NMSU Game Labs Visit

Nov 13th, 2008
My visits to the games lab at New Mexico State University are always welcome. Because the evaluation of rhetoric is so often considered serious business, it is easy to forget that there is an entire branch of the communicative spectrum that is playful, joking, and capricious, which is also entirely necessary for our collective well-being.

My recent visit tot he NMSU Games Lab provided me with the opportunity to check out some of the games that are available for the Nintendo Wii gaming system. Admittedly, I find most Nintendo games cute, but hardly attention grabbing. I tried about five different games for the Wii, and the one that stood out for me was Raving Rabbids. It is a single-player game in which the main agent is a lunatic rabbit who has to complete a series of mindless tasks. Upon completion of each trial stage, additional stages open up for play. The game is exactly what one might expect. Two stages that stood out were the cow hammer toss and the disco bunny burn up, my names for the stages, by the way. Because the game is completely pointless, meaning it is not contextualized as some great quest, and I could not find a clear objective, it allows the user to play for the sake of playing. There is no pressure to keep playing, as in many other games. When the gamer has had his fill, he simply turns it off and walks away. One might even consider games of this type to posses some cathartic, escapist quality, which could be beneficial to many stressed out people.

If I were to place Raving Rabbids under one of Brian Sutton-Smith's "Seven Rhetorics of Play", it would definitely fit under Play as Frivolity. It does evoke some historical memory of the trickster. The characters are loony rabbits that the gamer has perform a variety of sardonic tasks, some might say sadistic. Additionally, Raving Rabbids is devoid of any "work ethic". It nonsensical nature is what makes it fun. Perhaps the cultural reflection to be found in Raving Rabbids is that its frivolous escapist element is necessitated in the hectic, western world.

Final Paper Proposal

What if you could see the future? What if you could see the effects and ramifications of all of your decisions? This paper will focus on the representation of all possible worlds within virtual, video game environments. It makes a strong case for the reestablishment of the humans as phenomenological objects, which rely entirely on a foundational reality that we must incorporate through the use of language. By utilizing Wittgenstein's notions of object necessitated language, as put forth in Kripke's principle of contingent truths operating in all possible worlds, I move beyond the positivistic trappings of the linguistic turn. By making a strong argument for the existence of a foundational ontology and an objectivist epistemic, I can move freely into a deeper discussion of the existence of parallel universes, or "Relative State" Formulations of Quantum Mechanics, first posited by Hugh Everett. By incorporating Gary Saul Morison's treatment of antideterministic, linguistic temporalities, I aim to bring language back into the discursive fold so that we can make suppositions about what benefit we all might gain by seeing the outcome of our choices, singularities on our personal timelines.

Each philosophical and theoretical discussion makes an attempt to get closer to looking inside both of Schrodinger's boxes, at the same time! The translation of a discussion into the digital, new literacy realm is what makes possible the playing out of our thought experiments in the visibly, virtual environment.
Emergent technologies has empowered us in the digital age to outline algorithmic environments that calculate and visually represent the result of our life's decisions.

What genre/application of Web 2.0 is most appealing or potentially useful to you and why?

It is not a particular genre or web application within the Web 2.0 movement that I find particularly interesting. What I find most interesting, probably due to its importance, is the user-designed/user-adapted technologies that have given rise to wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and perpetual beta versions of applications that inhabit the Web sphere. Web 2.0 has been described as, “an idea in people’s heads rather than in reality.” However, there are some very tangible collaborative practices at work in the Web 2.0 movement. Two practices that interest me greatly are the implementation and the maintenance of the strictly web-based perpetual beta software and the incorporation of Ajax technologies, which enables user-innovation.

First, what is currently the widest spread perpetual beta application, Google Maps, is interesting when one considers the systemic nature at play in the design, production and dissemination of software. Most software companies, such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems, release applications over time. The end user is not only required to pay for the application, but also any upgrades or services associated with it. There is a distinct line of ownership that is partially ensured with designed obsolescence. In contrast, the perpetual beta application exists in perpetuity. Many are often considered to be service orientated, where the primogenitors of the applications have adopted the business mindset that their beta versions are a platform, as opposed to a brick-and-mortar storefront, from where they can enact the Long Tail business model. If companies like Google did not provide a continually improving, ubiquitous and free platform to users, then manufacturers would be in want of a place to advertise their wares on a global scale. Traditional media outlets have high cost barriers or are limited temporally. Simply put, there are not enough hours in each day to meet the needs of every business wanting to advertise. In contrast, Google and similar companies, utilizes free-to-user platforms that are very effective at delivering consumers to advertisers. The adoption of the Long Tail enables web-based companies to offer relatively low-cost, low-demand products, to a very large number of consumers.
Second, The Ajax collection of technologies, first coined by Google developers, is important for many reasons. Ajax is not single-technology dependent. Designers can utilize a variety of existing web development tools and coding languages to manipulate web-based applications without removing information from web servers. This work scheme has come to be known as asynchronous loading. It allows the designer to implement a web application, etc. that communicates with a server without disturbing the experience of the end-user. Equally fascinating, is that the remote scripting capabilities incorporated by Ajax, are not reliant on one coding language, but many, such as JavaScript, ColdfFusion, XHTML, VB Script and more. Imagine someone editing a movie while you watched it, but you never knew, yet somehow your viewer experience kept improving over time. Asynchronous loading, allows designers and users to modify an application’s, “content (adding, changing or deleting- information or associating metadata with the existing information) simultaneously,” while it is being utilized and manipulated.
The idea behind both examples is that the Web 2.0 movement has taken recognition of a continuing evolution, taking place in the design and implementation of web-based technologies. The result is an improved compatibility, reliability, and overall end-user experience.

Ideas for Audio narrative

1) Anarchism - Interview a social anarchist to gain insight into the current political sphere. My initial though is to do a point-counterpoint session that would utilize, either a politician or political science professor giving his view of anarchism, and then provide, via allowance, a neo-anarchist an opportunity to speak about the movement and how it is defined amongst members of the movement.

2) Sounds of the City - this audio project would be a comprised of several sounds from around the city, either El Paso or Las Cruces, and allow listeners to relay through the interview process, how the sounds affect their moods and lifestyles. The sounds of trains in the city initially comes to mind.

3) Animal Shelter - This project would entail recording the sounds from inside the Animal Rescue League. It would have both natural sounds of the dogs and cats as they interact with the people that visit in hopes of adoption, and also the personnel, and what they see going on within the animal shelter. The purpose would be
to provide ananecdotal insight into to the Animal shelter environement.

Multimodality (three concepts) and "This American Life"

After being on the air for ten years, This American Life, a documentary radio program on National Public Radio hosted by Ira Glass, exemplifies, for me, what a multimodal text is. Although I am not sure, whether or not, the program’s producers are aware of their use of multimodal concepts. As an artifact, This American Life is ripe for further examination. Three essential concepts discussed herein that are wedded to the program’s design, production and success, are those of lifeworlds, provenance and experiential meaning potential.
The New London Group, along with Mary Cope and Bill Kalantzis, in “A Pedagogy for Multiliteracies,” developed the concept of lifeworlds to describe how migrating social spheres, or discursive communities, overlap and rely on shared communication methods, deeming what type of semiosis is valuable. As I listened to the compilation, “New Beginnings: Ten Years of this American Life,” I recognized the varying discursive fields, first posited by Bordeaux, that work collaboratively to help define what it is to be an American. Each micronarrative, which is contextualized within its associated lifeworlds, places the listener into a very specific context – that of the subject. Each micronarrative, or mini-documentary, is part of the larger program narrative, and the collective of programs are part of an even larger and ongoing discussion of what it means to be an American. Additionally, the program relies heavily on the migration of social spheres, not only between those specific communities highlighted within each story, but also into the larger, diverse metanarrative1 of the United States of America.
Further analysis of “New Beginnings: Ten Years of this American Life,” enabled me to tease out additional multimodal concepts. Foundationally, the principles of provenance and experiential meaning potential are dependent upon psychological recollection cues, but each works in a very different way. Provenance is the beforehand knowledge of a mode, a medium, or a production technique. Essentially, a signifier, often with deeper social meanings, is imported from another place, another time, another culture, or another social group. When the signifier is utilized by an editor, as in this example, it can cue up a memory within the listener, as well as all the things one might associate with that memory.
When a program, such as This American Life imbeds a sound effect like a work whistle into its portrayal about blue-collar autoworkers, it is very possible that the listener may associate the sound with union work movements, or perhaps social unrest from outside of their immediate contexts. The object, in this case, a sound often associated with the shift changes at factories, is grounded in history, with a cultural and social idea of what the object signifies. Where one user might correlate the sound with the oppressive condition found in large industrial factories, conditions highlighted in the film depictions of Orwell’s 1984, or Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemki,. Another listener might proudly associate the sound of a work whistle with many years of unionized labor. It really is dependent on what memories are recalled when the listeners first hears an imbedded sound.
Another multimodal principle found in This American Life, is experiential meaning potential. Where provenance might use a sound to incorporate connotation and significance, as highlighted herein with the work whistle example, experiential meaning potential is specific to the use of cultural memory that one attaches to specific mode. A piece that I recently heard on This American Life, which layers djembe beats behind Latino signing from South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, relies heavily on a listeners ability to make connections between the incorporation of African drumming, as a mode, into Tejano music. The sounds, like the utterance of a word, will have a contextualized history that is known only to the individual listener, making each listener-experience unique. It is the uniqueness of the listener-experience, when compared to the forced visual representations provided by television and other primarily visual mediums that make This American Life such a distinctive user experience.
Although many more multimodal elements can be found being utilized for the design, production and dissemination of This America Life, the three highlighted herein are good examples why the program has had such success. The stories found in each program, highlight deeply personal experiences that the listener must associate with, in order for the program’s success. Each time the listener recognizes a sound, mode, or description of a lifeworld from their own uniquely personal experiences, the potential for catharsis increases greatly. It is the catharsis that comes from individual recognition, something often overlooked when artifacts are examined through a multimodal lens that makes This American Life, an increasingly accessible listener experience.


Works Cited
Cope, Bill, and Mary Kalantzis. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routlegde, 2000.

Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Oxford University Press, 2003.

This American Life: National Public Radio, 2005. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx?year=2005

Soundscapes and Oration

At first, I did not believe that the sound/recording orientated websites are suitable artifacts for reflection, with regard to the Cindy Selfe piece, “The Moment of Air, The Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing.” The websites I visited did not deal with oration, as far as speeches and reading, which Selfe explores in her piece. However, after listening and trying very hard to be aware of the thoughts that the sounds evoked, my understanding of the reliance, Selfe and others attribute to language became clearer.
The first website I explored was Earth to Earth, a non-profit enterprise that soundcases natural environments and natural soundscapes through an electronic medium. It provided many recordings of the ambient noises that one might come across in upon visiting a variety of ecosystems. The first link led me to David Monacchi’s “States of Water.” Monacchi’s composition utilized the sounds generated when water reacts to its natural environment. I find it very interesting how a musical composition was developed from a non-composed source. Monacchi analogously replaced notes with water-born sound effects, resulting in an additive rhythmic effect of “recomposed” music. The water was utilized in such a way that composition became the mode and sound was delivery the medium. As I listened to “States of Water,” I found myself asking how Monacchi might translate his work into a reproducible, printable music score. How does one represent water’s natural reaction with a variety of environmental stimuli on paper? Could there be some reproducible esoteric note system developed to represent a natural phenomenon?
The second link led me to Kits Beach, a sound orientated website, where Hildegard Westerkamp narrates what she sees as she walks along the beach. Her oration and the beachscape sounds were juxtaposed, into what I found to be a very irritating recording. Her voice was incredibly invasive, as if she were trying to impose some poetic cliché on what I imagined to be a beautiful beach setting. Although this may not be the case, it made me feel an anxiousness. Was nature not allowed to speak for itself? Was I not allowed to determine what I was listening to on my own? However, upon second reflection, her description does offer truth to the scene. Just as easily, the beachscape sounds could have been recorded near the sight of an industrial disaster. Without Westerkamp’s narration, the listener would be completely reliant on their imagination, which could be more welcomed, but very possibly discordant with the sounds’ origin. Overall, I would rather allow my imagination to fill in the scenic gaps, than be reliant on her oration. I wanted her to stop talking so that I might listen more intently.
The last audio selection from Earth to Earth, was a link that led me to “Song of the Kanai ‘O’.” This website focused on what it termed “suspended sound,” which dealt primarily with the recording of extinct, threatened, or endangered species. I listened to the song of the Kanai ‘O’, an extinct Hawaiian bird. The recording of the extinct animal was layered over a recording of the Hawaiian forest, the bird’s natural habitat. I found the juxtaposition to be eerily fascinating. To be able to listen to an entity’s voice, one that no longer existed, was incredibly sad. As I listened, I thought about the last filmic recording of the Tasmanian Tiger, the last images of it pacing around a tiny enclosure. The recording of the Kanai ‘O’, seemed like a history of denial. The Kanai ‘O’ would never add to the cacophony of the Hawaiian forest. It would never know another sunrise or tropical breeze. It was the vestigial voice of an animal that was gone forever. As a listened further, I imagined what the bird might have looked like, and found that audio, without narrative or accompanying images became highly reliant on language for a complete visceral experience. And yet, I felt any oration would have been intrusive to my overall listening experience.
The last sound orientated website that I visited was Aporee. The website linked maps and user described environments from locations pinpointed on maps. As I listened, I recalled Selfe’s description of orality as communicative mode that embodies meaning through more than just the use of language, but also diction, intonation, pacing, volume, and word choice, among other things. The selection I chose was of a man describing his surroundings. He spoke a very dry, yet effectively descriptive German. It was not prosaic by any means. His terse description, relayed what he saw in his immediate surroundings – the warm sunlight, a sleeping woman, etc. Without the man’s narration, the listener would not be able to determine anything about the scene indicated on the map. The sound recording was much the same as any ambient urban environment, filled with the city noises that one tends to tune out.
What I learned from this reflective exercise, considering that nature of the sounds provided on the various websites, is that there is a good deal of reliance by humans on language, whether internal or external, to fill in the scenic gaps. All of my auditory processing, considering I was to associate the sounds provided with a natural source, were only synthesized through logic, through language dependent thought. I needed language to contextualize the recordings.

Blogging’s egalitarian Aspect

“The political sphere often referred to as an arena, for reason we can all surmise, has become a linguistic battle ground. It has elements of abusion, collusion, and sabotage that read better than any espionage novel. However, it seems that the long-held perception of mainstream media as Goliath, and the internet politico as David, is no longer an inveterate social construct. The claim can be made through simple deduction and inference by posing a question. Who authors the discussion? Although I focus herein on political blogs, the topic of a blog seems to be of little consequence in deciding who is allowed to participate. As W.D. Barton states in “The Future of Rational-Critical debate in Online Public Spheres,” “communities rather than individual users author blogs.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)
In the political spectrum, blogs have a marked egalitarian effect, removing the gate keeping powers that ensure the top-down messaging, which mainstream media has become so reliant on for its maintenance. However, the caveats to the egalitarian aspect to blogging are many, especially upon critical analysis of the sourcing, both of the text and the authors. Who is writing what, and for what purpose? To answer this question, one should consider the following statement. The benefit of blogs is that everybody can add to the conversation: the problem of blogs is that everybody can add to the conversation. Both the benefit and problems with blogs comes from the structure of blogs, the very nature of them.
It is true that blogs do have an egalitarian, class-neutralizing effect on discourse, but they also are inherently problematic, because anyone can add to a blog or thread, including those working to plant abjectly false or pernicious information into the political realm. Additionally, the ethos of the blogger is always in question, mainly because of a well-documented history of political saboteurs who may be opposed to a particular viewpoint. If anyone can post in a political blog, then who is left with the charge of monitoring/mediating the discussion and the efficacy of the sources? Unlike discussion boards, blogs are open for all entries, both on and off topic. It is a self-monitored, neo-anarchistic system that thus far seems to have worked pretty well.
Overall, I believe that the openness of political blogs is beneficial. Blogs allow for open discussion, and although they may be subject to erroneously provided information or malicious disinformation, the user/reader is forced to call into question the viability and accuracy of every post. In contrast, a discussion board user and the conversations in which they are allowed to participate are controlled by a moderator. Such a facet of discussion boards prevents open dialogue, positions the moderator as a gatekeeper, and makes for an environment where the moderator can control the conversation through the threat of excluding members.
I will state that blogging’s benefits far outweigh its detriments, all of which encourage users to engage in public, political discussion that is very accessible, free from identification, if the user chooses to register under an alias, and for the most part, free from corporate controlled production and dissemination of political information.
The blogosphere, as it stands, is a fairly democratic, self-regulated political forum. Will this always be the case? Bloggers should become concerned when free transmission of digital information begins to be limited. Currently, the cost for web hosting and access, although prohibitive, are low enough to enable a high flow of information, where user can produce, disseminate, and host their own their own webspace/weblog, something that was unheard of and unwelcomed just decade ago. I equate it to publicly controlled water systems, whose maintenance and flow is regulated by the community. It is only when water systems have become privatized has the flow of water been threatened. This analogue translates well to the flow of information. When people can no longer communicate at will, then there will be cause for concern.

Blogging and news media

For those who are immersed in technological environments, with ever-increasing computing speed, continuous multimedia software improvements, and the increasingly ubiquitous nature of the word wide web, the ownership of news and the power to create it has been significantly challenged. The writing herein is focused on the effects that blogging and the emergence of the blogosphere have had on mass media news outlets and the perception of the news consumer. To deny that there us a still a staunch vanguard of gatekeepers, especially in the release of academic and political information, as book critics, peer-review journals, and editorial staff, would be myopic if not naive. There does exist at every avenue of entry into the dissemination ether gatekeepers, but like a prairie dog, the news blogger as found the back way into the media den. Bloggers have circumvented the gatekeeping practices of large media outlets, allowing many voices to contribute to the conversation, ultimately elevating the notion of community. Today, everyone has the opportunity to enrich the news dialogue, whereas even twelve years ago, most, if not all, media consumers were dependent on large media outlets for their news content. At the very heart of blogging is the egalitarian aspect of the practice. Any textually literate person can start a Weblog with virtually no technology or web development know-how. The result, which is espoused by many as the major benefit and many others as the major problem, is that the forums in the blogosphere are open and anyone can take the podium. No voice can be shut out. What I believe is an added benefit, but others may regard of the easing of the parameters in place to prevent poorly sourced information from being published, is that blogging has an instantaneity inherent in its very design. The time from draft to dissemination is immediate. Equally fast, is the response time of readers, who are never limited by the partial functions of newspaper editors who subjectively decide what is fit to print. Farrell points out in, “The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas,” that blogging allows for both readers and news writers to “generate [a] topics previously barred from discussion.” Admittedly, the amount of input, commentary from outside the news media, raises questions about viability. Paul Andrews, a well-known news blogger, has already addressed the question of viability, claiming that, although it is extremely important, the major impetus for blogging increases is due to demand. He attributes the rise in, “blogs and other forms of online journalism… because of the rapid decline in the credibility in the news media.” So the question remains, if blogging is a legitimate form of journalism, or is it the result of a bunch of hacks that are fed up with mass media news? It could very well be a combination of both. The lack of scholarly sources or the self-reflexive sources provided by bloggers has been used as a means to discredit news blogs as well. I have given the notion of credibility in news a good deal of thought. Often “serious” news journalists are asked to reveal their sources. In fact, up until the recent activities of Bush 43’s administration, news journalist could provide their sources with a veil of anonymity, in order to promote those who might not come forward to reveal news relevant information. It is an unstated practice that journalist always corroborate their sources. This has been taken for granted since the early part of the twentieth century, during the era of yellow journalism and the robber tycoons. Moreover, print journalism rarely if ever uses in-text citation. There must be some other reason why they are considered reliable and credibly and it is do to the provenance of the organization from which their work emanates. A journalist from the New York Times has the newspaper’s many years of journalistic integrity for clout. Perhaps in years to come, new blogs will have established that same clout. However this does not belie the question. With the corporatization of media outlets and the growing demand by shareholders for those outlets to deliver audiences to consumers, who is the most credible source for news? All major news outlets are subsidiaries of for-profit global organizations. In contrast, most news and political blogs are operated with little or no profit margin or potential? This raises another question. If there is a distinguishable civics cause behind news and political orientated blogs. Is it the blogs or the motivations behind their inception that are entirely new? The blog is here to stay. However, a settlement also is needed for blogging with all of its benefits to move from the realm of arm chair quarterbacking to legitimate news sourcing. This will take time, and hopefully, there will be a divestment between the narcissistic blog that masquerades as a news source and the blogs that offer a credible alternative to mainstream media.

Blogging conventions

What do these readings suggest about the rhetorical conventions expected and/or accepted in the blogging discourse community?

To me, the most interesting about the blogging community is that even in a forum where anonymity is revered there are rules to which members adhere. Although the establishment of conventions within the blogosphere should not surprise me, I found after the readings that in the seemingly chaotic milieu of any internet environment, bloggers have established a high degree of order.
First, there is a well-established lexicon that bloggers use as part of a very large discourse community. My personal favorite term, one that reminded me of some of my more ideological friends, was barking moonbat. There seems to be a convivial nature to the terminology, which allows bloggers to be critical of those within the community without being overtly offensive. Second, bloggers have a very clear way in which they cite sources. In Blogging for Dummies, Brad Hill notes that the preferred practice is to cite sources using the url, as opposed to using the academically complicated practice of citing an entire source within and at the end of a text. Although it could be argued that this is to lax of a genre convention, it has a two-fold benefit. It requires that the reader of the blog peruse an entire source to find the referred to information, and it enables the blogger to produce and disseminate a continuous stream of thought as they write. Blogs are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, dynamic and immediate. This citation convention makes for quick dissemination of information.
Although not exactly part of the blogging conventions, one thing I would like to note is Hill’s reference to blogging consequence. In a medium that celebrates anonymity, firings due to bloggers writing about on-the-job practices is becomingly increasingly more common. This raises the questions of violations of free speech and rights to privacy. Do they apply in personal web spaces?

What is New Media

To realize what New Media is, the definition of what “old” media, or rather standard media, must be settled. Standard media can be defined as any media that relies on an analogue, humanly manipulated form of semiosis. New media, in contrast, must then be a form of semiosis that is reliant on digitization of old modes, and the incorporation of multimodality and modularity into its conceptualization, design, and productions. Additionally, new media requires the use of multiliteracy requisite knowledge by the end user, someone who is capable of reading the artifact, but not necessarily able to produce such an artifact on their own. Lastly, new media must have translation ability, what Manovich calls variability. This principle feature allows designers to move semiosis from one mode to another, and between modes. This component enables to producer of new media to situate meaning in a variable, arguably pastiche-like artifact.

Writing with Video

“What ideas from these readings are most relevant to you professionally, in what ways, and why?”

After reading “Writing with Video”, I am trying to work out how a filmmaker, or someone steeped in the business of making films might regard the academic/scholarly interpretation of video composition. Professionally speaking, I have been writing and producing many types of multimedia products for many years. One of my greatest passions has always been the filmmaking process, from conception through to the completion of a distributable filmic product. I believe this will always be true. Throughout the reading of the article, I found myself asking, whether or not, the collected authors had been to the movies in the past couple of years, if ever, or had they become too entrenched, mired in the want to do something other than composition studies, so much so that they myopically co-opted an entire disciple – namely film studies?
There is a reductive nature to academia that can be enlightening, but can be just as equally blinding. In the article, “Writing with Video,” Lovett, Purdy, Gossett, Lamanna, and Squier, in a concerted effort, push for university composition programs that diminish, through pedagogical design, “the adversarial nature of text vs. media.” (Lovett, et. al., p. 3) There aim is to inform students how any communicative form, designed in any mode, and disseminated via any medium, shapes meaning. It is an ongoing effort to, “raise students’ awareness of video as doing rhetorical work,” and “to have students recognize the multiple modes available to them in meaning making.” (Lovett, et. al., p. 5) The resultant production by students, as highlighted throughout the article, are a series of student produced videos, usually dealing with some issue from outside the discipline of composition studies. One particular video highlights a professional frustration on my part, albeit a very small one. Valerie, a student whose work was referred to within the article, and who is the author/designer of “Dis-Orientation-Asian,” surmised her experience to the researcher group. She asserts that, “students benefit not only when they have the opportunity to engage in the composing process with new media, but also when they see these processes modeled at institutional levels. Writing with video provides such a model.” Perhaps it is due to her lack of experience in multimedia production, hence the overtly clichéd description of her video piece, but her summation exposes the assumption that filmmakers, sound designers, film music scorers, art designers and directors, all working under the instruction of a director and group of producers, are unaware of the rhetorical processes at work in the products of their business. The article exposes something else. Namely, that renaming something, in this particular case, film/film studies as “Writing with Video”, does not make it new or revolutionary, but rather a co-opting and attempted reification of a well-established idea, practice, and discipline.
It seems that the authors behind “Writing with Video” are missing what is obvious to many in the film industry. The cohesion of multiple communicative modes, each with its uniquely varied emotional draw and stimulus, be it sound, color, etc., adds a richness, intertextuality reliant on provenance, and a multiplicity of pathos to a narrative film far beyond the written artifact. Filmmakers understand this facet of their discipline, their profession. This is why during the filmmaking, video game designing, etc. there are several departments who are headed up by experts in their respective fields.
Let us, as an example, look at narrative prose and the act of writing well. Narrative prose does not require expertise in all the modes to be used in the creation of a particular multimodal artifact. It requires mastery in one mode, writing and all the process that lead up to a well-received completed piece. In contrast, a multimedia text requires a much broader skill set, or literacies, if you will, especially with regard to new technologies. To master and subsequently utilize all that is required in creating a multimodal artifact, in my example a feature film, however possible, would require a Herculean effort by the rhetor/filmmaker. Filmmaking is a perfect example as to why the developers of “Writing with Video” are missing the point. Asking students to compose via multiple jobs/literacies, as an adjunct, some might say a replacement, for a written composition, ensures that they develop skills to produce a finished product, but does not require, nor affords them the time or resources to develop any of these skills to an expert level. One of the major objectives of any worthwhile filmmaking program is to teach its students that multimedia production is a collaborative effort, which uses many rhetorical approaches from a variety of disciplines, to arrive at a hopefully well-received finished product. After reading the article, I would say that “Writing for Video” is an exposure course, and if not, it should be reconsidered as one. It should be regarded as an introduction to the literacies and their accompanying communication technologies available to the rhetor.
Professionally, I have come to realize what filmmakers have known for years that creating any multimodal text is a collaborative effort. In fact, Lovett, et. al., admit that “Writing for Video” is a course were students are aware of the accretion of disciplines, and the benefits of collaboration. “Composition courses enroll students from across the university, Writing with Video has helped bring art and design expertise in the visual to a wider cross-section of students. Students have enrolled from art and design, education, communications, computer science, cinema studies, English, psychology, business, and engineering.” This sounds like the putting together of a crew.
Erin, a student who produced a documentary video about and appropriately titled, “No Child Left Behind,” espoused about the difficulties of the project.” I found myself thinking it was easier to do a paper.” (Lovett, et.al. pg. 12) This statement is professionally relevant to me in several ways. As a writer, I have spent several years, my longest to date being four, conceptualizing, researching, developing, and pitching screenplays. I use this example, because writing, composition and all that it entails, is just one part of the film/video, multimedia – whatever you want to term it – project. Any working filmmaker today would argue against auteur theory. There is just too much work to be done when developing a multimedia project of significant magnitude. “Writing with Video”, or producing any artifact that is the result of a combination of modes, forces the writer/rhetor/designer to posses a much broader skill set, and possibly, expertise in no single mode within that set of skills. This is exactly why a filmmaker, as a useful example, builds a crew of experts in sound, lighting, construction, electrical, cinematography, art direction, acting, etc., because it has been well-established in film studies that that the adept creation of a multimodal text is the consequence of a collaborative effort. “Writing with Video”, seems to be both positive and negative. As replacement for composition studies, it is a disaster. Any multimodal artifact is conceptualized via a progenative mode and medium, which is usually writing and text. To inform students about the development about multimodal text as a replacement for writing is to deny any possibility of the student becoming an experienced producer of narrative via text, where it usually begins. The idea “Writing with Video” is great, but it has already been done. Any freshman can flip through a course catalogue and find film and convergent media that have a strong foundation in teaching the uses and rhetorical processes of multimodal texts.

"Writing with Video: What Happens When Composition Comes Off the Page?" (with Maria Lovett, Katherine E. Gossett, Carrie A. Lamanna, and Joseph Squier). Reading (and Writing) New Media: A Collection of Essays and New Media. Ed. Jim Kalmbach and Cheryl E. Ball. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Concept of Multimodality

A comparative reading between the “Multiliteracies: The Beginnings of an Idea” by Bill Cope & Mary Kalantzis and their writings for the New London Group’s book Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, allows us to extrapolate the pedagogical implications put forth by all the texts. All the readings ground their work in Multimodality. However, where Kress and Van Leeuwen put forth and define the concepts that form the theory of multimodal literacy, Cope and Kalantzis expound as to the social impact multimodality must have when constructing pedagogies for future generations.
The New London Group, along with Cope and Kalantzis, center their articles on the pedagogical implications for validating message carriers other than the commonly valorized written word. They wrestle with the concept of the “lifeworld” in the selection, “A Pedagogy for Multiliteracies,” essentially renaming discursive fields in Bordeaux fashion, which overlap and rely on shared concepts of how to communicate and what type of semiosis is valuable. Their premise is that lifeworlds, or migrating discursive spheres, overlap and exemplify diversity alongside multimodality and should be incorporated when designing pedagogies for the social future. Additionally, Cope and Kalantsiz address a social transaction that occurs between teacher and student. Each multimodal/multitextual construction is reliant on three tenets of the meaning-making process. First, student practitioners must incorporate the idea of social practice, which requires the designer/writer to recognize lifeworlds, public realms, and workplace dynamics. Second, all multiliteracy designers must practice overt instruction, or the use of a metalanguage that addresses the social, cultural and technical implication attached to the utilization of specific communicative modes. Lastly, students, as designers, should come to realize that each multimodal construction foments in social futures, which account for diversified context, and the emergent text forms that are associated with newly developing information technologies.
Additionally, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis write about multimodality and the implications it will have on communications. In “Designing for Social Futures,” an article they wrote for the New London Group. They discuss multimodality and prognosticate on the future of literacy pedagogies. In it, they call for a change in pedagogy that is, “not defined exclusively in economic terms and that have embedded within it a critique of hierarchy and economic injustice.” (p. 13) Additionally, Cope and Kalantzis argue that due to globalization of communications and labor markets, “mere literacy” is no longer sufficient. There is need for a multimodal literacy pedagogy, which deals with diversity and hierarchies, one that recognizes difference according to culture and context, specific cognition and the resultant social effects.
Additionally, and I feel of great import is their reference to Husserl’s warnings regarding the “seductive nature of language.” This notion is strikingly similar to Stuart Hall’s prospicient warning for academicians not to become part of the “theory elite.” He warns that becoming grounded in one theory, which will undoubtedly be based in part upon other theories, is akin to valorizing one mode of communication over another.
They note that because the word and the written text is the most commonly used and thus often the most revered mode of communication, there is tendency to withhold credence for multimodality and convergent media as valid forms of actualizing semiotic intent. The tendency of current literacy pedagogies to disregard orality as an aboriginal form of communication is a culturally imperialistic practice they ask designers of future pedagogies to keep in mind. By utilizing the concepts of multimodality, Cope and Kalantzis, alonglside the scholars of the New London Group, aim to create new pedagogies that are alternatives, yet equally adept message carries that can work in conjunction with the highly valued written text. Cope and Kalantzis increasingly complicate the issue by bringing to the fore the notion that communicative forms, in an ever-digital world, are divesting themselves from the top-down temporal messaging of the page, to the hypertextual environment where the user dictates his or her own reading paths. They argue that it is not until multimodality in practice is recognized as viable progenitor of message carriers, that future pedagogy, which requires the combination of social awareness with the increasingly hypertextual environment, will continually be ill equipped to address the needs of its students. Their future pedagogical constructs aim to incorporate multimodality as a means of articulating semiotic intent that accommodates the vast number of communicative practices by finding the most appropriate mode(s) for “transduction,” in hopes to reduce “transformation.”
Cope and Kalantzis, writing from the knowledgeable position with regard to multimodality, push forward as to how the processes of design, production, and distribution amount to more than simple “transduction” or “transcoding” between varying mediums and modes. They argue that the understanding of multimodality as a valid literacy theory requires the acknowledgment that we as communicative beings leave nothing untouched. Every semiotic event from speaking to carving “transforms” every aspect of the communicative process through the additive effect of usage of semiotic tools, both as modes and within varying contexts. Much like the Bahktinian idea that all linguistic utterance builds a contextual history of the referent, the “experiential meaning potential” introduced by Kress and Van Leeuwen regards the historical usage of a message carrier and the current context in which that message carrier is being used. There will never be stagnation in literacy because of contextualized historicity. Cope and Kalantzis ask, “What does this transformation conflagration of locating a viable message carrier mean when complicated by the hypertextual environment?”

Works Cited
Cope, Bill, and Mary Kalantzis. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routlegde, 2000.