Greetings fellow English 355 classmates! My name is Shen Wu Tan, but you can call me Shen (FYI, the "h" is silent). Currently, I am an English major pursuing minors in Anthropology and Editing/Publishing. I also intend to earn the Professional Writing Certificate, which is one of the main reasons I decided to enroll in English 355. Also, as someone who is extremely technologically illiterate and should've been born in the era of typewriters, I thought this class would be healthy for me.
I believe that this multimedia rhetorics class will introduce me to the various forms of electronic publishing formats including blogs. Since my generation is living in an age of flourishing technology, this class will allow me to learn and understand how to use these types of new media. To me, new media refers to means of electronic/online publishing. The term excludes the older, traditional ways of publishing such as print newspapers and magazines. Nowadays, one does not need to pick up a newspaper to become exposed to the daily occurrences that happen on a local or global scale. Instead, if internet is available, a person can simply search the internet or download a news app onto their smart phone and read or watch the news from different networks. As our society becomes more dependent on this new media, the realization of the enormous role that technology plays in our everyday lives dawns on me. Consequentially, in order for my writings to avoid oblivion, it is crucial for me to learn how to utilize the new media to my advantage. I hope this class helps me to do so.
We will definitely look at several electronic publishing methods, but the class is also pretty safe for the technologically less-experienced. The big issues are ultimately rhetorical -- the newspaper example is a great place to start. If you use any news apps, play around with them to see how the experience is different from, say, CNN.com or a copy of the Spokesman. The design choices in layout and access say a lot about how they want their audience to experience their content.
ReplyDeleteAs we go through the semester, I hope you'll keep in mind the role you see technology playing in our lives. The media we consume and devices we use to access that media all shape our lives as addressees in weird ways. In particular, it's interesting to think about using new media to save your writing from "oblivion" -- physical, print writing will last ages, but something about the internet makes us believe it's more permanent. (I believe it too; the internet is where I keep all my dissertation stuff.)