Chapter Four: Practice
Overview
Chapter Four presented numerous examples of pedagogical, scholarly, and public digital rhetoric texts. Douglas Eyman began by sharing course descriptions and syllabi that illustrate various approaches to teaching digital rhetoric in relation to analysis and production: Sarah Arroyo’s Seminar on Digital Rhetoric, taught at California State University Long Beach in 2009, which emphasized contemporary rhetorical theory and multimedia projects, Byron Hawk’s Advanced Writing and Digital Rhetoric, taught at the University of South Carolina in 2007, which invited blogging and social networking, and Eyman’s own Web Authoring and Design, taught at George Mason University in 2011, which focused on web design and production.
Following the pedagogical practices, Eyman included examples of scholarly webtexts published in Kairos: Ellen Cushman’s (2004) “Composing New Media: Cultivating Landscapes of the Mind”, which explored interactivity in digital spaces; Paul Prior et al.'s (2007) “Re-situating and Re-mediating the Canons: A Cultural-Historical Remapping of Rhetorical Activity”, which recontextualized the canons of rhetoric within cultural-historical perspectives; Susan Delagrange’s (2009) “Wunderkammer, Cornell, and the Visual Canon of Arrangement”, which manifested the opportunities and challenges of visual arrangement; and Justin Hodgson et al.’s (2011) “The Importance of Undergraduate Multimedia: An Argument in Seven Acts", which examined and presented multiple forms of new media production.
The chapter then considered productions of rhetoric that interrogated public dimensions, including Barbara Warnick’s (2007) play on political parody in Rhetoric Online, Elizabeth Losh’s (2009) exploration of government control in Virtualpolitik, and Ian Bogost’s (2007) examination of procedural rhetoric in Persuasive Games. Juxtaposed with the public were several artistic remix projects on YouTube and other websites. The chapter concluded with links to scholarly communities of digital rhetoric, including the Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative, H-DigiRhet, and Kairos.
Continue to Chapter Four Implications.