Digital Literacy and Blogging.
Back in '08 I took a class that required blogging. Yes. Scholars are studying the shift in communication via digital literacy. The printing press changed the way the human cognition understood words (words being seen and not just heard) and thus by access to words, created greater percentages of literacy. Words became accessible! They became a visual stimulus. Hypertext is much the same. Except it takes this visual stimulus a step further, it is interactive, tangible, mailable, in a way that linear printed text is not.
What does this have to do with you? Well, you're reading my blog. You're partaking in the shift. The internet is redefining cultural paradigms. Ah-ha!
I don't have the theories or any concrete answer (which is fitting in a pomo social setting) . I just know that right now, we are in a grand cultural shift. And, now I come clean. Back in 08 I wrote a paper about the idea of social alienation, digital literacy and blogs.
Ok. So I was also 20 at the time I wrote this, just getting into my discipline. It has its obvious rhetorical problems but still contained meaty ideas. It should be noted, I ended the entire essay with Flight of the Conchords video.
So really, I ask you to just take a moment to think about what it is you look for when reading a blog, what does it mean when you write a blog? It is not a journal (though some huge ego's treat it as such) and should it, or could it actually have the potential to effectively communicate an idea outside of your own experience-- negating political blogs, that is just too easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment