Week 4's Readings

 Digital & Visual Rhetoric

Week 4 deals with the concept of "rhetoric" (which are the methods needed in order to communicate a message to others) and the literacy needed to both understand and implement them into the creation of a webpage, in order to communicate one's desired point to an online audience. Particular emphasis was placed on the importance of digital rhetoric and the knowledge needed to properly communicate one's point using multimedia elements, with colors, layout, graphics, and audiovisual implements being just as important as the words communicating the message. As discussed in my previous posts, proper digital rhetoric should allow for the author of a webpage to facilitate communication and collaboration with their prospective viewers, especially considering how online mediums give the reader more agency than their own author. The three primary modes of operation for digital rhetoric are the following: audiences stance (how the audience is invited to participate in online discussion), transparency (how many elements are reminiscent of established conventions, such as printed or audiovisual work), and hybridity (combining multiple mediums to create new and inventive designs) (Hocks, 2003). Joyce Carter (2003) also takes note of the concept of hypertext (online mediums that branches out and offers choices to the reader), as well as advice to prevent readers from getting lost in the website (such as not having too many branching choices, offering the reader literary coherence and making use of the audience's sense of cognitive and visual space by offering an established order). 

To connect these concepts to the current assignment, in a way, they display the three modes of operation listed by Wysocki (Hocks, 2003). The blog's display of "audience stance" comes in the forms of each individual and abridged post being displayed on the homepage, with the pictures and the first few sentences of my review being used to entice the prospective audience (as well as giving the audience the opportunity to click on whichever post they're interested in), while the questions near the end of my review allow for further discussion on the matter between me and the audience. On top of that, the sources I provide after my review would provide further learning material for the invested audience. My displays of transparency primarily come in the form of my review being formatting much like a book or a news article, with sources supplementing my points and a linear reading style, and the general style of the blog being coherent to the point of repetition. The usage of both quotes and images to supplement my reflection of the subject matter is how my blog displays hybridity, with the juxtaposition of images, words, and verifiable sources allowing for the audience to easily learn about the subject matter. The many methods used to prevent viewers from getting lost in "hyperspace", (such as sticking to a generally linear style and not allowing the nodes to branch too much) are also on display here. Has a website ever left you feeling lost in hyperspace, and what advice would you give to the website admins to fix these problems?

Sources:

Carter, J. L. (2003). Argument in hypertext: Writing strategies and the problem of order in a ... https://joyceschoices.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/carterhyperarg11.pdf 

Hocks, M. E. (2003, June). Understanding visual rhetoric in digital writing environments. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594188