The Rhetorical Canons as an Ecology of (New Media) Practice

The Rhetorical Canons as an Ecology of (New Media) Practice Collin Gifford Brooke Syracuse University Modern Language Association December 27, 2006

A quick overview • Rhetoric & New Media • The trivium & the canons as an ecological framework • Tagclouds (an application)

A Rhetoric of New Media? • One for all/All for one • From criticism to production • From objects to interfaces/activities

Web 2.0 Platforms vs Applications; Fluff vs Stuff

The Classical Trivium (redeﬁned) Grammar Ecologies of Code Rhetoric Ecologies of Practice Logic Ecologies of Culture

Culture Practice Code The Trivium as layered scales; each implies a different kind of knowledge

Fallacy of Scale The shepherd, qua shepherd, acts for the good of the sheep, to protect them from discomﬁture and harm. But he may be ‘identiﬁed’ with a project that is raising the sheep for market. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives

Invention Arrangement Style Memory Delivery Classical Canons = Ecology of Practice

Different media enable certain practices, constrain others, and leave yet others untouched The Classic Canons New Media Practices Invention Proairesis Arrangement Pattern Style Perspective Memory Persistence Delivery Performance

Example: Tagclouds

(Arrangement) Pattern: snapshot of text or set of texts abstraction of sequence into pattern distant reading (Moretti) Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks

(Memory) Persistence: Slider allows users to compare clouds from multiple speeches “Stickiness” keeps terms active in the cloud, demonstrates trends Chirag Mehta’s Presidential Tag Clouds

Delivery (Performance): A tagcloud index of the past twelve years of College Composition and Communication

Some conclusions The canons each describe multiple practices Any given platform is likely to involve multiple canons Any rhetoric of new media must account for both the productive capacity of rhetoric, and its intrinsically technological dimension

Shameless Plug Lingua Fracta:Towards a Rhetoric of New Media (Hampton Press: Forthcoming 2007)

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net	25
http://www.slideshare.net	8
http://trivium.wikispaces.com	1
https://blogs.nyu.edu	1
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The Rhetorical Canons as an Ecology of (New Media) Practice

by cgbrooke on Dec 27, 2006

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