Feeling Digital Composing
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Feeling Digital Composing A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature of the College of Arts and Sciences by Rich Shivener B.A., Northern Kentucky University M.A., Northern Kentucky University March 2019 Committee Chair: Laura R. Micciche, Ph.D. Abstract This research investigated the relationship between digital media composing practices and feelings, specifically turning to authors of digital media texts and books in the field of rhetoric and composition. My primary purpose was to understand the extent to which digital composing is an embodied, felt experience, thereby articulating how authors feel about drafting, coding, designing and revising scholarly projects for digital environments. Theories of digital rhetoric and emotion supported a framework for analyzing a range of authors’ behind-the-scenes articles (VanKooten; Sheridan) and “practitioner stories” (Ridolfo) about digital composing. In order to capture the affective complexities and workflows of authors composing digital texts, qualitative methods were necessary for this research. More than 20 authors participated in semi-structured interviews or online questionnaires. Methods that stemmed from digital rhetoric practitioner research and emotion studies positioned me to interview authors, take stock of their composing practices (e.g., sharing screen recordings; drafts of documents), and co-review data generated from interviews and observations (e.g., participants reviewed transcripts and responded). Presenting six case studies supported by ancillary interviews and survey data, my research suggests that responding to reviewer feedback and coding a digital media text are the most painful parts of the rhetorical-affective workflow. Research also suggests that collaborating with vertical and horizontal mentors (e.g., editors and peers) and delivering a text in public are the most pleasurable. Consequently, my research implicates the support systems (or lack thereof) and editorial workflows that make digital media production possible. ii © Copyright 2019 iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Jess, and our son, Finn. iv Acknowledgements This research would be impossible without the supporters I acknowledge here. It’s an understatement to say that I’m very thankful for the support of my dissertation advisor, Dr. Laura Micciche, whose constant mentorship and editorial prowess sharpened my research and writing. Thanks for all that you do, Laura. Special thanks also to Drs. Chris Carter and Russel Durst for their teaching excellence, scholarly productivity, and committee member work that shaped my scholarly journey. Thanks to the Department of English and Comparative Literature administrators Alan Bothe, Jenny Lin and Jennifer Lange for putting up with my anxious requests. Thanks to UC friends such as Kelly Blewett, Ian Golding, Daniel Floyd, Katelyn Lusher, Kathleen Spada, and Rhiannon Scharnhorst for helping me feel out dissertation ideas and the best coffee shops for work. Thanks also to cross-institutional pals such as John Silvestro, Bridget Gelms, Dustin Edwards, Lucy Johnson, Zarah Moeggenberg, and Cynthia Johnson for many laughs and insights over conference proposals and drinks. Thanks to the Taft Research Center and the Graduate Student Governance Association for awarding me several research grants. Thanks to Professor Pat Belanoff for funding the UC Pat Belanoff Graduate Summer Research Award, which I received twice. Thanks to Cheryl Ball for mentoring me as an assistant editor at Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. Thanks to the Rhinegeist family for cheering me on and frequently dealing with my stress. Thanks to Paul and Laurel, and my mother and father, Dee and Rick, for providing oceans of support. Thanks to everyone who participated in my study. And last but not least, I give an infinite, super-massive thanks to my wife, Jess, for supporting my doctoral career, for being my best friend, for lighting my journey through the darkest realms of academia, and for taking care of our book-loving little guy. v Feeling Digital Composing Table of Contents Abstract ii List of Tables and Figures vii Acknowledgements v Introduction Feeling the Stakes of Digital Composing 1 Chapter One Terms and Felt Conditions: Defining Digital Media Scholarship and Felt Experiences 15 Chapter Two Digital Composing Studies: An Emotional History 38 Chapter Three Studying Digital Media Practices and Feelings 65 Chapter Four Authors on Digital Media Practices and Feelings 91 Conclusion Feeling the Future of Digital Composing 131 Works Cited 147 Appendices 162 vi List of Tables and Figures Table 1 Susan McLeod’s “working definitions” on affective states 28 Table 2 A synthesis of affect theories across disciplines 36 Table 3 A second synthesis of affect theories across disciplines 57 Table 4 Example of coding interview excerpts 85 Figure 1 Brooke’s webtext drafts 95 Figure 2 Grace and Eric's webtext drafts 97 Figure 3 Henry’s introduction page of his digital book 100 Figure 4 Helen’s video book 103 Figure 5 Lane’s webtext drafts 105 Figure 6 Screenshot of Emily’s webtext 108 Figure 7 A screenshot of a map composed by Emily and colleagues 109 Figure 8 Depiction of rhetorical-affective workflow 113 Figure 9 Screenshot of Rich’s webpage 119 vii Introduction Feeling the Stakes of Digital Composing Yikes. Just got a real harsh DECLINE from a journal. Gonna try to figure out a way to salvage what I made. It’s extra disheartening with new media work because it take so much additional time to do in the first place. Ugh. ––@helmstreet On a Thursday morning, I sit at my home office desk, wondering how to compose an audio reflection on a praxis chapter to be featured in an open-access digital book on soundwriting pedagogies. I’m struggling to find the right vocal register, the right music that complements my tone, the right mood that emerges when I juxtapose my voice with ambient sounds and melodies. I worry about sounding amateurish, and for that reason I’m feeling vulnerable throughout this digital composing process. Lucky for me, the editors of the collection assure me that the webtext will be designed by one of them, meaning I don’t have to fret about hand-coding the chapter. At the same time, my phone is notifying me of new messages from the communication platform in Slack, specifically in the #production chat channel of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. I’ve been assigned to copyedit a webtext on alternative reality gaming and S.T.E.M. pedagogy, a webtext for which I’ll be required to work with an HTML text editor, review transcripts of the author’s video sections, and test the webtext with a live URL that only the editorial team and authors can see. Elsewhere in the world, Martin1 is working through reviewer feedback of a webtext in the form of a geo-spatial map, in which users can listen to and view his experiences in the American South. He is working through seven reviewer letters that amount to approximately 2,500 words. 1 Pseudonym used. 1 For the purposes of showing the gravity and depth of the reviews, I quote “Reviewer 7” at length: I find I agree with [other reviewers]. The “sloppy, inexpert design” really drove me crazy. I had to keep your email open with the link as on my macbook air, I was constantly ending up in places I did not know how to get out of and the only solution I could find was to close the window and start over. I must have done that twenty times while trying to read it. The inability to tell what nodes I had viewed also frustrated me. The more engaged I was with individual bits (and there were some very engaging bits), the more lost I was when I tried to figure out where to go next. Perhaps I am simply track ball incompetent, but to me the grafting of Google Earth on to Omeka did not work very well. It felt a lot like reading Michael Joyce’s “Afternoon” or the storyspace version of writing spaces for the first time or a project from the smartest guy in the class who smirks during discussions and you are never quite sure what they are doing. Then his project blows you away I can’t tell if this is true or if it is a persona the author is trying to enact, and I actually liked that ambiguity. I wondered at times if it was a deliberate parody of a student project. If it was a parody then [another reviewer’s] irritation with the point of view would fit, but I am unclear what the parody accomplishes in this context. I won’t mind the interface so much if there was some alternate way to read the content for people like me who can’t handle the google earthiness of it. I agreed with this comment from [another reviewer]. I wondered, in other words, how a revision might be more inventive—more experimental––in terms of what such a MEmorial would look like, taking Ulmer as point of departure rather than termination. Making it even more experiment more inventive might work. The author might consider separating the 2 author’s statement from the installation, taking as a model David Rieder’s “Typographia” (http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/14.2/topoi/rieder/index.html) a piece that combines a very experimental installation with a thoughtful introduction without the two getting in each other’s way. I found some of the videos to be wildly creative, and there were moments where I found the theory and the enactment really working together, but ironically, now I can’t find those pieces to quote from them.