Response to Wysocki’s Opening New Media to Writing: Openings and Justification

According to Kress, writing is bombarded by 4 factors, such as social and communicational (1/12). All of these seem to attack the traditional views of writing. How do teachers adapt to the new attacks? How do they deal with the intrusion of the visual in the face of the printed word?
Wysocki brings this out with her list of needs. Again, it seems important for the teachers of writing to grasp the relationship of the new media to writing, and to incorporate the new media to their teaching. Actually, this reflects on the discussions we have had in class, in that we teachers need to instruct the students as to how to handle the new media, though Wysocki restricts this necessity to the subject of writing. Indeed, she insists that “New media needs to be open to writing” (3/12) and maintains that writing teaches are the ones to “inform” new media (3/12).
I am intrigued by the discussion on how with online discussion, shy in class, did well. This result is because these different media allow people to develop new identities. It can be great freedom, in that one does not have to reveal who he or she really is, and can communicate in confidence. Still, there are limits. The examples given were the tendency of Latino students not to give voice on line as Latino, and that women did not know how to use online to their advantage to develop new voices (5/12). Of course, there are other problems in that pedophiles also can master the art of new identity and prey on naïve students. Another argument to teach children about the new media.
(5/12) This reads like Remediation, in that new technology does not push out old technology. Wysocki state that “New Technologies are always designed out of existing technologies and out of existing material economies, patterns, and habits” (5/12)
The remark indicates that those who wish to harness the new technologies must adopt the mindsets from with the innovation had come. Developing countries, who acquire internet technology, for example, must learn of the Western culture to understand the technology. I do not think that this is a bad thing. It is a tradeoff for progress.
I see that teachers can use their own knowledge of writing and adapt to the new media. My experience of this was at a school for my practicum. While we were teaching kindergartners the fun of writing, other children were working on computer to reinforce reading and writing skills.
I once taught a student, who straight away that he hated writing. A few days later, I noticed that the family owned a Tandy 1000 ™ computer—yes, this dates me. I immediately begged the parents to let the student use it. I had hoped that using the new media, he would change his mind about writing, and thus master the art of writing.
The gamble paid off. Not only did he begin to write, but he flourished, and, in fact, he was highly opinionated. He could easily have become a columnist. He wrote report after report and even went to the point of writing freely for extra credit. The parents had never witnessed this behavior before.
Of course, in the line of work as a homebound teacher, I know not what happened to him, but I hope that he continued his writing!

Sentient Computers?

The movie has various layers to it. First, the narrator sounds like an enthusiast for technology, then the movie becomes more informational, no longer with enthusiasm, but resembling an operator’s manual. Still, I sensed something deeper.
The next layer is chilling. WHO is the narrator? Why would it not be the computer? The computer could be establishing itself as superior to humanity, perhaps not as intense as Saberhagen’s Beserker, but still a matter of anxiety.
There is precedence here. Long ago, a Scandinavian wrote a book dealing with the possible end to humanity. Yet the book began like a history of civilization, which rose to its absolute height with the computer, then fell, but slowly reached its height again. Near the end, my assumption that the narrator was human, was chastened When the narrator questioned in a clinical fashion, whether or not to save the human race, and at the end, the mechanical speaker praised itself and its fellow machines.
To answer John from, last week, there have been somewhat successful attempts to make computers run parallel, as opposed to serially. This means that when perfected, the computer reactions will approach that of the human nervous system, and that would bring us much closer to true artificial intelligence, though it is not clear if artificial sentience is possible. The movie is a reminder of the sheer power these machines have, and if they but knew this…
In “Writing, technologies, and the fifth canon,” Lunsford explores different ideas of literacy, and laments that people must be subject to constant reinventions of writing, thus the implied question is one we have seen all semester—What is writing? She praises the return of orality and looks to the text as dictator. I am by no means convinced that what she considers the writing hegemony will wither away, and I imagine that is wishful thinking.
I will agree that Lunsford’s definition of writing is unwieldy, but indeed covers the forms of writing practiced up to now, from stone tablets to keyboards.
I was fascinated with her study group using high-tech devices to convey meaning, and further amazed that the children asked the crucial question of the balance between technology and learning. Are they learning writing, which is the fundamental question? I wonder if Lunsford had unwittingly fallen for the fallacy that technology itself will do the teaching, and forgotten that it is merely a tool.

Remediation Revisited

Bolter and Grusin take a great many pages to tell a simple story. They wish to state that all is remediation, and all remediation is dependent on other remediations. The authors give the example of the movie theater, including not only the big screen, but also the posters and videogames in the lobby (67), apparently reinforcing what the moviegoers have just watched.
The authors maintain that newly invented media will be used in relation to other media (66). Microcomputers are thought of in context of other technology such as the calculator, and adding machine. Cinema can make use of the computers, and the computers can make use of cinema. The example given is that as computer graphics improve, it would be possible to show high-quality actors on the screen (70), yet there may be no need for the actors if the graphics can duplicate them closer to life than currently possible.
They describe networks in which the remediation is dependent on a number of factors such as social, and economical (67). The authors mentioned the funding of certain media. There is scrutiny over the content brought by the media, for example, inappropriate shows on Saturday morning television what the media produce for the viewer. I was impressed that the social aspect goes more deeply. The authors mention that some wish to be referred to in different ways, in this case, actors who wish to be referred to as artists (69), which hearkens to days of earlier media, or cameramen as “social historians” (70)! Thus, remediation can change the way that users of the media look at themselves.
Bolter and Grusin continue to offer examples of hypermediacy in the past such as the components of a cathedral (34-35), and the elaborate systems of drawers and images in late renaissance cabinets (35). They also talk of hypermediacy in oil paintings (36).
The authors focus largely on photography, and the development of devices to influence representation. One of these is the stereoscope (37), which I played with as a child, and which provides a 3-dimensional illusion to the photograph (37).
The authors suggest hypermedia can be in music by turning up volume thus feeling as well as hearing music. (53).
Remediation also involves a change in the way the viewer perceives the media in question. An example that the authors give is digital photography. It is now easier to alter images to blur what is real from what is fiction. This can create a social problem worthy of Orwell if such technology is used by the news outlets to alter photographs and even film to distort information to the public. Perhaps ethical questions on remediation are needed.

Technology: Fear Not!

In the text, Remediation, Mr. Grusin and Mr. Bolter make the claim that new and old media are not in competition, one trying to conquer the other, but are involved in a much more complicated relationship. The new media incorporates features of the old, to create a better media (14-15). They do not compete, but merge. The authors also mention that immediacy and hypermediacy are “mutually dependent” (6), and this combination of media is prevalent in history.
Cave paintings involved scenes of life at the time of the paintings, such as hunting and death, some more detailed than others, some conveying multiple meanings. Hieroglyphics retained the notion of using images, this time for the religious, political and general life around Egypt, but added their version of text to the images, and indicated by size and space the importance of the characters painted. Thus here was a multi-media document, as it were.
After the fall of Roman in the West, manuscripts included text and images, these being closely related to the text. As paper and printing took hold, the publishers saw for some time the importance of using illustrating specialists in the copy. Much later, there were multimedia posters, with text and image, presented to display a quick and effective message, such as World War I and II exhortations, as well as Nazi and Soviet propaganda. Yet the joining of the image and text remained, and the poster took advantage of the clarity of print. Newspapers retained this clarity, though the text often was smaller, and more words could be fit onto a page. As well, newspapers combined text and images, including drawings, and photographs. Putting the headlines on the first page and adding the photo of a public figure to relate to large text, is an echo to the letter illustrations in the manuscripts. The text mentions even postcards, which include images and text (14), again, a reflection of the manuscript.
Film involved the use of some text, but most importantly a series of virtually redundant pictures to produce the illusion of movement. Sound also combined with text and image. Also, the well-made films gave the viewer a sense of experiencing the moment on the screen, and even forgetting that the experience is only movie. Then, television had the advantage of images and text broadcast to distant areas, but still maintained the advantages of film. The multimedia website—uses the past advantages of the manuscript, the printing press, and the newspaper, but also the ability to broadcast and receive moving images, with the advantages of television. Now, the users can choose what to experience on the site, and some can take the users to explore ancient cave paintings as this class has done, or to take an in-depth look at the International Space Station. As well, there are web-cams, borrowing from the television, for the viewer to see Norway, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, or even spots in the United States.
Next, they state that the newer media are forged not in a vacuum, but in the crucible of the surrounding culture (19). The manuscript came from a religious, political and economic on text, and printing, starting from the religious climate at the time, grew into an instrument of massive political implications, from the press came the handbills, and newspapers, later radio, television and the internet. The point is that all these came from the context of the society, and not invaders from without (19).

Politics and the Pen

I never grasped that the financial instruments we have today, even currency, had to have origins. The evolution of paper money, alone, is fascinating, as well as the creation of other written transactions.
While we look with fascination from these chapters at these marvels, we must also consider the pen not as a merely neutral device, but one that can be used for good or ill.
States, including the Church, used writing to control their realms. One of their methods was by “counting and categorizing” (287), using, for example, baptism records, as well as burial documentation and wedding information (287). Advertiser, today, use various media to do far more than this, but that is quite another story.
The Church worked with bankers such as the Fuggers. In the case of the latter, the Church would give out receipts for payment for indulgences, which greatly profited the Church as well as the bankers (285). That the Church would behave so unethically is one thing, but that they would actually record the event is quite another matter. Even more interesting was the idea from the Council of Trent to make lists (and check twice) of who the supposedly true Catholics were, thus making Jews and Protestants “nonpersons” (288). Through writing, the state was able to institutionalize, even codify, discrimination.
Governments, however, found themselves controlled by these same outside financial entities, such as the pope by the Medicis, and the German emperor by the Fuggers (284). The leaders faced a gauntlet of documentation, such as loan agreements for launching war (284). The text gives an example of ascencios, special “exchange contracts” to trade credit from the bankers for the precious metals Spain carried from the New World (285). With writing inventions such as the exchange contracts and the loan agreements, the bankers could easily dictate policy to the states. A good topic to study would be the written transactions from the Genoese and Venetians to the Crusading armies, as the latter needed funding.
France used writing to further the courts and taxation (289), but there were problems in that the crown tried to tax in a highly stratified society (290). Written records exposed the weaknesses (290), and thus the crown’s vulnerability.
Writing also influenced the political climate, with disastrous results for the monarchy in France. The printing press granted citizenry greater access of information, such as handbills and posters, and thus announcements to bring about mass movements, and ultimately, revolution (296).
The new inventions, such as the telephone, telegraph and computer, can also be media that the state could control. Indeed, the Germans and the French did for a time make telephones into a state monopoly (471). The text discusses briefly on how evil leaders such as Hitler can use media. The point is, whether one is talking about radio or simulcasts, handbills or posters, the state can not only create a monopoly on the media but also, a monopoly on information. Martin expresses the danger of government control (504-506), and I quite agree with him. There are plenty of examples, like the Nazis and the Soviets, to warrant eternal vigilance.

Memory and Advertising

Mark WalkerEnglish 701Reflections on the readings for 10/4
These articles again dispel the misconception that the Middle Ages were of nothing but ignorance. On the contrary, the way the people then dealt with the issue of memory was quite sophisticated. Considering the number of people who try to sell their memory-methods today, it is an ongoing issue.
I would like to explore the realm of advertising and how the field has made great use of methods for memory, albeit for mercenary pursuits. Oresme used imagery in his Aristotle translation to persuade (Gossett 28), but even he would have to admit that modern methods would eave him far behind. Advertising uses any existing medium, such as paper, radio, or television, and the internet. Madison Avenue bombards us with images and text, and often, there is sound as well, and the sound, image and text combine to compel the audience to remember, whether they like it or not—and buy the product. Images can be centered if on print or screen. In the computers ads may leap out of position and hijack the page for a few moments, images flashing by and text explaining what it is the producers of the ad want to sell.
The advertisers manipulate even individual letters as well. In a magazine article—Newsweek, I believe--from the 1970s, I read how the advertisers even used consonants not only to enhance memory but to fit the product. Toilet tissue was sold with s’s and soft c’s. For example, “Ceries is gentle and soft” while trucks bore k’s, hard c’s and t’s. For example “Kod trucks are tough!” The tissue is displayed lovingly, with the voice of a female. In the other case, on television, the image is of the truck, moving, bouncing over obligatory rocky Western terrain, and the deep, gruff voice of a male.
Unlike the medieval manuscripts, however, the commercial images may have absolutely nothing in themselves to do with any text. The picture of a warm family gathering may be linked with a text encouraging the reader to buy Rotgut Beer or a passenger van. Or the images may contain dialogue and a funny story, totally unrelated to the cell phone advertised.
Picture this actual advertisement, broadcast before some of the readers were born. Amidst a background of Gregorian Chant, a monk arrives from the scriptorium and tells the abbot that he has finished the manuscript. The abbot points his finger in the air and announces that he would like to have 500 copies. Desperate, the monk consults Xerox ™, which saves the day. The abbot, unaware of the association, looks at the sheaf of papers, not noticing the medium is not parchment, and declares a miracle. Both look up to the big letters of the company logo, but each for very different reasons. At this point, the Chant rallies with new vigor.
Here are multimodal considerations. The setting is in a dark monastery, the music from many monks offstage, the portrayals by the actors, and a seemingly discordant note, the Xerox™ copy machine. I don’t think the machine would be out of place, after the monks understand how it works. After all, these ignorant Dark Age primitives had developed a number of revolutionary inventions.
One more consideration is that after reading, I see that the monks wanted the readers to store information in their memory for an indefinite period, while commercials are short-term, with only one object in mind and that is the sale.

Rulers and Writing

First, I am pleased that the scribes used animal skins, as it certainly would annoy their equivalent of PETA people.
Not only does technology determine text, but more importantly, the political climate determines to some extent the technology. As well, such climate determines not only what text is written and how it is written, but also whether there is text after all.
Martin chooses a world that to the dwellers in that place and time is literally falling apart. I originally thought that the barbarians were ignorant and totally ignored the benefits of writing, that the Romans completely lost the knowledge, and that the Monks had to deal with chance discoveries to keep some relic of civilization. I did not realize that Odoacer and the other Germanic leaders saw at the very least that the writing was important to their newly conquered, and that in many instances, the very practice of writing, and not just the parchments and stone, was preserved.
The technology determines the space one can use on medium used, be it parchment or clay. It determines the shape of the symbols used, and forces the writer to consider the difficulty in making the symbols. Outside the text materials, other parts of technology interfere. If there is no way to regulate year-round temperatures, one may not write until the outside temperature increases sufficiently, while with our ability to regulate temperature year-round by controlling the heat in buildings, one can write any day at any time.
One must also consider the logistics necessary to produce the text, including the availability of the materials, gathering the materials to produce it, the costs of doing so, and the needs of the scribes themselves.
Still, the political climate is paramount. In the disintegrating world of the late Roman Empire, the new rulers allowed much to be preserved, especially legal formulas, yet Roman decay meant that the meaning of what was written could be lost over the years, and often did happen. Technology determines the text, abut cannot preserve the meaning thereof. In any case, as we can tell from more recent examples such as the Soviet Union, rulers can impose meaning on the test if they so wish.
Not that rulers always had their way. Martin points at that Cassiodorus could not condemn pagan writers and alienate someone if he wanted to keep his new group of literate monks (122). As more decay occurred, writing was reduced to monasteries, and thus writing from a pagan, Roman point of view transformed into Christian overtones (122-123). The magnitude of the transformation has its vague analogy in a science fiction story in which, because of computers, people lost the ability to perform mathematical calculations in their heads until, during a time of crisis, a technician discovers the lost art, but it now is viewed in the context of a secret weapon for the war effort!
From the Clanchy article, I learned that rulers are primary employers of writers, and can permit the preservation of religious manuscripts, as well as create tax and salary records, but the matter would be for utilitarian purposes, or more directly, what the writers can influence the rulers to cover. I believe I am fighting the notion here that writers write for merely aesthetic reasons, while reality dictates that even then, writers need to earn bread, be they Roman scribes, Irish monks, or Chaucers in their bureaucratic work.

The Heresy of Imagery

At the risk of committing heresy, I state that the readings talk about a return to what Father

Ong would consider a transitional state between orality and literacy. He would see the

transition as heading in only one direction, toward literacy and forever away from orality. Yet,

reliance on imagery to create messages appears to return, taking a heretical step back.

Both the Honeywill and Lipson articles deal with visual literacy, and both compare the ancient

script with modern technology. Honeywill spent the entire piece pitting the Mayan pictographs

with modern icons, while Lipson wrote about the Egyptian hieroglyphics and touched upon the

imagery that modern movies use to convey meaning. The difference between the computer

icons and the Mayan was that the icons do not constitute an actual language, but only symbols

for specific functions. The Mayans could use their glyphs in various ways, which in the case of

Honeywill’s article, usually pertained to the Mayan leader, and could deploy the images to

remove as much ambiguity as possible. The icons, however, were not always non-ambiguous, as

one had to deal with the context of the image, and even the direction the viewer is used to read

from. There was the example in Honeywill of South African miners reading a series of images

right-to-left, opposite what the image-makers wished, and the result was that the miners

deposited rocks on a rail rack. The computer icons also depend on context, and that how the

user discerns the symbols may be quire different from how another does. Still, when there is

widespread understanding, using icons saves a great deal of time, and dare I say it—text. There

is little need for words when the icon itself describes the task desired.

The Egyptian hieroglyphics were like movies in that they seemed to tell a story, which, in the

case of Lipson article, dealt with the mighty pharaohs, their lives an their relation to the gods, by

using devices such a showing hierarchy in that the kings were larger than more mortals, and

sexual dominance in that even the female pharaohs were depicted as male. Lipson is not

entirely satisfied with the modern movies saying they do not make best use of their power to

manipulate imagery, though he is now encouraged by multimedia efforts to add text, and even

audio within the text, to bring about meaning. That we can do this at all should be appreciated,

but we have been jaded through familiarity. The point is that the new technology allows the

combination of text (literacy), imagery and sound (orality) to help the user understand the

content.

The issue, as I see it, is this: We are not returning to the visual. We never left. The Mayans

use imagery in they glyphs, as the Egyptians in theirs, and sometimes including text, and we see

the artwork form the monk’s manuscripts. We see it in flags and traffic signs, even uniforms.

Contrary to the wishes of Father Ong, not only will orality no wither away, but as well the lust of

the eye for images will not disappear either, but, if the authors are to be believed, will only be

satisfied for years to come.

Are paintings text and technology?

Evolution implies that humanity evolved from low intelligence to intelligent beings. The authors of the sites insist that Paleolithic humans were by no means stupid. If they were, then stronger and more vicious creatures would have vanquished them. To survive, they would have to have used their reason. The paintings convey the reason and reflective traits of these ancestors.
What do the paintings mean? Are they text or technology? I argue that they are both.
The paintings are clearly part of technology. The cavemen needed to find something with which to paint the wall (Chauyet). Of course, the substance would have to stay on the wall, dry quickly and not drip. From the Chauyet site, they even developed such innovations as shading and perspective. On the Lascaux site, in the main Gallery, there is evidence that the painters used geometric shapes, and employed methods to create 3-dimensional images. It reminds me of the Renaissance artists using geometry and every method they could to produce 3-dimensional masterpieces.
The paintings are clearly text. The cavemen used the technology to convey meaning. In all three sites there are paintings of much game, some of the animals now extinct, such as large wild oxen and wooly mammoths, but either the painter was expressing the meaning of prosperity or wishful thinking. Key is the use of methods to bring out the illusion of movement. In the Painted Gallery (Lascaux), one sees “Chinese” horses expressing movement and grace. A large black cow seems to be falling, or as I see it, leaping over an obstacle. Also, the painters have brought out conflict, as shown by two opposing ibexes.
The paintings show hunting. Not all ventures were successful, as shown in the Scene of the Dead Man (Lascaux), wherein the bison bests, or rather, gores, the would-be hunter. The anger of the bison is brought out in the painting.
The paintings can express a religious theme, though for Dr. Kamat, it is mostly of gloom and desperate searches for protection in the paintings at the Indian cave. Still the idea of religion indicates some level of abstraction, that there is a power above them.
A possibility of another religious theme is indicated by the painting of a unicorn (Lascaux). Having seen so many unicorns in New Age propaganda, I was surprised to see it on a cave painting. It is unlikely that such beasts existed, but if not, whence came the concept? It would be more evidence of the Paleolithic ability to make abstractions.
Another way of this ancient form of text expressing meaning is though a possible sense of humor. In the Lascaux cave, there is a scene in which a bull, an herbivore, has long eaten a bear, an omnivore. Such an event does not occur by nature, and the people in that age were very practical, as sheer survival would force them to be, thus, if it is humor, then it is another example of abstract thinking.
Text, ten, does not have to be writing. These paintings speak many words across the millennia.

Remarks on readings for 9/6

Mark Walker
English 701
Reflections on the readings for 9/6

English 701 Reflections on the 9/6 readings:

“Writing is a technology that restructures thought” by Walter Ong, from his work Orality and Literacy and “On beyond Ong: the bases of a revised theory of orality and literacy” by Janet Coleman’s Public reading and the Reading Public.

The two articles intersect in the discussion of what Ong sees as the primacy of literacy. Indeed, Father Ong starts by insisting that “Literacy is imperious” (18). I take this to mean that literacy will tolerate no rival. Ong’s statement is consistent with Coleman’s assertion that Ong uses as a theory a Darwinian model (Coleman 16) for a “Great Divide” theory (16). Basically there is, according to the theorists, an unbridgeable gap between Orality and Literacy (5) As I understand the theory, first, oral traditions emerged, and then a transition in which the oral tradition is disappearing in favor of the emerging literacy, and finally, at the top of the evolutionary progress, is literacy alone (19), or as Coleman interprets it, “orality—the less efficient solution,--will drop away, just as nature selects the more favorable biological adaptation (18). Coleman attacks the argument by showing that in literate cultures there are still strong examples of orality (19-20). According to her, the Great Divide theorists counter by saying that this is still transition time, and that eventually orality will disappear (21). Ong appears to defend this view by writing “Once wise sayings are written down, oral culture is weakening, though its demise may take many hundreds of years” (Ong 31)
Coleman argues that these traditions had been in place for at least a thousand years, with no sign of demise.
I would lean on the side of Coleman, but I would add what appears to be missing from both of the great researchers, that a desire in humanity for an oral tradition, is possibly why it persists. There have been attempts to revive oral tradition, be it the griots in Africa, or the bards reciting verses in Anglo-Saxon, or more locally, the fisherman describing the massive fish which escaped his grasp.
I have another remark concerning something Coleman had said. Middle Ages are not completely Barbaric, although the warfare would compare favorably with the violence of street gangs, but there was time of great innovations. The Cistercian monks developed gears. Someone invented a plough vastly superior to the mediocre Roman one; there was the invention of monophonic music, the concept of hotels in monasteries, the making of god beer and wine in monasteries, and the development of universities from monasteries

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