Mick says, "Let's try this ..."

A SLIDE:

In "Hypertext Gardens" Mark writes, "The attention of the audience is a writer's most precious possession, and the value of audience attention is seldom more clear than in writing for the Web." This brings to mind Lanham's definition of rhetoric -- "getting someone to share your attention structure."  Is there a "rhetoric of hypertext" or a "rhetoric of the web"?  Should there be?

MichaelJ says, "*A* (unary, univocal) rhetoric? no. Rhetorics emerge of course"
bernstein says, "of course there is, and there ought to be. Understanding how to write effectively, how to speak, is rhetoric; that seems inescapable"
MichaelJ says, "Transitory closure, constellated knowledge, contours, even looking at/through as Bolter expressed it and Lanham extended it"
Sandye smiles... isn't one of the dilemmas of the Web how we trace our audience's attention... it's just so hard to "measure"... how can we tell if we are being effective?
bernstein says, "I have trouble conceiving an opposing opinion; perhaps I misunderstand the question"
bernstein asks, "Sandye: is it harder to know whether you're reaching the audience with your Web page, or with the screenplay you're writing today, and that might be produced in  5 or 6 years?"
MichaelJ [to Sandye]: As in so many other instances technology merely makes us see how our asumptions (in this case that we could trace anyone's understandings in print or orality) was never clear
bernstein asks, "Is it harder to know whether people respond to your Web page or to your lecture at MLA?"
Mick [to bernstein]: "harder" is an interesting word there... it may be *faster* ... but that's only one element of "easier."
Sandye nods Mick
MichaelJ says, "I have written in many contexts that the most interesting aspect of technology is how it makes previously "transparent" cultural assumptions suddenly visible.."
bernstein asks, "Of course. But it's always the same problem, on the Web or round the campfire: does the audience give a damn? Are the moved? Do they care?"
Mick says, "I'm struck by the number of writing teachers in the C&W community who tell their students that writing to the web now provides them with a "real audience," and expect that to compel them to be more careful, creative writers."
MichaelJ says, "Of course the real audience is usually quite local, your friends, colleagues, the occasional straggler"
Sandye has noticed that students often have a hard time idenitfying with those distant, unseeable readers
bernstein says, "Is it local?  I'm always struck at how few of my neighbors read my Web stuff, and how many people from very distant places follow it closely"
Mick nods and agrees with Mark.  Sandye, when's the last time you looked at my website?  Bad example, maybe.
MichaelJ [to Sandye]: I often think they are the easiest to identify, I like Gertrude Stein's formulation "I write for myself and for strangers". It's the almost proximate who are hard to address, those who think they share your view and so do not try to see it
Sandye sees the audience as a "local" distant community... the C and W community is pretty small really even though we are spread out
Joel [to bernstein]: yes.  Hypertext attempts to assume, by the nature of how it is navigated, that the audience is not only engaged but is actually "writing" the text with the action of reading.  But I know that I have "navigated" and "read" web-based "hypertexts" about which I simply *didn't* give a damn.  Hmm.
Mick asks, "So now we are discussing a particular technological advantage of the web -- the distance of publication.  Does that have anything to do with it being a hypertextual (or potentially hypertextual) writing space?"
MichaelJ [to Mark]: I think for most comp students it is. The argument about the "real" audience is a teaching stratagem
MichaelJ [to Mick]: Not sure if I get your question
Mick says, "OK, we're talking about audience here ... let me ask what may be a controversial question ..."
bernstein says, "No: the distance of the audience (which was a side issue) has little to do with hypertextuality. It's an interesting phenomenon, but not hypertextual"