Towards a Philosophy (or Theory) of New and Multi Media
I should begin by saying that what constitutes "new" and "multimedia" is far from established. However, like Mark Hansen, author of New Philosophy for New Media, I don't think we would be wise to wait for clarification on that point, or its obsolescence, to begin thinking about the uses and impacts of what we may choose to argue constitutes new and multimedia. Those of us who plan to pursue, create, teach, critique, use, or
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complain about new/multimedia development should develop our own philosophies/theories about what constitutes new media and multimedia; its uses, benefits, shortcomings, and impacts, among other possible areas of inquiry. What do we make of it? How do others perceive it? How can we best use it? What does it do for us? How does it shape society? Culture? Our brains. bodies, and relationships?
As we think about how to conceive new and multimedia and what we want to do with it, consider the ways in which areas of focus and schools of thought might intersect with other ideas.
Areas of Focus
It might be said that new and multi media are already in use in every conceivable area of human endeavor and communication situation. In any area to which we turn our attention—society and culture, economics, politics, work places, art— we can pose questions about the purposes and impacts of new and multimedia.
For example, teaching and learning is an area in which we are all engaged right now. We might ask in what ways multi media applications help or hinder learning in the classroom and elsewhere. People learn in various ways and have various needs related to learning. Some people need information that is carefully scaffolded and presented sequentially; others are explorers and self-learners. What might multimedia presentations look like for a group of students that includes both types of learners? What is gained and lost by including multi media in a particular educational or training situation? What are the most effective uses of multimedia in teaching and learning? Why? Are we substituting multimedia for face-to-face interaction? If so, do children need a level of human contact for which multimedia cannot substitute? Do adults? If so, why? If not, why not? To answer these and other questions requires research in teaching and learning situations that include multimedia. And, to understand the data collected in these situations, researchers apply theoretical frameworks. The same can be said for any area of inquiry.
We may also want to consider the impacts of new and multimedia on individuals and society more broadly. Who has access to media? Who creates it? Who benefits? Does anyone control it? If so (or if not), what does that mean for groups and individuals? What is multimedia used to produce and what do the products—the artifacts—tell us about society and the ways we communicate?
Theoretical Perspectives
In shaping our own philosophies, we certainly rely on our own experiences, sensibilities, preferences, skills, and comfort levels with technology. But these factors are only part of a considered philosophy or theory. We also need to be conversant in the literature and research of multimedia, which the texts in The New Media and Technocultures Reader and Terry Flew's New Media: An Introduiction partially introduce, and we need to conduct our own research—whether based in the classroom, the lab, the workplace, the "virtual" town square, or some corner of cyberspace (if cyberspace even has corners). Shirkey's work might seem a bit less theoretical, but he demonstrates how powerful tools can be used by people like you and me to accomplish big things, whether "big" is necessarily "good" in some cases remains to be seen.
New research and emerging philosophies of new and multi media will also take us back along a number of forking paths as we retrace previous lines of thought in a variety of areas. For example, our readings for the course include perspectives from feminism, cultural theory, rhetorical theory (particularly rhetoric of science and technology), human computer interaction (HCI), computer science, art, and history among others that can and should be applied as frameworks for understanding new and multi media. Some of these perspectives you may recognize from previous study; others may not be familiar to you at all.
I'm going to suggest just a few additional directions that have interesting possibilities and that are of interest to researchers and theorists particularly in professional and technical communication and rhetoric. These and other theoretical perspectives may assist us in understanding the role of new and multi media in various contexts, both narrow and broad. These additional perspectives are not presented explicitly in the literature you'll be reading this semester but might help bridge where we're headed with where at least of few of us have been theoretically.
Activity Theory
Activity theory (AT), which derives from the work of Vygotsky and Leontiev, posits that activities are informed by the specific settings and motives of people involved in them, as well as by the larger socio-historical and cultural networks of which they are a part (Michael Cole and Yjro Engeström). AT theorizes that activity is communal, constrained by rules and divisions of labor, directed toward outcomes, and mediated by tools and symbols. Activities systems consist of the interactions among all of the factors that come to bear on an activity at a given time. Cole and Engeström suggest that the relationship among the factors in activity constitute a distribution of cognition across the all the elements in the system but that one of the significant hallmarks of an activity system is its use of tools, including language.
Activity systems are dynamic and the use of tools can help or hinder a system's ability to achieve outcomes. Consequently, activity theory may provide a useful framework for evaluating how well multimedia tools function within a given system of activity. My own experience suggests that AT functions best as a lens for closely viewing fairly defined activities that occur within a particular situation or among a few cooperating communities. For example, activity theory would lend itself to the study of the use of multimedia within ECU's online learning community. But AT--actually CHAT, for cultural/historical activity theory--also seeks to account for the evolution of activities and systens of activities as they are changed, altered and disrupted by the introduction of new tools, participants, ideas, rules, etc.. As a tool, how did the typerwriter change the activities of workplaces? The computer? And how far reaching are the changes? Consider the broader economic and social impacts of the computer. The changes to communication--our primary area of concern--are incredibly deep and broad. Change is inevitable, but the types of change, the directions of change are less certain and worth attention..
Genre Theory
Carolyn Miller (1984) defines genres as “typified rhetorical actions” that respond to recurring situations and become instantiated in groups’ behaviors (158). A genre evolves as “a form of social knowledge—a mutual construing of objects, events, interests and purposes that not only links them but makes them what they are: an objectified social need” (163). This view sees genres as “forms of life, ways of being . . . frames for social action . . . environments for learning… locations within which meaning is constructed” (Bazerman, “Life” 19). Further the genres that communities enact help structure their members’ ways of creating, interpreting, and using knowledge.
Thus we might choose genre theory to establish that multimedia presentations constitute a "genre" or "genres," their exigencies, purposes, and typifications. We might ask in what ways does the use of the genre(s) structure the creation, interpretation, and use of knowledge. What are characteristics of multimedia genres and how does that knowledge help us create them and work with them more effectively?
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
As theorized by British researcher Norman Fairclough, discourse analysis, particularly critical discourse analysis, constitutes not only a method for investigating language use, but also a perspective for theorizing it. Fairclough (1995) describes “discourse” as “use of language seen as a form of social practice, and discourse analysis is analysis of how texts work within sociocultural practice” that requires a “diversity of focus not only with respect to functions but also with respect to levels of analysis.” Unlike formalist linguistic approaches to language that focus on grammatical constructions from decontextualized examples, discourse analysis takes as its foundations the situational and contextual nature of language in use, communication as it happens in the situations that shape it and are shaped by it.
Discourse analysis attempts to describe the details, purpose, influences, and functions of discourse that actually happens within a context or that takes place in connection with a particular event. For example, a researchers might use critical discourse analysis as an analytical framework to theorize how the uses of words, sentence structures, visuals, and interactivity on presidential campaign Websites contributed to the early success of online fund raising in some recent presidentional campaigns. Using a CDA approach, the researcher might situate the campaigns' use of the website within the social and political context of the particular election cycle and possibly the context of the "online community." Most recently, and as Clay Shirley's work will detail, the "Arab Spring" gained traction through people's uses of social media. We can applaud the grass roots movements that social media seems particulalry well positioned to support, but we also must be attuned to the poential for misappropriation and misuse of the same technology, which can be used to any number of ends. That is not to suggest a "value-neutral" stance—technology is value-laden—but rather to recognize that new media brings new challenges as well as affordances.
Bureakan Rhetorical Theory
According to Kenneth Burke, "wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric. And wherever there is 'meaning' there is persuasion." Burke defines rhetoric as "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." Symbolic means of expression—discourse —include spoken and written texts, rituals, gestures, and arts from the most highly conventionalized to the mundane.
One of the most interesting of Burke's theoretical frameworks for new and multi media might be his "pentad" of five terms that he uses to explain the motivation in symbolic action. The terms are act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose. Burke also addresses the manner in which symbolic actions are carried out. In Burke's use of the pentad, he establishes ratios, for example, act: agent, act:scene; act:agency, and so forth. The ratios are chosen based on their appropriateness for theorizing a particular instance of discourse. What I find especially interesting about the pentad is its connection to theatre, or drama as Burke has argued. Using the pentad, we might evaluate a multimedia presentation or interaction. If we decided that an online game, or a chat room constituted a "scene," we could pair the term "scene" with the term "agency" to theorize the ways in which that relationship explains the activity under study.
Definitions of and perspectives on new and multi media co-exist with a variety of philosophies and theories that preceded them, occasionally uneasily, but generally productively in that we can choose from approaches those that are most likely to provide insight into the uses and effects of new and multi media presentations and applications. I hope the readings in the course provide at least some fruitful avenues—forking as they may be—for you to follow in your future thinking and research about the topic.