\n<\/span>Author(s)<\/b>: Justin Hodgson and Scot Barnett
\n<\/span>Publication<\/b>: <\/span>Enculturation
\n<\/span><\/i>Publication date<\/b>: November 22, 2016
\n<\/span>Experience here\/Website<\/b>: http:\/\/enculturation.net\/what-is-rhetorical-about-digital-rhetoric<\/span><\/p>\n
Image\/Screen Capture<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n Although most of the DRC\u2019s \u201cWebtext of the Month\u201d emphasize engaging and hypertextual composition innovations, the focus of this month\u2019s webtext is an online, primarily text-based introduction to the recent issue of <\/span>Enculturation<\/span><\/i>. The introduction, written by Scot Barnett and Justin Hodgson, focuses on some general observations from the April 2015 Indiana Digital Rhetoric Symposium (IDRS), which brought together a number of rhetoric scholars to discuss what defines <\/span>digital rhetoric<\/span><\/i>. The outcome was less than solidified, as many scholars had vague or contradictory views of the definition.<\/span><\/p>\n (When you read this webtext, be sure to watch the <\/span>video<\/span><\/a> in the middle, which highlights, in a somewhat humorous manner, the challenges of defining.)<\/span><\/p>\n A clear and agreed-upon definition is one of the struggles we all face as scholars who identify with <\/span>digital rhetoric<\/span><\/i>: as Barnett and Hodgson ask, \u201cw<\/span>hat makes digital media rhetorical? Conversely, how are digital media, technologies, practices, and environments reshaping our understandings of rhetoric?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n These questions and concerns are familiar to us at the DRC; o<\/span>ur very <\/span>first Blog Carnival <\/span><\/a>was on defining digital rhetoric. Additionally, Claire Lauer\u2019s webtext in <\/span>Kairos <\/span><\/i>entitled \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d, which was <\/span>reviewed<\/span><\/a> in Blog Carnival 1, explores this very question on a broader scale.<\/span><\/p>\n One challenge that comes with defining the term\u2014a challenge not as thoroughly addressed in the DRC Blog Carnival\u2014is the various scholarly, disciplinary, and pedagogical contexts that <\/span>digital rhetoric <\/span><\/i>is used within. As Barnett and Hodgson write: <\/span>\u201cMuch like understandings of rhetoric, what constitutes digital production, theory, and pedagogy shifts and contorts not just over time but across different contexts and environments as well.” Rather than looking at the inability to <\/span>pin down <\/span><\/i>a definition as a hinderance, Barnett and Hodgson frame the question optimistically, arguing that the lack of a rigid or stable definition of <\/span>digital rhetoric <\/span><\/i>opens up possibilities and new forms of rhetorical study.<\/span><\/p>\n Generally speaking, the field of digital rhetoric has been seeking and continues to seek clearer definitions of its core terms as a way to know what we do. And though one may leave the introduction with a less than complete idea of how to define <\/span>digital rhetoric<\/span><\/i>, the rest of the <\/span>Enculturation<\/span><\/i> issue explores the term through various theoretical perspectives and histories: for example, Douglas Eyman\u2019s essay \u201cLooking Back and Looking Forward\u201d describes the <\/span>digital rhetoric<\/span><\/i> in relation to the history of Media Studies and Computers and Writing.<\/span><\/p>\n The quest to define <\/span>digital rhetoric <\/span><\/i>also brings up many questions for scholars and teachers in our discipline (as the publications in this issue suggest):<\/span><\/p>\n For composition instructors who are introducing digital rhetoric in FYC courses, advanced writing courses, or courses focusing on writing in digital environments, this introduction and the other webtexts in the issue certainly serve as a jumping-off point for understanding the need to discuss what we mean by <\/span>digital rhetoric<\/span><\/i>, how confusing such a widely-used term can be, and how we may address complications surrounding such a term in our future scholarship. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Title: Introduction to Enculturation, Issue 23: Perspectives and Definitions of Digital Rhetoric Author(s): Justin Hodgson and Scot Barnett Publication: Enculturation Publication date: November 22, 2016 Experience here\/Website: http:\/\/enculturation.net\/what-is-rhetorical-about-digital-rhetoric Image\/Screen Capture: Although most of the DRC\u2019s \u201cWebtext of the Month\u201d emphasize engaging and hypertextual composition innovations, the focus of this month\u2019s webtext is an online, primarily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":13913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1166,1306],"class_list":{"0":"post-13912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-webtext-of-the-month"},"authors":[{"term_id":1166,"user_id":151,"is_guest":0,"slug":"kristinravel","display_name":"Kristin Ravel","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/877c2ff027805ad8f1d362f68d7419fa?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Ravel","first_name":"Kristin","job_title":"","description":"Dr. Kristin Ravel is an Assistant Professor of English at Rockford University. Her research interests encompass multimodality, digital media studies, ethics in communication, and feminist theory."},{"term_id":1306,"user_id":152,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidcoad","display_name":"David Coad","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/39c49935620410d165db2cb4da9997e8?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Coad","first_name":"David","job_title":"","description":"David T. Coad is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include social media, digital literacies, and qualitative methods."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13912"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20607,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912\/revisions\/20607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13912"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=13912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-02-12-at-8.51.15-AM.png\")
<\/p>\n\n