Shauf, Michele S. “The Problem of Electronic Argument: a Humanists’ Perspective.”
Computers and Composition. 18.1, 2001: 33-37.
In this article Shauf addresses the “absence of a new rhetoric, as repurposed for electronic media” (33). As an instructor of multimedia design, she calls for the application of visual rhetoric for the creation of “arguments in electronic domains” (33). Shauf noticed that her students, when given the opportunity to produce multimedia projects, produced their projects over a very limited range of topics, mostly including “narratives about their families . . . educational multimedia for very young children . . . or purely expository works laying out the facts of some topic in an old-school ‘who, what, where, when, and how’ journalistic style” (34).
Literacy is no longer restricted to just writing, and therefore “composition should now more broadly refer to the design of arguments” (34). Because many of the arguments found in current media outlets are visual, it is beneficial for students to understand visual rhetoric in the creation of their own multimedia arguments. The logic of the image and the logic of space should be taken into consideration in the composition of multimedia, and Shauf begins her courses by introducing her students to the rhetoric of the image.
Shauf’s goal is to lead her students to create electronic essays that are weighted by the value of argument on multiple levels. Shauf encourages students to recognize and develop the “photographic style” in their writing by having them read essays that are characteristic of a photographic point-of-view (Sontag and Trow).
Shauf sees a disconnect between the technical language of information systems versus the “humanist’s vocabulary” (35). New media should not be limited to a technical vocabulary, but should be open to the language of rhetoric, and Shauf expresses a concern that “the art of rhetoric is not helping shape the content and form of multimedia artifacts but rather . . . are instead subsuming entirely the practice of rhetoric” (36). She ultimately concludes that if we are shifting from writing to electronic literacy, then there must be some rhetoric purpose behind our new direction: “It is easy enough to engage the technology, but one must ask to what end, for what rhetorical purpose” (37).
Shauf effectively applies a humanist lens to the use of multimedia technologies in the classroom. These are not technologies that should be used just because they are available, but are technologies that can be used rhetorically, with purpose. This humanist approach supports my use of student-produced videos as an extension of the rhetorical skills they have learned throughout the first-year composition course. Shauf also supports the need to teach the rhetoric of the image to students working on their own multimedia creations, so that they are both crucial consumers and producers of new media texts.
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