Handout that makes use of available/unavailable design. It combines three reading summaries and discussion questions from myself and two other classmates.

1. Fulwiler and Middleton
Center for Digital Storytelling 7 step formula (as discussed in article):
Compositing: To combine two
or more elements to create a
single image, sound, space, or
scene. Rejects the idea that a
single still image is matched to
a corresponding word or idea
New Recursivity: A non-linear/
looping practice of composers
circling back through the
progression to assess their work
(theme, tone, narrative direction),
which includes interacting with
all modalities in the work (text, still/
moving image, sound and escapes
the confines of a sequential model
Key Takeaways:
• The shift in our current information age does not currently reflect the changing and evolving composing
process for digital video and is essentially stuck in the ways of “old media”
• Having an arbitrary segmented composing process can create perceptual boundaries for composition teachers,
researchers, and composers
• CDS’ 7-step method is not bad, but there is room for improvement
• The story or meaning of a narrative needs to remain open to revision and redirection as the composer engages
multiple modalities
Arroyo & Alaei
Using a frame of ISIS terrorism and propaganda videos, Arroyo and Alaei examine how parody and satire in
video composition allow response that serves to criticize on a higher level than direct confrontational criticism.
ISIS “proliferate[s] their causes by using established conventions on video sharing sites to appeal to global
audiences.”
• Video is a medium “that harnesses aural and visual elements to form a discourse that embraces the affective
power of what he [Ulmer] calls the “artificial memory of television.”
• Video can show us memorable scenes, though they have often been crafted for the sake of spectacle rather
than serving as artificial memories.
• New video services such as YouTube provide a space filled with artificial memory “that could function
beyond spectacle.”
• In support of this idea the authors further explore video theory.
• The “task of video theory is to show how to reason and calculate with the artificial memory of television, putting in
place the one dimension of new cognition missing from the operation—the knowledge content, that about which
one is reasoning by means of these violent, absurd, carnal images”
• YouTube and other video sites are a demonstration of the effect of these kinds of images.
• The authors then examine the work of Cynthia Haynes.
• Haynes’ “‘post-conflict’ rhetoric offers an alternative to critique-based approaches that aim to point out the flaws
and inconsistencies in the videos promoting violence on YouTube.”
• This concept puts forward that the best responses to videos such as ISIS propaganda is not a direct and
confrontational video, but one situated outside its context, i.e. war.
• The authors have combined the works of Ulmer and Haynes to understand memes, mash-up, and remixes to be
a developing form of response.
• “By blending Haynes’s post-conflict rhetoric with remix culture and video intelligence, we put forward an
alternative form of intervention into the public trauma ISIS videos instigate. Rather than producing critiques of the
videos, we might aim for an intervention into the situation as a means of engaging through production.”
• “These videos do not strive for an act of unification; rather, as Ulmer explains, unification is shifted to the side...
partly to leave room for the process of interference that is involved in understanding any written text or event,
and partly to invite additions to the sequence, to enrich the chain of associations in order to give the theory
greater complexity.”
• The authors conclude “remix and participatory culture are effective rhetorical moves against this type of
psychological terrorism. By repurposing Ulmer’s genre of the “popcycle,” we put forward the concept of the
“participatory popcycle.”
Hodgson
• Small screen culture “expects customization, on-demand access, social connectivity, and the ability to shape
and/or influence content.
• Producer-consumers: those who make. (7).
• We should prepare students to make their own choices, to create their own digital artifacts (7).
• Negotiating the changes taking place by using a rhetorical approach to “writing” with video (3).
• All media can be remediated and that they can be remediated by you, by me, by anyone with access and
knowledge. (5) Regardless if one wants it to be or not.
• This small screen culture has asked us “to critically reconsider the ideologies that have come to guide our
previous practices, mediums technologies, pedagogies,epistemologies, and the like” (7–8).
• Long standing traditions of print aren’t holding, or hold less: Ex: Copyright ©, and plagiarism.
• It all becomes “found material” or “available means”, once on the internet.
• Elemental level - elements involved in a given production
• Transitions can create effective rhetorical discourse, video, or otherwise, if understood. (Ex: dissolve, fades)
• “Students have a choice and the choice of not using transitions is a choice. Even if it is unintentional, the viewer
will read it as a choice.”
• Stylistic Level: video/visual effects, certain footing capture techniques, creating a specific mood with a
combination of elements. (Ex: Palindromes, Anaphora, Digital anaphora, Aposiopesis)
Discussion Questions
1. How could a nonlinear
composing process
impact the message of
the composition?
2. What are some ways
in which you think the
existing linear structure
can be improved upon?
3. How would you imagine
form and content work
together when trying to
compose for digital video?
Do they work together or
are they separate in digital
compositions?
4. Do you agree or disagree
with the authors? Do
parody responses perform
a better or more complete
job in refuting ISIS
propaganda? Does this
only apply to
this context?
5. Can we think of other
contexts in which these
concepts are applicable?
Is there a space or
example for this kind
of thought in American
culture?
6. Have you been taught
video techniques? Has
it helped you improve
your writing and use of
transitions, etc?
7. What new rhetorical
abilities and compositional
skills do you feel you
need to function, work,
and be in a “small screen”
culture? Do you think you
are being taught those
things in academia, or did
you learn it outside the
classroom.
8. Taking from the reading,
what are the costs
of being unable to
participate in or contribute
to electronic culture?
“
”
Prepare
students for
small screen
culture by
introducing
them to basics
associated
with that
culture to
compose
in video.
https://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27&cid=27&sublinkid=31