What I discover through web assignments in my classroom, and in my own internet experience, is that I cannot just teach in computer classrooms without an extended look at how the technology impacts all forms of discourse, including cultural discourse. Not only do computers change the production of students' texts in the writing process, but they can also enhance their reinterpretation of cultural artifacts and ordinary discourse. Discursive practices on the web redefine information, advertising, and even compliance. Chris Oakes delineates the unique situation currently of advertisers who market on the web. He emphasizes that advertising on the web, what he calls "webomericials," combine several previously more discreet professions including editors, journalists, and programmers. Oakes writes that advertisers increasingly mix genres of information, "dishing up informational content normally expected from a magazine or news show" (45). While he emphasizes the need for responsibility in advertising, Oakes adds "even then, their editorial legitmacy is in question. The responsibilities are mammoth" (47). However, as instructors of writing, we cannot depend on advertisers to clearly articulate the fine lines between marketing and information.

Writing teachers and researchers must develop strategies to help students recognize and evaluate "webomericials" when we teach web research and other activities that employ the web. Further, as I discovered from privately maintained sites about television shows, we should also develop strategies to address the power of cultural hegemony in presumably unbiased sites of the private sector. Such projects may involve negotiation and reinterpretation of web sites as well as students' productions of alternate web texts. Like any popular media, we cannot assume that the web will supply critical discourse for us.