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This
type of round-robin narrative and cultural semiotic
tracing and detective work is playful and of course
highly subjective (if you look for red cars, you’ll
see red cars), but it is also something many students
enjoy taking part in and it helps me, as their instructor,
illustrate some of the more complex ideas about media,
mediation, and narrative transformation proffered by
theorists and writers such as Benjamin, Barthes, Ong,
Bolter and more current works on new media like those
from Joyce, Grusin, Bolter, Landow and Manovich.
Taking students on a journey
through time and culture, driven by a connect-the-dots
form of narrative association and technological remediation
helps makes students more aware of the cross-cultural
mediation process of language and communication, thereby
also helping to strengthen their skills as readers,
researchers, and ultimately making them better informed
and culturally sensitive technology designers (Selfe).
This round-robin narrative trip
also help students begin to look with a more critical
eye at the electronic media that supports the non-stop
cross-cultural exchange
of images and ideas that they see on their computer,
cell phone, and television screens. |
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