Bloggers Everywhere

This blog is going to be somewhat different than the previous posts because it is of a decidedly academic tone, so bare with me. 

This blog was born out of the rhetorical situation of a class syllabus that stated that we, as students, must create our own blog and then posts whatever content we want. It was part of the assignment to become familiar with the discourse of blogging and the genres that happen in the digital context.

Through my readings from class and other blogs, it became clear to me that an urgency/immediacy of information, whether it is a reply, an email, a post, or a comment, was prevalent in most circumstances. What I have decided to attempt to investigate for my project as well as my seminar paper is how the rhetorical situation of digital writing/communicating creates and recreates the genre of immediacy in digital contact. 

To effectively address this, it is necessary to understand why people feel compelled to write back, feel irritated if the person being contacted doesn’t respond quickly enough, and why and how this effects the corporeal interactions of everyday life? I am also curious why immediacy/urgency/frequency create a sense of authority and power in the digital place. This is where I need other bloggers to respond with narratives of their experiences with the need for immediacy. If all this is a little confusing, continue on to the following lines where I will go into further detail, if not, posts your comments, they will be highly valued.

The basis of this investigation comes from the articles that I have been reading in my writing studies class. The overall inquiry is really “why do people blog, and what does blogging due for them, and how does it generate real life experiences.” Having said that, I still have little understanding about why people blog, only that I have become compelled by my need to blog, therefore I have experienced personally this urgency to translate my experiences into digital text via this blog. Granted I have not blogged as frequently which has resulted in my blog not having the appearance of authority and authenticity despite my belief that I am being authentic. 

I have primarily focused on specific articles which I think best describe the desire of the instant and the need for immediacy in terms of the digital realm. I will list them and then give an abstract of the information that I have gleaned from the articles that best fits my inquiry. They are in no particular order.

Jonathan Glater. “To: Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It’s All About Me.”

The Glater piece discusses the interaction between Discourses that tend to conflict like the informal act of writing digital text and the formal writing of academic settings.

Gallaghan and Dobyns. “Reading and Writing Strategically.”

This article provided more of the basics about what good writing, specifically academic formal essays, but it refers to the rhetorical triangle as the way to make a convincing and entertaining essay. I extrapolated the meaning to better fit my inquiry. I look at the whole of digital communication as an essay of sorts in action, currently being created. The writer is the person with the first act of communication/contact, the reader is the person that reads but also is then compelled to respond/react to the subject which is the information and knowledge that is being created. 

Johndan Johnson-Eilola. “The Database and the Essay. Understanding Composition as Articulation.”

The Eilola piece goes very nicely with the Dobyns piece because it is about the pastiche knowledge that is made and conveyed digitally. They call it Articulation, which basically means taking pieces of knowledge/content and pasting them together to make some new meaning that better relates to the situations of the creators. It is important to recognize that writing as articulation involves many people sharing information in the form of hyperlinks, pictures, audio, videos, whatever.

James Paul Gee. “What is Literacy?”

Gee’s article goes in-depth into what discourse is and how it and we function within/without and with awareness of it. I used it primarily to format my thinking and understanding of the terminology so that I could firmly make my claims. 

Carolyn Miller and Dawn Shepherd. “Blogging as a Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog.” Into the Blogosphere.

Miller and Shepherd used research to define what genres are common within the discourse of blogging and how blogs became what they are today. Mostly I focused on the section about the frequency of blog postings, the chronological order of said posts, and how these two aspect interact to declare the authority and authenticity of the blogger. It would seem that the presentness of a blogger makes other bloggers more secure and trustworthy in their interaction with the blogger.

Robert Kuttner. “The Other Side of E-Mail.”

He is decidedly negative about how email functions in the interactions of people. I used him primarily to give and example of the negative thoughts that people have about email. Because email can only conveys words and not tone, facial features and the like, it is easy for things to be misconstrued from a sent email even among friends.

Cathy McDonald. “The Desire of the Instant: Genred Identities in Email and Essays.”

Because I am a student this article is very relevant to me. It discusses both the conflicts and benefits of communicating through new technologies for example email. Primarily the focus is how students need to acquire the ability to code-witch between the digital discourse that they are functioning in most of the time and then switching to the academic discourse when it is necessary. Her contention is that most conflict arises when people are unable or unaware of the need to move within and without conflicting discourses.

James Sosnoski. “Hyper-readers and their Reading Engines.”

It has to do with the common practice of students ability to read something in a partial why. With the constraints on time and an every growing workload students have acquired the ability to look over a document for the things that are necessary for a paper or that fit in the frame of the lecture ect. Time or the perceived lack of time in the corporeal realm has some connection to this need for immediacy in the digital realm.

So there it is. My articles that I’m using and what I got from them. My thesis slash conclusion is that immediacy or the urge for immediacy is fueled by a capitalists society that has equated time with money and therefore it translate to us that we need to get answers now, we need to be heard now, we have to connect now, because if we don’t we will lose any chance at success, power, position…. It is really weak and I don’t really believe it or like it so I’m going to have to work something else out. That is why I need anyone and everyone to comment.

Graduation Looming. Time to Grow Up.

I tend to write sporadically mostly because I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the numerous things that are happening all at once.  It’s almost 11 pm and I have another 3 to 4 hours of work left for tonight.  In three short weeks I will be a college graduate.  It has been a very long road to get to this point and I had to fight very hard to get here, mostly against myself but also against those that said I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to make it to college, and yet I am graduating.  I’m starting to feel like I need a challenge to rise to in order to be good or successful, therefore my graduating comes with much trepidation.  I’m afraid that I won’t get a job that I enjoy and that I will fall back to my old ways of thinking and behaving.  I keep myself so bound by expectations from others and myself that I have lost a little/alot of who I am.  I really am entering into unfamiliar territory where it is all too possible for me to crash and burn and I will be on my own.  My friends in large numbers have moved on whether they have gotten married or had children and now I am left alone and somewhat overwhelmed.  The classroom was the place where I could prove to everyone everyday that I deserved to be there and now that is going to be gone and I will have to find it elsewhere.  Although, I hope I find the point when I no longer have to prove to anyone that I belong in an academic setting, a time when I allow myself to let the insecurities rest, and silence the poisonous whispers that have nagged me for far to long. 

Huckabee Horror

Now that Romney is out, the Republican ticket is looking like McCain and Huckabee as VP. I’ll tell you why this scares the every living shit out of me. My roommate remembered hearing some story about Huckabee’s view on people with HIV. She went on to tell me that Huckabee proposed gathering up people with HIV and AIDS and putting them in fenced communities, which would be like me calling a prison a fenced community. He actually thinks he can treat people who are no different than myself like prisoners, as a matter of fact, worse than prisoners considering prisoners are convicts and those with HIV/AIDS are law abiding citizens. People are infected with HIV and AIDS in many ways, some with more or less resposibility for their condition but that is not to say that we should persecute based on a disease that causes enough challenges. The reason I’m so passionate about actively campaigning against Huckabee is his complete lack of compassion, understanding, empathy, and his disregard for a human life. Wait, wasn’t he a evangelical minister? Frightening!!! My attachment to this issue is unimportant because it doesn’t matter if I’m infected or not, or if I know/knew someone who was, if I loved someone and lost them, it doesn’t matter. Please research the issue and once you have the facts please speak out to friends and family, I plead for you to take action against Huckabee.

Amos Lee

Today was one of those day when I felt lost in the expectations of… Sometime the past catches up to you when you thought you made peace.

Easy Listening

This has little to do with the precedence that I set for my blog but what I’ve learned is that precedence isn’t important. Amos Lee has a voice that will calm and ease the tense out of you.