Tracie's+responses

====Bursting with inspiration, I have reflected on this semester's study of multimedia media in five areas. Specifically, I have considered the following questions: ==== 
 * 1) ====What did I learn from presenting the techno-literacy memoir in a mode other than traditional print text? ====
 * 2) ====What is at least one prediction I make about the direction of writing in new media in the 21st century? ====
 * 3) ====In creating a web-text from a print text, how did the text change in this transition in terms of stylistic choices and audience concerns? ====
 * 4) ====In what ways have I changed as a writer this semester? ====
 * 5) ====Which theory/theorist have I found most interesting/helpful in understanding digital media? Why? ====

In putting together the techno-literacy memoir, it struck me how efficient it is to use images and sounds to describe or evoke things that the audience may remember. By just flashing a recognizable image on the screen, we can call up so many associations, assuming it’s a shared experience. Even if the audience hasn’t shared the same background, they can see right away that this image (and therefore this experience) is unfamiliar and not have to try and construct a mental image from a verbal description to compare with possibly shaky memories. The pictures or sounds often connect immediately without explanation, even if the audience hasn’t thought about them in a long time. Verbal descriptions are farther removed and so the connection is more difficult, probably because visual and sound cues are not processed or stored in the same places in the brain as words and their meanings.
 * The main thing I learned, then, was the greater efficiency of using multimedia compared to traditional print text.**

Where will new media take writing in the 21st century? Since anyone can “publish” anything they want on the web, it is possible for anyone to become an author instantaneously. Consequently, the status and “authority” previously granted to authors on the basis of publication will diminish significantly. Possibly, this will make many people better writers. If anyone can publish, the fact of being published will not itself give much weight to the work. Instead, the weight of authority will have to rest somewhere else. Thus, the question of authority arises. How will we determine what writing on the web is more or less authoritative, and so how will we distinguish between good web writing and the bad or merely mediocre? It **//may//** be that authority begins to rest more on the verifiability or the quality or value of the work. It could just as easily be, however, that authority is attributed based on the presentation of the work. A page of “craptastically shoddy” content could override this deficiency with an attractive appearance. Another related prediction, then, is that the rating systems and search engine filters will continue to be refined results according to some measure of authenticity or authority. Iin my opinion, this is a philosophical question. How do we know who or what to believe among the variety of information available?
 * I predict that at least one major issue will arise, and that is the question of authority.**

Changing my print-based course outline to an interactive online course environment in the text to web-text project required quite a bit of restructuring. **I had to reorganize some things and add explanations in some places; in other places, I needed to take material out to leave space for independent learning.** This process also allowed me to directly connect to outside resources rather than simply listing them and leaving it to the reader’s initiative to locate and follow up on those suggestions, which seemed a little doubtful. By linking source material directly, I could make it easier for a student to read more about the topics. This hypothetical student would also hear from different voices by following outside links, which expands the conversation so that it’s not just me talking. Another big consideration, since this was structured as an online course, was how to create good assignments. They would need to give enough instructions that students could clearly tell what they were being asked to do and easily locate the relevant materials. The assignments, to be effective, also needed to leave out some of the information so it could be independently arrived at and individually expressed by each student. With this in mind, I changed some of the direct explanations and descriptions from my original text into indirect, more open-ended questions – from simply giving the material to clearly asking for it.

This semester has changed me as a writer more than I expected. I’ve become a bit more direct generally and definitely more confident in using new tools and formats to express what I want to convey. **Primarily, I’ve become convinced of the power of audio and visual elements in conveying a message** – or even general information. By activating more of your senses and thereby more of your brain, a multimedia message can be extremely dense and potent for the amount of time it takes to absorb. A very short multimedia presentation can convey much more than an equivalent amount of straight text, on several levels. I can see this applying to many of the projects I’d like to undertake, both in my teaching and in my work as a deacon. I’m able to reflect on the point of a particular project and try to match that purpose with a //format// more intentionally and critically. For example, the spoken word can convey meaning through qualities of sound such as inflection, tone, timing and silence that a written page cannot equally convey, and video includes timing, movement and color, but a written text allows people to build their own images in their minds, when it’s not desired that the image be restricted. Taking into consideration the content and purpose of the message, along with the strengths of different media, will allow me to take fuller advantage of these different attributes.

His talk of a search for immediacy seems at root to be relational. Understanding communication and language as a system of signs, more or less abstract, evoked previous reflection on things like the substance and significance of things, more particularly as it relates to the idea of sacramentality – the view that one thing can not only //represent// or point to a greater thing symbolically but at the same time provide a way to access or participate in the reality it points to. The fact that the process of redefining our media technology is raising these questions has given me a connecting point to talk about the theological issues. From the other perspective, the philosophical and theological questions I am familiar with in other contexts seem to offer some points of departure (or entry) for thinking further in these terms about what’s going on at more fundamental levels in this discussion and reformation taking place in the context of media redefinition.
 * Jay David Bolter has been for me the most interesting and helpful of the media theorists we’ve read,** partly **because of the philosophical, and in many instances theological, language he employs** to describe what digital media is trying to do.

