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

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • 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
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • 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 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • 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 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • 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
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • 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
Video Games & American Culture » February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis

February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis

Don’t forget your What is American Culture? Essays are due on Canvas tomorrow (2/18) by 5:00pm.

Deeper Understanding of Media

As an introduction, let’s discuss media, the plural of medium. What’s a medium? The textbook points out that some theorists (literary scholars…English professors) import critical lenses* from traditional literary interpretation to use for video games. They don’t claim that’s terrible, but they point out that it isn’t enough. Agreed. However, we have different conclusions. Consider the following media:

  • Scrolls
  • Paper
  • Film
  • TV
  • Monitor
  • Screen

*They don’t use the phrase critical lens, and that’s a problem because doing so would help them understand the bigger picture of theory from our cultural studies and critical theory lenses.

Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction

Yes, the way I’m writing “f(r)iction” is an academic trope that is kind of pretentious; at least, it calls specifically to a tradition of academic writing, which excludes popular discourse. Then again, so do semicolons (but I’d rather be pretentious than transphobic like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s advice against using semicolons). I decided to write “f(r)iction” because of our discussion about hipsters last week. That reminds me: Why did the hipster cross the road?

In the future, let’s keep the word catharsis in the back of our minds. The textbook mentions it in Ch. 3, but they quickly dismiss it: “the general idea of “catharsis” (Greek for cleansing) through games is not backed up by much empirical data” (p. 40). Well, if empiricism (observation) is the only valid methodology, I could see their point. But we have other ways to analyze texts, so catharsis is important for thinking about video games. We’ll bring catharsis back up when we discuss Ch. 9 “Video Games and Risks.”

Tonight’s Reading

I know we’ll have to cover ludology vs narrative, but I want you to think broader. Can we bracket that conversation and move onto the authors’ call to consider “[t]he fictional worlds approach…to studying video games as part of wider ecologies of fiction” (p. 235)? Maybe we should start off by asking if anyone disagrees with the central question of the chapter: “Are video games stories” (p. 201)? They authors answered that on p. 236–last paragraph.

  • p. 203: “You cannot play Blade Runner without paying attention to the story, as at any turn you wouldn’t know what to do next.
    • In which types of games is this argument entirely true? somewhat true? not true at all?
    • For what other video games (ones you’ve played) is this true? What about games in general?
  • p. 204: “Themes and plots–however vague–enable players to figure out game interfaces and the rules of the game.”
  • “‘Narrative’ can be defined as a succession of events.”
    • Not in the book, diegesis from Aristotle”1. The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur”
      “2. TELLING, recounting, as opposed to SHOWING, enacting”
      Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. Ed. U of Nebreska P, 2003: 1964.
  • p. 205: “No matter how many times a book is read, by no matter how many different people, the text is always the same; but in a video game, no two game sessions will be exactly the same.”
    • “…it is still possible to have different playing sessions in which minor things are done slightly differently.”
    • {WARNING: Very explicit language and a sexually suggestive finale.}
      This gameplay sequence from GTA: San Andreas might complicate all ideas about “narration, text, and gameplay.” CJ only controls the gun while Smoke drives the car and barks orders to shoot.
    • The GTA wiki has more details about this sequence.
  • p. 206: “Many designers abhor the scripting of programmed sequences of events in games, which would actually form a narrative in the literary sense.”
  • Why would they “abhor” this?
  • p. 208: “Gamespaces are not realistic, but reductive: they reproduce some features of the real world, but create their own rules in order to facilitate gameplay.”
  • p. 214: Figure 7.5 model of interactive fiction that’s “typical of adventure and action-adventure games.”
    • “[U]ltimately the player is solving a story instead of actively creating it.”
    • Is there a genre of fiction where readers “solve” the story? A story they didn’t create…
  • p. 217: Review Figure 7.6

Reception Theory

  • p. 218: “‘[R]eception theory’…focuses on the experience of readers as they interact with texts, and tries to articulate the nature of the reading activity.”
  • Are walkthroughs narratives?
  • p. 222: “[A] remarkable feature of narrative in video games: it is perpetually unfolding, constantly folding back on itself, full of false starts and restarts, as the player contributes to the story’s creation with each action.”

Ludology vs Narratology

  • p. 224: “[F]irst steps in new disciplines are usually inspired by older ones.”
    • Slight aside: This is true, but, as one starts to think through the new medium, we often discover that the previous medium or text or idea needs to be redefined. In fact, “new media” pioneer Lev Manovich (2001) noticed that film is actually the first “new media.” To compensate for this, scholars are more careful to point to “digital media” when discussing digital technologies. Guess what? Film is now digital.
  • p. 224: “[S]ome early approaches to the study of games centered on their representational quality, and thus authors have been able to apply literary and dramatic models to the description and cultural understanding of video games.”
  • p. 225: Gonzalo Frasca claims “‘games cannot be understood through theories derived from narrative.'”
    • “Juul argues…it is impossible to translate video games into stories and vice versa.”
    • Is it impossible? What about watching video game paly on YouTube or live?
  • p. 225: The authors suggest that the reason so much effort has gone into separating narrative lenses from video game analysis is that ludologists believe “that the formal properties of video games are more important, more intrinsic, than the stories in the games.”
  • p. 229: “Henry Jenkins argues…game narratives are not equivalent to a simplistic, linear idea of a story of the type found in films or novels.”
  • Ever read a novel or watched a film and then on a much later reading or viewing, you experienced it differently? All that is solid melts into air (Marx, 1848).
  • What can we say about the interactive qualities of video games?

Fiction

  • p. 232: “[I]t seems clear that fiction in video games does not work according to the same parameters as in representational media.”
  • p. 232: Marie-Laure Ryan–“most if not all games create a ‘game-world’…I would like to draw a distinction between ‘world’ as a set of rules and tokens, and ‘world’ as imaginary space, furnished with individuated objects.”
  • p. 233: Video game conventions of reward system and extra lives…what else?
  • p. 233: Back to Juul–video game worlds are ontologically unstable, rules are very ontologically stable.

Video Fun

Time permitting, we will look at a couple videos of relevant media:

  • pp. 220-222: Beginning of Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (Capcom 2000)
    • Let’s watch from 3:08-6:15 or so
  • Zombies!!! A compilation of shopping sprees…
    • Relevant to the textbook’s discussion of Resident Evil (sort of)
  • Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (Ubisoft 2013)
  • GTA:SA “Wrong Side of the Tracks” Attempt 1
    • GTA:SA “Wrong Side of the Tracks” Attempt 2
    • I just learned that after 18 years…

Next Class

Don’t forget your What is American Culture? Essays are due on Canvas tomorrow (2/18) by 5:00pm.

Keep up with the reading. We’ll cover Ch. 8 in Understanding Video Games next week. Remember, the reading will be on the Midterm Exam (3/17), so, if you aren’t reading, you will not do well. We will also start discussing the Video Game Essay (Due 3/31) next week to generate ideas. The workshop for that is in 1 month–3/17.

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