Excitable Media
Overview
This project group will explore and push the rhetorical limits of social media platforms, researching and practicing inventive uses of these composing technologies. Rather than positioning social media as antithetical to critical thinking and attentive rhetorical practice--as is common in mainstream discourse--members of Excitable Media will explore ways that scholars, teachers, and students of rhetoric and writing can use social media to encourage and enact rhetorical and critical reflection.
Goals of the Project
As Liz Kinnamon argues in the introduction to
#Social Media Anxieties: A Zine on Digital Failure and Attachment, the most popular social media sites--e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram--are “becoming calcified” in their own unique structures of feeling: Facebook for announcing life’s successes, Instagram for what were once Kodak moments, and so on. In exploring social media as a ground for rhetorical invention and innovation, Excitable Media will attempt to interrupt this calcification. The primary goal of the group, therefore, is to find out what is possible for students, teachers, and scholars of rhetoric when we re-think the capabilities of social media and the rhetorical uses to which such media might be put. The group’s exploration of this question will help to situate their project within a larger scholarly discourse. However, group members will not only need to consider the question conceptually--they will also be encouraged to experiment with and enact innovative composition practices using social media technologies, perhaps even using social media to report and publish the group’s findings.
Job Description
In Excitable Media, members will become conversant with scholarly conversations around rhetoric, technology, culture, and social media. Based on this research, the group will design a scholarly and/or pedagogical project. Group members will have the opportunity to re-invent social media juggernauts like Facebook and Twitter, but also to experiment with platforms that are still evolving and play host to competing identities: Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat, etc. Members will delve into selected technologies or range across many, charting and extending the limits of what can be said and done with them.
Deliverables
In general, members will look to develop compelling arguments about the rhetorical limits and possibilities of social media, exploring what rhetoric and social media might reveal to each other. Group members will be also be challenged to arrange and deliver their arguments using social media as the composing technology. One example of this kind of project might be a digital zine, addressed to an audience of scholars and graduate students in rhetoric and writing, as well as other parties interested in critical approaches to social media.
TheJUMP
Overview
Two co-managing editors will have the opportunity to edit
TheJUMP, an online journal dedicated to publishing excellent digital and multimedial projects created by undergraduates.
TheJUMP also serves as a pedagogical resource for teachers working with (or wanting to work with) "new media." The co-managing editors will gain valuable experience in all aspects of online academic publishing, including editorial experience, technical skills, and working knowledge of online accessibility standards. They will coordinate the ongoing review of submissions by
TheJUMP’s editorial collective and work with
TheJUMP’s editor, Dr. Justin Hodgson, to publish and promote the journal’s issues.
Goals
Since its inaugural issue in 2010,
TheJUMP has supported growing interest in multimedia composition, including critical reflection on digital literacy practices and their associated pedagogies. The journal puts undergraduates in conversation with established scholars to provide in-depth feedback on their work and promote rhetorical thinking and revision. In addition to publishing issues, the co-managing editors will produce a substantial set of contextual materials to ensure the value of the journal as a classroom resource. These contextual materials include an assignment description and timeline, an instructor reflection, a student/author reflection, two responses by members of the editorial collective, and accessibility materials.
Job Description
Because
TheJUMP accepts rolling submissions, the co-managing editors’ time will be divided among three primary tasks: coordinating the review process, preparing accepted projects for publication, and publishing issues. In all three cases, most of the day-to-day work will happen via
TheJUMP website, which is built in Drupal 7. Specifically, the co-managing editors will process submissions by securing reviews from members of the editorial collective and delivering those reviews and publication decisions to students. Readying accepted submissions for publication requires the editors to request and edit the contextual materials described above and in some cases to generate accessibility materials such as transcripts, captions, and audio descriptions. Finally, the editors will produce a video introduction for each new issue and work with Justin Hodgson to formally publish the issue via the website.
Deliverables
The two co-managing editors of
TheJUMP will publish two issues of the journal: one in the fall of 2014 and one in the spring of 2015. These issues are typically comprised of a video editorial introduction, 4-5 student projects, and contextual materials for each. As needed, the editors will also produce documentation on workflow and best practices to keep the journal’s processes and guidelines up to date.
Video/Games
Overview
Over the past decade, video-game players, critics, fans, and creators have integrated games and digital video in a variety of remarkably inventive ways. Video/Games will build upon this inventiveness, exploring the ways that digital video can function in tandem with video games in order to advance and contribute to rhetoric and writing pedagogy and scholarship.
Goals of the Project
While past iterations of DWRL gaming groups have focused on building games, this group will explore ways of remediating games to critical and rhetorical ends. Its goal will not be to write games criticism, but rather to invent critical and rhetorical arguments at the intersection of video games and digital video. To this end, group members might use digital video to critique games (as Anita Sarkeesian does in her Tropes vs. Women video series, for example). Group members might also remediate video games to illustrate and support critical rhetorical arguments, or create tutorials for instructors interested in incorporating games in the classroom. Bearing in mind the lab’s focus on rhetoric and pedagogy, the group will not simply engage in games studies; members will explore ways in which video games and videos about games can be read and repurposed by teachers, scholars, and students of rhetoric and writing.
Job Description
In the Games Group, members will familiarize themselves with the remediation of video games both practically and theoretically, for both scholarly and pedagogical contexts. Members will also become familiar with a variety of digital video software (including video editing and screen-capture programs) and with the large variety of games and gaming consoles owned by DWRL. Members will explore these and a range of other games (mobile, console, computer, board, etc.) and will work to develop their critical, theoretical, and pedagogical uses. Finally, the group will use digital video to present their findings to teachers, students, and scholars of rhetoric and writing.
Deliverables
As a new project group, Video/Games will need to outline a clear project and deliverable early on in the academic year. The group will not create a game, nor produce traditional long-form games criticism. Rather, the group might decide to initiate a video series on intersections between rhetoric and games criticism. In any case, members will explore the pedagogical uses of video games and produce video tutorials relevant for instructors who want to use video games and digital video in their classrooms.
viz.
Overview
This project’s members will join the DWRL’s award-winning visual rhetoric research and publishing project,
viz. This distinguished site ranks among the most widely-read of all publications produced at UT and won the Kairos 2010 John Lovas Memorial Weblog Award. During the 2013- 2014 academic year, the site averaged nearly 14,000 page views per month. Although it is often referred to as a blog, the project's scope is much broader than that. It contains a robust and growing body of texts on visual theory and semiotics, multimodal pedagogical materials designed for visual rhetoric instruction, and interviews with important figures in rhetoric and communication who focus on the interdisciplinary field of visual studies.
Goals
The goals of
viz. this year are threefold: to continue cultivating conversations about visual rhetoric, to expand its own audience and the audience for these conversations, and to produce visual arguments that contribute to these conversations. To this end, group members will focus on developing the site as a pedagogical resource for instructors in the DRW and DWRL, especially by contributing to the site’s static content; raising awareness of
viz. by promoting the site and, when possible, increasing its visibility by submitting it for awards, review, or inclusion in other blog rolls; pursuing and maintaining collaborative opportunities (e.g. past work with the the Harry Ransom Center); exploring new publication types to enhance the site (e.g. reviews, interviews, slidecasts, or other visually oriented, multimedia projects); and revising the site’s bibliography by expanding and annotating it.
Job Description
Project members will engage with the study of visual rhetoric by researching, writing, and developing pedagogical tools that explore the intersection of image and text. Each project member is responsible for a weekly or biweekly blog post that analyzes a piece of visual rhetoric or makes a visual argument. Given its primary focus on visual rhetoric, this project may interest individuals with investments in the related fields of media studies, cultural studies, bibliography, and textual studies. Members of the group will reap many benefits, including regular writing and publishing opportunities for an award-winning academic research site; the addition of an innovative, multimedia component to a professional portfolio; networking with and interviewing experts in visual rhetoric and related fields; incorporating new visual rhetoric technology, texts, and theory into a larger research agenda; developing materials that can be used in a Digital Writing and Research Certificate portfolio; and enhancing a teaching philosophy/portfolio to include a range of visual rhetoric materials.
Deliverables
Members of
viz. will create both dynamic and static content for the website, collectively producing at least three blog posts per week analyzing or engaging in visual rhetoric.
Zeugma
Overview
This year, group members will produce the third season of
Zeugma, an audio podcast spotlighting various intersections of rhetoric and technology. The first two seasons of
Zeugma provide a framework for the series' identity and direction. The 2014-15 group will continue to develop
Zeugma’s style and content while highlighting its identity as a rhetoric and technology podcast.
Goals of the Project
Overall, the goal of the group is to experiment with audio recording and editing as composing technologies, and to contribute to academic and intellectual discourses around rhetoric and technology. Because
Zeugma has an established reputation, group members will have a framework within which to develop episodic content and form. So while group members may wish to pursue related goals, such as recruiting more listeners or enhancing
Zeugma’s web presence, the primary goal is to continue the podcast’s tradition by producing a strong and sophisticated third season. Ideally, this season will maintain continuity with the previous seasons while emphasizing
Zeugma’s conceptual focus on rhetoric and technology.
Job Description
Each group member can expect to serve as lead producer on at least one 20-30 minute episode, which gives every member the opportunity to invent an episode’s topic and format. To facilitate the production of episodes, each member will have access to an interview kit including an audio recorder, headphones, and two lapel mics. Additionally, members will have access to advanced audio recording equipment like boom poles, dead cats, and professional digital recorders and microphones. After episode audio is recorded, members will also have opportunities to record ambient sounds and B-roll audio as well as edit episodes, all while developing expertise in such audio-editing software as GarageBand, Audacity, Logic, and Audition. Members are also responsible for building and maintaining
Zeugma’s web presence through its Drupal 7 homepage and its pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Liberated Syndication (a podcast hosting service). Group members are encouraged to find or develop supporting content in the form of images, blog posts, videos, infographics, and other resources. Supplementary mini-episodes and video materials are encouraged but optional.
Deliverables
While the group is not responsible for a large deliverable at the end of the academic year, it is responsible for delivering episodic content throughout the academic year. Historically,
Zeugma has released a new episode every two weeks during the spring semester. The 2014-15 group will also set up and promote a mobile app developed in Liberated Syndication.
