9/27--Selfe and Selfe, Wysocki and Jaskin, Sorapure

This week’s readings congeal around the common theme of ways in which “the rhetoric of technology” (Selfe and Selfe) obscures the things that may make us notice how power relations are reinforced and maintained through technology. As writing teachers, we risk reinforcing hegemonic ideals, too, especially when using technology to teach, and especially when we give in to pressures to “see forgetfully” (Wysocki and Jaskin). As all the authors this week point out, these pressures come from multiple sources, including text books, interfaces, software design in general, and institutional policies. As teachers, being aware of the risk of reinscribing such hegemony is essential.

I had read two of these articles before and in a different context, but one thing that struck me overall about this reading was that the power of the interface is inextricably tied up with accessibility. I was also struck by Wysocki and Jaskin’s image of “how we’re seen by the software.” I started to think about how I seek to subvert the power relations, for example, discussed in these texts in my own teaching.
One thought I have is along the lines of Sorapure’s analysis of writing in Flash. As someone interested in new media and using social media in the classroom, for example, to discuss the writing process, I began to wonder about the way we’re “seen” by social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Are we seen as amateurs and novices who share the common human desire to express ourselves in writing but who cannot be bothered with concerns about design? Are we—through our tendency to accept the interface, format, and design of these sites without attempting to personalize or alter them beyond a status update—communicating to software designers that those of us with access to such technologies crave what’s generic and simplistic? I think an analysis of the dialectical relationship that could (should?) and occasionally does exist between designer and end-user would yield some interesting ideas, especially for teachers who discuss writing in these forums with their classes.