calling on all you new media folks–and anyone else
So I’ve been working on my prelims, the faculty question (#2, 2006-7) more so than my own. However, I’ve got to get final approval for my question (3 down; 1 left to go). But I think I’m stuck at the statement of the problem stage. What problem? you might ask. Exactly. Perhaps because this is a new system (maybe 4 people have gone through the process) we may get our signals crossed as to exactly what these essays are meant to do. They are to demonstrate a broad knowledge of the field, which was also the aim of the old exams. However, these essays also need a strong argument (apparently), and I think that’s what I’m missing.
How do new literacy & new media studies and participatory culture address these aims? What gaps in the field of composition and rhetoric might they address?
These questions will get me through the first hurdle, but what’s my claim? I really see the questions as investigative/exploratory. I don’t want to argue that NMS should take over the curriculum, but I do want to validate it as a legitimate way of addressing foci of the field as well as suggest that new media might just do some things better. Is that enough?
Maybe I need a bad guy, even if I don’t want one. Who really, really hates New Media? And how can I sneak up on them so as to shoot them in the back with my evidence? Or maybe from a window position. I’ve got ‘em in my cites.
Nice Picture.
Why don’t you start with what you just said about it. Then, write from there, and then decide where it is going/where it went and what needs to be further complicated.
Of course, I’m one of those people who decides what she is writing after she has written it.
Comment by K8 — February 14, 2007 @ 5:23 am