Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021) » April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments

April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments

One month of the semester left!!! Don’t worry, you can take ENGL 5183 in the fall if you want to continue the fun.

Announcements

  • “English Usability Test” with Claire Palermo–email her with “English Usability Test” in the subject
  • The Narcissistic Wound of Language and the Jargons of the Third Reich (opens on Facebook)
    • Talk from Florida State’s English Department
    • Thursday, April 22nd at 4-5:30 PM
    • Zoom: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/98321715074
  • Critical Analysis of Media Essay–Due at 11:00pm

Barker & Jane Ch. 11 “Digital Media Culture”

This chapter attempts to explain how the internet (over)saturates us in information. This could be an entire semester (how many times have I said that?), and, as you’re well aware, it overlaps with Curran, James, Natalie Fenton, & Des Freedman. Misunderstanding the Internet.

For tonight, let’s do our best to focus on why the internet–the technology, a product of American culture–reflects hegemonic ideology. Before we do so, I want to ask if you remember a period of time in your life when you could NOT access the internet or a computer. Do you remember being able to go days without “logging onto” a computer?

History of Cyberspace

Well, this isn’t exactly a history of cyberspace, but I do want to mention William Gibson’s scifi novel Neuromancer (1984). Gibson actually coined the term “cyberspace” in his short story “Burning Chrome” (1982), but his novel is more well known. Below is a quick plot summary (more is here from another class’s page):

  • Case, the protagonist, is broken and wasting away on skid row–Chiba City.
  • He gets a deal to renew himself and be whole again.
  • He must break into the bizarre corporate headquarters on Tessier-Ashpool, SA and free the AI Wintermute+Neuromancer to become something bigger.

See, it’s a pretty simple plot…well, there’s just a few concerns about how all this is going to get done. Case is a cowboy, and it’s on data that he rides. He’s a thief of a kind, so he’s wanted–wanted, dead or alive. The book is from the 1980s, so a Bon Jovi reference is germane to the discussion.

Cyberspace, the matrix: It’s what we call the internet, but Gibson envisioned a global network computer system that could be accessed through a GUI (graphic user interface) before the world wide web was invented. Yes, the internet has been around since the 1960s. Its personal consumer evolution didn’t occur until the early 1990s with GUIs that allowed users to surf in non-text-based environments. (Why surf? Most likely it has to do with waves of data, but I’m not 100% sure of that). In the 1980s, home users with personal computers and very slow modems accessed bulletin board systems to transfer information. If they had graphics, they were very limited. Gibson has Case “jacking into” this system, so his body is outside the matrix, but his mind enters the matrix and can move around.

Barker & Jane explain that “Cyberspace is a spatial metaphor for the ‘nowhere’ place in which the electronic activities of networked computers, cable systems and other digital communications technologies occur.” Specifically, Gibson’s vision “can be understood as referring to a computer-generated, collective hallucination which constructs the virtual space of electronic culture” (p. 462).

Online Dating

Something missing from both this chapter and (to a large extent) in Curran, Fenton, & Freedman’s Misunderstanding the Internet is online dating. How can we interpret the amount of time spent on dating apps? Before we get there, what does it say about a culture that has so many dating apps? Think ideology. Online dating is big business and hundreds of millions of people “engage” them. Consider the evolution:

  • Computerized dating/matching began in 1959
  • Kiss.com in 1994
  • Having an “internet boyfriend/girlfriend/partner”
  • Swiping left and right for the “right (now) one”

Maybe it’s time to watch more of Swingers to see how dating was ‘back in the day’:

  • The approach
  • The standard for calling (3:25)
  • The danger of calling too soon

Digital Media Culture

  • p. 460: produser: “a hybrid producer-user”
    prodsumer: “describe[s] the melded producer and consumer, as well as a market segment between professional and consumer”
    • I wonder if we can extend the metaphor of porduser and prodsumer to those engaging the dating apps.
  • p. 461: much discussion of the internet has “a tendency to frame various aspects of the internet as being either extremely positive or extremely negative“
  • p. 461: Always seem to have a moral panic about new technologies and entertainment forms–News segment about the release of Mortal Kombat from 1993
    • After all, parents don’t like the moral effect of ideas that aren’t their own on their children (p. 463)
  • p. 465: Digital Divides
  • p. 467: “Contrary to the hopes of early cyber-utopians, the cybersphere is increasingly reflecting the social, economic and cultural inequalities of the offline world.
    • Not a surprise to us because we know that technologies are products of the cultures from which they come. Why wouldn’t a technology from a racist and sexist culture NOT re-inscribe racist and sexist practices? Ever heard of Robert Moses and Jones Beach.
  • p. 467: Shaded section mentions “more people in the world have mobile phones than have toilets. [Levitin, 2015]”
  • p. 468: Level of education and internet use…a historical change
  • p. 469: some claim “the internet is transforming and enlarging our very notion of what democracy is….the public sphere is expanded and takes on multiple forms that open up new places from which to speak”
    • Can any technology be said to be “inherently democratic”? Why or why not?
    • p. 471: Habermas seems to want consensus in the public sphere
    • Mouffe claims “Public spaces should be places for the expression of dissensus, for bringing to the floor what forces attempt to keep concealed”
    • More on the Public Sphere and Jürgen Habermas
  • p. 470: “A text has no single meaning or original source but is made up of a set of already existing cultural quotations”
  • p. 471: “Agonism is the idea that certainforms of conflict and confrontation are a productive and permanent part of political conflict–indeed they are necessary for politics to exist at all”
    • This is a rather anti-utopian position. Does it mean that we’ll never agree? Where is compromise?
  • p. 473: Cyberactivism–“The globalization of communications technologies like the internet has opened up the public sphere not only to women but also to non-government organizations [NGOs] such as charities, lobby groups, and others in the pursuit of social justice.”
    • And perhaps those not in the pursuit of social justice…
  • p. 474: Interesting concept of “globalization” from Martha McCaughey–“…capital flows, war, and environmental destruction are global”
    • Maybe we should jump to e-waste or e-junk
  • p. 474: Andrew Keen notes, “Blogs have become so dizzingly infinite that they’ve undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary”
  • p. 475: “…hastag campaigns have been criticized as ‘slacktivism’….[,] which make participants feel self-righteous but have few tangible results”
    • “It is also worth remembering that the strategies adopted by social activists will never please everyone”
    • p. 477: Not all speech is created equal because not all mouthpieces and created equal
    • Citizens United
    • Citizens United v. FEC
  • p. 477: “The key to an information war is not simply access to information but the ability to make one’s own message highly memorable amidst the ocean of available data”
  • p. 479: “a few key voices representing the usual political persuasions use their power and resources to dominate conversations”
    • Dahlgren on power sharing
  • p. 479: “The internet operates in a capitalist world driven by profit seeking and dominated by a powerful consumer culture”
  • p. 485: “…while the web operates as a sort of memory prosthesis for people, its ceaseless expansion simultaneously creates more data for us to remember”
    • Information overload: “As we become overloaded and disoriented by this ocean of data, we come to rely on others to ‘select’ and manage it for us”
  • p. 486: “for Ken Hillis et. al. (2013), modern internet culture is a ‘search culture’
    • I often call this database culture
  • p. 487: “…literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources in training children to read–we must now figure out how best to shape our use of digital tools”
  • pp. 488-489: Can you every be forgotten online? Google yourself…
  • p. 490: Mouffe again “…people are ‘perversely’ retreating further and further into their own little worlds away from challenging or conflicting ideas….democracy requires agonistic struggle where people are ‘bombarded by different views”
    • Why would a democratic culture demand such an undemocratic technology?
  • p. 496: Sousveillance (soo-vay-lance) “describe[s] bottom-up rather than top-down surveillance.
    • Barker & Jane mention Rodney King and Walter Scott, both victims of police brutality, but–much like mass shootings–new instances of police brutality and extrajudicial killings occur often in the United States.
    • The fact that both black and white cops kill black “suspects” doesn’t make systemic racism null and void.
    • What hope do sousveillance technologies and body cams offer the community in regard to these far too-frequent killings?
  • p. 499: “It is digital technology in particular that enables economies to process the vast amount of information they require and to create flexible production processes”
  • p. 500: “GPS navigation units in mobile phones…can also be deployed to pinpoint users for the purposes of surveillance and/or marketing”
  • p. 502: Multitasking is bad!!!
  • p. 508: Planned obsolescence and e-waste
  • pp. 508-509: The e-waste of an average American vs Chinese
  • p. 509: Wearables and the internet of things (IoT)
  • p. 510: “the mobile internet–a key figure of the emergent cloud architecture–requires more energy than wired networks”

Ch. 12 “Cultural Space and Urban Place”

Even though the author’s make a nod to Rural Cultural Studies, this chapter is about cities. We could complain that that’s a bias, but cities are centers of culture. They aren’t the only places where culture(s) is reproduced, but they are important centers of activity–intellectual, entertainment, politics, etc. Los Angeles comes up several times. Consider a representation of Los Santos, the fictional city of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

  • CJ gets a homecoming welcome (1:50-5:40)
  • Jetpacking over Las Venturas (Vegas)

How might we analyze Charlotte? Obviously, banking is a large component of the economy, but that isn’t the only industry. Consider these questions:

  • What is the “center” of Charlotte?
  • What are the trendy areas?
  • How often do you take mass transportation?
    • Light rail
    • Street car
    • Bus

As usual, I have a variety of quotations for us to consider.

  • p. 513: “Human interaction is situated in particular spaces that have a variety of social meanings.”
  • p. 514: “front space is constituted by those places in which we put on a public ‘on-stage’ performance.”
    “back regions are those spaces where we are ‘behind the scenes’.”  
    • What are examples of front and back regions of social-spatial activity?
  • p. 515: “Time geography…the physical, technological, economic and social constraints” on individuals.
  • p. 515: Notice the use of the phrase “for space to occur.”
    • “At least two particles are required for space to occur”
    • “In principle, then, time-space is relationally formed through the interrelations of objects.”
  • p. 516: “[P]laces are discursive constructions which are the target of emotional identification or investment.”
    • “Home…is a manifestation of an investment of meaning in space.”
    • You can go home to an apartment, parents’ house, etc.
    • Houses, real estate are also economic investments…and burdens.
  • p. 517: “Space…contains actions [and] also constitutes social relations.”
  • p. 518: The masculine public sphere of work and the feminine sphere of the home.
    • Modernism’s flâneur or stroller anonymously walking through the city.
    • Leopold Bloom from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Molly Bloom’s part is at the end of the novel, right Marilyn?
    • Another source for the above image
    • Anyone ever been to Alive After Five in Charlotte?
      6 Reasons Why Alive After Five is Worth Your Time (thanks to the Wayback Machine)
  • p. 521: “Durkheim, Marx, and Weber–[regard] urbanization as one of the key features of capitalist industrialization.”
    • Simmel believes “the city could be regarded as both a product and symbol of modernity.”
  • p. 522: “[V]arious social class groups are allocated specific residential zones by income selection.”
  • p. 523: Post war suburban expansion. Markers of today’s suburbia.
  • p. 524: The major “sites for the accumulation, distribution and circulation of capital:” London, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Paris, Singapore.”
  • p. 526: “Urban spaces and places are formed by the synergy of capital investment and cultural meanings.”
    • Urban renewal projects became major aspects of city growth in the late-1990s…corresponding to the dot.com revolution.
  • p. 527: Robert Moses
  • p. 529: “‘creative industries’ has emerged to promote the strategy of using culture to generate urban economic growth.”
  • p. 529: Florida’s claim that “the successful cities and regions of the future will be ones most endowed with the 3Ts: technology, talent and tolerance….cultural tolerance attracts creative talent, which in turn stimulates technological innovation and generates growth.”
    • Not to be confused with Flo Rida…
    • Good thing Charlotte wasn’t seen as intolerant…
  • p. 531: hyperreality and the celebration of the fake.
  • p. 532: the postmodern urbanization “involves a shift away from mass production and the consumption of standardized goods towards small batch production.”
  • p. 533: “the proliferation and dissemination of the hyperreal into ordinary everyday life.”
  • p. 535: Gentrification and the “college-educated generation.”
    • Why is this group important for the rhetoric of technology? What are their values? What assumptions to they hold?
  • p. 536: Surveillance technologies

Next Week

Next week, we’ll be getting into some field specific discussions on new media in rhetoric/composition. The readings are on Canvas:

  • Bay, Jennifer. “A Rhetoric and Poetics of New Media.”
  • Werner, Courtney L. “How Rhetoric and Composition Described and Defined New Media at the Start of the Twenty-First Century.”
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