Special Issue: “Media Convergence: Creating Content, Questioning Relationships”
Computers and Composition 25 (2008)
Special Issue
In 2008, Computers and Composition published a special issue focusing on “Media Convergence: Creating Content, Questioning Relationships.” Scholars embracing digital media’s emerging influence on literacy and the changing nature of composition and rhetoric explore the relevant issues in the use of multimedia texts as teachers, producers, and researchers. In this collection of articles, convergence is defined and the parameters of convergent culture are explored. As stated in the editorial introducing the issue, readers will “see that one of the most pressing dimensions of media convergence—perhaps the dimension that most needs our attention—is how it calls into question some of the basic ways we have separated and divided different aspects of our (and our students’) composing lives” (3).
Articles vary from discussion of copyright and the defense of the Fair Use Act (DeVoss, Webb), the use of online social networking sites in the composition classroom (Vie), the rhetorical and technological functions of creating multimedia texts (Sheppard) to the “ethical and legal issues for writing researchers in the age of media convergence” (McKee).
Of particular importance and relevance to the use of student-produced videos in composition courses are the articles by Daniel Anderson, Danielle DeVoss and Suzanne Webb, Jennifer Sheppard and Heidi McKee.
In “Media Convergence: Grand Theft Audio: Negotiating Copyright as Composers,” Suzanne Webb reflects on her experience creating a multimedia PowerPoint presentation in a graduate course. Inspired by her 15-year-old son’s incorporation of music, images, and text in a PowerPoint presentation he created for school project, Webb takes on the task of creating a multimedia project for her review of Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture. Lessig founded Creative Commons and, as illustrated by Webb, his work inspires a copyleftist approach to Fair Use guidelines and copyright restrictions.
In her creation of the multimedia presentation Grand Theft Audio, Webb takes on issues of copyright head on by creating a project in which she purposefully addresses the pirating of content off the internet by intentionally doing just that throughout her production process. She uses images procured by a simple right-click, and adds copyrighted music to the presentation.
Ironically and purposefully she chooses Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” and the Beastie Boys’ “Rhymin and Stealin” as a musical backdrop to demonstrate the ease with which students can access and digitally copy from the repository of pop culture’s digital images. Interestingly, she develops a guilty conscience when it comes down to using a copyrighted song, presumably procured illegally, and decides to use a purchased copy of the song from iTunes, which does not work with the software, so she buys another copy of the song, and even spends $20 on the actual disc but is still unable to use a mp3 within the PowerPoint presentation.
Here is where Webb loses me a bit because I can’t help wondering over and over again why she is using PowerPoint for the project. It seems that she would have run into fewer problems using MovieMaker to obtain the desired results. Nonetheless, this article is of immense value in that Webb and DeVoss provide an extensive lit review of the latest scholarship in the field. Likewise,Webb’s thoughtful and recursive analysis of her process in creating Grand Theft Audio, along with her careful consideration of issues of copyright and the responsibilities of both students and teachers to defend and uphold the right to Fair Use, convey the excitement, possibilities, and obstacles faced by producers of new media texts at every level in composition studies.
Webb defines convergence as “writ simply, the ways in which distinct tools or technologies come together. For instance, the ways in which we can download songs and listen to them on our cell phones or watch television shows on the Web” (81). She recounts that Bill Gates, writing in an article for Forbes in 1999, “noted that the 21st century convergence paradigm will relate directly to access”(81).
Henry Jenkins of MIT writes about convergence as a “cultural and social process.” According to Webb, students composing within a convergence culture may understand how “audio, video, and other elements can affect a particular composition,” but they do not create multimedia projects from scratch. That is to say, they do not “create their own graphics, audio, video etc.” Webb states this to illustrate why it is important that students have access to the digital media within their culture in order to “remix” these media in the creation of their own texts.
While I agree that students should remix, I also have found that students can and will produce their own components (video, audio, images etc.) in the production of their multimedia texts.
At the heart of the article is the need for “technorhetoricians” to situate themselves in the debate over copyright and Fair Use guidelines and to participate in the discussion of “the ways in which laws, practices, and policies must be adjusted in a world of media convergence.”
At times Webb expresses the frustration that is inherent when taking on multimedia in the composition classroom; likewise, she seems to call into question the full range of students’ capabilities when working in multiple modes. However, I feel that the work my own students are doing in the creation of argument-driven video essays demonstrates the full range of possibilities and the effective consideration of copyright and Fair Use issues in the creation of multimedia student texts.
(79-103)
In the article, “Ethical and Legal Issues for Writing Researches in an Age of Media Convergence,” Heidi A. McKee takes into consideration the writing researcher’s responsibility when dealing with multimodal research materials such as video and audio recordings. The ease with which these materials can be published on the web and accessed by a larger audience makes the ethics and responsibilities of researchers, scholars and producers of multimedia texts a priority.
McKee looks at the issues facing writing studies researchers using digital media from three angles: the researcher, the research participant, and third party participants. Researchers must carefully consider how “to represent themselves to the persons and communities they seek to study” (107).
McKee uses the examples of a researcher appearing on a research video as conducting an interview with a participant face-to-face versus using clips and narration to give a “documentary god” point-of-view. McKee obviously prefers the researcher to avoid the documentary personae. Here I tend to disagree with McKee for a few basic reasons. Just this semester I collected video data of my students working in the computer lab on their video assignment. The footage is noisy, at times bumpy, and makes for an overall messy presentation of the information that I was trying to document. I also did not have a cameraperson handy to film me interviewing students, nor did I have the time or resources to stage interviews or myself participating in group interactions within the lab. I feel that when I analyze these videos, it will be beneficial to edit them and splice them together, adding my own narration and reflections to this digital data. In essence, I am not sure that there should be such a problem with the documentary approach to the research videos.
McKee notes that careful consideration should be made when using videos of participants and publishing them online where they are easily accessible to the public at large. This also goes for third-party participants appearing within students’ own multimedia productions. Informed consent should also accompany release forms that explicitly state the researcher’s intent to use the audio and visual images of participants and third-party participants in research that may be published and viewed in a public forum.
This article validates that I am on the right path in conducting my research on student-produced videos. I feel that I have covered the important issues raised by McKee. My students are required to have every third-party participant sign a detailed release form indicating that their audio and visual image may be used for research and publication. They inform every participant that their videos will be published to YouTube. As such, some students find that third-party members do not wish to be interviewed due to these conditions, while others agree, and still others ask that their voice and image be disguised. Students have disguised images and voices, and have omitted visual representations of third-party members upon request.
McKee also raises the issue of copyright and Fair Use and our ethical responsibility to educate our students about copyright law and Fair Use guidelines. She writes, “ So what each teacher-researcher must try to determine is what uses of copyrighted materials fall under educational fair use and what uses might constitute infringement” (118). Again, McKee validates that I am doing good work in that I instruct my students in issues of copyright and teach them how to use Creative Commons as well as copyright-free music in their videos.
It is worth noting that this article provides a strong foundation for the research I am conducting on student-produced videos. McKee is current and thoughtful and offers specific insight from the perspective of scholar, teacher, and member of the IRB at her institution.
(104-122)
In “The Rhetorical Work of Multimedia Production Practices: It’s more than just technical skill,” Jennifer Sheppard recalls her experience creating “a science-based, multimedia web site for kids.” She does this to establish her argument that “Beyond established rhetorical concerns such as audience, purpose, and context, designers must also make rhetorical choices specific to the development of multimedia. These technological rhetorical considerations include decisions such as the appropriateness of technologies for a given situation and the selection and integration of media to facilitate reader/user comprehension of the text” (123). In her reflection and analysis of her own process of composition, Sheppard reveals how the creation of multimedia texts in English classrooms does more than equip students with new technical skills. It also creates a rich opportunity for rhetorical strategies and considerations as well as design-specific decisions and purposeful uses of multiple modes of meaning.
Sheppard notes that in many English departments video composition may be misunderstood as “imparting technical skill rather than using rhetorical knowledge in a multimodal way.” These video compositions can be seen as a method of “extending literacies” beyond print-based curriculum. Sheppard, having spent 18 months creating a web-based multimedia text, knows first hand the hard work and “the technological rhetorical work of multimedia production practices” (123). She gives us “three examples of rhetorical issues specific to new media development” (123). The examples are as follows: “negotiating content: balancing approaches to audience, communicative purpose, and media affordances; addressing technological rhetorical considerations: balancing media type, audience needs, and contexts of use; and being a multimodal communicator: the challenges of learning to use multiple literacies in rhetorically meaningful ways” (124-127).
Sheppard closes the article with some advice for teachers who are taking on the challenges of multimedia in composition courses. She encourages us to recognize the “messy nature of multimedia production.” There needs to be room for trial and error, and ample time to experiment and overcome obstacles that are bound to arise. Students should be provided with opportunities to consider audience and we must help them “deal with conflicts of intended audience and purpose.” We must also help students “negotiate between design technologies and capabilities and their influence on the usability of a text’s message;” students should learn when it is appropriate to use multimedia and how to do so effectively.
Sheppard concludes that by integrating multimedia and the rhetorical, as well as technical, skills needed to produce multimedia texts will provide teachers with “opportunities to further equip students with the literacies and rhetorical tools necessary to interact with the world in thoughtful, informative, and persuasive ways” (130).
Overall, the value in this article lies in Sheppard’s demonstration of the rhetorical skills needed to create an effective multimedia composition. While the details of her own experience creating a web text at times are overly detailed for my interests, her argument for the rhetorical nature of multimedia production supports my use of student videos as valid outlets in the composition classroom. Likewise, her practical advice at the end of the article reinforces my own practices in the design of the multimedia projects in my classes this semester. Her reflections help me to analyze and frame my own analysis and research of student videos as well the analysis of my own production process.
(122-131)
The articles annotated in this entry reflect some of the most current scholarship in the field of digital media and composition and in the production of multimedia in the composition classroom. Of particular value is how the authors of this special issue of Computers and Composition provide re-enforcement and validation for the work I am doing with student videos in my first-year composition courses. This special issue provides both a theoretical and practice-centered foundation for the research I am conducting, and the scholarship presented demonstrates excellence worth emulating within the field of computers and composition.
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