Chapter 1 Porter explains how our understanding of ethics, particularly when applied to rhetoric and writing, are largely derived from print-based assumptions. Discussions of ethics regarding electronic texts, he maintains, must be considered in terms of internetworked writing, especially in light of the problems and opportunities posed by new media in the classroom: "As we open the borders of the writing classroom, our formerly well-established conventions for classroom ethics are disturbed" (3). The potential for students to distribute their work and interact with communities outside the classroom is largely untapped, and despite institutional concerns and restraints, Porter asserts that the benefits far outweigh the problems. From here, he teases out the implications of "publishing" and "distribution," concluding that technology "has narrowed the gap between writing a document and publishing it, and it is in fact changing the very notion of writing" (11). In his review of the literature, Porter explains that his book is an attempt to bring together the work of people doing work on ethics with those doing work in rhetoric, particular because both groups have suggested much, but not directly addressed the intersection between rhetoric and ethics as applied to electronic environments (13-18). While offering his guiding questions and an overview of the chapters, he clearly situates his perspective:"Ethics in Internetworked Writing Classrooms and Communities." My position is that problems are best worked out in terms of a situated and kairotic rhetorical ethics, which grants ethical authority to local practice and the conventions of particular communities, which accounts for the specific technological nature of the electronic medium, and which involves a discourse ethic that is essentially pluralistic in its constitution and heuristic and rhetorical in its methodology. (19)To Chapter 2
Main Page | Porter's Previous Work | Guiding Questions | Rhetorical Ethics | Internetworked Writing | Internetworked Classroom | Shaping a Future Ethics Table of Contents | Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7