a participant receives and sorts information. • Standard English classes fail to meet students’ needs because they ignore the influence and constant presence of networks. • Some traditionalists argue that giving in to networks increases their ability to monopolize information for those inside and outside networks. • Paradoxically, networks pose a threat to tradition because they shift power and roles.

10. Theory and Practice: What Others Say • Rice Continued • Rice also criticizes Bartholomae for delineating between the space on the page and “somewhere else” (130). • For Rice, somewhere else equals the network. • Most ideas occur in the network, so exploration of that space is necessary.

11. Theory and Practice: What Others Say • Scott Rettberg • Continues with the exploration of that first burning question. • He wonders “how long with those new media stay new?” and predicts that it might be getting old. • New media has managed to permeate “traditional” academic disciplines such as art, communications, journalism, science, etc. • “New Media Studies is becoming as ordinary as an offering as British Literature” (2).

12. Theory and Practice: What Others Say • B. Stephen Carpenter & Pamela G. Taylor • Explore how the mental process represented by computerized hypertext adds depth to study of art. • They were particularly inspired by artist Jasper Johns’ painting Racing Thoughts. • The painting uses objects and images “that provoke multiple meanings, representations, and associations” (40).

13. Theory and Practice: What Others Say • Carpenter and Taylor Continued • They set up an experimental hypertext page on the computer and mapped the comments about Johns’ piece as they took place. • Particular intrigue with the open entry/exit of discussion. • They equate the often “very messy, complex” (50) elements of hypertext may be helpful for art students to learn more about others and their own process.

14. What’s the Connection? • All 3 articles address elements of Rice & O’Gorman’s criteria for new media. • Breaking away from logical flow and veering toward open associations. • Embracing fragmented, unconnected ideas instead of rejecting them. • Acknowledging highly social aspects as crucial to literacy/electracy. • Emphasizing new media relevance in academia.

15. Works Cited • Carpenter, B. Stephen II; Pamela G. Taylor. “Racing Thoughts: Altering our Ways of Knowing and Being in Art Through Computer Hypertext.” Studies in Art Education. 45.1 (2003). 40 – 55. Electronic. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1321107 • Rettberg, Scott. “Focus: New Media Studies.” American Book Review. 24.3 (March/April 2003). 24 June 2004. <http: www.litline.org/ABR/Issues/Volume24/Issue%203/Rettburg. pdf>. • Rice, Jeff. “Networks and New Media.” College English 69.2 (2006). 127 – 133. Electronic. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472197