This is where we’ll discuss Brian Jackson’s and Jon Wallin’s covering the “Rediscovering the ‘Back-and-Forthness’ of Rhetoric in the Age of YouTube.” It’s from December 2009, which in YouTube/Internet lingo, might mean it’s ancient history. I’ll be curious to read what you all think.
First off, a link to that (in)famous “don’t tase me, bro” video:
It was a pretty crazy scene, don’t you think?
I think Jackson and Wallin bring up a lot of great points about something that you will see later on in the week (this reading is a little out of order, but only sort of), where both Wesch and Juhasz discuss in different ways how YouTube comments are ineffective or inane. Their analysis of this particular incident suggests otherwise. I also like the suggestions they have at the end of this article about how this might all fit into a writing class, though to me, I got a completely different idea for an assignment: it might be quite useful to have students pick a YouTube video like this one and do an analysis along the lines of what Jackson and Wallin are doing here.
There’s a lot of other stuff to talk about with this essay too, of course. But I want to actually make a few observations not so much about the content of this article as to its form, observations that might be on your mind too since you are all going to be taking English 621 sooner than later– not to mention an MA project.
First, note that Jackson’s and Wallin’s essay is actually a study that is both qualitative and quantitative in the way that they are examining these comments. Second, note that Jackson and Wallin do a lot to explain their interpretive framework and methodology– maybe even too much. But this work is important, especially when we get to the real meat of their analysis about this video.
Like I said, just something to keep in mind for beyond this class.
I found this article to be a really interesting read. The notion of back-and-forthness as a way to incorporate argumentation and new media literacy into the classroom is intriguing. I was happy to see that Jackson & Wallin made sure to comment that YouTube is perhaps not the best place to look for these convergent cultures that emerge from the rhetorical back-and-forth of Web 2.0. It occurred to me that this back-and-forthness is played out most effectively in blogs. In my experience, many blogs are a public discourse on a topic (sometimes of importance, sometimes not) and they often respond to other topics/articles/videos/what-have-you. Isn’t this the thing Jackson & Wallin are advocating we teach students?
I also agree with Jackson & Wallin’s core argument that we can use Web 2.0 technologies to rethink writing in the classroom. Commenting as a form of debate has become popular and reaches students on a much more personal and relevant matter. They set this up as a “provocative challenge to the academic essay” (375). WHile I think the academic essay has its place in the classroom, a large majority of students would get more from the type of activities Jackson & Wallin suggest in the long-run than they do from academic essays. It is more progressive in that it is teaching a style that is current instead of the somewhat outdated academic essay on paper.
http://msyapin.wordpress.com
This was an interesting read, as I had never thought much about how the web has afforded us the ability to engage in arguments that resemble face-to-face dialectic. I would agree that this is something that should be incorporated into writing classrooms, though I was kind of hoping that Jackson & Wallin would have a more definitive suggestion as to how to do this. They concede that their examples have all kinds of problems, after all.
I wonder what made Jackson & Wallin use the example of a YouTube video for writing this article. When I think of back-and-forth arguments online, I tend to think of discussion forums, comments on news articles, and even comments on Facebook…but I’ve never really thought of YouTube as a place for good public debate, just because my experience with reading comments/commenting on YouTube has not been so great. There are a lot of trolls who post on YouTube, especially on more popular videos…and I think these comments detract from the quality of debates. Of course, this is true of all public forums, but again, I just wonder what made them choose YouTube here.
http://www.daniellebreann.wordpress.com
Amen to the bit about trolls on YouTube, Danielle. It’s amazing how much sheer vitriol and incensed flaming even a single troll can generate–which is likely exactly what said troll is aiming for. And you’re right, this kind of posting behavior really does detract from any kind of quality debate.
Last semester, I had written a paper that touched on the idea that writing today had become more dialectic, especially with the rise of the Internet, so I found Jackson and Wallin’s discussion of back-and-forthiness here really intriguing. I think I personally prefer the dialectic that is offered by the Internet–it’s still relatively fast-paced, but gives the conversational participants time to gather their thoughts before responding.
Like Melissa and Danielle, I’m wondering why YouTube comments of all things were what the authors chose to analyze. I first wondered if it was because of the age of the article, but then realized many of the forums that I frequent have been active at least that long, so YouTube would not have been the only option at the time. Regardless of the reason, I agree that blogs, forums, and news articles often present, in my experience, better critical conversation. But maybe the idea was to determine the possibility of critical conversation existing on a site frequented by a variety of people who were less likely to be “like-minded” and maybe thus have a wider argument pool (384)?
I’d be very interested in trying to incorporate this dialectic approach in my classroom. I can see a lot of benefit for my students, in terms of learning argument conventions, of acknowledging counterarguments, of having real conversational participants. Of course, I can also see a lot of the problems Jackson and Wallin touch on, but the pros may outweigh the cons.
I’m thinking about an assignment that asks students to analyze the comments *somewhere* – forums, YouTube, local newspaper articles… perhaps a class collaboration?
http://parablematernal.wordpress.com
I could see some potential in that assignment, actually. I used to have an assignment in English 328 where students had to analyze the “style” of writing on a mailing list– and by style there, I meant the conventions, abbreviations, rules for when (or when not!) to post, etc. It could be interesting to have students simply look at the comments in the articles in sites like annarbor.com or the freep.com
I was reading an article from Michigan Radio’s State of Opportunity program and there were only two comments, but they immediately pissed me off, and then I wondered…especially in terms of local value, and writing being associated with power and social action, if it might be fun to use a news program like that to analyze the programming, the comments, etc.
http://parablematernal.wordpress.com
err – was reading that article this morning. I meant to include that.
http://parablematernal.wordpress.com
I love the idea of using social media to demonstrate the back and forthiness. I wonder, though, about the media shelf life the authors describe – YouTube keeps all its comments visible, but Twitter doesn’t archive (though there are archival efforts being made) for more than 7 days, I believe, and so the ability to trace a conversation past that point is sometimes difficult without third party help.
Dewey’s words interest me because I was just reading about Ira Shor’s work on dialogue and spoken communication in Palmeri’s book, and am planning on having my students dictate their work to one another in class on Wednesday. I had previously questioned the value of “in-class participation” as part of the grade in my class, because that requires verbal action for the most part and not all students *want* to talk in class – many are introverted, or simply prefer writing to spoken word. However, I am rethinking this stance now, and am thinking about increasing the value of participation in class using this as a basis.
I think that digital texts, such as blogs, can be challenged unlike print texts, as the authors explain (W377). Following the dictation idea from Palmeri’s book, he gives an example of how programs like Audacity can not only allow the author to record an audio version of their work, but an audience could participate via a remixed recording.
I really love this questioning of the “autonomous” or monologue essay…
http://parablematernal.wordpress.com
I thought this essay was interesting, too. I agree with the authors that the internet has given us the ability to have arguments similar to face-to-face arguments. When I think of online arguments, the first place I thought of was Youtube comments. I enjoy reading the comments because when people post comments on Youtube, they do not know who might respond and what kind of background people come from, and I especially like the thumbs up on the comments, too.
But anyway, I like that this can be incorporated into a writing classroom, but there was no real example of how to accomplish this.
http://timstorm.wordpress.com
Tim, good point about not knowing who might respond to a Youtube comment. I guess that might answer my (and others’) question regarding why Jackson & Wallin chose Youtube as the example for this article. You’re right–Youtube is such a public website frequented by a huge and pretty random audience. On the other hand, if you’re debating with somebody on Facebook or even in a discussion forum, it’s likely that you know the person/user who responds to it. And, in a way, the difference between knowing the people you’re talking/debating with could very well change what you say, right?
http://www.daniellebreann.wordpress.com
Skype is a good example of that. It seems like that is the closest people can get to talking face to face nowadays aside from actually talking face to face. It seems like the internet is going to become a mode for people to express themselves with each other without having to worry about emotional expression. Like instant messaging. It’s very impersonal in a way because you can’t see how someone is physically reacting to what you are saying.
Very interesting stuff and a lot going on here. Any time free speech is challenged, I think it prompts a deep discussion about democracy and the reality of the actual structure that exists and is practiced. I think this idea of social media as the most democratic communication tool is really fascinating. As we’ve seen in the past few years, twitter has been extremely instrumental in information dissemination from oppressed societies and changing political climates.
I, actually, don’t think that I paid attention to youtube comments ever until after reading this article, but can certainly see the value in evaluating the impact on our communication interactions. It seems that we as a society are starting to realize how much new and emerging technologies are effecting us on multiple levels.
I feel that another place, which invites a back-and-forthness are online news sources/publications. Although, newspapers have the right to delete inappropriate comments from the discussion, it seems that there’s the same type of interaction going on because of the nature of controversial topics that are written about. And even more so with local publications because people commenting are a part of the community and have a vested interest in what is happening, as these issues could impact them quite directly.