This is where we’ll discuss the chapter in Writing New Media by Johndan Johnson-Eilola, “The Database and the Essay.” It’s been a while since I’ve read this (and my apologies for being so far behind on posting about it here– the snow day was no catch-up day for me, let me tell ya) and I think it’s interesting the ways in which much of what Johnson-Eilola overlaps with some of what we’ve read and in the ways in which it raises different and new issues.
First off, it’s a fairly dense piece that takes us down a number of different roads here, but I guess for my purposes with the other readings this week, I want to highlight three issues:
- Writing as existing in/a part of a “database” has a lot of interesting and complicated in a whole bunch of different ways. The technological abilities to divide chunks of texts up in interesting ways and separate the content and production of texts is interesting, though in ways I don’t know if we need to go into now. The main point though is that if we think of “the database” as potentially “a text,” we raise further questions about both the role of the autonomous author/writer and even a “text.” I mean, you could make a pretty compelling argument that every Google search constructs a unique “text” from chunks from its database, and I know that there have been some interesting intellectual property issues associated with Google taking/linking to stuff in its database as a way of forming the content of their search.
- As he discusses on pages 212-213, writing teachers need to recognize that they work/function within this economic/capitalistic sphere. In a sense, I don’t think that Johnson-Eilola is really saying anything too different, though I think it’s important (as he does here) to acknowledge that intellectual property is a two-way street. This is especially important to recognize given that a lot of people in composition studies– including many who speak the loudest about fair use– make money by selling textbooks.
- In ways, this article is kind of dated, but still relevant to me. Take for example the section on this new-fangled thing “web logs.” In some ways, this is obviously kind of out of date. But in other ways, the questions and concerns about how these texts are put together remain. For example, in 216, where he talks about the site “Plastic,” he points out it is a site largely made up of other sites. This is taken a step further with hugely popular sites like digg, Slashdot, and Google News, each of which is made up of content from other web sites– the “database” that is the modern internet.
For me what really stood out was on page 210 where he talks about teh debate about linking to the WWW. This really makes me realize how much of writing is tied to money. This issue of wanting people to look at the ads so they companies could feel like they were getting their monies worth from the ads they were placing on select site. It just makes me realize that so much of what we do revolves around who can see it and what they get from it. For me when I tell students to look at websites to see if they are reliable to look for sites that dont have ads. This issue had to do with linking on sites that were “scholarly” in nature and I find that to be an issue here. When you have a site that has an ad my first assumption is why is that ad there? What makes them want to associate with that idea or topic? I know I am someone who does not trust advertisers and so I really question that idea here.
I know! I didn’t even think about that before this Cristin. The scholarly sites don’t have all the silly ads in the same ways the other sites do. I went to a Home and Garden type website the other day to get some painting ideas and when I closed out of the site I had about 4 ads that had popped up behind the site, and I had my pop-up blocker on. I just close them down without thinking, but you’re right, we should question them more.
Well, there’s lots of stuff that has perfectly credible information on it (not necessarily scholarly, depending on what you define as scholarly) that have ads. Back in “the day,” people used to say that any site that ends in “.com” is automatically not as reliable as “.edu,” and that isn’t remotely true either.
I think the whole “deep linking” issue that Johnson-Eilola is talking about here is kind of resolved, but the issue about sites linking to sites wholesale (like digg and Google News) is still very much alive. Both Fox News and the Associated Press have raised various stinks about this in the last year or so.
“My self, insofar as I have been able to articulate it here, is constructed of mediated memorialization, of hypermediated historiography, reflective of a new representation made possible through the use of database organization, user-ordered search, and digitized witness narrative” (76).
This seems to point out one of the main ideas Salvo is expressing: that “self” is a patchwork of memories/representations that might look similar to how we think of an electronic database. His knowledge and experience of the Holocaust exists somewhere in his own “self” and it’s real in so far as he feels this reality – I think this might be getting into other questions not related to this course specifically, such as: how do we experience history? The article is full of interesting ideas and it presents a sort of Matrix-like view of the world at times. This relates to Steven’s point about the writing teacher being aware of the larger circle of influence around them. The internet makes this influence much more apparent – only a click away.
The first few sections of the article reminded me a lot of what we discussed in English 503 – the connection between language and meaning, and the idea that we can reconstruct meaning through the use of language. Interesting. I don’t agree philosophically, but it’s interesting.
Did you notice the subtle hints (or not so subtle hints) to the Google takeover? Made me think about the “Buzz” feature, newly added to Gmail. I think it might be Google’s attempt to take over Facebook…not sure, but it does make me think about how influential Google is (and will become) in influencing the direction of modern “texts.”
Actually, I think I like the connection here too, Brian! Anyway, I see the connection that both you and Andrea think. And yes, Andrea, I think “Buzz” is some sort of google effort to take on Facebook/Twitter. I’m not sure what I think about it yet, to be honest….
I do agree Andrea. I’ve also noticed I put this in the wrong discussion area – these comments were for Salvo! Sorry for any confusion!
“The point is not that all texts are completely fragmented and resist connection. Instead, texts are broken down in order to reconnect them, over and over again” (208).
I really liked how Johnson framed this… talking about how some see this as the “death” of a traditional view of knowledge and learning rather than a “new terrain” in which rhet/comp might move. As technology has allowed us to fragment, cut and paste, reorganize, and link to other texts, it changes the face of what really constitutes a text. Many look at this as a “break-down” rather than asking, “What can we gain by breaking it down?” Like he says, “new connnections… over and over,” creating new meanings and contextual connections for the audience. As more and more texts become fragmented and linked, it requires a lot more attention to be paid to the ideologies that drive the choices in which texts are linked, and which ones are not (to kind of build off what Cristin commented on).
Nice choice of a quote here Dave and an excellent point. This part really reminded me of all the hypertext and remixing going on out there. There is fragmentation all over the place because of the computer and digital technologies! I think in many ways our society is so fragmented and we are fragmented that we enjoy dealing with texts that reflect that chaotic nature as well.
I marked this paragraph, too! The sentence that stuck out to me: “Texts no longer function as discrete objects, but as contingent, fragmented objects in circulation, as elements within constantly configured and shifting networks” (208).
This is a very different way of thinking about texts compared to what we’re used to: texts as whole, free-standing, original, singular things that may exist in a disciplinary conversation or context but aren’t contingent on one another and certainly don’t shift. Johnson-Eilola also talks about writing as a social act (200) — again, something that is still pretty unusual. (Throughout college, I was told by all of my teachers that writing is a painful process often carried out in isolation.) Both are evidence for Johnson-Eilola’s point that writing (and it seems the writing process) is changing, and as Prof. Krause explains, this change can be connected to the rise of capitalism and the commodification of everything, including writing and texts. Of course, I find this take rather terrifying. Did anyone else feel similarly?
Great points here, Dave and Carrie! Great minds must think alike because I really appreciated this part, too.
Addressing Dave’s reflection of: “I really liked how Johnson framed this… talking about how some see this as the ‘death’ of a traditional view of knowledge and learning rather than a ‘new terrain’ in which rhet/comp might move,” I think it is interesting how this idea keeps coming up in what we read– the death of something rather than simply a new direction. I see this generally in people all the time– we are predisposed to think the worse before we consider the true (sometimes actually good!) repercussions of change.
As for Carrie’s comments on the idea of writing as a social act (p.200), I would have to agree with Johnson-Eilola on that one. I find it interesting, though, how he says that “contemporary ideas” point to it being a social act. I was always told that it was a social act, but is this something new? It shouldn’t be, for why else do people write– to be heard, right? To share ideas? To “develop intertextually”? True, some writing is simply for the writer’s sake… but most is not. New media just adds to the social side of writing and is, quite frankly, making it really exciting! I really appreciated Johnson-Eilola’s overall take on this, though.
This is a great article; I’m impressed at how Johnson-Eilola moves between labor and literary theory, as well as the fields of linguistics, rhet/comp and economics. This is one to keep on the shelf for re-reading. I’d like to look closer at this claim: “So while we’ve come to grips with postmodernism as a literacy movement, we seem surprised when the same phenomena surfaces in the economic realm” (209). Lots to unpack here.
I think Johnson-Eilola defines post-modernism here as seeing language as a “closed” system in which there is only continual rearrangement. However, the idea that we make new words through the rearrangement of symbols in social contexts, which he seems to agree with through his application of Saussure, speaks to language as an open system. For example, the word “podcast” is a rearrangement of symbols that has a new meaning – so that seems to me to be an “open” system.
Economics on the other hand may be a completely closed system. We may change the way the market is made but it must work within a clearly defined context. So, the idea of a post-modern literacy is clearly different than a post-modern economics. This might be a case of a misshapen comparison made by the mistake of applying a single term in two different contexts. Post-modernism in reference to literature means one thing on account of context, where the application of it in economics means something different, although perhaps not “completely”, still different. In that case, should we really be surprised at at all that we fail to be surprised by post-modern developments in economics?
Have you studied economics Brian? I have never read about post-modern economics. It seems like a movement we might be in now?
My favorite is the articulation theory. I have never heard of it until now. To think that I have spent years accepting the chaos, the uncomfortable feeling from fragmentation, deconstruction and postmodernism. Suddenly this articulation theory comes to the picture and I felt like I could breathe just a bit. It’s funny how articulation seems to also deconstructing the deconstruction. Where is this present in the literature I studied? I want to read more about it.
Well, I’m just disappointed I haven’t heard about it before I read this article.
As I was reading this article, I predicted proceeding paragraphs. It was a really weird experience while reading an academic article. Has this happened to anyone else? It seems like this article covers some of the same stuff.
As I read, I thought postmodernists could do fair use a lot of good, and poof there it was in the text.
“The articulation theory provides a way for thinking about how meaning is constructed contingently from pieces of other meanings and social forces.”
So this is why they call words moving words, I’m guessing. But is articulation trying to come up with stabilizing definitions or definitions that last?
And I said this before, but Im glad Eilola agrees that it is incredibly hard to come up with an original idea.
Is a symbolic analyst someone like Joseph Campbell, the star wars guy?
This is some great material.
I’ve identified with the authors in lots of ways.